Читать книгу Jewel sowers - Edith Allonby - Страница 6

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The afternoon was cold and gloomy, and by the time Rosalie reached the temple the little light that ever came there had quite died away. There were no Americans in Lucifram, no English tourists either, consequently the sacred building from morn to eve was silent as the grave except for matins and for evensong. But evensong was held at seven, and now it was but four.

Rosalie’s heart was in that terrible state of aching which approaches physical pain. Speechless, she knew herself quite helpless.

For lack of speech she must be separated from one who had suddenly grown more helpless than herself, one whom she could not bear to part with, one who had grown accustomed to her great defect, and had never labelled on the door those words: “Home for the Blind—the Deaf—the Dumb—Incurables.”

“Once I get inside there I am dumb for ever,” she cried to herself, as she stumbled up the darkening aisle. “Oh, I cannot go—I cannot! I want to live like other people. To be free—free—free!”

And so she knelt down beside the altar railings, and buried her face in her hands against its golden bars.

“Oh, Serpent, let me speak! Give me a tongue like other people have. I cannot go to that asylum—I cannot really. I cannot live without my aunt. We are all in all to each other. What good am I if I remain a speechless log? I might as well be dead.”

No answer. Darkness and silence. That was all. The impenetrable hardness of it sank to Rosalie’s heart. Suddenly she got up and looked round cautiously, with pale face and dark-rimmed eyes. There was no noise. Nothing moved in the empty building save herself. Silent and trembling, she took a step forward inside the railing, then another, and her hand touched the crimson curtain. Again she looked around, assured herself again that she was quite alone, silently drew back the heavy fold and stepped within. The lights upon the altar, burning by day and night, changed the dull gloom to brightness. Her wandering, awe-struck gaze fell full upon the Serpent, its head and jewelled eyes all shining underneath the slowly swinging lights.

Here, then, was the hidden God that all things worshipped. This was the God who punished some, rewarded others, and wore the creeds of ages on its three-pronged tail. Her eyes were dazzled by the brilliancy, but the Serpent’s wisdom gleaming from those curious eyes attracted her.

“Give me what I want! Give me what I want!” she whispered, and stretched out her white arms till her hands had clasped behind the Serpent’s head. Then she leant forward and pressed her lips against the cruel, hardened, lifeless fangs, and whispered yet again:

“Give me what I want—just so that I may serve you!”

As silently she unclasped her fingers, rising to her feet. She passed down the three steps leading from the altar, and became aware, with beating heart and sudden tumultuous fear, that she had been watched.

For, stepping from the side way, came a stranger, stopping her progress outward to the other side of the veil.

“What is it that you want?” he said.

In his eyes there shone the priceless worth of wisdom’s jewels, giving them in their brilliant expression something of the same impenetrable light the Serpent’s had.

Rosalie became confused, and mixed the two together. How could she help it, seeing both had come together? But no words were there for utterance. She raised her hand to her mouth, her eyes to his face—eyes that had grown in sadness and in beauty throughout a lifetime—and then she shook her head.

“Dumb?” said he.

She nodded.

“Is that what you came to pray about?”

Again she nodded. She looked up at him, and her eyes sank. After all, it was the secret of a life, for none knew of these daily visits to the temple, and now a stranger had discovered it—the secret which had been guarded so jealously all these years.

“And you come in here to pray often?”

She shook her head vehemently, and pointed outside.

“I see. You stay outside?”

Again she nodded.

Then he held the curtain aside, and she passed out, he following her.

The church without was black.

Rosalie gave a muttered cry of dismay—the building was so large, its pews, and steps, and labyrinths all so intricate. But her companion produced a light that glowed like a thin taper, but burnt with a clearer and a stronger light, and plainly lit the church around them.

“Never trust to the church to give you light,” said he whimsically, “unless, as now, you penetrate to the Holy of Holies!”

Rosalie smiled; she felt it was but polite, unaccustomed as she was to strangers.

Together they walked down the long aisle, and once she stole a glance up at him sideways, with great curiosity, to see what he was like. But the stranger was looking at her, and she bent her head downward again. She evidently did not possess the gift of sweet unconsciousness of self.

“I presume you wished to come away?” he said at the end of their journey, before he opened the heavy doors.

She nodded.

Then he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“The Serpent must be very cruel and hardened if he withstand such a prayer as that you offered.”

