Читать книгу Jewel sowers - Edith Allonby - Страница 10

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“The master wished to speak to you when you returned,” the attendant at the door said to her when he answered it.

Rosalie crossed the hall, feeling that vague sense of satisfaction that generally accompanies honesty, and which at times appears so poor a recompense.

This time on knocking she waited for the answer. When it came she opened the door and entered.

Mr. Barringcourt was in the act of filing papers, and generally tidying up the littered table.

“You are quite punctual,” said he. “And what is more, astoundingly honest.”

“You did not expect I should return, then?”

“No! Honestly speaking, I thought I had seen the last of you.”

She shook her head.

“Gratitude brought me back at the expense of inclination.”

“You should have yielded to temptation, and run away.”

“Perhaps my action in returning was not quite so commendable as you think. I was much tempted to run away, and then—”

“What?”

“I could find no place to go to.”

“You have no appreciative friends?”

“Not one.”

“The doctor?”

Rosalie looked up quickly, and flushed. “Why do you speak of him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered drily; “I believe I was meaning myself.”

“Oh—yes—of course,” stammered Rosalie. “I thought you meant Dr. Kaye.”

“Then you had notions of appealing to him?”

Rosalie laughed. “You are not the pleasantest of companions.”

“You might as well make a confidant of me. I am the only one you will find for some time.”

“Well, yes, then,” she answered, looking across at him with a timid glance. “I thought of running to the doctor, informing him you intended making a prisoner of me in a free city, and asking him to give me the benefit of his protection and advice.”

“And you thought better of it?”

“You told me if I was grateful I should return. I was grateful, and though there seems something very topsy-turvy about the recompense you ask for, there is something in it that appeals to my sense of justice.”

“That is why you came back?”

“There is no other reason.”

Mr. Barringcourt all this time had been sitting in his chair by the table. Rosalie was standing at the farther side of it. Now he got up and walked over to the fireplace, where the fire was burning brightly.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Rosalie Paleaf.”

“Brought up by an aunt and uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Always dumb, and therefore very much out of the world?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you learn the little bit of knowledge you possess?”

“I listened to it. I was not deaf, you know.”

“Could you read?”

“Yes, I can read. That is how I used to spend most of my time.”

“Travels, novels, or biography?”

“A little bit of both—all three, I mean. ‘The Life of Krimjo on the Desert Island,’ which was my favourite, contained a little of all, I think.”

“Ally Krimjo was only make-belief,” said he ruthlessly.

“Indeed he wasn’t! He had gone through everything he spoke about, the shipwreck and the loneliness, the savages and everything. Make-belief! Oh, Mr. Barringcourt, have you ever really read it through?”

“Yes, at the time it was written.”

Here Rosalie laughed again triumphantly.

“That shows you don’t know the book I’m talking about at all. The man who wrote it lived hundreds of years ago. Quite three hundred, I should say.”

“At that rate I must be mistaken. Then if you are so fond of travel and biography, I have some volumes here all on that subject, written, too, about the time you speak of. You will have a great deal of time lie heavy on your hands; perhaps you would like some?”

Rosalie looked dubious, and her eyes travelled to the imposing-looking book-shelves.

“I never found anyone quite to come up to Ally Krimjo,” she replied regretfully.

“You refuse my offer?”

“Not if you give me something interesting. But as a rule I don’t like biographies, because the people always die. Now, Ally Krimjo—”

“You’re quite right,” said Mr. Barringcourt grimly. “Ally Krimjo hasn’t died, so he deserves to live. Have you the Book of Divine Inspiration?”

“Oh, yes! I don’t suppose there’s anyone without that?”

“Here’s one with pictures; look at it.”

He took down from a shelf a heavy and ponderous volume of the Book of Divine Inspiration, as written and compiled in the planet Lucifram, and carried it without the least apparent effort to the table.

“Now come and look at the pictures. I’ll show you a few, and then you can take it away with you and look at the rest.”

He opened it at the first page—the frontispiece. It was a picture of the Golden Serpent, so lifelike that its appearance was most startling. The book, likewise, must have possessed the property of magnifying all contained in it, for suddenly the head and coils and tails seemed to enlarge to the same gigantic size as that within the temple.

“I don’t like it. Don’t show me any more of that book,” Rosalie said.

“But why?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered, almost whispering. “It’s the Serpent. I don’t like it.”

“But you are the young lady who was kissing its head, and throwing your arms around it.”

“Yes, I know. That was because I did not understand.”

“And now?”

“Oh, now! I think it’s cruel and deceitful.”

“That’s nothing short of blasphemy. The Serpent is a god!”

“Do you believe that?” she asked, suddenly looking up, and fixing his eyes with a look as keen as it was serious.

Two pairs of eyes, dark and light, each encountered one another—each trying to read the other’s secret—and both for once inscrutable, dark and light alike.

“Yes. I’ve got a pretty good mental digestion; it can take most things,” he said, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile. “Look! Miss—Miss—What’s your name, by the way?”

“My name is Rosalie—Rosalie Paleaf.”

“Well now, Miss Paleaf, let us turn to the second picture.”

