XI
THE SISTERS
A young girl sat before a magnificent fireplace of cut stone gazing intothe fire of drift-wood that burned diffidently upon a hearth whosespaciousness would have been more fittingly adorned by Vergil's "nosmall part of a tree." Out-of-doors the snow was whirling down in small,frozen flakes that the northwest gale ground into powder against thegranite walls and then sifted through every crack and crevice; not adoor-sill or window-seat but wore its decoration of a pure white wreath.Bitterly cold it had grown with the closing in of the dusk, and the girldrew her cloak, a superb garment of Russian sables, closer about hershoulders and stretched out her hands to the dying blaze. Then sheclapped them impatiently. A long interval and a middle-aged man answeredthe summons--a servant, as the coarse quality of his clothingproclaimed. He shuffled across the floor, his big boots creakingunpleasantly.
"More wood, Ugo," said the girl, without looking around; "and I do wishyou would grease your boots. It is unbearable the way you clatterabout."
"Grease my boots!" echoed the man, with ironic emphasis. "That is goodcounsel, seeing there isn't enough lard in the house for the frying ofan egg; yes, and no egg to fry."
The girl half turned, as though about to speak, then checked herself.Ugo went on impertinently:
"I could see long ago how things were going, but, Lord, what was the useof breaking my heart over it! A dainty lip means a short purse-string,and a sick woman's fancy is a bottomless well. Let's have plain speakingabout this; it can't hurt any one now, and your mother----"
He stopped short, disconcerted, for all his bravado, by the sudden glintof red that lit up the girl's eyes. Her hand plucked at the black ribbonaround her throat; yet when she spoke her voice was clear and even.
"Never mind about my mother," she said, and the man kept sulky silence.
"Is it really true that there is no food in the house?" she continued.
"There was never a rope made that hadn't an end," answered the servant,with a trifle more of his former assurance. "Not a scrap of bacon nor ahandful of flour in the larder; even the rats will tell you that. I sawtwo of them leaving to-day, and I've about made up my mind to followthem."
The girl unlocked a drawer in the teak-wood table that stood at herelbow, and took from it a leathern thong some eight inches in length andknotted together at the ends, a purse-string in common parlance. Upon itwere strung three of the thin brass tokens pierced in the centre by asquare hole that were in ordinary use among the Doomsmen as currency,redeemable against the material supplies on hand in the publicstorehouses.
The girl untied the thong and let the coins fall upon the table. Shepushed them over to the fellow with a gesture superbly indifferent.
"Go now," she said, curtly. The man Ugo pocketed the money with adarkening face and turned to depart. At the door he hesitated, making asthough he would say a final word. But the girl cut him short.
"Go!" she reiterated, and he had no choice but to obey.
"I should have been in peril of having my ear nicked," he said, underhis breath, as he crossed the threshold. "It's just as well that I keptmy tongue between my teeth and concluded not to mind Quinton Edge'sbusiness." He closed the door.
It had grown quite dark, and the fire was making its last stand forlife. Only one small piece of wood remained unconsumed, and the flamelicked at it lazily, like a beast of prey hanging over a carcass, gorgedto repletion and yet unwilling to give over employment so delicious.Suddenly the girl rose to her feet and went to one of the long windowsthat looked out upon the street. The casement shook and rattled underthe gale's rough hand. Hardly knowing what she did, she flung the windowwide open.
In an instant she seemed to have been transported into the midst of thetumult, her face lashed by windy whips, her eyes blinded by fineparticles of frozen snow, her ears deafened by the multitudinous voicesof the storm sprites shrieking to their fellows. Something in hernature, fierce and untamed, leaped forth to meet the tempest.Intoxicated by the strong wine of its fury, she flung out her arms, halffearing, half hoping that she might be swept away, whirled like somewild sea-bird, into the heart of the madness. A strong hand pulled herback.
"Esmay!" shrieked a voice in her ear. "Esmay!"
Loudly as the call must have been uttered, it came to her, as thoughfrom a great distance, thin and of an infinite littleness. Yet sheallowed herself to be drawn back into the room, and made no demur to theclosing of the window.
