Across the Zodiac

by Percy Greg

  CHAPTER XIX - A COMPLETE ESTABLISHMENT.

  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 anattempt to devolve any effective charge on her would only involve herin trouble and odium. Even at the breakfast, spread as usual in thecentre of the peristyle, she entreated that we should presentourselves separately. Eunane appeared to have performed verydexterously the novel duty assigned to her. The _ambau_ had obeyed herorders with well-trained promptitude, and the _carvee_, in bringingfruit, leaves, and roots from the outer garden, had more than verifiedall that on a former occasion Eveena had told me of their clevernessand quick comprehension of instructions. Eunane's face brightenedvisibly as I acknowledged the neatness and the tempting appearance ofthe meal she had set forth. She was yet more gratified by receivingcharge for the future of the same duty, and authority to send, as isusual, by an amba the order for that principal part of each day's foodwhich is supplied by the confectioner. By reserving for Eveena theplace among the cushions immediately on my left, I made to theassembled household the expected announcement that she was to beregarded as mistress of the house; feminine punctiliousness on pointsof domestic precedence strikingly contrasting the unceremoniouscharacter of intercourse among men out of doors. The very ambaurecognise the mistress or the favourite, as dogs the master of theirEarthly home.

  The ladies were at first shy and silent, Eunane only giving me morethan a monosyllabic answer to my remarks, and even Eunane neverspeaking save in reply to me. A trivial incident, however, brokethrough this reserve, and afforded me a first taste of the pettydomestic vexations in store for me. The beverage most to my liking wasalways the _carcara_--juice flavoured with roasted kernels, somethingresembling coffee in taste. On this occasion the _carcara_ and anotherfavourite dish had a taste so peculiar that I pushed both aside almostuntouched. On observing this, the rest--Enva, Leenoo, Elfe, andEirale--took occasion to criticise the articles in question with suchremarks and grimaces as ill-bred children might venture for theannoyance of an inexperienced sister. I hesitated to repress thisoutbreak as it deserved, till Eunane's bitter mortification wasevident in her brightening colour and the doubtful, half-appealingglance of tearful eyes. Then a rebuke, such as might have beenappropriately addressed yesterday to these rude school-girls by theirgoverness, 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 thecarcara to-day, but it does not follow that Eunane is in fault."

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

  "The carcara is in fault," she said; "but I don't think Eunane is. Inlearning cookery at school she had her materials supplied to her; thistime the _carve_ has probably given her an unripe or overripe fruitwhich has spoiled the whole."

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

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

  "How so?" I asked of Eunane.

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

  "I should have known no better," observed Eveena; "but being broughtup 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, "Eunane has a new life and a multitude of newpleasures before her. Has this peristyle given you your first sight offlowers beyond those in the beds of your Nursery? And have you neverseen 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 nobetter."

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

  After all, Eunane's girlhood, typical of the whole life of manyMartial women, had not, I suppose, been more dreary or confined thanthat of children in London, Canton, or Calcutta. But this incident,reminding me how dreary and limited that life was, served to excuse inmy eyes the pettiness and poverty of the characters it had produced. AMartial woman's whole experience may well be confined within a fewacres, and from the cradle to the grave she may see no more of theworld than can be discerned from the roof of her school or herhusband's home.

  Eunane, with the assistance of the ambau, busied herself in removingthe remains of the meal. The other five, putting on their veils,scampered up the inclined plane to the roof, much like childrenreleased from table or from tasks. Turning to Eveena, who stillremained beside me, I said--

  "Get your veil, and come out with me; I have not yet an idea where weare, and scarcely a notion what the grounds are like."

  She followed me to my apartment, out of which, opened the one she hadchosen, and as the window closed behind us she spoke in a tone ofappeal--

  "Do not insist on my accompanying you. As you bade me always speak mythought, I had much rather you would take one of the others."

  "You professed," I said, "to take especial pleasure in a walk with me,and this time I will be careful that you are not overtired."

  "Of course I should like it," she answered; "but it would not be just.Please let me this time remain to take my part of the householdduties, and make myself acquainted with the house. Choose yourcompanion among the others, whom you have scarcely noticed yet."

