Читать книгу The Gladiators - George J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 16

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VALERIA trembled in every limb; yet should she have remained the calmer of the two, inasmuch as hers could scarcely have been the agitation of surprise. Such a step, indeed, as that on which she now ventured, had not been taken without much hesitation and many changes of mind.

No woman, we believe, ever becomes utterly unsexed; and the process by which even the boldest lose their instinctive modesty, is gradual in the extreme. The power, too, of self-persuasion, which is so finely developed in the whole human race, loses none of its efficacy in the reasonings of the less logical and more impulsive half. People do not usually plunge headlong into vice. The shades are almost imperceptible by which the love of admiration deepens into vanity, and vanity into imprudence, and imprudence, especially if thwarted by advice and encouraged by opportunity, into crime. Nevertheless, the stone that has once been set in motion, is pretty sure to reach the bottom of the hill at last; and " I might " grows to " I will," and " I will," ere long, becomes " I must." Valeria's first thought had only been to look again upon an exterior that pleased her eye; then she argued that having sent for her kinsman's slave, there could be no harm in speaking to him indeed, it would seem strange if she did not; and under any circumstances, of course there was no occasion that her colloquy should be overheard by all the maidens of her establishment, or even by Myrrhina, who, trusty as she might be, had a tongue of surpassing activity, and a love of gossip not to be controlled.

She ignored, naturally enough, that any unusual interest in the Briton should have caused her thus to summon him into her own private and peculiar retreat; thus to surround him with all that was dazzling to the eye, and alluring to the senses; thus to appear before him in the full glow of her personal beauty, set off by all the accessories of dress, jewels, lights, flowers, and perfumes, that she could command. If she sent for him, it was but natural that he should find her encircled by the usual advantages of her station. It was no fault of hers, that these were gorgeous, picturesque, and overpowering. He might as well blame the old Falernian for its seduction of the palate, and its confusion of the brain. Let him take care of himself! she would see him, speak to him, smile on him, perhaps, and be guided by circumstances. A wise resolution this last in all cases, and by no means difficult to keep when the circumstances are under our own control.

Valeria, womanlike, was the first to speak, though she scarcely knew what to say. With a very becoming air of hesitation she kept clasping and unclasping a bracelet, the fellow of the one on the couch. She was doubtless conscious that her round white arm looked rounder and whiter in the process.

"I have sent for you," she began. "because I am informed I can rely implicitly on your truth and secrecy. You are one, they tell me, who is incapable of betraying a trust. Is it not so?"

It is needless to say that Esca was already somewhat bewildered with the events of the evening, and in a mood not to be surprised at anything. Nevertheless, he could only bow his head in acknowledgment of this tribute to his honesty, and murmur a few indistinct syllables of assent. She seemed to gain confidence now the ice was broken, and went on more fluently.

"I have a secret to confide—a secret that none but yourself must know. Honour, reputation, the fame of a noble family, depend on its never being divulged. And yet I am going to impart this secret to you. Am I not rash, foolish, and impulsive, thus to place myself in the power of one whom I know so little? What must you think of me? What do you think of me?"

The latter question, propounded with a deepening colour and a glance that conveyed volumes, was somewhat difficult to answer. He might have said. "Think of you? Why, that you are the most alluring mermaiden who ever tempted a mariner to shipwreck on the rocks!" But what he did say was this—

"I have never feared man, nor deceived woman yet. I am not going to begin now."

She was a little disappointed at the coldness of his answer; yet her critical eye could not but approve the proud attitude he assumed, the stern look that came over his face, while he spoke. She edged a little nearer him and went on in a softened tone.

"A woman is always somewhat lonely and helpless, whatever may be her station, and oh! how liable we are to be deceived, and how we weep and wring our hands in vain when it is so! But I knew you from the first. I can read characters at a glance. Do you remember when I called you to my litter in the street while you were walking with Hirpinus, the gladiator?"

Again that warm crimson in the cheek—again that speaking flash from those dangerous eyes. Esca's head was beginning to turn, and his heart to beat with a strange sensation of excitement and surprise.

"I am not likely to forget it," said he, with a sort of proud humility. "It was such an honour as is seldom paid to one in my station."

She smiled on him more kindly than ever.

"I looked for you again," she murmured. "and saw you not. I wanted one in whom I could confide. I have no counsellor, no champion, no friend. I said what has become of him? who else will do my bidding, and keep my secret? Then Myrrhina told me that you would be here to-night."

