Marigold A story
face--three on the one side, one the other. The High Priest hurried
forward with outstretched hands.
“Barringcourt! This is the greatest pleasure of my life, after your
long absence!”
Marigold, quick to see and note, detected the cold, contemptuous
under-stare and the top graciousness in the doctor’s manner.
“And one of the greatest pleasures in mine, Alphonso. We are met again!”
And again Marigold, hearing the tone so hollow, yet the words so sweet,
said to herself: “I’d rather be told to sweep the kitchen floor than be
spoken to like that”; and another wave passed through her, this time
of unaccountable anger, that he should speak to her lover so.
“Where have you been all these years? Surely not in Fairy Sky, without
a line of intelligence to any one?”
“Oh no; mostly I’ve been travelling.”
“Twenty-five years travelling on Lucifram! Good Lord! the ‘Flying
Dutchman’ isn’t in it.” This from St Armand, still sitting on the
roots, by now engaged in smoking, eyeing the new-comer quizzically.
Here Mr Barringcourt turned to him, laughing--a genuine laugh, so it
seemed to Marigold, though, as their eyes met, a blaze of light as of
swords crossing in a lightning storm leapt out from each.
“Small planet, isn’t it, to need so much globe-trotting?” said he.
“Alphonso here gives us to understand you went off on a honeymoon.
Perhaps, in defying the fashionable short rations, you’ve managed to
defy time too.”
The Master came up and stood close beside him, laughing down at
him--much more at home with him, so Marigold perceived, than ever he
had been with the Sacred Priest. Yet, was it friendship, or only the
familiarity of equality, that brought them thus so easily together?
“Has he spread that report? I suppose, if one runs away with a girl on
Lucifram, the only honourable course left open is to marry her”; and
here, not by accident, yet very naturally, his laughing eyes fell upon
Marigold, and a wave of shame--the first she had experienced in her
short and happy life--followed the other two. Why should he lay such
stress on “honourable,” and then on “marry”; or, if he must do, how
dare he laugh the while in that contemptuous way, as if--as if----? She
closed her mind with a snap, not knowing for the moment whom she hated
most--he, or the High Priest, or--or herself--and wished she were away
from this laughing group--away back with Alice.
“That’s the High Priest’s solution,” said St Armand, “for your
difficulty, at any rate.”
“A very honourable solution, anyway. Don’t you agree with me, Miss
Rags?” and again he turned to her, no more troubling to be serious than
before. But Marigold was in a strange, unaccountable mood that morning,
and the feeling of nervousness and anger now bubbling up in her had
taken every vestige of colour from her face.
“I--I think,” she said, her teeth half-closed, her voice trembling, “if
you loved your wife, you would talk less about it--her.”
“On the contrary,” replied he, suddenly serious, yet not seriously so,
“I’ve never mentioned a wife. It is a mistake shared by no one but you
and his holiness the High Priest; but women and clergymen invariably
err--if they _do_ err--on the side of morality, not common-sense.”
“And quack doctors,” said she, not knowing nor caring what she said,
“err on the side of brutality.”
Here St Armand laughed:
“Quack doctors? Who is the quack?”
“Oh! this gentleman,” she answered with the malicious fury of a child,
bent only on hurting if she could. “He--he comes to see a little sick
boy next door to--to us, and he gives him medicine that makes him
worse. I know it does. Last night he took some, and this morning he is
worse than ever. Quacks are all alike.” Thus Marigold--with the instant
reaction so that she could have hated St Armand too for his smooth
question, and she felt the utter punishment of meanness; her eyes were
fastened to the ground, she dare not raise them. Yet she kept saying to
herself:
“He hurt me, and he had no business to. Why should I not hurt him back?”
And the sun still shone--shadows and white patches. And next she heard
Mr Barringcourt’s voice speaking easily and unconcernedly to the High
Priest, and therein to her came the greater punishment.
“Let us take a walk through the Temple as in the olden times. I should
like to see Crockerby’s panels that he was busy on when last I stayed
here. He’s been dead near fifteen years, I hear, and he’ll have left a
big gap even in this crowded city. He was a man who lived.”
“Yes; and along with him went many of the old lot. You’ll find the
town altered since you went.” And so together they turned and went
away, leaving Marigold open-eyed at the ease with which her--yes, her
lover--had deserted her. And suddenly St Armand sprang to his feet with
an energy that startled her.
“_Damn_ him!” said he, with a force so unnatural that the great
tree seemed to creak and groan and sway with it.
“Oh, no, no!” said Marigold just as suddenly, her fingers flying
up to her tiny ears. “No, no! Damn _it_! Damn it! Don’t damn
_him_!” and she kicked a stone flap against the archway.
St Armand opened his mouth to answer, then closed it to hide a smile,
and looked at the little beggar girl narrowly.
“Marigold,” he said at length, very kindly, “do you know what they’re
doing in there?”
“N--no.”
“Talking about you--laughing, most probably. Barringcourt’s fond of
laughing--keeps him young.”
“I have done nothing to make them laugh,” she said, the sensitive
colour rising to her face.
“No, you have done nothing, but Barringcourt is jealous--one of his
many little weaknesses. The High Priest at one time was his slave, now
he bids fair to become yours. That will not please him.”
“_Is_ he jealous?” said she, dubious now, though so certain the
night before.
St Armand frowned.
