The Adventures of Miss Gregory. Gibbon Perceval

Чтение книги онлайн.

      III. A SEASON OF MIRACLES

       Table of Contents

      THEY buried Doña Fortuna in the late afternoon, while the sun still quelled the streets of Tete and held them silent. Her grave was on the bank of the river, at a spot whence one might look forth from the shadow of palms and follow with one's eyes the great stream of the Zambesi, sliding smoothly into the haze of distance. Her half-caste women sobbed and whined at that last significant parting, but restrainedly; the presence of the tall priest and the cool, calm Englishwoman who had gone downstream to bring him subdued them. It was in a hush as of reverence that the priest, shaking with his ague, raised his voice in that final office; the forgotten city was voiceless behind his shoulder; the palms overhead drooped motionless in the heat. His voice quavered and broke as his malady shook him; it had the effect of tears and grief. The awed women caught their breath and stared; only the Englishwoman, trim, grey-haired, austere, kept her manner of invincible composure. And in that tenseness of silence and wonder the business was done. The priest dropped his hand, stood a moment gazing down, and turned away. The Englishwoman looked at him sharply, and went with him. The palms overhead rustled with the first touch of the evening breeze from the east, and the women made way for the two Kaffirs with shovels. Anna, the eldest and stoutest of them all, stopped her ears as the first shovelful of earth fell.

      "The noise of it, like a dull drum, stops my heart," she explained, that evening. "I feel as though I were in the grave, with the boards over me and about me, and the lumps of earth falling."

      Timotheo, the priest's "boy," nodded thoughtfully. The pair of them were sitting in the courtyard of Doña Fortuna's house, cross-legged on the flagstones, with their backs against the wall. The soft gloom set them in a confidential solitude; the sky over them was spangled with a wonder of great white stars. The light from an open doorway made a path across the courtyard and touched Anna's plump bare shoulders softly. She was all full curves and comfortable ripeness; Timotheo saw her with grave approval.

      "I do not like it myself," he said. "Naturally I hear it oftener than you, since it is, in a manner, my business. But I do not like it."

      He drew at his cigarette, and the glow of it lighted up his lean, sober face and pale, restless eyes.

      "But, at any rate," he added, "it is always the last of a sorrowful business. It finishes the affair. To-night, for example, we may rest."

      Anna agreed. "There are some of us that need it," she said, yawning. "Our Doña Fortuna—peace be with her!—was all that is great—a woman of notable splendour and many sorrows—but she was not reposeful. Seven maids she had, counting me, and Kaffirs enough to turn you sick. But do you think there was sleep of an afternoon or quiet in the evening?"

      "What was there, then?" inquired Timotheo.

      "What was there?" Anna sank her voice. "There was a woman with a sickness of the soul, who could not rest. God give her healing! No sooner were your eyes closed in the afternoon than the calling of your name woke you. 'My head is hot; fan me,' and there was your sleep gone. And always there were old letters to be brought and untied, and bound up again and put back. And many things of the same kind; but no repose."

      Timotheo lighted a fresh cigarette from the stump of the last, and let himself slip lower against the wall, so that his bare brown feet fay in the path of light from the door, while the rest of him reclined in shadow. He was full-fed and inclined for conversation.

      "This Englishwoman, now," he said, "this Mees Gregory that came down the river to summon the Padre and me—she is known to you?"

      "I have spoken to her," replied Anna; "but I do not know her. She is English. She comes hither from the south, walking, with Kaffirs to carry her belongings. The English always come in this manner. Doña Fortuna was already ill then."

      "But the Englishwoman?" persisted Timotheo. "Who sent her down the river? What was her concern with you and Doña Fortuna? These English—they are not so useful as all that."

      "Give me a cigarette, then," said Anna, "and I will tell you."

      Timotheo grunted, but produced a cigarette from the bosom of his shirt and handed it over. Anna bowed over him to light it from his.

      "Well," she said, drawing at it strongly, "this, you must know, is not an Englishwoman at all like the rest of the English. The rest of them—what are they? Mostly lean and a little young, with loud voices and given to facetiousness. But this one—you have seen her—is of a decent figure. At a guess, she weighs as much as I do. And though she is chill and remote in her manner, and very stiff and formal as to her clothes, she is yet human. One feels that there is blood in her; for all her grey hair and the hardness of her countenance, she knows the heat of passion. One feels that she knows it. Here she comes afoot across the world, smiling that little smile of hers at our town and the people in it, and within two days she is in Doña Fortuna's chamber, easing her in her pain and whispering to her things which give her peace.

      "How she got in? That was simple. The German that gives people medicine, he sent to her to ask her for quinine. She gave it at once, for nothing, only asking some questions about who was ill and the like. Teresa, who went for the quinine, told me. And that evening, soon after dark, she was knocking at the door.

      " 'I came to see if I could do anything,' she said, when I opened to her, smiling at me in her strange manner. I was abashed—I confess it; I am not used to these ways. I knew not how to answer, for the moment, and that moment was enough for her. She passed in at the door as though I had bidden her enter; she has an air of lordship which it is not easy to deal with. Opposite to her was the door of Doña Fortuna's chamber, with light shining under it. 'That is the room?' she asked, pointing. And what could I do but nod?"

      "Ah!" said Timotheo profoundly.

      "But I assure you," went on Anna rapidly, gesticulating with the hand that held the cigarette so that its head of fire swooped to and fro in the darkness, "there is a compulsion in her. Our Doña Fortuna—rest her soul!—knew how to make herself obeyed, but not with that same quietness and speed. Do you think I am a woman to let any stranger walk into my mistress' chamber? And yet I meekly closed the outer door and followed her without a question. You smile, Timotheo, but if you СКАЧАТЬ