Across the Zodiac (42 page)

If the first to express the ill-will excited by Eveena's evident
influence, though exerted in their own behalf, it was less that Eunané
surpassed her companions in malice than that they fell short of her in
audacity. Her school-mates had found her their most daring leader in
mischief, the least reluctant scapegoat when mischief was to be
atoned. But she was cowed, partly perhaps by her first collision with
masculine authority, partly, I fear, by sheer dread of physical force
visibly greater than she had ever known by repute. Perhaps she was too
much frightened to obey. At any rate, it was from Eveena, despite her
pleading looks, that I extorted an answer. She yielded at last only to
that formal imperative which her conscience would not permit her to
disobey, and which for the first time I now employed in addressing
her.

"Eunané only repeated," Eveena said, with a reluctance so manifest
that one might have supposed her to be the offender, "a school-girl's
proverb:—

"'Ware the wrath that stands to cool:
Then the sandal shows the rule.'"

The smile that had accompanied the whisper—though not so much
suggestive of a woman's malignity as of a child's exultation in a
companion's disgrace—gave point and sting to the taunt. It is on
chance, I suppose, that the effect of such things depends. Had the
saying been thrown at any of Eunané's equals, I should probably have
been inclined to laugh, even if I felt it necessary to reprimand. But,
angered at a hint which placed Eveena on their own level, I forgot how
far the speaker's experience and inexperience alike palliated the
impertinence. That the insinuation shocked none of those around me was
evident. Theirs were not the looks of women, however young and
thoughtless, startled by an affront to their sex; but of children
amazed at a child's folly in provoking capricious and irresponsible
power. The angry quickness with which I turned to Eunané received a
double, though doubly unintentional, rebuke, equally illustrative of
Martial ideas and usages. The culprit cowered like a child expecting a
brutal blow. A gentle pressure on my left arm evinced the same fear in
a quarter from which its expression wounded me deeply. That pressure
arrested not, as was intended, my hand, but my voice; and when I spoke
the frightened girl looked up in surprise at its measured tones.

"Wrong, and wrong thrice over, Eunané. It is for me to teach you the
bad taste of bringing into your new home the ideas and language of
school. Meanwhile, in no case would you learn more of my rule than
concerned your own fault. Take in exchange for your proverb the
kindliest I have learned in your language:—

"'Whispered warnings reach the heart;
Veil the blush and spare the smart.'

"But, happily for you, your taunt had not truth enough to sting; and I
can tell the story about which you are unduly curious as frankly as
you please.—Let me speak now, Eveena, that I may spare the need to
speak again and in another tone.—That Eveena seemed to have put us
both in a false position only convinced me that she had a motive she
knew would satisfy me as fully as herself. When I learned what that
motive was, I was greatly surprised at her unselfishness and courage.
If you threw me your veil to save me from drowning, how would you feel
if my first words to you were:—'No one must think I could not swim,
therefore even the household must believe you, in unveiling, guilty of
an unpardonable fault'?... Answer me, Eunané."

"I should let you sink next time," she replied, with a pretty
half-dubious sauciness, showing that her worst fears at least were
relieved.

"Quite right; but you are less generous than Eveena. To hide how I had
acted on her advice, she would have had you suppose her guilty. That
you might not laugh at my authority, and 'find a dragon in the esve's
nest,' she would have had me treat her as guilty."

"But I deserved it. A girl has no right to break the seal in the
master's absence," interposed Eveena, much more distressed than
gratified by the vindication to which she was so well entitled.

"Let your tongue sleep, Eveena. So
(with a kiss)
I blot your first
miscalculation, Eunané. Earth
(the Evening Star of Mars)
light your
dreams."

It was with visible reluctance that Eveena followed me into the
chamber we had last left; and she expostulated as earnestly as her
obedience would permit against the fiat that assigned it to her.

"Choose what room you please, then," I said; "but understand that, so
far as my will and my trust can make you, you are the mistress here."

