Читать книгу Jewel sowers - Edith Allonby - Страница 9

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As Rosalie passed along the corridor her sudden decision was sealed by growing annoyance and a longing, almost amounting to fear, to get away.

With scarcely a pause she knocked upon the door, that door through which she entered last night. Without stopping she opened it. Mr. Barringcourt was there alone, at a table littered with papers, writing. He was indeed busy and engrossed, for on her entrance he did not raise his head, till accosted by her voice, and then he looked up sharply enough.

“You!” said he, bringing his eyebrows together in that dark frown which Rosalie had seen last night, and seeing had never forgotten.

“Yes. I want to go out.”

“Impossible!” said he, with an impatient gesture of his hand, and returned to the paper.

“I want to go out,” she repeated. “And you have no right to stop me.”

“In my own house I have every right. Go away, you are interrupting me.”

“So are you interrupting me.”

He laughed, not altogether kindly, and looked up at her again.

“That is little short of impudent.”

“I don’t care. I want to go out, and if you won’t give me leave, I shall take it.”

“Take it then, by all means.”

“That man at the door won’t let me.”

“Knock him down. It will be one way of surmounting the difficulty.”

“He is such an elephant. I disliked him the very first time I saw him,” she replied with energy, and as much simplicity as the truth occasioned.

“Well, go away and fight it out with him; watch the door, and bounce out when he’s not looking.”

“I won’t do anything so undignified. I shall make friends with the kitchen people, and creep out that way.”

“The kitchen door leads into the garden, and the walls are high, and the gate is locked. I keep the key myself, to ensure no one getting to the stables.”

“Then give me leave to go out at the front.”

“Now, why should you want to go out at the front? You have as beautiful a home as you could possibly wish for. What more can you want?”

“Fresh air and human beings.”

“You have them here.”

She shook her head. The tears rose in her throat, and were very hard to choke down again.

“It’s the dismallest place I ever came to; and I’m no use. The people here always contradict me.”

“You are the first person who has ever complained of them; and your opinion goes for nothing, your own conduct leaves so much to be desired.”

“In what way?”

“In my time I have experienced much ingratitude, but never any quite to equal yours.”

“I—ungrateful?”

“Most decidedly!”

“What are you wanting from me?”

“Quiet submission.”

Rosalie’s eyes opened wide, her lips parted; her expression was one of unfeigned surprise.

“What’s that?”

“To do what you’re told quietly. Now you know, there is no excuse for your not complying.”

“But to submit means to stay here.”

“Of course!”

“But I can’t. Oh, I can’t really! Anything but that.”

“Nothing but that. You come to me with the most unusual request, and I am fool enough to put myself out of the way for you. Then you expect to go away, or rather slip away, without any more words about repayment. And when you are brought back, all this squalling.”

“Nice people are quite content with ‘Thank you.’”

“I’m not nice, and ‘Thank you’ never appeals to me.”

“But if I stay here I can do nothing.”

“Yes, you can mope.”

“In return for a tongue?”

“Why not? It would be the height of self-sacrifice, and the perfection of thanksgiving.”

Her serious eyes met his thoughtfully. “Do you really wish me to stay here?”

“I not only wish, but am determined on it.”

“Then my self-sacrifice can never be spontaneous.”

“You mean you are changing your mind. You are wishful to stop?”

“Not wishful, but if you want it, I’ll—I’ll try to settle down more cheerfully. After all, it’s only just.”

“That is so.”

“Shall I often see you?”

“Never. I am not fond of inflictions.”

He spoke so drily, and the words were so unkind, that Rosalie’s wistful face grew paler. Yet still she argued to herself it would be selfish to wish to be free, to have a tongue and everything. And after all, the stranger was so clever that he must of necessity know best.

“Will you let me out just for an hour?” she asked at length, with a voice greatly subdued from the first clamorous outburst.

“Not for an hour.”

“But I have an aunt, and she is dead. I shouldn’t like strangers to take what once belonged to her.”

“Where is your uncle?”

“He is dead too.”

“Your people?”

“I have none.”

“Where then, in the name of all the devils in Lucifram, do you intend to go to?”

“I thought when people knew I had miraculously come by a tongue they would—”

“Ah! I thought as much. You want to behave with all the absurdity of a hen that has laid an egg.”

“Indeed!” said Rosalie, flushing.

“You want to get out just to cackle.”

She was silent.

“You admit it?”

“I admit nothing but your want of manners.”

“What a waspish, vinegarish tongue yours is.”

“It’s the fault of the doctor, then. If one cannot produce a sweet instrument one might as well admit oneself a failure.”

“How was I to tell? Your face was so deceptive.”

“Maybe so is my tongue. I was only speaking in fun. Let me out for one hour. Lend me twopence, and I will return, having spoken to no one, and in the right frame for being submissive.”

For a short time he was silent. At last he said:

“Promise me faithfully you will return.”

“I promise you most faithfully.”

“Within the hour?”

“Yes.”

“You understand perfectly that my reason for bringing you back is not for any personal gratification I should derive from it. It is simply so that you may not obtain any great or particular pleasure from having a prayer perfected.”

“You speak plainly enough for the dullest mind.”

“I’m glad. Now you may go. And remember, come back if you have any sense of gratitude.”

So Rosalie passed out again into the farther hall.

“I have permission to pass,” said she at the door, and then she stood outside.

It seemed to her when she reached the parapet that she had been out of the world for years. And oh! to be back in the world again! To see and hear the sights and sounds, so commonplace and ordinary, yet to her stilled ear so sweet again. Never had that terrible silent mansion struck her as so terrible till now she stood amongst the noise of work and life once more.

One hour of freedom. One hour with the light, jogging world, and then to pass once more beneath the shadow—a silent spirit in a silent world. The ’bus rattled on, taking its own slow time towards that quarter of the city where she had lived. She found the upper storey empty, and none had missed her. Yesterday the doctor had told her his intention of coming for her at four o’clock to-day. It was not yet quite twelve.

Each of the little rooms was now quite bare, except the tiny attic called her bedroom. In it were gathered the few trivial things she prized as belonging to days that were less dark than these. There was a necklace of coral, a collar of lace, a pair of gloves, kid, backed with astrachan, the last present her uncle ever gave her; a tiny brooch of gold, left by her aunt, and always worn by her, and but little else. One other thing she found, a book that in that planet compares nearly to our Bible. Sadly and lovingly she placed them all together, and kissed them many times, her eyes blinded with tears; and then a voice whispered:

“Why go back? Go to this doctor. Tell him everything, for he is kind. None would blame you for not returning to that prison mansion, even though under a promise. It was an unfair advantage.”

But Rosalie shook her head.

“I must go back, because I promised. I asked everything in return for nothing. And God, in His own good time, will make the dark path plain.”

The struggle gradually died, and Right conquered.

At last she was ready to go. Glancing round for the last time, she saw upon the mantelpiece a key, a solitary one upon an iron ring.

“It belonged to uncle’s safe, the one that had so little in it,” she thought. She took it up. Its dull appearance suggested so much dull tragedy to her. “I’ll take it with me,” she thought, and slipped it in the pocket of her dress.

Then she passed down the broad stone steps out once more into the street. Her brief holiday was over. The short hour was almost passed. She clenched her hands together, and drove back the blinding tears that struggled in her eyes. Gradually she drew nearer to the Avenue—how eagerly she had rushed there on the night before! The great black marble mansion came in view, its dusky grandeur having a certain sinister lowering to her understanding eye no different from a prison.

“I wonder when I’ll walk along this street again?” she thought, and ascended the marble steps, hiding all trace of past emotion.