“I tell you he is jealous. He is also jealous of you and the sick
baby--sick child.”
“How--how do you know about that?” she asked in weak surprise.
“I know a great deal,” he answered whimsically; “people’s faces are
like books to me.” Then again softly:
“Marigold.”
“Yes.”
“It was intolerable the way he spoke to you--under--under the
circumstances.”
The colour ran in her cheeks again, and her voice trembled.
“Yes, I know it was.” Then suddenly, her head thrown up: “But I--I
deserved it.”
“For why?”
“Oh, because--because I ought not to have done as I have done. The High
Priest should be a stranger to me.”
“The High Priest is your slave. Think of it! And a clever, influential
man is the most interesting toy a clever woman ever possesses. Nothing
else in life ever comes up to it.”
“Oh, please don’t! I will not listen to you.”
“And I am your friend, Marigold. The quack doctor is clever, but he has
his--his limitations. Dislike of you, for instance--cordial dislike,
for no earthly reason.” And suddenly Marigold took to her heels and
ran, and left St Armand standing there.
CHAPTER XIV
Alice was just steaming the potatoes as Marigold entered, and she did
not turn her head till they were done to a nicety; but Marigold had
run upstairs to remove her hat, and when everything was ready, Alice
went to the foot of the stairs and called her. But when she came down,
it was not with her usual gaiety and lightness, and Alice’s watchful
eye detected traces of tears about her eyes--yet she passed no remarks
except those in general, till she became aware her mistress’s plate had
never yet been touched.
“Are you not well, Princess?” she asked with anxiety.
“Ye-es. No. Yes. Alice, I don’t like being a poor woman. You haven’t
half as nice a time as when you’re rich.”
“Then let us go back, Princess. Indeed I am tired of it too. The
kitchen is like an oven after dinner has been baked in it.”
But Marigold shook her head stubbornly.
“No; I’m going to stay--till--till the end.”
“The end of what?”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask questions, Alice. What time did Dr Quack go?”
“Just about half-an-hour since. He came in here to ask for some
filtered water.”
“Did you give him it?”
“Yes; and he asked would one of us go and sit with Timothy this
afternoon. He says he’s getting too bad to be left long.”
“Why didn’t he stay himself?” asked Marigold in a hard voice.
“I don’t know. Oh! he said he was busy. A great deal of sickness about,
and he was needed.”
“I don’t believe him.”
“I do. I went in after him with the water, and I never saw any one so
gentle or clever with a child. He had a bad spell of coughing on, and
it was frightful, he was in such pain.”
“Poor little Patches! I’ll go in and sit with him this afternoon,
unless you’d rather go, Alice. Perhaps both of us might. But, oh dear!
I _do_ feel tired, somehow or other.”
“Did you meet any one outside?”
“Ye-es. I met the High Priest and his friend, the one we saw under the
archway--and--and this doctor--Dr Quack.”
“Did any of them speak to you?”
“All three; and I like the doctor the least. He is very stiff and
proper, and believes in every one being kept in their right place.”
“Did he snub you again?”
“Don’t, Alice; he takes everybody from me--and now I believe he’s even
taking you,” and she pushed her chair back and went and stood over by
the fireplace. But Alice loved her so well, she could not bear to see
her in this quiet, distressed mood, so she got up and went and stood
beside her.
“No one will ever take me away from you,” she answered sturdily. “My
business in life is to look after you, for you don’t seem able to look
after yourself, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability.”
“But I am going to turn over a new leaf. I am going to do nothing but
nurse little Patches.”
“Serpent be praised!” said Alice. “I knew that whim of yours about the
great High Priest would never last.”
Marigold gave a movement of pain, though she laughed immediately after.
“Yes, it was very silly of me. I believe now I’ve taken a fancy to his
friend.”
“The one with the black eyes?”
“Yes. Alice, he has the most beautiful voice I ever heard.”
“So has Dr Quack. On my word I never remember noticing the difference
between one voice and another till I heard his.”
“_Mine_, Alice?”
“I mean Men’s voices. Was the High Priest’s friend very gracious to you
then?”
“He made me feel that to sin in my position, and with my beauty, was in
reality no sin at all.”
“The wicked man!”
“He doesn’t like Dr Quack for some reason or other--that is why he said
it.”
“And did you listen to him?”
“No. I ran away. If I had stayed any longer I would have done as he
advised me.”
“How?”
“Oh! I--I would have hated and suspected the doctor even more strongly
than I do. He told me he was jealous of me. Just what I said myself
last night. And it is not good, Alice, to hate any one. If he is rude
to me--and he has been--I have at least dignity enough left in me
to forgive him. I may appear frivolous and vain and foolish on the
surface, Alice; but oh! great Serpent! I am not underneath. It is
because I feel so much that I laugh and act continually to hide it.”
“No one but a simpleton would ever take you for anything but an angel.”
“Don’t, Alice!” she answered in real distress. “Any one hearing you
would think you wanted your salary raised.”
“I think I’ll finish the dress, Princess, this afternoon. I’ll soon run
it up with the machine now. You take your lute and play for Patches.
He’s fairly gone upon your singing.”
“Yes. I’ll go and sing for him then, for I don’t understand the
machining.”
And with that she went upstairs to her own room.
But it was some time before Marigold came down again--for every
struggling passion, good and evil, seemed let loose in her.
A hundred times, with a burning feeling of eclipse and failure, she