Marigold A story
God within.
“I think when you are poor you see things differently. This great
building seems alive with majesty to-day. At other times I have felt
its beauty and a certain grandeur, but never as now after our simple
cottage.”
Just then, on passing through a ruined arch overgrown with ivy and red
sprays of creepers, they came upon an artist sitting making sketches.
He was a little man with white hair and intensely black eyes, and a
crooked thin-lipped mouth, very humorous. His hands were long and
claw-like and very white, full of an intellectual beauty. He was
sitting on an old tree-stump, that had big gnarled roots sprouting
away from it like coils of serpents. His whole appearance presented
some subtle jest--to Marigold at least. She could have laughed--was
laughing--when suddenly the cold blaze of those black eyes turned on
her as he looked up for the moment from his work. The spirit died out
of her laughter, though her lips still remained parted in a smile--a
frozen, mirthless kind of thing to the observant eye; and suddenly
she put her hand in Alice’s--Alice, so big and broad and unbeautiful,
brought up a Materialist, with vague ideas of Heaven for all that.
And Alice, slow to feel, yet very motherly with all her limitations,
pressed the soft white hand in hers, unconscious of the suddenly
chilled blood running in her mistress’s veins. Marigold hastened her
steps with the intention of passing him, but once having looked at
her, he continued doing so, and he took no pains to hide that her
evident embarrassment amused him.
“Good-morning, ladies,” said he, and there was a certain richness
in his voice that almost miraculously attracted one. “You have just
succeeded in spoiling a very pretty picture.”
What was there in his tone that set all Marigold’s blood rebelling? She
so free from vanity, yet till now so gaily beautiful--what childish,
wrong desire perhaps, to throw away the stiff hat and formless jacket
and clumsy clogs, and stamp her pretty feet and make the picture
still more beautiful? Was it some subtle poison in the words, or
something else? But now she reddened and suddenly pitied the poor who
have no tricks of graceful dress to help them in their actions. And
it was Alice, stolid and fairly insensible, who replied with sturdy
nonchalance:
“I was just thinking the same of you, sir.”
For one second the dark eyes rested on her, then back to Marigold, and,
for all his movements were so rapid, there was a deliberation in them
quite unaccountable, so that he seemed to have given Alice the coolest
of long stares, and it affected the easiness of her tongue somewhat--a
certain frozen feeling settled there.
With the same easy, graceful motion, almost like a serpent’s movement,
he bent forward, leaning his arms upon his knees, finger-tips lightly
touching, looking still up at Marigold.
“It’s strange that women, who were originally intended to be so
beautiful, have such a knack of spoiling things. Is it not?” he said.
“I do not understand you, sir,” and she walked on quicker past him,
her head suddenly drawn up as by some invisible bearing rein--her hat,
coat, and clogs taking on a dignity it had never been their province to
wear before.
When they got to the corner, Alice, in curiosity, peeped discreetly
round. There he sat in the distance, going on unconcernedly with his
work, taking no further notice of them.
“It is all right, ma’am. He’s forgotten all about us. Of all the
eyes----”
“Be quiet, Alice! Not a word! Take me home--take me home quickly.”
They were scarcely a hundred yards from where they lived, and Alice,
well accustomed to the city, soon led her there. The door closed
quietly upon them. Then the storm burst.
Marigold flung off her hat and jacket--the one in the fire, the other
in the coal-bucket; the clumsy clogs followed suit--anywhere so they
were off.
“I’ll never go out like that again! Never, never! I’ll be a beggar
or I’ll be a princess, but no respectable, thick-set, clumsy-looking
charwoman. I looked a fright, a perfect fright--and--and--and he was
laughing at us. He was laughing, Alice.”
“Let him laugh,” answered Alice sturdily, now that the eyes had gone
recovering somewhat her customary sturdiness.
“No,” retorted the Princess, clenching her white hands and knocking one
lot of ivory knuckles on the table, “he had no business to laugh--no
right to laugh. The get-up was absurd--a cat would have laughed at it.”
“That’s what I say. Let him laugh.”
“That I, in my position, should have come to this--to be laughed at by
a man!”
“Yes--Royalty escapes a lot that ordinary folk have to go through every
day. It wasn’t his laughing that I objected to--but his eyes. Did you
notice them, Princess?”
“Don’t call me Princess; haven’t I told you not to?”
“His eyes were the softest and most beautiful I ever saw.”
“Alice!”
“Yet for all that he made me feel cold. Perhaps it was damp under that
arch. There’s been a lot of rain lately; I expect it was damp. Your
hand was quite cold, Princess, when you took hold of mine.”
Then suddenly Marigold stood quite still, and the restless air of
violent temper suddenly left her. Her face was pale, and her eyes
looked bigger than usual as she turned to her companion.
“Alice, if I get knocked off the chess-board, that man does it.”
“What do you mean, Princess?”
“I instinctively disliked him when I saw him. You say the place was
damp--where he was it was deathly cold. And yet--and yet--Alice,
have you the sense to understand me?--had he been younger, less
wizened-looking, I think he might have gained the kiss I’ve promised to
the great High Priest.”
