Part 21 (2/2)

”I expected you to say no less. Now look you, sir--in a few minutes I leave you, I walk home and spend an hour or two before bedtime in adding figures, balancing accounts; to-morrow I rise and go about my daily business cheerfully, methodically, always successfully. I am the long-headed man, making money because I know how to make it, respected by all, with no trace of madness in me. You, if you meet me to-morrow, shall recognise none. Just now you are forced to believe me mad.

Believe it then; but listen while I tell you this:--When Rome was, I was; when Constantinople was, I was. I was that Jew rescued from the lions. It was I who sailed from the Bosphorus in that s.h.i.+p, with Julia beside me; I from whom the Moorish pirates tore her, on the beach beside Tetuan; I who, centuries after, drew those obscene figures on the wall of your church--the devil, the nun, and the barred convent--when Julia, another Julia but the same soul, was denied to me and forced into a nunnery. For the frescoes, too, tell _my_ history. _I_ was that figure in the dark habit, standing a little back from the cross. Tell me, sir, did you never hear of Joseph Kartophilus, Pilate's porter?”

I saw that I must humour him. ”I have heard his legend,” said I;[1]

”and have understood that in time he became a Christian.”

He smiled wearily. ”He has travelled through many creeds; but he has never travelled beyond Love. And if that love can be purified of all pa.s.sion such as you suspect, he has not travelled beyond forgiveness.

Many times I have known her who shall save me in the end; and now in the end I have found her and shall be able, at length, to die; have found her, and with her all my dead loves, in the body of a girl whom you call half-witted--and shall be able, at length, to die.”

And with this he bent over the table, and, resting his face on his arms, sobbed aloud. I let him sob there for a while, and then touched his shoulder gently.

He raised his head. ”Ah,” said he, in a voice which answered the gentleness of my touch, ”you remind me!” And with that he deliberately slipped his coat off his left arm and, rolling up the s.h.i.+rt sleeve, bared the arm almost to the shoulder. ”I want you close,” he added with half a smile; for I have to confess that during the process I had backed a couple of paces towards the door. He took up a candle, and held it while I bent and examined the thin red line which ran like a circlet around the flesh of the upper arm just below the apex of the deltoid muscle. When I looked up I met his eyes challenging mine across the flame.

”Mr. Laquedem,” I said, ”my conviction is that you are possessed and are being misled by a grievous hallucination. At the same time I am not fool enough to deny that the union of flesh and spirit, so pa.s.sing mysterious in everyday life (when we pause to think of it), may easily hold mysteries deeper yet. The Church Catholic, whose servant I am, has never to my knowledge denied this; yet has providentially made a rule of St. Paul's advice to the Colossians against intruding into those things which she hath not seen. In the matter of this extraordinary belief of yours I can give you no such comfort as one honest man should offer to another: for I do not share it. But in the more practical matter of your conduct towards July Constantine, it may help you to know that I have accepted your word and propose henceforward to trust you as a gentleman.”

”I thank you, sir,” he said, as he slipped on his coat. ”May I have your hand on that?”

”With pleasure,” I answered, and, having shaken hands, conducted him to the door.

From that day the affection between Joseph Laquedem and July Constantine, and their frequent companions.h.i.+p, were open and avowed.

Scandal there was, to be sure; but as it blazed up like straw, so it died down. Even the women feared to sharpen their tongues openly on Laquedem, who by this time held the purse of the district, and to offend whom might mean an empty skivet on Sat.u.r.day night. July, to be sure, was more tempting game; and one day her lover found her in the centre of a knot of women fringed by a dozen children with open mouths and ears. He stepped forward. ”Ladies,” said he, ”the difficulty which vexes you cannot, I feel sure, be altogether good for your small sons and daughters. Let me put an end to it.” He bent forward and reverently took July's hand. ”My dear, it appears that the depth of my respect for you will not be credited by these ladies unless I offer you marriage. And as I am proud of it, so forgive me if I put it beyond their doubt. Will you marry me?” July, blus.h.i.+ng scarlet, covered her face with her hands, but shook her head. There was no mistaking the gesture: all the women saw it. ”Condole with me, ladies!” said Laquedem, lifting his hat and including them in an ironical bow; and placing July's arm in his, escorted her away.