"Well, then," she answered, "give me the little octagon beside your
own:"—the smallest and simplest, but to my taste the prettiest, room
in the house. "I should like to be near you still, if I may; but,
believe me, I shall not be frozen (hurt) because you think another
hand better able to steer the carriage, if mine may sometimes rest in
yours."

Leading her into the room she had chosen, and having installed her
among the cushions that were to form her couch, I silenced decisively
her renewed protest.

"Let me answer you on this point, once and for ever, Eveena. To me
this seems matter of right, not of favour or fitness. But favour and
fitness here go with right. I could no more endure to place another
before or beside you than I could break the special bond between us,
and deny the hope of which the Serpent" (laying my hand on her
shoulder-clasp, which, by mere accident, was shaped into a faint
resemblance to the mystic coil) "is the emblem; the hope that alone
can make such love as ours endurable, or even possible, to creatures
that must die. She who knelt with me before the Emerald Throne, who
took with me the vows so awfully sanctioned, shall hold the first
place in my home as in my heart till the Serpent's promise be
fulfilled."

Both were silent for some time, for never could we refer to that
Vision—whether an objective fact, or an impression communicated from
one spirit to the other by the occult force of intense sympathy—save
by such allusion; and the remembrance never failed to affect us both
with a feeling too deep for words. Eveena spoke again—

"I am sorry you have so bound yourself; perhaps only because you knew
me first. And it shames me to receive fresh proof of your kindness
to-night."

"And why, my own?"

"Do not make me feel," she said, "that—though the measured sentences
you have taught me to call scolding seemed the sharpest of all
penances—there is a heavier yet in the silence which withholds
forgiveness."

"What have I yet to forgive, Madonna?"

But Eveena could read my feelings in spite of my words, and knew that
the pain she had given was too recent to allow me to misconceive her
penitence.

"I
ought
to say, my interference. It was your right to rule as you
chose, and my meddling was a far worse offence than Eunané's malice.
But it was not
that
you felt too deeply to reprove."

"True! Eunané hurt me a little; but I expected no such misjudgment
from you. By the touch that proved your alarm I know that I gave no
cause for it."

"How so?" she asked in surprise.

"You laid your hand instinctively on my
left
arm, the one your
people use. Had I made the slightest angry gesture, you would have
held back my
right
. Had I deserved that Eveena should think so ill
of me—think me capable of doing such dishonour to her presence and to
my own roof, which should have protected an equal enemy from that
which you feared for a helpless girl? For what you would have checked
was such a blow as men deal to men who can strike back; and the hand
that had given it would have been unfit to clasp man's in friendship
or woman's in love. You yourself must have shrunk from its touch."

She caught and held it fast to her lips.

"Can I forget that it saved my life? I don't understand you at all,
but I see that I have frozen your heart. I did fancy for one moment
you would strike, as passionate men and women often do strike
provoking girls, perhaps forgetting your own strength; and I knew you
would be miserable if you did hurt her—in that way. The next moment I
was ashamed, more than you will believe, to have wronged you so. Like
every man, from the head of a household to the Arch-Judge or the
Camptâ, you must rule by fear. But your wrath
will
'stand to cool;'
and you will hate to make a girl cry as you would hate to send a
criminal to the electric-rack, the lightning-stroke, or the
vivisection-table. And, whatever you had done, do you fancy that I
could shrink from you? I said, 'If you weary of your flower-bird you
must strike with the hammer;' and if you could do so, do you think I
should not feel for your hand to hold it to the last?"

"Hush, Eveena! how can I bear such words? You might forgive me for any
outrage to you: I doubt your easily forgetting cruelty to another. I
have not a heart like yours. As I never failed a friend, so I never
yet forgave a foe. Yet even I might pardon one of those girls an
attempt to poison myself, and in some circumstances I might even learn
to like her better afterwards. But I doubt if I could ever touch again
the hand that had mixed the poison for another, though that other were
my mortal enemy."