  Preferring not only Eveena's company, but even my own, to that of anyof the six, and feeling myself not a little dependent on her guidanceand explanations, I remonstrated. But finding that her sense ofjustice and kindness would yield to nothing short of direct command, Igave way.

  "You forget _my_ pleasure," I said at last. "But if you will not go,you must at least tell me which I am to take. I will not pretend tohave a choice in the matter."

  "Well, then," she answered, "I should be glad to see you take Eunane.She is, I think, the eldest, apparently the most intelligent andcompanionable, and she has had one mortification already she hardlydeserved."

  "And is much the prettiest," I added maliciously. But Eveena wasincapable of even understanding so direct an appeal to femininejealousy.

  "I think so," she said; "much the prettiest among us. But that willmake no difference under her veil."

  "And must she keep down her veil," I asked, "in our own grounds?"

  Eveena laughed. "Wherever she might be seen by any man but yourself."

  "Call her then," I answered.

  Eveena hesitated. But having successfully carried her own way on themain question, she would not renew her remonstrances on a minor point;and finding her about to join the rest, she drew Eunane apart. Eunanecame up to me alone, Eveena having busied herself in some other partof the house. She approached slowly as if reluctant, and stood silentbefore me, her manner by no means expressive of satisfaction.

  "Eveena thought," I said, "that you would like to accompany me; but ifnot, you may tell her so; and tell her in that case that she _must_come."

  "But I shall be glad to go wherever you please," replied Eunane."Eveena did not tell me why you sent for me, and"----

  "And you were afraid to be scolded for spoiling the breakfast? Youhave heard quite enough of that."

  "You dropped a word last night," she answered, "which made me thinkyou would keep your displeasure till you had me alone."

  "Quite true," I said, "if I had any displeasure to keep. But you mightspoil a dozen meals, and not vex me half as much as the others did."

  "Why?" she asked in surprise. "Girls and women alway
s spite oneanother if they have a chance, especially one who is in disfavour ordisgrace with authority."

  "So much the worse," I answered. "And now--you know as much or aslittle of the house as any of us; find the way into the grounds."

  A narrow door, not of crystal as usual, but of metal painted toresemble the walls, led directly from one corner of the peristyle intothe grounds outside. I had inferred on my arrival, by the distancefrom the road to the house, that their extent was considerable, but Iwas surprised alike by their size and arrangement. On two sides theywere bounded by a wall about four hundred yards in length--thatparting them from the road was about twice as long. They were laid outwith few of the usual orchard plots and beds of different fruits andvegetables, but rather in the form of a small park, with trees ofvarious sorts, among which the fruit trees were a minority. Thesurface was broken by natural rising grounds and artificial terraces;the soil was turfed in the manner I have previously described, withminute plants of different colours arranged in bands and patterns.Here and there was a garden consisting of a variety of flower-beds andflowering shrubs; broad concrete paths winding throughout, and abeautiful silver stream meandering hither and thither, and fillingseveral small ponds and fountains. That the grounds immediatelyappertaining to the house were not intended as usual for the purposesof a farm or kitchen-garden was evident. The reason became equallyapparent when, looking towards the north, where no wall bounded them,I saw--over a gate in the middle of a dense hedge of flowering shrubs,which, with a ditch beyond it, formed the limit of the park in thatdirection--an extensive farm divided by the usual ditches into sometwenty-five or thirty distinct fields, and more than a square mile inextent. This, as Eunane's native inquisitiveness and quickness hadalready learnt, formed part of the estate attached to the mansion andbestowed upon me by the Campta. It was admirably cultivated,containing orchards, fields rich with various thriving crops, andpastures grazed by the Unicorn and other of the domestic birds andbeasts kept to supply Martial tables with milk, eggs, and meat;producing nearly every commodity to which the climate was suited, and,as a very short observation assured me, capable of yielding a fargreater income than would suffice to sustain in luxury and splendour ahousehold larger than that enforced upon me. We walked in thisdirection, my companion talking fluently enough when once I had sether at ease, and seemingly free from the shyness and timidity whichEveena had at first displayed. She paused when we reached a bridgethat spanned the ditch dividing the grounds from the farm, aware that,save on special invitation, she might not, even in my company, gobeyond the former. I led her on, however, till soon after we hadcrossed the ditch I saw a man approaching us. On this, I desiredEunane to remain where she was, seating her at the foot of a fruittree in one of the orchard plots, and proceeded to meet the stranger.After exchanging the usual salute, he came immediately to the point.

