Читать книгу Captains of Souls - Edgar Wallace - Страница 13

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HE stayed on in the house long after Moropulos had dragged himself to his room and had dressed for the journey. So absorbed was he in his task that the Greek left without his noticing. At seven o'clock he finished, put away his tools in a cupboard, threw a cloth over the safe, and went out, locking the door behind him. Both Steppe and Moropulos had urged him to live in the house, but though he had few predilections that were not amenable to the necessities of his friends, Sault was firm on this point. He preferred the liberty which his lodgings gave him. Possibly he foresaw the difficulties which might arise if he lived entirely with the Greek.

Moropulos had a vicious and an uncertain tongue; was tetchy on some points, grotesquely so on the question of Greek decadence, although he had lived so long away from his native country that English was almost his mother tongue. Sault could be tactful, but he had a passion for truth, and the two qualities are often incompatible. A bus carried him to the end of the street where he lodged, and he stopped at a store on the corner and bought a box of biscuits for Christina. She was secretary and reader to him, and he repaid her services with a library subscription and such delicacies as she asked him to get for her. The subscription was a godsend to the girl, and augmented, as it was, by an occasional volume which Evie was allowed to bring from the store library by virtue of her employment, her days were brightened and her dreams took a wider range than ever.

The driving force of learning is imagination. By imagination was Christina educated. Evie sometimes said that she did not understand one half of the words that Christina used. To Mrs. Colebrook her daughter was an insoluble enigma. She associated education with brain-fever and ideas above your station, and whilst she was secretly proud of the invalid's learning, she regarded Christina's spinal trouble as being partly responsible for the abnormality. Mrs. Colebrook believed in dreams and premonitions, and the sinister significance of broken picture-wires. It was part of her creed that people who are not long for this world possess supernatural accomplishments. Therefore she eyed Christina's books askance, and looked upon the extra library subscription as being a wild flight in the face of providence. She expressed that view privately to Ambrose Sault.

"You have come at a propitious moment, Sault Effendi," said Christina solemnly as he came in. "I have just been taking my last look at the silvery Bosphorous. My husband, taking offence at a kiss I threw to the handsome young Sultan as he rose beneath my latticed window, has decreed that tonight I am to be tied in a sack and thrown into the dark waters!"

"Good gracious!" said Ambrose. "You have been in trouble today, Christina."

"Not very much. The journey was a lovely one. We went by way of Bergen—and thank you ever so much for that old Bradshaw you got for me. It was just the thing I wanted."

"Mr. Moropulos kindly gave it to me...yes...Bergen?"

"And then to Petrograd...the Tsars there, poor people...and then to Odessa, and down the Black Sea in...oh, I don't know. It was a silly journey today, Ambrose...I wasn't in the heart for a holiday."

"Is your back any worse?"

She shook her head. "No...it seems better. I nearly let myself dream about getting well. Do you think that other idea is possible? We can borrow a spinal carriage from the Institute, but mother hasn't much time, and besides, I couldn't get down those narrow stairs without a lot of help. Yes...yes, yes, I know it is possible now. But the chariot, dear Ambrose?"

"I've got it!" He chuckled at her astonishment. "It will come tomorrow. It is rather like a motor-car, for I have to find a garage for it. In this tiny house there is no room. But I got it...no, it didn't cost me a great deal. Dr. Merville told me where I could get one cheap. I put new tyres on and the springs are grand. Christina, you will be...don't cry, Christina, please... you make me feel terrible!"

His agitation had the effect of calming her. "There must be something in this room that makes people weep," she gulped. "Ambrose...Evie is just worrying me to death."

"What is wrong?"

She shook her red head helplessly. "I don't know. She is changed...she is old. She's such a kid, too...such a kid! If that man hurts her"—the knuckles of her clenched hand showed bone-white through the skin—"I'll ask you to do what you did for mother, Ambrose, give me strength for an hour..." her voice sank to a husky whisper, "and I'll kill him...kill him..."

Sault sat locking and unlocking his fingers, his eyes vacant. "She will not be hurt. I wish I was sure it was Ronald Morelle...Steppe has only to lift his finger..."

They heard the sound of Mrs. Colebrook's heavy feet on the stairs and Christina wondered why she was coming up. She had never interrupted their little talks before. "Somebody to see you, Christina, and I'm sure it is too kind of you, miss, and please thank the doctor. I'll never be grateful enough for what he did..."

Ambrose Sault got up slowly to his feet as Beryl came into the room. "I wonder if you really mind my coming—I am Beryl Merville."

"It is very good of you, Miss Merville," said Christina primly. She was ready to dislike her visitor; she hated the unknown people who called upon her, especially the people who brought jelly and fruit and last year's magazines. Their touching faith in the virtues of calves-foot and fruit as a panacea for human ills, their automatic cheerfulness and mechanical good humour, drove her wild. The church and its women had given up Christina ever since she had asked, in answer to the inevitable question: "Yes, there are some things I want; I'd like a box of perfumed cigarettes, some marron glace, and a good English translation of Liaisons Dangereux." She loathed marron glace, and scented tobacco was an abomination. Her chief regret was that the shocked inquirer had never heard of Liaisons Dangereux. Christina only knew of its existence from a reference in a literary weekly which came her way.

