Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman

  THE FINDING.

  "Hola!" hailed a man, signalling by a brazier with his back to thewind. "For what are you seeking?"

  Ruth halted, gripping her stiletto. This man might help her,perhaps. At any rate, he seemed a cool-headed fellow who made thebest of things.

  For two hours she had searched, and for the time her strength wasnearly spent. Dust filled her hair and caked her long eyelashes.Her face, haggard with woe and weariness, was a mask of dust.

  "For one," she answered, "who was to have attended High Mass in theCathedral."

  "Eh?" The man swept a hand to the ruined shell of that building, atthe end of the Square, and to a horrible pile of masonry coveringmany hundreds of bodies. "If he reached there, your Excellency hadbetter go home and pray for his soul; that is, if your Excellencybelieves it efficacious. But first, will your Excellency sit hereand rest?--no, not on the lee side, in the fumes of the charcoal, butto windward here, where the fire is bright, and where I have thehonour to give room. . . . So your Excellency did not attend theMass?--not approving of it, maybe?"

  "It would seem that you know me?" said Ruth, answering something inhis tone, not his words.

  The question set him chuckling. "Not by that token--though 'faith'tis an ill wind blows nobody good. This earthquake, consideredphilosophically, is a great opportunity for heretics. You and I, forexample, may sit here in the very middle of the square and talkblasphemy to our heart's content; whereas--" He broke off."But I forget my manners. I ought to have started by saying that noone, having once set eyes on your Excellency's face could ever forgetit; and, by St. James, that is no more than the truth!"

  "Where have you seen me before?"

  "By the gateway of the Holy Office, in a carriage with your lordbeside you. I marked his face, too. What it is to be young and richand beautiful! . . . And yet you might have remembered me, seeingthat I made part of the procession, though--praise be to fate!--A modest one."

  Ruth gazed at him. "I remember you," she said slowly; "you were oneof the Penitents."

  "They were gracious enough to call me so. Yes, I can understand thata san-benito makes some difference to a man's personal appearance. . . . And old Gonsalvez--I saw your Excellency wince and yourExcellency's beauty turn pale when he cast up his hands to the sun. . . . Hey? _How is it possible_--how went the words?"

  Ruth had them well by heart. "_How is it possible for people,beholding that glorious Body, to worship any Being but Him whocreated it?_"

  Right--word for word! Well, they made a lens for that glorious Bodyand fried old Gonsalvez with it. Were you looking on?"

  "No," said Ruth, and shivered.

  "Well, I did--perforce. 'Twas part of my lesson; for you must knowthat I, too, had had my little difficulty over that same gloriousSun, touching his standing still over Gibeon at the command ofancient Joshua. 'Faith, I've no quarrel with a miracle or so, up anddown; but that one! . . . Well, they convinced me I was a fool tohave any doubt, and a worse fool to let it slip off the tongue.And yet," said the Penitent, warming his hands and casting a look upat the sky, where the dust-cloud had given place to a rolling pall ofsmoke, "what a treat it is to let the tongue wag at times!"

  Ruth, her strength refreshed by the few minutes' rest, thanked himand arose to continue her search.

  "Stay," said the Penitent. "Your Excellency has not heard all thestory, nor yet arrived near the moral. . . . Between ourselves thereverend fathers were lenient with me because--well, it may have beenbecause I hold some influence among the beggars of Lisbon, who arenumerous and not always meek, in spite of the promise that meeknessshall inherit the earth. I may confess, in short, that my presencein the procession was to some extent a farce, and the result of acompromise. But, all the same, your Excellency does ill todisbelieve in miracles: as I dare say your Excellency, casting an eyeabout Lisbon on this particular day of All the Saints, will notdispute?"

  "Alas, sir! I have seen too many horrors to-day to be in any mood toargue."

  "Then," said the Penitent, skipping up, "you are in the precise moodto be convinced; as I have seen men, under extremity of torture,ready to believe anything. Come!"

  She hesitated. "Where would you lead me?"

  "To a miracle," he answered, and, with a fine gesture, flinging histattered cloak over his shoulder, he led the way. He strode rapidlydown a couple of streets. Once or twice coming to a chasm across theroadway he paused, drew back, and cleared it with a leap. But atthese pitfalls he neither turned nor offered Ruth a hand.She followed him panting, so agile was his pace.