Alice, usually so dense, simply nodded.
“His eyes made you feel like that--did they not?”
“No--I disliked his eyes. They were deep and dark and treacherous--no,
no, not treacherous, but heartless and cold. It was his voice. It was
the nearest approach to one I have always heard in my dreams. It was
the kind of voice that could persuade you or compel you. If you closed
your eyes it would be a pleasure to give way.”
“He didn’t ask anything of _us_.”
“No; and whilst I have my eyes open he never will, the Serpent helping
me. But clean rags and soft shoes for me in the future. I think the
very--very devil got into those clogs--they were like millstones round
my feet--a perfect nightmare. Tooth of the Serpent! what exquisite
torture the poor must undergo!”
CHAPTER V
Now, the High Priest’s Palace was situated about half a mile from the
Temple, the grounds of the one meeting the other. The park surrounding
the Palace was a very noble one, and spread far out into the suburbs
at the back, whilst at the front it consisted chiefly of gardens and a
fine avenue.
It was customary every day at noon for the poor of the city to come
here for a meal, and by means of tickets to take away what was
specified for those unable to attend themselves.
So it was that some time after eleven, dressed in becoming poverty,
Marigold set out, taking no children certainly, nor yet an empty
stomach, but a mischievous untrained heart, looking for fun and
excitement.
The day was so beautiful, the breeze so fresh, that it brought more
than the usual colour to her cheeks, and more than the usual light to
her eyes; or perhaps the episode of the earlier morning still lingered
in her mind, for why should Marigold so often stop to frown, and then
move on again laughing.
“Frightened of a man! and such a little wizened-looking thing,” said
she. “I believe he wasn’t much bigger than myself. And his eyes were as
expressionless as those of an ox, and his voice like an old tin kettle.
It was seeing him so unexpectedly that frightened me, in that big
gloomy archway with the red creepers.”
She forgot that seeing him had made her laugh till the expressionless
ox eyes turned on her. As she turned in one of the sidegates of the
park, she met many poor and wretched-looking creatures going in the
same direction as herself, and, seeing some of the coarser faces and
the deep dirt that surrounded them, she began to wish she had never
come, yet persevered from reasons unintelligible even to herself.
“Wealth isn’t such a disagreeable thing after all,” thought she. “I
wonder, if I’d tried being agreeable to him from the Princess side of
me, if it would have been easier. But a Princess must be so highly
respectable, and a beggar needn’t be.”
At last, with many others in close proximity, she came at the large
side door leading to the public dining-hall, and was allowed to pass
in, for none were denied admittance.
Once in, she put a little butterfly handkerchief, that had mercifully
been scented, up to her nose, for, though the large rooms were well
ventilated, the very poor bring a somewhat different odour from the
rich, and the smell of food mixed with strong breath was less than
pleasant. Poor Marigold! had she been a simple romance-seeker she would
have fled there and then, for this was grim reality; yet she never
thought to turn back--not even when they set her down beside an old man
who appeared to be suffering from a severe cold.
As for the food--that was naturally beyond her. Everything was orderly,
yet here the art of politeness had certainly not been brought to a fine
point.
One man helped himself to potatoes with his fork, then passed the dish
to her, meat being already provided, so much on a plate. Thus the first
course passed, untouched by Marigold, who every moment began to feel
greater distaste and in an utterly false position.
The pudding was of plain boiled suet containing currants and raisins,
and was very good, had its surroundings been more appetising--indeed,
everything was good and suitable to the company eating it, but Marigold
was not of the company.
Now, it was customary for the High Priest to occasionally visit the
dining-rooms during meal-times, and it chanced that to-day he paid
one of his visits. He brought with him a guest--a friend who had
lately come to stay with him, and, as it was not usual for the people
to make any demonstration when the High Priest entered, Marigold was
unconscious of his presence till they were almost opposite where she
sat.
Then, looking across over the heads of those opposite, she saw both him
and her acquaintance of the early morning--and the three pairs of eyes
met instantaneously.
Now, on Lucifram there was not much diversity of tongues so far as
foreign lands were concerned, because they had never exactly had a
Tower of Babel, but there were two distinct languages spoken for all
that--one by the rich, one by the poor. The High Priest and his friend
were talking familiarly enough, but the wolfish eyes and empty stomachs
didn’t understand, didn’t care, so long as their appetites were
satisfied, which was really very sensible of them.
Now, for the second time that day was Marigold caught in a position
altogether distasteful to her. Had her companions been clean and
respectable, like the ideal charwoman she had set up for herself, she
might not have cared at all. But alas! the poor of our imagination, and
the poor of reality, are so totally unalike! Many of the riff-raff
were gathered here. Till now she had not understood the meaning of the
word. But at least she herself was clean and beautiful--as beautiful as
the atmosphere allowed, and no respectable ugliness hung about her hat.
Those round her had not noticed her appearance--if asked, they would
probably have preferred a little more dirt for actual beauty. Such is
the strength of custom.
“There is a little girl I met last night,” said the High Priest in a
lower voice to his companion, presuming that Marigold, being poor,
could not understand.
“Ah! and I met the same little girl this morning,” replied the