There was more amusement than pity in his voice and expression. Rosalie felt, but did not understand it. Never had anyone in her narrow life been able to put so much expression into a mere hand-touch. In gratitude she could have taken and kissed it many times.

They passed out on to the high steps leading from the temple. The rain was coming down in torrents. The street lamps glistened through it, and the passers-by were infrequent.

“How are you going home?” he said. The outside world seemed to have separated them.

She pointed to her feet.

“Walking? Well, hurry and don’t get wet. It would be a pity to spoil the prayer by leaving no time for its fulfilment. Good-night!”

Then he moved away a step or two, and she stopped to put up her umbrella. Suddenly, however, he turned round, and came with quick strides toward her.

“See, here is my card. When you have made headway with the Serpent, and received an answer to your prayer, come and see me!”

And he scribbled on the back of the card “Admit Bearer,” and then handed it to her, once more leaving her standing on the steps.

Then Rosalie, having succeeded in getting up the umbrella, and gathering up her skirts, turned in the direction of home. It was a walk of about twenty minutes, and all the way she thought of the stranger, of his interesting face, deep eyes and mellow voice, his hand laid so kindly on her shoulder. She remembered, also, that sudden perceptible change when outside the church, a mixture of harshness and coldness and pride, more shown in his manner than his words.

“I wonder what he was doing inside the curtain?” she thought. “Perhaps he had gone there to pray like me. I hope I did not disturb him.” Then she sighed. “He looked a rich man, and he could say whatever he wanted to. There could be nothing he was wanting half so much as I.”

On reaching home she was met by her aunt. As soon as they were seated at the frugal tea, the lady explained that a Mr. Ellershaw, an acquaintance of her dead husband, had called that afternoon to see her. On hearing how matters stood, and the separation that was imminent, he had told her of a post of caretaker he knew to be vacant, where the work was to look after a large building in the city let out in flats to different business men. There would be a certain amount of work to do in connection with this—and he did not know whether either of them would care for such a post; but it was there if they wished. It would ensure them living together, four rooms in the topmost storey. Rosalie looked across her tea-cup and nodded her head eagerly.

“You like such a prospect?” her aunt asked quietly.

She nodded again.

“It will be very hard work, and I am not as strong as I used to be.”

Rosalie held out her hands and looked at them triumphantly. Then she pointed to herself, and smiled.

“You think you could undertake some of it?”

So together they wrote a letter accepting the post, and a week later left their old home, with all its memories and associations, to settle in a fifth storey dwelling amongst the skylights.

Rosalie felt her prayer in part was answered. They were not to be separated after all. Hard as the work might be, it meant freedom and the company she loved. She was content, went to the temple, knelt humbly and returned thanks. Then she went on praying for a voice with a faith born of simplicity and her own idea of God.

One day a priest found her praying there. He inquired the cause. Like the stranger, he was not long in finding it. He put his hand upon her head, and blessed her in the name of the Serpent’s three tails. Then he went back to the priests’ lodgings, and kept his story for supper. He was a jolly man, of the earth earthy, and his idea of the Serpent was that his golden coils were lucrative. The priest was not bad-hearted; he was simply mediocre. But he had a sense of humour—and who, indeed, but the soured and stupid have not?—and the idea of a girl kneeling by the altar railings (he had never seen her, as on that one unique occasion, step beyond) praying persistently to be allowed to talk when plainly she was physically beyond it tickled his sense of funniness. He laughed and shook till the tears ran down his face.

“And she believes it—that’s the biggest joke,” he cried. “Believes that if she prays long enough the Serpent will weary or turn merciful, and fulfil her prayer.”

“According to our history of the past, with its wonders and miracles, that is not so impossible as it seems,” said one, more thoughtfully.

“She’d best jump back a hundred year or two, and cap one miracle by another, then,” remarked a third.

“What did you say to her, James Peter?” asked a fourth.

“Oh, I blessed her, and prayed to the Serpent to look serious, and the request was granted. ’Twas a miracle on a small scale, I can assure you. I could have roared right out.”

“What is she like to look at?” put in a fifth.

“Pretty—sad-looking—just the sort of woman to get an idea. That is the sort we can’t afford to quarrel with. They tip so handsomely on Sundays.”

“Little or tall?”