It was a tall, finely built woman of thirty or thereabouts who stoodbeside her--a woman with a dark, passionate face shaded by a mop ofraven hair as coarse as a horse's mane. "Esmay!" she said again, with anaccent of wondering reproach.
The girl stood silent, motionless for a moment; then, with a swiftintake of her breath:
"Don't be angry, Nanna, but something is going to happen. I've got tolaugh or to cry--I don't know which."
It was a laugh, low but genuine, and full of a silver trickle of sound.The elder woman caught up the girl impetuously into a close embrace.
"My dear! my dear! is it really you? I can't believe it. After thesedreadful three months in which you have hardly said as many words. Itwould be a miracle, if there were any saints in Doom to work one."
She drew away for a moment, her eyes ablaze with excitement. There was asmooth, graceful strength in her every movement that was almostanimal-like; she suggested the idea of a big cat as she alternatelyreleased the girl and then returned, in a half-circle, to take renewedpossession of her. "A miracle!" she repeated.
"Indeed, it almost needed that to bring me to myself," said the girl,gravely. "But now I see things clearly; it seems almost as though themother herself had stood beside me and drawn the veil away. It was Ugo,though, who really did it," she added, and laughed again softly.
"Ugo!" echoed the other, indignantly. "And, if you please, where is thefellow? The candles have not been lighted, the fire is dying out, andnot a sign of supper visible. It is unbearable, Esmay, and he shall packthis very night."
"But Nanna!"
"I won't listen to a word."
"You will. He has gone already."
She pushed the elder woman into a chair. "Now don't dare to move until Iam back with wood and a light. Not a word, sister mine--if you love me."Taken by surprise, Nanna let her go, and sat waiting.
The girl returned in a few minutes with a basket containing severallumps of sea-coal.
"This is a thousand times better than Ugo's boards and barrel-staves,"said Esmay, triumphantly, and transferred the fuel to the hearth, whereit presently burst into a cheerful flame. "There are three or four boxesof the stuff in the cellar, enough to last us all winter. Now for thelamp."
On the mantel-piece stood a shallow dish containing a small quantity ofcotton-seed oil and a piece of lampwick. Esmay took down the vessel andinspected it with a calculating eye. "It will last until bedtime," sheannounced, and lit it with a spill of paper.
Nanna looked at her half-sister questioningly, but did not offer tospeak. She had never seen Esmay just like this, and the change wasespecially noticeable after the silence and apathy of the past months.Her thoughts travelled back to the human link that had united them forso long--the woman whom each had called mother, although to Nanna it hadbeen only a step-relationship. How impossible it had once seemed thatthere could be any new adjustment of life's machinery; how difficult therealization that nature is accustomed to settle these matters in her owntime and way, and invariably does so! Yet here was Esmay suddenlyreturned to herself, moving about, alert and eager, knitting her browsover the one important problem of the moment, the question of supper.
"You'll have to make out with the firelight for a little while," saidEsmay, picking up the rude lamp. "But you won't mind, dear?" Shestooped, kissed her sister, and was gone again.
The elder woman felt her eyes brimming saltily. The girl, so far asyears were concerned, might almost have been her daughter, since Nannahad been both wife and widow at seventeen. For all that, the sisterlyrel
ation was the true one between them; they were of the same strongbreed, even if Esmay were only in half a daughter of the Doomsmen. Nannahad never been able to forget that her father's second wife had been ofthe blood of the despised House People. In spite of herself she hadlearned to love the dead Elena; she adored Esmay as a part of herself. Aprimitive emotion, but then Nanna was the elemental woman.
When Esmay returned she brought with her a bowl containing a smallquantity of cottage cheese, hard and yellow with age. Surmounting thebowl was a plate upon which were some crusts of bread and a knuckle ofham, the latter being little more than the bare bone. A table stood inthe middle of the room, a handsome piece of buhl-work. Esmay drew itforward to the fire and proceeded to arrange her feast. Scanty enough itseemed, but the cloth covering the table was of the finest damask, theplates that she took from a glazed cabinet were of the precious china ofSevres, the knives and forks were in solid silver, and the drinking-cupsof silver-gilt had been fashioned by a great artist. A strange contrast!beggar's fare served so royally; but hunger is not nice about triflesone way or the other. And so it was upon the viands that Nanna'sattention was immediately concentrated. She glanced suspiciously at thecheese, despairingly at the knuckle-bone, and then said, solemnly:
"Tell me, Esmay, what does it mean? Where is Ugo?"
