Читать книгу The Man on the White Horse - Warwick Deeping - Страница 16

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It was so. Guinevra's window looked towards the east, and her room was an upper room, in a little wing apart. It had a staircase of its own and two doors, a floor of polished oak, walls coloured yellow and painted with swags and garlands of vine leaves. Below her upper windows lay Cornelia's privy garden, grass, paths of pebbles, clipped box trees and yews, four parterres spread like mosaic round a fountain, all shut in by a high flint wall.

Guinevra looked out of her window at the sun and across the roofs of Calleva. She could see the pediments of temples, the roof of the basilica, the little golden Genius on his pillar. She let her hair lie over her shoulders, and the sunlight creep into her bosom.

Another day, and what should she do with it? Say her prayers, go to the bath, sit sewing or reading to Cornelia, walk in the garden? What did she dream of and desire? She sat down at her dressing-table, took her mirror in her hand, and gazed. Was she comely? Vanity of vanities! But in the spring of the year a blood-red flower had sprung up in a night, and her todays were not yesterdays.—What was he doing now? Would she see him again? What was his wife like?

She shook her hair as though shaking off certain thoughts. He was a great lord, and she—Yes, and certain thoughts were sinful. But could she help that? Yet—dignity! And with an air of young severity she began to dress her hair, plaiting it and rolling it about her head. Cornelia had offered her a woman, but somehow she did not want to be touched and watched by a slave. Strange moods. Why did she blow hot and cold and go red within whenever Cornelia spoke of Geraint? Foolishness. Cornelia was a tease. She spoke much and often of Geraint, and Guinevra, trying to appear casual, listened with both her ears.

Yes, Cornelia was mischievous.

"Don't you want to go to church, my dear? They will not throw stones at you for going to church."

Cornelia burned incense and poured a libation daily to tradition in her own lararium. It was rather difficult to salute Divus Imperator when the Emperor was a Christian, but, like Geraint, Cornelia thought for herself. She read the philosophers; she belonged to a world that was old and shrugged shrewd shoulders and washed itself well and smiled gently at the shadowy shapes of dead gods. To Cornelia Christ was but another god, and already his servants were making him one of many. Saints, virgins, martyrs, Saint This, Saint That. The Christians had purloined temples and some of the pomps and ceremonies of paganism. God grew out of god. Christ might last a hundred years, or a thousand—and vanish like Mithras. Faith! What was faith but wishing what you wished?

Cornelia was shrewd. She saw the girl's quick colour, her slanting and mysterious glances, the way she looked down under her lashes at her knees. Guinevra was growing deep. But what a pity! For Cornelia would have said to her: "Love, burn, exult, my child, for there is nothing like love in the world," but in the middle of the magic mirror stood Placida; fussy, complacent, goat-eyed, short-legged Placida with her egg-like face and eggy voice. Drat Placida! Certainly, ten years ago she had been quite a likable girl, if a little smug, but now she was just Placida, a good woman who went sniffing through the world telling people what they should do—according to Placida—and seeing that they did it. Placida ought to join the choir of Balthasar's consecrated virgins, Caritas, Pia, and Fidelis, three mewing cats who went about looking as though they had missed the cream.

But Cornelia was empress in her own house. Every morning after breaking fast the household assembled in the corridor outside the lararium for the daily ritual. Guinevra was spared that. Then Cornelia went the round of the house and gardens; she inspected the kitchen, the servants' quarters, the still-room, the store. Discipline, my dear, cleanliness and order; such virtues can be sustained without crying for the stars. Cornelia was as severe with herself as with any of her servants. She walked for an hour, morning and evening, in her garden. She even disciplined her chin.

Long ago it had threatened to double itself, but that was not its principal sin. It was proposing to grow a beard, straggling grey hairs. Such insolence was not to be tolerated. Cornelia had a prejudice against being fussed and pawed by her women. She sat on her couch with a mirror and a pair of tweezers.

She poked fun at herself and at the operation.

"Age has to suffer many things, but I will not humour a beard."

Watching her benefactress peering in a mirror and groping for hairs, Guinevra was moved to secret laughter—and an impulse of affection.

"Let me—serve."

"You, my dear? Beauty plucking the Beast!"

"You have done many things for me."

"Tut-tut. But you have soft hands. That's a fad of mine. I can't stomach common hands."

So Guinevra sat on a stool and with the bronze tweezers extracted hairs. She was a little too hesitant about it to begin with, for each tweak hurt. Cornelia, with her chin set and her blue eyes closed, admonished her.

"Don't be afraid, my dear. It is kinder to be stern."

But the morning was to provide other ministrations. The bell rang in the janitor's lodge, and they heard the sound of the great gate opening.

"Visitors. Look out of the window, my dear."

Guinevra, tweezers in hand, ran to the window. Someone from the White Tower, perhaps? She looked, and her little dream was dashed.

"The Bishop."

"Balthasar?"

"Yes, and alone."

Cornelia looked grim. Also she looked in her mirror and swung her feet off the couch.

"This should be a solemn occasion, my dear. This is an honour that I have not sought."

Balthasar was received in the atrium, and with all the politeness due to a dignitary, for Cornelia held that a man of much self-importance cannot be accorded too much importance. Let silk meet silk. She smiled upon him.