“Oh, tall! Medium, at any rate. Couldn’t smile if she tried. Sacred liver of the Serpent! What a sermon for one of you fellows with a love of sentiment to preach on Sunday.”

“Wait till the woman is made whole, and sitting in the congregation. Then our fortunes are secured,” said another drily.

And in this respect the priests of the Serpent were very different from our own. Amongst themselves they never acted the hypocrite—the heathen idolaters!

So next day, when Rosalie went to pray, one or two passed in and out silently to behold the phenomenon. After a time they grew accustomed, and took no further notice of her. After all, a woman might as well spend her time in an attitude of humble devotion. Experience generally proved those to make the best sort of wives.

Rosalie and her aunt had been established a little over six months in the new home, and the work was so hard and unaccustomed that it was beginning to tell on both of them.

The older woman was little better than a breakdown before she came, and gradually without much complaint, but growing silence, she sank into the bed of weakness more. It was a sickness from which she never rose.

She had been too old to face these sudden changes, was not made of the stuff that endures, or not enduring, fights. So then this cloud had only risen in mockery to sink the heavier. Where was Rosalie’s prayer of love and thanksgiving?

The last week of her aunt’s illness was very strange and unreal to Rosalie—strange and unreal when, after the second funeral within a year, she sat alone in the little empty four-roomed storey.

Her hands, roughened, though not coarsened, by hard work, were clasped between her knees. Her head had sunk forward on her breast, her open eyes saw nothing.

Vaguely she hoped that she might be the next to go, thought of her prayer for speech, and dashed the bitter tears from her dull eyes. What of her prayer? Perhaps to the Serpent it sounded nothing more than clamorous presumption and self-will.

Again she had been offered the shelter of the Home for Deaf and Dumb by those who recognised her sad position. Was she ungrateful? Many poor waifs there were, she knew, in that great city, with none to help them to the scantiest food and shelter.

“I can’t believe you’re either kind or just, and I won’t pray to you any more!” she cried inwardly, jumping up fiercely at last. “I wasn’t made to be without a tongue. I wasn’t! I wasn’t! You haven’t the power to give me one; that’s what it really is.”

But no bricks and mortar fell to punish such an outburst.

“What have I done that I should be left here alone?” she continued. “I want to go along with aunt and uncle. You know I do. I can’t live here alone.”

But there was no answer. Gradually a calmer spirit came over her, together with a wish to find out that sphinx-like secret that wrapped itself in icy silence.

“What’s the good of making me want to talk if you won’t let me?” she asked.

Out of the vast silence a voice seemed to shape itself at last.

“Give up! Sacrifice!” it said.

It was such a very beautiful voice, and yet so very cold, that Rosalie shrank from it. Sacrifice was such a heathenish thing! Besides, what was there to sacrifice in the way of a tongue—she hadn’t got one, not a serviceable one, at any rate.

“The Serpent’s will comes first with all believers,” cried the same voice out of the silence.

“I wish we could agree,” said Rosalie, with no disrespect, and then fell a-thinking.

Yes. After all, it came to the old, old thing. A clashing of wills—one human, one divine—if such it could be called. And therein lay the only sacrifice that God or the Serpent ever needed. It meant the sacrifice of will.

Slowly and clearly the truth unfolded itself. If her faith were pure and unselfish, she must be willing to give up longing and praying for that which was beyond her, and still love and serve the Serpent even without reward.

And to what path did her duty point? The thankful acceptance of a shelter that was offered, a gentle surrender without bitterness into God’s hands. An ending of a prayer He thought fit not to answer.

It meant a great deal to Rosalie. The priest had laughed at her simpleness in expecting the performance of a miracle. Perhaps would all else had they heard it; but to her it was a very real thing, the outcome of real belief, that left a shattered feeling of disappointment when the ending came.

“I thought the Serpent always answered prayer when it was real,” she said, and felt suddenly like one moving uncertainly in unknown lands amongst a host of strangers.

The time was drawing round to autumn again, and now that her aunt had been removed, arrangements were being made for her going. Within the week, she had been told, she would go the Home. Those who had interested themselves on her behalf did not like to think of the lonely girl. The doctor who had attended the aunt and uncle had very kindly made it his business to remove all delays, such as often took place for those who were admitted.