"Ugo has deserted us--like the rats," answered the girl. "And thesituation--it is just this." She stopped and took a swallow of water."It is three months now since she--the mother--slipped away from ourarms, and of course the pension stopped with her. I gave the lasthandful of tokens to Ugo to settle up his wages. So you see I'm abeggar. It's a woman against the world, and one of us will have todevour the other. Lucky, isn't it, that I woke up desperately hungry?That means that I'll make a fight for it. Have the first bite."
"Esmay! You know that I have still my widow's rate."
"Yes, and I also know that it is barely enough to keep one body and soultogether; the two of us would only starve by inches. No use, Nanna, wemust take things as we find them. But isn't it strange--" She stoppedabruptly and let her glance wander over the luxurious table-service, thegleaming surface of the silver reflecting her troubled eyes. She went onslowly:
"All this meant something once--this array of silver and jewelled glass,the tapestries on the walls, the fur cloak about my shoulders. Think ofit, Nanna! These things must have been the envied treasures of the rich,the luxuries of life. And now any one may possess them who cares tofight their battle with moth and rust."
"While a single one of Dom Gillian's brass tokens outweighs it all,"rejoined Nanna, nodding her head wisely. "It is not hard to understandwhy, for with the token any one may buy a quarterweight of flour at thepublic stores or a fore-shoulder of mutton."
"And bread and meat mean life, don't they? Well, and suppose one doesn'thappen to possess a long purse-string laden with these wonderful,miracle-working bits of token-money, what then? A woman can't put on aquilted coat and steel cap and go out with the raiders to earn her shareof the loot. Fancy my teaching a fat House-dweller how to dance on ared-hot plate or riding the toll roads of the West Inch in a jacket fullof arrow-holes."
"That is true," agreed Nanna, gravely.
Esmay rose and walked excitedly up and down the long room.
"It's just hopeless, Nanna, to stay on here in this city of the dead."
She stopped and faced her sister.
"So I have decided; I am going back to my mother's people. There is achance in their world for a woman to secure her own living; here shecan only starve or accept some man's protection."
The elder woman remonstrated feebly, but the girl swept her aside.
"Listen to me, Nanna. You know that Messer Hugolin, Councillor Primus ofCroye, is my uncle, my mother's own brother. She ever insisted that inhis charity I had a final resource. He might not offer it, but surely hecould not deny me, if I sought it. Nanna, you recall what the motherherself said--how she always believed that the message would reach him.My own uncle and Councillor Primus of Croye," she concluded, hopefully.
But Nanna was not to be so easily convinced. "But, Esmay, it isimpossible," she exclaimed. "You could never escape from Doom."
"But I will."
"You cannot. The High Bridge to the north is always guarded, and on theother three sides of the city there is deep water."
"I shall manage it," returned the girl, confidently. "It is simply aquestion of my going empty-handed to my uncle's house. Now gold amongthe House-dwellers has a value that it does not possess with us; so Ulickonce told me. They use it as money."
"Here in Doom it is nothing," assented Nanna, "save that we women likethe pretty things that the ancients fashioned from it."
"Precisely; and as you know there is not much of it in existence, evenhere in Doom, where silver is almost as common as iron."
"Well, and then?"
"Don't you see? If only golden tongues could plead my cause in Croye Ishould be independent, even of my uncle Hugolin. Now there is store ofthis gold somewhere in Doom. It must be so, for the war-galleys alwayscarry a money-chest when they sail to the northern colonies."
"A treasure," said Nanna, slowly. "Who would know of it here in Doom?Dom Gillian himself--or perhaps----"
"Master Quinton Edge," supplied Esmay, and thereupon silence fellbetween them.
The minutes passed away. Then, suddenly, Esmay stopped in her monotonouspacing of the room and flung herself on her knees by her sister's chair.
