Читать книгу Poppy - Stockley Cynthia - Страница 4

"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea!"

"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf!"

"The woman with the crooked breast."

This was the title of old Sara's story made into a little song.

Poppy Destin dreamed of being a great writer some day; but she knew, with the sure instinct of the artist, that even if her dream came true she could never surpass these little studies in misery; these cries of wretchedness wrung from a child's heart by the cruel hands of Life.

Nothing had ever yet been able to wipe from her mind the remembrance of those days. For six years she had lived a life in which fresh events and interests were of daily occurrence; and like a blighted seedling transplanted to a warm, kind climate, she had blossomed and bloomed in mind and body. But the memory of those days that had known no gleam of hope or gladness hung like a dark veil over her youth, and still had power to drive her into torments of hatred and misery. Her soul was still a shrivelled leaf, and her heart as cold as a stone in the sea. She was very sure that this should not be so; she knew that she was incomplete. The instincts of her artist nature told her that somewhere in the world there must be someone or something that would wipe this curse of hatred from her; but she had never been able to find it, and she knew not where to seek it. Art failed her when she applied it to this wound of hers that bled inwardly. Despairingly she sometimes wondered whether it was religion she needed; but religion in the house of Luce Abinger was a door to which she found no key.

Often, abroad, she had stolen away and knelt in quiet churches, and burnt candles in simple wayside chapels, trying, praying, to throw off the heavy, weary armour that cased her in, to get light into her, to feel her heart opening, like a flower, and the dew of God falling upon it. She had searched the face of the Madonna in many lands for some symbol that would point the way to a far-off reflection in herself of

"The peace and grace of Mary's face."

She had knelt in dim cathedrals, racking her ears to catch some note in gorgeous organ strains or some word from the lips of a priest that would let loose a flood of light in her and transform her life. But always, when the ecstasy and exaltation had passed off, and the scent of incense no longer wrapped her round, she could feel again the cold of the stone and the rustle of the leaf in her breast. She could hear without annoyance the bitter fleers of Abinger at religion and priests and churches, and though they offended her taste, could listen serene-eyed. She understood very well what ailed Luce Abinger, for she was touched with the blight that lay thick upon him. His nature was warped, his vision darkened by hatred and evil memories. His soul was maimed and twisted in the same cruel fashion that his face had been scarred and seamed, and he terribly hated God. Poppy often thought of it as an ironical trick of fate, that she and Luce Abinger—just the two people in all South Africa, perhaps, who could do least for each other's peace and healing—should be thrown together to live under the same roof for many years. In some ways they had served each other well. He had made his house a refuge for her from persecution, and had been the means of educating and bringing her to fine womanhood. She, on the other hand, had come into his life at a time when he was on the verge of madness and when it meant everything to him to have some interest that would tear his thoughts from himself and his disgust of life.

The solitude of the quiet old farm, chosen for its isolated position, was lightened by the presence of the young girl. Abinger had been diverted to watch the change and development in the small, shipwrecked vagabond. Afterwards it had first amused, then interested him, to feed her eager appetite for learning. For three years he had taught her himself, in strange desultory fashion it is true, but it happened to be the fashion best suited to her needs and temperament. He imported from England huge weekly packages of books of both modern and classical literature, together with every variety of journal and magazine. He allowed Poppy the free run of all; only, always she must recount to him afterwards what she had read. A sort of discussion ensued, so dominated by his mordant cynicism and biting wit that she certainly ran no danger of developing any mawkish views of life. This for two or three hours daily. The rest of time was hers to read in or wander for hours in the lovely silent country, knowing a peace and tranquillity she had never dreamed of in her early wretched years. The part of the Transvaal they were in was but thinly populated—a few scattered Boer farms, and a native mission-house with a chapel and school instituted by a brotherhood of French priests of the Jesuit order. These were their only neighbours, and they not close ones.

Abinger had chosen his retreat well.

After three years it had occurred to him to leave the farm and go back to the world. He had tired of seclusion, and longed, even while he feared, to be amongst his fellows again. He was not yet prepared, however, to go back to the African haunts that had known him in the past, but made for the big open world beyond the seas; and Poppy went with him as his sister. Wherever they went he never allowed her to make any friends; only when they reached any city or place where he cared to stay for any length of time, he at once engaged masters and mistresses for her, to continue the education that he had by now tired of superintending, but which, for reasons of his own, he wished to perfect.