The Tale of Triona. William John Locke

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СКАЧАТЬ general impression for curtains and upholstery of faded rose brocade. On a table by the bed-head stood a little row of books in an inlaid stand. With the instinct of a bookish man, Olifant bent over to look at their backs, but first turned to Olivia.

      “May I?”

      “Of course.” Then she added, with a vague longing to impress on a stranger the wonder and beauty of the spirit that had created these surroundings: “My mother knew them all by heart, I think. Naturally she used to read other things and I used to read aloud to her—she was interested in everything till the day of her death—but these books were part of her life.”

      There were: Marcus Aurelius, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Imitation of Christ, Christina Rossetti, the almost forgotten early seventeenth century Arthur Warwick (“Spare Minutes; or, Resolved Meditation and Premeditated Resolutions”), Crabbe … a dozen volumes or so. Olifant picked out one.

      “And this, too? The Pensées de Pascal?”

      “She loved it best,” said Olivia.

      “It is strange,” said he. “My father spent most of his life on a monumental work on Pascal. He was a Professor of Divinity at a Scotch University, but died long before the monument could be completed. I’ve got his manuscripts. They’re in an awful mess, and it would take another lifetime to get them into order. Anyhow, he took good care that I should remember Pascal as long as I lived.”

      “How?”

      “He had me christened Blaise.”

      “Blaise Olifant,” she repeated critically. She laughed. “He might have done worse.”

      He turned over the pages. “There’s one thing here that my father was always drumming into me. Yes, here it is. It’s marked in blue pencil.”

      “Then it must have been drummed into me, too,” said Olivia.

      “ ‘On ne consulte que l’oreille, parce qu’on manque de cœur. La règle est l’honnêteté.´”

      “Yes,” she said, with a sigh.

      He replaced the book. They went in silence out to the landing. After a few seconds of embarrassment they turned and descended to the hall.

      “I can more than understand, Miss Gale, why you feel you can’t let the house. But I’m sorry.”

      She weakened, foreseeing the house empty and desolate, given over to dust and mice and ghosts.

      “It was the idea of a pack of people, the British Family in all its self-centredness and selfishness, coming in here that I couldn’t stand,” she confessed.

      “Then is there a chance for me?” he asked, his face brightening. “Look. I’m open to a bargain. The house is just what I want. I’m not a recluse. I’m quite human. I should like to have a place where I can put up a man or so for a week-end, and I’ve a married sister, none too happy, who now and then might like to find a refuge with me. There’s also a friend, rather a distinguished fellow, who wants to join me for a few months’ quiet and hard work. So, suppose I give you my promise to hold that room sacred, to keep it just as it is and allow no one to go into it except a servant to dust and so forth—what would you say? Not now. Think it over and write to me at your convenience.”

      His sympathy and comprehension had won her over. He was big and kind and brotherly. Somehow she felt that her mother would have liked him, accepting him without question as one of her own caste, and would have smiled on him as High Priest in charge of the Household Gods. She reflected for a while, then, meeting his eyes:

      “You can have the house, Major Olifant,” she said seriously.

      He bowed. “I’m sure you will not regret it,” said he. “I ought to remind you, however,” he added after a pause, “that I may have a stable companion for a few months. The distinguished fellow I mentioned. I wonder whether you’ve heard of Alexis Triona.”

      “The man who wrote Through Blood and Snow?”

      “Have you read it?”

      “Of course I have,” cried Olivia. “What do you think I do here all day? Twiddle my thumbs or tell my fortune by cards?”

      “I hope you think it’s a great book,” he said, with a smile.

      “An amazing book. And you’re going to bring him to live here? What’s he like?”

      “It would take days to tell you.”

      “Well, compress it into a sort of emergency ration,” said Olivia.

      So he sat by her side on the oak settle, near the anthracite stove in the hall, and told her what he knew of Alexis Triona.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      WHAT Blaise Olifant told Olivia about his prospective co-inhabitant of The Towers, and what Rowington, the publisher, and one or two others knew about him, amounted to the following:

      One morning a motor-car, having the second-hand air of a hiring garage and unoccupied save for the chauffeur, drew up before the door of a great London publishing house. The chauffeur stepped from his seat, collected a brown-paper package from the interior, and entered.

      “Can I see a member of the firm?”

      The clerk in the enquiry office looked surprised. Chauffeurs offering manuscripts on behalf of their employers were plentiful as blackberries in September; but chauffeurs demanding an interview with the august heads of the house were rare as blackberries in March.

      “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” he replied civilly. “If you leave it here, it will be all right. I’ll give you a receipt which you can take back.”

      “I want to explain,” said the chauffeur.

      Scores of people weekly expressed the same desire. It was the business of the clerk to suppress explanations.

      “It’s a manuscript to be submitted? Well, you must tell the author——”

      “I am the author,” said the chauffeur.

      “Oh!” said the clerk, and his subconscious hand pushed the manuscript a millimetre forward on the polished mahogany counter.

      “The circumstances, you see, are exceptional.”

      There being something exceptional in the voice and manner of the chauffeur, the clerk regarded him for the first time as a human being.

      “I quite see,” said he; “but the rules of the firm are strict. If you will leave the manuscript, it will be read. Oh, I give you my word of honour,” he smiled. “Everything that comes in is read. We have a staff who do nothing else. Is your name and address on it?” He began to untie the string.

      “The name, but not the address.”

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