Beryl sensed the hidden antagonism and the cause. "I really haven't come in a district visitor spirit," she said, "and I'm not frightfully sorry for you and I haven't brought you oranges—"

"Grapes," corrected Christina. "They give you appendicitis—mother read that on the back page of Health Hints. Sit down, Miss Merville. This is Mr. Sault."

She nodded to Ambrose. "Mr. Sault and I are old acquaintances," she said. She did not look at him. "I have to explain why I came at all. I know that you are not particularly enthusiastic about stray visitors—nobody is. But my father was talking about you at lunch today. He has never seen you, but Mr. Sault has spoken about you and, of course, he does know your mother. And father said: 'Why don't you go along and see her, Beryl?' I said, 'She would probably be very annoyed—but I'll take her that new long wordy novel that is so popular. I'm sure she'll hate it as much as I'."

"If it is Let the World Go, I'm certain I shall," said Christina promptly, "but I'd love to read it. Let us sneer together." Beryl laughed and produced the book. It seemed an appropriate moment for Ambrose to retire, and he went out of the room quietly; he thought that neither of the girls saw him go, but he was mistaken. Christina Colebrook was sensitive to his every movement, and Beryl had really come to the house to see him.

On her way home she tried to arraign herself before the bar of intelligence, but it was not until she was alone in her room that night that she set forth the stark facts of her folly. She loved Ronald Morelle, loved him with an intensity which frightened her; loved him, although he was, according to all standards by which men arc judged, despicable. He was a coward, a liar, a slave to his baser appetites. She had no doubt in her mind, when she faced the truth, that the stories which had been told of him were true. The East girl...the pretty parlourmaid who had begun an action against him...And yet there was something infinitely pathetic about Ronnie Morelle, something that made her heart go out to him. Or was that a case of self-deception, too? Was it not the beautiful animal she loved, the sleek, lithe tiger...alive, and vital, and remorseless?

To all that was brain and spirit in her, he was loathsome. There were periods when she hated him and was bitterly contemptuous of herself. And in these periods came the soft voice of Ambrose Sault, whispering, insinuating...That was lunacy, too. He was old enough to be her father; was an illiterate workman, an ex-convict, a murderer; when her father had told her he had killed a man, she was neither shocked nor surprised. She had guessed, from his brief reference to New Caledonia, that he had lived on that island under duress. He must have been convicted of some great crime; she could not imagine him in any mean or petty role. A coarse-handed workman, shabby of attire...it was madness to dream and dream of him as she did. And dreams, so Freud had said, were the expressions of wishes unfulfilled.

What did she wish? She was prepared to answer the question frankly if any answer could be framed. But she had no ultimate wish. Her dreams of Ambrose Sault were unfinishable. Their ends ran into unfathomable darkness. "I wonder if he is very fond of that red-haired girl?" she asked her mirror. Contemplating such a possibility she experienced a pang of jealousy and hated herself for it.

Jan Steppe came back from Paris on the eve of her birthday. He called at the house the next morning, before she was down, and interviewed Dr. Merville; when Beryl went in to breakfast, two little packages lay on her plate. The first was a diamond shawl pin. "You are a dear, daddy!" She went round the table and kissed him. "It is beautiful and I wanted one badly." She hurried back to her place. Perhaps Ronnie had remembered...She picked up the card that was enclosed and read it. "Mr. Steppe?"

Her father shot a quick glance at her. "Yes...bought it in Paris. He came in person to present it, but left when he found that you were not down... rather pretty."

This was an inadequate description of the beautiful plaque that flashed and glittered from its velvet bed. "It is lovely," she said, but without warmth. "Ought I accept...it is a very expensive present!"

"Why not? Steppe is a good friend of ours; besides, he likes you," said the doctor, not looking up from his plate; "he would be terribly hurt if you didn't take it...in fact, you cannot very well refuse."

She ran through her letters. There was a note from Ronnie, an invitation to a first night. He said nothing about her birthday. "Oh, by the way, some flowers came. I told Dean to put them in your room. I have been puzzling my head to remember when I told him the date of your birthday. I suppose I must have done so, and, of course, he has the most colossal memory."

"Who, father?"

"Sault. He must have got up very early and gone to the market to get them. Very decent of him."

She went out of the room with an excuse and found her maid in the pantry. She had filled a big bowl with the roses. There were so many that only room for half of them had been found. "The others I will put in the doctor's room, miss," said the maid.

"Put them all in my room, everyone of them," demanded Beryl. She selected three and fastened them in her belt before she went back to the breakfast-room. The doctor laughed. "I've never seen you wearing flowers before—Sault would be awfully pleased." This she knew. That was why she wore them.