"You goose!" she exclaimed, with tender suspicion. "I believe you havebeen crying."
"Not a bit of it," returned Nanna, sitting bolt upright and staring hardat the ceiling. "I only want you to be sure and let me know before yougo. Or couldn't you take me with you?" she added, wistfully, as thoughthe idea had but just occurred to her.
"Why, Nanna, as though I could have dreamed of anything else! Go withoutyou! Don't you see yourself how ridiculous that would be?"
"Then nothing else matters," said Nanna, comfortably, and openly wipedher eyes. "When do you want to go--to-night?"
"Foolish one! But then you love me, and I can forgive you. Now let me bequiet; I want to think out my--our plan."
Nanna left the room softly. Esmay sat looking into the fire, her small,firm chin propped in her palm. So violent was the storm that she did nothear the opening and closing of the street-door, but the flickering ofthe lamp in the swirl of a current from the outer air warned her thatshe had a visitor. She recognized him instantly as he came forward, hislaced hat in the hollow of his arm. There was no one in Doom besidesMaster Quinton Edge who bowed with so easy a grace--a woman has a quickeye for such trifles.
"You are Esmay, daughter of Mad Scarlett," he began, gently. "Myintrusion is unseasonable, perhaps, but none the less unavoidable."
The girl made no answer.
"I will speak to the point," he went on. "Are you ready to make choice,to-night, between young Ulick and his oafish cousin Boris? I have areason for asking, believe me."
Esmay flushed with annoyance. "I will not listen to either of them," shesaid. "Boris I detest, and Ulick is only a boy, and a silly one; I havetold him so a score of times."
"I thought as much, but I wanted the confirmation of your own lips, mydear child. The knowledge emboldens me to offer you an asylum under myown roof for the next few months--or longer. Ulick, as you say, is but aboy, half hot, half muddle-head. He, perhaps, could be kept incheck----"
"I can manage that sufficiently well," broke in the girl, haughtily.
"No doubt, no doubt; but with Boris also in the field the situationbecomes a complicated one. Accordingly, I have concluded to offer you myassistance in dealing with it."
"It is difficult to think of Master Quinton Edge in the light of adisinterested adviser. Perhaps you have other motives."
"Possibly," returned the man, with calm assurance. "Why not a dozen ofthem? But to disclose them--this is not the time. You have only toaccept my offer and be thankful."
"Suppose that I refu
se?"
Quinton Edge glanced over his shoulder, and the three men who had beenstanding motionless in the shadow of the doorway took a step forward.
"You perceive that there is no such alternative," he said, suavely.
The girl started but kept herself in hand. "My sister goes with me?"
"No," said Quinton Edge.
But Nanna's arms were already encircling her treasure. She had enteredunobserved, and she had heard enough to understand. "You!" she said, andspat at Quinton Edge.
The man's face paled. He stepped forward as though making to push theintruder away. In a flash she had turned upon him and her teeth closedupon the fleshy part of his right hand. He shook her off as one does asnake.
"A true forest-cat," said Quinton Edge, and smiled as he twisted a finelawn handkerchief about the wounded member. Then, with entiregood-humor: "I apologize for my incivility and truth; it were a bitingrejoinder. Madam, you, too, are welcome to my poor house. With such adragon in the garden, he will be a brave man indeed who thinks to filchmy apples."
Nanna, huddled up in a corner of the room whither she had been flung,answered not a word, but watched him steadily, unwinkingly, her eyesnarrowed to two gleaming slits. Esmay went over and assisted her to herfeet.
"You will give us time to get a few things together," said the girl,turning to Quinton Edge. "A woman cannot be moved about like a piece offurniture."
"Ten minutes."
It were waste of breath to renew the argument, and within the quarter ofan hour the two women, closely shawled and veiled, descended the stepsto the street. It was still storming. A coach drawn by two horses waswaiting at the curb, and the Doomsman, having assisted his unwillingguests to mount within, took his place on the box with the driver, thethree men following on horseback. The little company moved slowly downthe avenue; then, turning into a side thoroughfare, proceeded directlyeastward.