I need not follow the history of their intimacy, of which I saw, indeed, no more than my neighbours. On two points all accounts of it agree: the rapid ageing of the man during this period and the improvement in the poor girl's intellect. Some profess to have remarked an equally vehement heightening of her beauty; but, as my recollection serves me, she had always been a handsome maid; and I set down the transfiguration--if such it was--entirely to the dawn and growth of her reason. To this I can add a curious sc.r.a.p of evidence. I was walking along the cliff track, one afternoon, between Porthlooe and Lanihale church-town, when, a few yards ahead, I heard a man's voice declaiming in monotone some sentences which I could not catch; and rounding the corner, came upon Laquedem and July. She was seated on a rock; and he, on a patch of turf at her feet, held open a small volume which he laid face downwards as he rose to greet me. I glanced at the back of the book and saw it was a volume of Euripides. I made no comment, however, on this small discovery; and whether he had indeed taught the girl some Greek, or whether she merely listened for the sake of hearing his voice, I am unable to say.

Let me come then to the last scene, of which I was one among many spectators.

On the morning of August 15th, 1810, and just about daybreak, I was awakened by the sound of horses' hoofs coming down the road beyond the vicarage gate. My ear told me at once that they were many riders and moving at a trot; and a minute later the jingle of metal gave me an inkling of the truth. I hurried to the window and pulled up the blind.

Day was breaking on a grey drizzle of fog which drove up from seaward, and through this drizzle I caught sight of the last five or six scarlet plumes of a troop of dragoons jogging down the hill past my bank of laurels.

Now our parish had stood for some weeks in apprehension of a visit from these gentry. The riding-officer, Mr. Luke, had threatened us with them more than once. I knew, moreover, that a run of goods was contemplated: and without questions of mine--it did not become a parish priest in those days to know too much--it had reached my ears that Laquedem was himself in Roscoff bargaining for the freight. But we had all learnt confidence in him by this time--his increasing bodily weakness never seemed to affect his cleverness and resource--and no doubt occurred to me that he would contrive to checkmate this new move of the riding-officer's. Nevertheless, and partly I dare say out of curiosity, to have a good look at the soldiers, I slipped on my clothes and hurried downstairs and across the garden.

My hand was on the gate when I heard footsteps, and July Constantine came running down the hill, her red cloak flapping and her hair powdered with mist.

”Hullo!” said I, ”nothing wrong, I hope?” She turned a white, distraught face to me in the dawn.

”Yes, yes! All is wrong! I saw the soldiers coming--I heard them a mile away, and sent up the rocket from the church-tower. But the lugger stood in--they _must_ have seen!--she stood in, and is right under Sheba Point now--and _he_--”

I whistled. ”This is serious. Let us run out towards the point; we-- you, I mean--may be in time to warn them yet.”

So we set off running together. The morning breeze had a cold edge on it, but already the sun had begun to wrestle with the bank of sea-fog.

While we hurried along the cliffs the sh.o.r.eward fringe of it was ripped and rolled back like a tent-cloth, and through the rent I saw a broad patch of the cove below; the sands (for the tide was at low ebb) s.h.i.+ning like silver; the dragoons with their greatcoats thrown back from their scarlet b.r.e.a.s.t.s and their accoutrements flas.h.i.+ng against the level rays.

Seaward, the lugger loomed through the weather; but there was a crowd of men and black boats--half a score of them--by the water's edge, and it was clear to me at once that a forced run had been at least attempted.

I had pulled up, panting, on the verge of the cliff, when July caught me by the arm.

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