So next morning, when Dr Quack called upon Timothy, he found no rival, nor stew, nor upset kitchen--only the little sufferer quite alone; and little Tim was worse that morning, for he had such a nasty pain when he coughed, and he looked thinner and more wasted than ever; and Marigold, tired of cutting and sewing, went out for a ramble all alone amongst the Temple grounds, whilst Alice cooked the dinner. And Marigold, being one of those people who can’t keep away from things, wended her way towards the creeper-covered arch, the splendid ruins of a portion long disused. The sun shone in all its glory, yet without any of that stifling and oppressive heat that so often characterises our climate here on earth, and the quaint broken arches cast long shadows on the sunlit path. And there was no Alice there, the Board-School product of materialism--no one but Marigold. And as she came along the pathway, she saw St Armand sitting there on the gnarled tree roots, a sketch-block on his knee; and there beside him, the great High Priest upon a camp-stool. For men who sit on thrones rarely get the pleasure of sitting on the ground, and if you sit on a throne long enough, after a while you don’t appreciate the pleasure of it--the ground, of course. But Marigold did not draw back. Why should she? She had just come away from a looking-glass, and seen a picture through it that she kissed to annoy Alice; and so she called out gaily to the artist, not the priest:
“I’ve come on purpose, just so that I may spoil your picture.”
“On the contrary, you’ve just brought the finishing-touches.”
“You didn’t say that the last time I came here.”
“I believe you wore clogs and a jacket, and worse still, you brought a companion who was thick-set and uneducated.”
“No; she has been very well educated at one of the best Board-Schools.”
“Sure sign she knows nothing. They fiddle too much at the Board-Schools--make too much fuss over teaching, and neglect the learning.”
Marigold was not interested in this, so she turned to the High Priest, and smiled a little more sweetly, and certainly a little more shyly, than at St Armand.
“You will find it very cool and shady under this big tree,” said she; and the octogenarian bent his head and went on with his sketching, for of all things he was a humorist, and never failed to find human beings amusing in their love affairs.
“Yes, we are taking a morning’s holiday--the first with me for, I might say, many a year”; and he rose from the camp-stool and stood looking down at her, with an interest Marigold noticed was different from any he had ever taken in her before--different even from last night.
“How you must be enjoying it then,” said she. “But I thought you would have gone a long way off from the Temple for a holiday; people generally do go as far off from their work as they can.”
“A priest’s work is slightly different from that of any other calling.”
“Yes; you’re never done, are you? even on Sundays when everybody else is resting.”
No one could have resisted Marigold’s tone; it was not familiar, it was full of delightful sympathy. Alphonso smiled. He could have gone on listening to that voice indefinitely, so long as the subject was himself.
“No; I’m afraid we’re never done. Now your life, I suppose, is one long holiday?”
“No; I’ve been dressmaking ever since six o’clock. I came out because--oh! because of the sunshine, you know. I love it best of anything.”
“Yes, I think you must have borrowed all this pretty hair from the sun.”
“You said once you didn’t approve of it.”
“When can that have been?”
“The first night I saw you--when I begged the money off you.”
“Yes, I remember.” And then Marigold laughed, and, wonder of wonders! he laughed too.
“I like coming here,” said she; “you quite forget there are hundreds and thousands of people all round you. I wonder how it is the Temple is so very, very beautiful?”
“The Serpent made it.”
“Yes,” said she, a mystic kind of beauty creeping in her eyes, and she looked at him with reverence and awe, but with beauty uppermost.
No man could have easily stood that glance of Marigold’s. It was as if she had set him on a pedestal, not too high, and worshipped him from not too far a distance--almost as if the golden hair fell on his feet and the soft lips kissed them. So felt the great High Priest, changed from last night into a man again, no more the frozen statue; and neither of them noticed the silence following, for in love, that kind as well as others, closer bonds are knit in silence than in any sparkling talk or thrilling conversation. And St Armand sketched them as they stood there, so oblivious were they of his presence--sketched them, laughing the while. But shortly another step sounded on the gravel, coming towards the archway; Marigold turned, St Armand looked up, the High Priest likewise.
“Sacred Serpent! Barringcourt!” said the latter in electric accents.
Marigold heard the old man at their feet give a low whistle, and saw him close the sketch-book quickly; and she herself felt a wave of faintness for the instant--something like little Patches spoke of, but perhaps from other causes than affected him. So they all met face to 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.