Reluctantly she turned round once more, to behold a forest jungle, as fine and beautiful a scene as one could wish. Its size and realism made her put out her hand to pull a twig of feathery foliage, when suddenly she was startled to see beneath it a pair of eyes, wild and yet intelligent, gleaming out at her. It was an animal shaped and sized much like a monkey. Behind it was another of the same kind, a partner in its joys and sorrows evidently.

Rosalie sprang back.

“Look at that hideous thing!” she cried in horror, pointing to it. Then recollecting herself, she said, with an effort at more self-control and appreciation: “Are—are they extinct now?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. What would you say?”

“I sincerely hope so, I’m sure. Put it away. There is something uncanny about that book. That creature startled me.”

“It’s an acquired taste. Here we come to another.”

He had turned onward to a third picture, in which was shown a woman sitting on the roots of a tree, the expression of her face long and uncompromising, full of discontent. She wore no clothing, but her long and silky hair was sufficient covering. She was of no particular beauty, and her expression of discontent, mingled with curiosity, subtly introduced, and having little intelligence to enlighten it, gave the girl a feeling of repugnance. In one hand she held a fruit of brilliant scarlet; a mouthful was being eaten, and its taste did not seem altogether to her liking.

“What do you think of this?”

“I like it very little better. The man who painted it, judging from her face, understood human nature, and had very little mercy for it.”

“There you are mistaken. It is a caricature,” he answered softly, “painted one day by a man, and sent to his dearest friend—a woman.”

“But she is eating a tomato.”

“Of course! Let us continue.”

The next picture showed this same woman standing beside a man who sat upon a rock cracking nuts with his teeth. As Rosalie looked the scenes began to move and become lifelike, pretty much in the same way as a cinematograph. At first the man did not perceive his companion, but turning suddenly, in the act of taking a broken shell from his mouth, he saw her holding the scarlet fruit, from which she had taken no more than two fair mouthfuls. On seeing this his jaw dropped, his eyes expanded.

Thin, far-away voices came from the picture, aiding the illusion.

“What for did you that?” said he, in a voice devoid of beauty and expression.

“To find out,” she replied, in the same manner.

“But we die—we die—if we eat fruit of blood colour!” he cried, with superstitious horror in his voice.

“We no die, we live and grow fat. I eat, I live; but I miss something.”

“What?”

“I know not. Eat, and tell me.” Her look was cunning.

“I dare not.”

“It is the best of all kinds—but for one thing.”

“And what is dat?”

“Eat, and tell me. You be my faithful love.”

Gingerly he took it in his hand, applied it reluctantly to his lips, sucking the juice alone.

“It wants—”

His low forehead wrinkled. He could not formulate his thoughts.

“What?”

“It wants—”

And then all round a million voices echoed:

“It wants but salt!”

“Salt!” he shouted, drowning the harmonic voices in his new discovery.

Hereupon the woman fell upon her knees, and almost worshipped him, kissing his hands and feet, weeping tears of pleasure on them.

“Scrape me some up,” he uttered, taking advantage of her low position.

She did it with her finger-nails.

“Now stand back whilst I eat it.”

“But I—I found it.”

“Stand back, goose, and watch me eat.”

“I found it first,” she whimpered.

“Here’s a seed—that’s all you’re worth,” he answered. “Now I go to find more,” said he, jumping up valiantly. “You bake bread and get me butter for when I return.”

“I come too!” she cried. “You eat the whole while I worky work.”

“Fool—toad—weasel—monkey! bake me the bread, or I your neck am breaking!”

And with that they disappeared from the page. Only the picture in its first stage remained visible.

“That’s not pretty at all,” said Rosalie.

“Few things are in real life,” he answered.

“But that was caricature.”

“Not in the way you think. It was caricature, I grant, but with a difference.”

“Yes. I don’t think the eating of salt with tomato could make a man really superior, do you?”

“No; but it was the fact that he discovered salt.”

“But he didn’t. He was as ignorant as she till the voices whispered it.”

“Nevertheless, he caught the first sound.”

“Yes, of course,” said Rosalie thoughtfully.

Here Mr. Barringcourt laughed.

“You do not appreciate its true absurdity,” he said; “but that, maybe, is scarcely necessary. Now, that picture, or series of pictures, was painted by a woman, and sent to the man who had sent her the first.”

“But how about the voices?”

“Oh! she was no ordinary woman, by any means.”

“Was she quarrelling with the man?”

“No. They were amusing each other in wet weather.”

“They paint most beautiful scenery, but I don’t like their men and women.”

“You are not intended to. Now, shall we go on?”

“No; I’d rather not, really. It gives me headache, and I’ve had it ever since yesterday afternoon, except for that little bit after you had healed me.”

“You are tired of the Book of Divine Inspiration?”

“I’m tired of the pictures; they are no better than caricatures and skits. I don’t think that’s a good book to keep in a house at all.”

“You astound me! Were you not brought up to worship the Serpent?”

“Yes; but the Serpent disappointed me.”

“I see. You only worship a God who is content to spoil you?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll settle down again before long.”

“I hope so. Has it ever struck you, Miss Paleaf, how completely you are in my power?”