She seemed to have something more to say that would not out. She looked at the Briton with expectant, almost imploring eyes; but Esca was young and frank and simple, so he waited for her to go on, and Valeria, discouraged and intimidated for the first time, proceeded in a colder and more becoming tone.

"The packet with which I intrust you must be delivered by yourself into the hands of Licinius. Not another creature must set eyes on it. No one must know that you have received it from me, nor, indeed, that you have been here to-night. If necessary you must guard it with your life! Can I depend upon you?"

He was beginning to feel that he could not depend upon himself much longer. The lights, the perfumes, the locality, the seductive beauty near him, so lovely and so kind, were making wild work with his senses and his reason. Nevertheless, the whole position seemed so strange, so impossible, that he could hardly believe he was awake. There was plenty of pride in his character, but no leavening of vanity; and, like many another gentle and inexperienced nature, he shrank from offending a woman's delicacy, with a repugnance that in some cases is exceedingly puzzling and provoking to the woman herself. So he put a strong constraint upon his feelings, and undertook the delivery of the missive with incredible simplicity and composure. The statue of Hermes at the door could not have looked colder and more impenetrable. She was a little at a loss. She must detain him at all hazards, for she felt that when once gone he would be gone for ever. She determined to lead him into conversation; and she chose the topic which, originating, perhaps, in the instinctive jealousy of a woman, was of all others the most subversive of her plans."

"I saw you once again," she said. "but it was in the hurry and confusion of that sudden broil. It was no fault of mine that the priests committed so gross an outrage on the poor thing you rescued. I would have helped you myself had you required assistance, but you carried her off as an eagle takes a kid. What became of the girl?"

The question was accompanied by a sharp inquisitive glance, and a forced smile of very perceptible annoyance wreathed her lip when she perceived Esca's embarrassed manner and reddening brow; but she had unwittingly called up the Briton's good genius, and for all women on earth, save one, he was a man of marble once more.

"I placed her in safety with her father," he replied; adding, with an assumption of deep humility, "Will you please to give me your commands and let me depart?"

Valeria was so totally unused to opposition in any of her whims or caprices that she could scarcely believe this obvious indifference was real. She persuaded herself that the Briton was so overpowered by her condescension, as to be only afraid of trespassing too far on such unexpected kindness, and she resolved that it should be no fault of hers if he were not quickly undeceived. She sank upon the couch in her most bewitching attitude, and, looking fondly up in his face, bade him fetch her tablets from the writing-stand. "For," said she. "I have not yet even prepared my communication to Licinius. Shall you be very weary of me, if I keep you my prisoner so long?"

Was it accident or design that entangled those rosy fingers with Esca's, as she took the tablets from his hand? Was it accident or design that shook the hair off her face, and loosed the rich brown clusters to fall across her glowing neck and bosom? It was surely strange that when she bent over the tablets her cheek turned pale, and her hand shook so that she could not form a letter on the yielding wax. She beckoned him nearer and bent her head towards him till the drooping curls trailed across his arm.

"I cannot write," said she, in trembling accents. "Something seems to oppress me—I am faint—I can scarcely breathe—Myrrhina shall give you the missive to-morrow. In the meantime, we are alone. Esca, you will not betray me. I can depend upon you. You are my slave, is it not so? This shall be your manacle!"

While she yet spoke, she took the bracelet from her arm and tried to clasp it round his wrist; but the glittering fetter was too narrow for the large-boned Briton, and she could not make it meet. Pressing it hard with both hands, she looked up in his face and laughed.

One responsive glance, the faintest shadow of yielding on those impassible features, and she would have told him all. But it came not. He shook the bracelet from his arm; and while he did so, she recovered herself, with the instantaneous self-command women seem to gather from an emergency.

"It was but to try your honesty!" she said, very haughtily, and rising to her feet. "A man who is not to be tempted, even by gold, can be safely trusted in such an affair as mine. You may go now," she added, with the slightest bend of her head. "To-morrow, if I require you, I shall take care that you hear from me through Myrrhina."

She looked after him as he disappeared under the silken hangings of the portal, her face quivered, her bosom heaved, and she clenched both hands till the round white arms grew hard as marble. Then she bit her lip once, savagely, and so seemed to regain her accustomed composure, and the usual dignity of her bearing. Nevertheless, when the despised bracelet caught her eye, lying neglected on the couch, she dashed it fiercely down, and stamped upon it, and crushed and ground the jewel beneath her heel against the floor.