Another woman, older and stronger, and more accustomed to the work, was engaged. She had been there for some time before her aunt’s death. Rosalie, in this new and quiet mood, recognised the kindness that had been shown to her on all sides. But though she was truly thankful, she could raise no enthusiasm. The next day, when afternoon came, she dressed herself as carefully as her worn clothes would allow, and went once more towards the temple.

But with what different feelings! For two years past she had gone always with the same earnest prayer, with no doubt of its acceptance, and now she was going to give up the prayer and everything that made her life worth living.

It was just such another wet, dull day as that a year ago when, with excess of feeling, she had drawn aside the sacred curtain and stept within the Holy Place.

To-day, as usual, she went and knelt beside the railings. All was growing dark. The same silence, the same utter emptiness, pervaded the temple now, as then. Now, as then, the great longing seized her to pass within the veil. So silently she rose, drew back the curtain stealthily, and stept within. The Serpent’s steadfast gaze demanded her first glance. Then she looked round, but perceived no stranger. Assured, she ascended the steps and knelt beside the gorgeous table. With tenderness and love, the outcome of simplicity and pure devotion, she clasped her hands once more about the Serpent’s head, kneeling before it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips close to the terrible mouth. “I made a god of my own tongue instead of you. But now I understand. And, oh! Serpent, teach me the right way to live, and keep me from growing bitter.”

Then, as before, she imprinted a light kiss, tender and loving, on the unkissable mouth, and silently bowed her head some minutes on the table.

Then on a sudden Rosalie rose, her eyes wide open, and stared at the golden god. They stared in wonderment, but growing understanding. The light of dawning wisdom was in her eyes.

One minute, two minutes, three, passed away. She turned round suddenly, emerged into the church, dark now as once before about a year ago. A light was in her hand; she cared not how she came by it, but partly knew.

A priest from one of the choir stalls was watching her, with a feeble candle in his hand.

He called out “Treason! Blasphemy!” to see a woman thus emerge from behind the sacred curtain. It was James Peter.

Rushing forward, he slipped over a footstool, and fell down heavily. His light was extinguished. Down the vast aisle, with the lightness of a spirit, Rosalie ran. Her eyes were laughing, a flush was on her once pale cheek.

James Peter, rising, followed her. He puffed and groaned at every priestly step.

But when the door was open she turned and nodded to him in the distance. The door closed. He was in darkness. He had followed solely upon her light.

Not till the lights were brought for Evensong did he extricate himself from the toils of the massive building. Then he told his tale.

“I tell you she turned round at the door and called to me ‘Bon soir, monsieur! Adieu!’” he cried for the third time to his companions.

“Good Lord! What does it mean?” said one.

“Was she not dumb?” asked a second.

“As dumb as the Serpent!” replied James Peter. “She went into the Holy Place, and is cured.”

“A woman in the Holy Place!”

“Yes! I called ‘Blasphemy!’ but the damned footstool tripped me! Had it not been for that I had caught her and brought her up before the great High Priest.”

“A footstool tripped you!”

“Don’t speak so sneeringly, brother Thomas John. I said a footstool tripped me.”

“And you lost the woman?”

“What could I do without a light?”

“Strike matches.”

“I followed her eyes till the door closed, and forgot about them. Besides, not being a smoker, I never carry any.”

“Did you say you found a woman in the Holiest Place?” asked others, crowding round.

“I did not find her there, I saw her coming out.”

“Coming out! And never stopped her?”

“No!”

“But we must find her. What is her address?”

“I don’t know. What’s the punishment when we have found her?”

“In olden times it was to have her tongue torn out by the roots.”

“But the Serpent had just given her one, I tell you.”

“Nowadays, I expect, the punishment will be modified. Strict silence on penalty of death, maybe.”

“But if the Serpent has given her a tongue, who then dare take it away?”

“How has the Serpent given her one?”

“I tell you, before she was dumb.”

“Impossible! No woman was ever so afflicted—worse luck!”

“I tell you she was dumb, and is cured. She said to me at the door, ‘Bon soir, monsieur. Adieu!’ Very pretty words,” and he mimicked the tone and gesture.

“This is sheer madness. There is no sense in the words!” cried another.

“Is it necessary for women to speak sense?” asked James Peter.

All the others laughed. He looked dangerous. And so they talked, and all gesticulated. But the mistake was on the part of James Peter—in part, at least.

He never heard the lady speak. It was his own imagination which coined strange words without meaning.