  "I thought," he said, "that you would not care yourself to undertakethe cultivation of so extensive an estate. Indeed, the meresuperintendence would occupy the whole of one man's attention, and itsproper cultivation would be the work of six or eight. I have had somelittle experience in agriculture, and determined to ask for thischarge."

  "And who has recommended you?" I said. "Or have you any sort ofintroduction or credentials to me?"

  He made a sign which I immediately recognised. Caution, however, wasimposed by the law to which that sign appealed.

  "You can read," I said, "by starlight?"

  "Better than by any other," he rejoined with a smile.

  One or two more tokens interchanged left me no doubt that the claimwas genuine, and, of course, irresistible.

  "Enough," I replied. "You may take entire charge on the usual terms,which, doubtless, you know better than I."

  "You trust me then, absolutely?" he said, in a tone of some littlesurprise.

  "In trusting you," I replied, "I trust the Zinta. I am tolerably sureto be safe in hands recommended by them."

  "You are right," he said, "and how right this will prove to you," andhe placed in my hand a small cake upon which was stamped an impressionof the signet that I had seen on Esmo's wrist. When he saw that Irecognised it, he took it back, and, breaking it into fragments,chewed and swallowed it.

  "This," he said, "was given me to avouch the following message:--OurChiefs are informed that the Order is threatened with a novel danger.Systematic persecution by open force or by law has been attempted anddefeated ages ago, and will hardly be tried again. What seems to beintended now is the destruction of our Chiefs, individually, by secretmeans--means which it is supposed we shall not be able to trace to theinstigators, even if we should detect their instruments."

  "But," I remarked, "those who have warned you of the danger must knowfrom whom it proceeds, and those who are employed in such an attackmust run not only the ordinary risk of assassins, but the further riskentailed by the peculiar powers of those they assail."

  "Those powers," he answered, "they do not understand or recognise. Theinstruments, I presume, will be encouraged by an assurance that theCourts are in their favour, and by a pledge in the last resort thatthey shall be protected. The exceptional customs of our Order,especially their refusal to send their children into the publicNurseries, mark out and identify them; and though our places ofmeeting are concealed and have never been invaded, the fact that we domeet and the persons of those who attend can hardly be concealed."

  "But," I asked, "if a charge of assassination is once made and proved,how can the Courts refuse to do justice? Can the instigators protectthe culprit without committing themselves?"

  "They would appeal, I do not doubt, to a law, passed many ages agowith a special regard to ourselves, but which has not been applied fora score of centuries, putting the members of a secret religioussociety beyond the pale of legal protection. That we shall ultimatelyfind them out and avenge ourselves, you need not doubt. But in themeantime every known dissentient from the customs of the majority isin danger, and persons of note or prominence especially so. Next toEsmo and his son, the husband of his daughter is, perhaps, in as muchperil as any one. No open attempt on your life will be adventured atpresent, while you retain the favour of the Campta. But you have madeat least one mortal and powerful enemy, and you may possibly be theobject of well-considered and persistent schemes of assassination. Onthe other hand, next to our Chief and his son, you have a paramountclaim on the protection of the Order; and those who with me will takecharge of your affairs have also charge to watch vigilantly over yourlife. If you will trust me beforehand with knowledge of all yourmovements, I think your chief peril will lie in the one sphere uponwhich we cannot intrude--your own household; and Clavelta directs yourown special attention to this quarter. Immediate danger can scarcelythreaten you as yet, save from a woman's hand."

  "Poison?"