“No,” she answered, looking at him quickly.

“Well, you know, I found you in the temple, in the Holiest Place—the place forbidden to women. Do you know what the punishment for that transgression is?”

“No.”

“To have your tongue torn out by the roots.”

“Impossible!”

“Not in the least. In this one interview with me you have said enough against the Serpent to set all its scales and coils bristling, and its fangs working.”

“I have said nothing.”

“‘Cruel and deceitful,’ were not those your words?”

“Yes; but to tear my tongue out would not be to prove it otherwise. The Serpent’s wisdom should assert itself and prove the opposite. You were also in the Holiest Place.”

“Of course; but for a man the offence is not so capital.”

“Tomatoes and salt,” said Rosalie, and she laughed. He laughed also.

“Your impudence is only beaten by your ignorance.”

“As often as I offend solely with my tongue, you must take the blame yourself. I think you must have oiled the wheels too freely.”

“It is a good thing you have no relatives, Miss Paleaf; they would have missed you, disappearing so suddenly.”

“Under the circumstances, I suppose it is.”

“Were you happy with them?”

“Oh, yes! As happy as the day, when we were in prosperity. But this last year has been nothing but shadow and poverty, and I don’t think I ever realised how many things I had to be thankful for till they were all gone.”

“The gift of speech does not compensate for all things, then?”

“I don’t know. I have had it so short a time.”

“You are longing for freedom, and can find nothing to compensate for the bitterness of its loss. Is not that it?”

“I don’t think it is only that. My aunt was only buried the day before yesterday. I should be very callous and ungrateful if I could forget her so readily.”

“Yet you cannot deny the events of the past day have put a great gulf betwixt you and her.”

“Yes; I could think she had died a year ago along with uncle. Poor thing! It would have been so much better if she had done so, I think.”

“How long do you think your term of imprisonment will last?”

Rosalie shook her head.

“I don’t know. The future has always been a blank to me. I never built those castles in the air that many love to build.”

“How about your prayer to find a tongue?”

“I don’t know. I longed to speak, but never looked into a future crowned by successful prayer.”

“Well, your term of imprisonment here lasts three years.”

“It is a long time.”

“On the contrary, reckoned justly, a very short one.”

“What do you mean by ‘reckoned justly’?”

He took up a bundle of filed papers from the table.

“These are accounts of long standing,” he answered gravely. “It is strange how quickly a high rate of interest accumulates. What you wipe off in three years or less by ready payments, some are leaving till a future date, till it accumulates and doubles, then maybe trebles, and some day swamps them.”

Rosalie’s eyes opened with unfeigned surprise.

“But whom is the money owed to?”

“To me.”

“Have you all those debtors?”

“These are a few—a very few. People find out the softness of my heart, and then they come to me. Women with stingy husbands and extravagant tastes, men with limited brains and boundless ambition. Each and all, with many other pleas and reasons, call upon me and win me over to their way of thinking. I am always won. No simple-hearted fool within the country gives in more easily than I when I can gain security of person.”

“But don’t you tell them that you expect return?”

“No; I like them to think there’s one generous person in the world.”

“But that is scarcely fair. You ought to tell them what you want.”

“The argument would be beyond them. Besides, it would come then too much like making bargains. I am no shopman. Those who seek me find me. Others stay away.”

“But this is nothing short of madness. How can you make people pay without a signature or anything?”

“I never jest but when it suits my purpose. And for madness, I grant upon the surface it may appear as such. But each bill works backward—item by item, year by year. Mathematicians and philosophers looking through them would find a subject more than fascinating.”

“But if when you show your bill the people refuse to pay, and say they never got the goods?”

“Why, then, one little snip and the fabric ravels out again, loop by loop, as it was knitted up. Back it goes to the fundamental working, as rigid as machinery, as true as time, and ends in nothingness.”

Rosalie was silent for a time, and then she said: “Is that how it is you are such a rich man?”

But he shook his head.

“I am poorer than many people think,” he answered. “And richer too—wealth is comparative. But now,” he continued, with more energy, “I have come to the conclusion that your term of prison life shall not be quite so dull as you expected. You may come to me at any time, provided I have leisure. Moreover, you may borrow any book; amongst all these there will be surely some to suit you, even though it be but a uniquely pictured book of Ally Krimjo.”

“But what are you expecting in return? You say you like people to esteem you generous, and are not in reality so at all. This generosity to me may end in nothing but a high percentage. It may bring me down to nothingness.”

“You have the advantage of being young, you see. I might end your debtor if I tied you up in an unsympathetic prison, and let you out at last, to find I was too late, and your spirit killed by solitude.”

He was looking at her with a puzzled and thoughtful expression, as if trying to weigh or settle something in his mind to his own satisfaction.

“I think you were easier to understand dumb than you are speaking,” he said at last.

“Well, yes, because I would be less complex,” said Rosalie wisely. “I was minus something before, now I’m not.”

“Maybe. When will you come to visit me again?”

“To-morrow morning, if I may. From twelve to one?”

“Yes. We’ll arrange for that hour twice a week. It will be neither too long nor too often to bore either of us. The rest of the time you’ll spend as best you can within the house and gardens.”