  The first street ran south, the second east. He entered a thirdwhich turned north again as if to lead back into the Square.After following it for twenty yards he halted and allowed her tocatch up with him.

  "You are a devoted wife," said the Penitent admiringly. "Would italter your devotion at all to know that he was with another woman?"

  "No," answered Ruth. "I knew it, in fact." She wondered that thisbeggar man could force her to speak so frankly.

  "In an earthquake," said he, "one gets down to naked truth, or nearto it. If he were unfaithful now--would that alter your desire tofind and save him?"

  "Sir, why do you ask these things?"

  "Did your Excellency not know that its beggars are the eyes ofLisbon? But you have not answered me."

  "Nor will. That I am here--is it not enough?"

  The Penitent peered at her in the dim light and nodded. He led herforward a pace or two and pointed to something imbedded in a pile ofstones, lime, rubble. It was the wreck of a chaise. Two males laycrushed under it, their heads and a couple of legs protruding.A splintered door, wrenched from its hinges, lay face-uppermostcrowning the heap. It bore a coronet and the arms of Montalegre.

  "Are they--" she stammered, but caught at her voice and recovered it."--Are they _here_, under this?"

  "No," he said, and again led the way, crossing the street to a houseof which the upper storey overhung the street, supported by a line ofpillars. Three or four of these pillars had fallen. Of the rest,nine out of ten stood askew, barely holding up the house, through thefloors of which stout beams had thrust themselves and stuck at allangles from the burst plaster.

  "Here is Milord Vyell," said the Penitent, picking up a broken lathand pointing with it.

  He lay on his back, as he had lain for close upon three hours, deepin the shadow of the overhanging house. His eyes were wide open.They stared up at the cobwebs that dangled from the broken plaster.A pillar, in weight maybe half a ton, rested across his thighs; anoaken beam across his chest and his broken left arm. The two pinnedhim hopelessly.

  Clutched to him in his right lay Donna Maria. She seemed to sleep,with her head turned from his breast and laid upon the upper arm.The weight of the pillar resting on her bowels had squeezed the lifeout of her. She was dead: her flesh by this time almost cold.

  "Oliver!--Ah, look at me!--I am here--I have come to help!"

  The lids twitched slightly over his wide eyes. In the dim light shecould almost be sworn that the lips, too, moved as though to speak.But no words came, and the eyes did not see her.

  He was alive. What else mattered?

  She knelt and flung her arms about the pillar. Frantically, vainly,she tugged at it: not by an inch or the tenth part of an inch couldshe stir it.

  "Speak to me, Oliver! . . . Look at least!"

  "If your Excellency will but have patience!" The Penitent steppedout into the street and she heard him blowing a whistle. Clearly hewas a man to be obeyed; for in less than ten minutes a dozen figurescrowded about the entrance, shutting out the day. This darkness oftheir making was in truth their best commendation. For against anyone of them coming singly Ruth had undoubtedly held her dagger ready.They grumbled, too, and some even cursed the Penitent for havingdragged them away from their loot. The Penitent called themcheerfully his little sons of the devil, and adjured them to fall towork or it would be the worse for them.

  For his pa
rt, he lifted no hand: but stood overseer as the ruffianslifted the pillar, Ruth straining her strength with theirs.

  But when they came to lift Donna Maria, for a moment somethinghitched, and Ruth heard the sound of rending cloth. The poor wretchin her death-agony had bitten through Sir Oliver's arm to the bone.The corpse yet clenched its jaws on the bite. They had to wrench theteeth open--delicate pretty teeth made for nibbling sweetmeats.

  To his last day Oliver Vyell bore the mark of those pretty teeth, andtook it to the grave with him.

  Ruth drew out a purse. But the Penitent, though they grumbled, wouldsuffer his scoundrels to take no fee. Nay, he commanded two, andfrom somewhere out of devastated Lisbon they fetched a sedan-chairfor the broken man. "You may pay these if you will," said he."Honestly, they deserve it."

  On her way westward, following the chair, she called to them to stopand search whereabouts Mr. Langton had fallen. They found him withthe small greyhound standing guard beside the body. His head waspillowed on his arm, and he lay as one quietly sleeping.