  "Probably," he returned coolly. "But of the details of the plot ourCouncil are, I believe, as absolutely ignorant as of the quarter fromwhich it proceeds."

  "And how," I inquired, "can it be that the witness who has informedyou of the plot has withheld the names, without which his informationis so imperfect, and serves rather to alarm than to protect us?"

  "You know," he replied, "the kind of mysterious perception to which wecan resort, and are probably aware how strangely lucid in some points,how strangely darkened in others, is the vision that does not dependon ordinary human senses?"

  As we spoke we had passed Eunane once or twice, walking backwards andforwards along the path near which she sat. As my companion was aboutto continue, we were so certainly within her hearing that I checkedhim.

  "Take care," I said; "I know nothing of her except the Campta'schoice, and that she is not of us."

  He visibly started.

  "I thought," he said, "that the witness of our conversation was one atleast as reliable as yourself. I forgot how it happened that you havediverged from the prudence which forbids our brethren to admit totheir households aliens from the Order and possible spies on itssecrets."

  "Of wh
om do you speak as Clavelta?" I asked. "I was not even awarethat the Order had a single head."

  "The Signet," replied my friend in evident surprise, "should havedistinguished the Arch-Enlightener to duller sight than yours."

  We had not spoken, of course, till we were again beyond hearing; butmy companion looked round carefully before he proceeded--

  "You will understand the better, then, how strong is your own claimupon the care of your brethren, and how confidently you may rely upontheir vigilance and fidelity."

  "I should regret," I answered, "that their lives should be risked formine. In dangers like those against which you could protect me, I havebeen accustomed from boyhood to trust my own right hand. But the fearof secret assassination has often unnerved the bravest men, and I willnot say that it may not disturb me."

  "For you," he answered, "personally we should care as for one of ourbrethren exposed to especial danger, For him who saved the descendantof our Founder, and who in her right, after her father and brother,would be the guardian, if not the head, of the only remaining familyof his lineage, one and all of us are at need bound to die."

  After a few more words we parted, and I rejoined Eunane, and led herback towards the house. I had learnt to consider taciturnity a matterof course, except where there was actual occasion for speech; butEunane had chattered so fluently and frankly just before, that herabsolute silence might have suggested to me the possibility that shehad heard and was pondering things not intended for her knowledge, hadI been less preoccupied. Enured to the perils of war, of the chase, ofEastern diplomacy, and of travel in the wildest parts of the Earth, Ido not pretend indifference to the fear of assassination, andespecially of poison. Cromwell, and other soldiers of equal nerve andclearer conscience, have found their iron courage sorely shaken by aperil against which no precautions were effective and from which theycould not enjoy an hour's security. The incessant continuous strain onthe nerves is, I suppose, the chief element in the peculiar dread withwhich brave men have regarded this kind of peril; as the best troopscannot endure to be under fire in their camp. Weighing, however, theprobability that girls who had been selected by the Sovereign, and hadleft their Nursery only to pass directly into my house, could havebeen already bribed or seduced to become the instruments of murderoustreachery, I found it but slight; and before we reached the house Ihad made up my mind to discard the apprehensions or precautionsrecommended to me on their account. Far better, if need be, to die bypoison than to live in hourly terror of it. Better to be murdered thanto suspect of secret treason those with whom I must maintain the mostintimate relations, and whose sex and years made it intolerable tobelieve them criminal. I dismissed the thought, then; and believingthat I had probably wronged them in allowing it to dwell for a momentin my mind, I felt perhaps more tenderly than before towards them, andcertainly indisposed to name to Eveena a suspicion of which I wasmyself ashamed. Perhaps, too, youth and beauty weighed in myconclusion more than cool reason would have allowed. A Martial proverbsays--

  "Trust a foe, and you may rue it; Trust a friend, and perish through it. Trust a woman if you will;-- Thrice betrayed, you'll trust her still."

  As to the general warning, I was wishful to consult Eveena, andunwilling to withhold from her any secret of my thoughts; but equallyaverse to disturb her with alarms that were trying even to nervesseasoned by the varied experience of twenty years against every openperil.