Before I slept Eveena had convinced me, much to my own discomfiture,
how very limited must be any authority that could be delegated to her.
In such a household there could be no second head or deputy, and an
attempt to devolve any effective charge on her would only involve her
in trouble and odium. Even at the breakfast, spread as usual in the
centre of the peristyle, she entreated that we should present
ourselves separately. Eunané appeared to have performed very
dexterously the novel duty assigned to her. The
ambau
had obeyed her
orders with well-trained promptitude, and the
carvee
, in bringing
fruit, leaves, and roots from the outer garden, had more than verified
all that on a former occasion Eveena had told me of their cleverness
and quick comprehension of instructions. Eunané's face brightened
visibly as I acknowledged the neatness and the tempting appearance of
the meal she had set forth. She was yet more gratified by receiving
charge for the future of the same duty, and authority to send, as is
usual, by an ambâ the order for that principal part of each day's food
which is supplied by the confectioner. By reserving for Eveena the
place among the cushions immediately on my left, I made to the
assembled household the expected announcement that she was to be
regarded as mistress of the house; feminine punctiliousness on points
of domestic precedence strikingly contrasting the unceremonious
character of intercourse among men out of doors. The very ambau
recognise the mistress or the favourite, as dogs the master of their
Earthly home.

The ladies were at first shy and silent, Eunané only giving me more
than a monosyllabic answer to my remarks, and even Eunané never
speaking save in reply to me. A trivial incident, however, broke
through this reserve, and afforded me a first taste of the petty
domestic vexations in store for me. The beverage most to my liking was
always the
carcarâ
—juice flavoured with roasted kernels, something
resembling coffee in taste. On this occasion the
carcarâ
and another
favourite dish had a taste so peculiar that I pushed both aside almost
untouched. On observing this, the rest—Enva, Leenoo, Elfé, and
Eiralé—took occasion to criticise the articles in question with such
remarks and grimaces as ill-bred children might venture for the
annoyance of an inexperienced sister. I hesitated to repress this
outbreak as it deserved, till Eunané's bitter mortification was
evident in her brightening colour and the doubtful, half-appealing
glance of tearful eyes. Then a rebuke, such as might have been
appropriately addressed yesterday to these rude school-girls by their
governess, at once silenced them. As we rose, I asked Eveena, who,
with more courtesy than the rest of us, had finished her portion—

"Is there any justice in these reproaches? I certainly don't like the
carcarâ to-day, but it does not follow that Eunané is in fault."

The rest, Eunané included, looked their annoyance at this appeal; but
Eveena's temper and kindness were proof against petulance.

"The carcarâ is in fault," she said; "but I don't think Eunané is. In
learning cookery at school she had her materials supplied to her; this
time the
carve
has probably given her an unripe or overripe fruit
which has spoiled the whole."

"And do you not know ripe from unripe fruit?" I inquired, turning to
Eunané.

"How should she?" interposed Eveena. "I doubt if she ever saw them
growing."

"How so?" I asked of Eunané.

"It is true," she answered. "I never went beyond the walls of our
playground till I came here; and though there were a few flower-beds
in the inner gardens, there were none but shade trees among the turf
and concrete yards to which we were confined."

"I should have known no better," observed Eveena; "but being brought
up at home, I learned to know all the plants in my father's grounds,
which were more various, I believe, than usual."

"Then," I said, "Eunané has a new life and a multitude of new
pleasures before her. Has this peristyle given you your first sight of
flowers beyond those in the beds of your Nursery? And have you never
seen anything of the world about you?"

"Never," she said. "And Eveena's excuse for me is, I believe,
perfectly true. The carve must have been stupid, but I knew no
better."

"Well," I rejoined, "you must forgive the bird, as we must excuse you
for spoiling our breakfast. I will contrive that you shall know more
of fruits and flowers before long. In the meantime, you will probably
have a different if not a wider view from this roof than from that of
your Nursery."