"You honour me—unexpectedly, my lord."

Balthasar bowed to her. In those earlier days the Christian cleric had not evolved a multitude of vestments. Balthasar wore a white tunic, a violet pænula, and sandals. He was a handsome man and he knew it and believed that the outside of the pot is not to be despised. You might talk homespun to the poor, but in society you were with your equals, and you put on silk.

"May this house be blessed."

He looked at Cornelia, and he looked at Guinevra, but obliquely, as though it was not seemly that he should look at the girl too closely. In fact he turned his face a little from the fire. It was wise to assume coldness.

"Peace to you, my daughter."

Cornelia was jocund, bland. She did not miss much on a face or in a pair of eyes, and Balthasar was like a man looking out of a window and pretending not to see that which was well worth seeing. But how much did he wish to see, and what was his Eminence's business? She gave Guinevra a glance, and Guinevra, eyes lowered, made her obeisance and left them together.

Cornelia looked straight at Balthasar.

"Is it peace—or the sword, my lord?"

Her abruptness was not unexpected, and Balthasar gave her look for look.

"I am a man of peace."

"May I clap my hands for wine?"

He chose to be austere.

"I do not touch it—save as a priest."

He turned at his leisure and looked at the curtains of the atrium, and Cornelia understood him. Balthasar came as an ambassador, if as a self-appointed one, and vulgar ears should not listen behind curtains to the voices of authority. She led the way along the corridor to her parlour and closed both door and window.

"Be seated, Balthasar."

She pointed to a cushioned stool and arranged herself on her couch, covering her ankles carefully. That was a symbolic gesture. And what had Balthasar to uncover?

"Now, my Lord Bishop."

Balthasar sat erect, as though occupying the præses chair in the centre of a church's apse. Circumlocutions did not count with Cornelia. She was like an old centurion in a brazen helmet. She looked him straight in the face.

The priest's mouth was sharp, like a line cut in stone.

"These are difficult days, matrona."

Difficult! How obvious! And who was making them difficult in Calleva but this turbulent priest and his people? The houses of the more wealthy citizens were shut up, and their owners had passed to their country villas or to towns that were less turbulent. Taxation might be an abomination and very ruthless, but it was a less disturbing neighbour than a fanatical mob.

"Difficult indeed, Bishop."

Balthasar had the air of committing a body to the grave.

"The Empire is dying."

"You speak as a prophet?"

He spread his hands, palms upward.

"A new world, matrona, new ways. I have seen the darkness spreading, but we, who serve Christ, carry a lantern. My light is not your light, matrona, and yet—are we not both Romans?"

"You speak as a Roman?"

"May I speak as one on the edge of a dark sea? I offer you the truth—as I see it."

"Say what you will. I do not tattle."

His face had a narrow sheen, a stark edge.

"Men deified. No, I will not blaspheme against your faith. Yes, and you will answer me: 'Today the Emperor is a Christian.' But, matrona, behind the Emperor is Christ. The heathen swarm. Can man prevail? I doubt it. But God can prevail. I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit."

She looked at the man, and the handsome adventurer was lost in the seer. Yes, there was more in Balthasar than she had allowed. The priest's face could shine like a sword.

"Your god is—Emperor, Bishop?"

He looked at her searchingly.

"When storms come, men seek a light and a rock. I do not blaspheme. Emperors and kings become dust. But if we found our kingdom, our temporal state, upon God, it shall endure. At night I sit and think and hear the wind moaning. Souls have to be saved, and not souls alone. I am a compassionate man, matrona. Do I wish to see this island given to blood and death? You may think of the world as a slave world; I think of it as a world of children—in Christ."

She thrust out her lip.

"Your children can be very unruly children, Bishop."

He spread his hands.

"What would you? Confusion everywhere, old things breaking up—those who were rulers ceasing to rule. Your mob, matrona, is a crowd of children, ignorant children, rough children. If I seek to school them, is that easy? Patience, subtlety, faith. Are not children envious and quarrelsome? Should not we who are wiser work for other ends?"

She began to understand him.

"You offer me a seat on the curia?"

He smiled. He became suave.

"You are one of the few of the old world, matrona, whose hands are strong enough to help in shaping the new. In these days of confusion those who build build for God. I am a bigot, but I am a bigot with ideas. Possibly I ask less of you than you would ask of me."

She sat thinking, that lip of hers thrust out.

"Just what is it that you need, Bishop—my soul—or my money?"

His face darkened.

"Matrona—!"

She looked at him slantwise.

"Let us not be too—delicate, Balthasar. I know something of mobs. They must be fed, kept in a good temper. You will think me a scurrilous old woman, but is not a crowd's god its belly?"

His face grew still more dark. He made a sign with his right hand.

"Behind me—Satan."

Cornelia gave him her grim smile.

"I think I am too old, Bishop, to change my clothes and to put on new fashions. Rome was made great by the centurion's vine-stick. Will your staff—serve?"

He rose. He looked at her meaningly.

"Think well of these things, matrona. I have said what I have said. I have come to you as a man of peace."

She gave him a blue stare.

"Am I to buy peace, Balthasar?"

He walked to the door, faced about, saluted her.

"Matrona, those who are not with us are against us."