CHAPTER XXVII.
BEHIND THE VEIL.
"My mother has your flowers," said Shagarach. "She would be delighted ifyou would come to see her."
It was in response to this invitation that Emily had selected anappropriate dress from her modest wardrobe and kissed her mother good-byfor the evening. She was at first not a little alarmed when a young mansidled up to her from behind and began uttering incoherent avowals ofdevotion, which not even her chilling glance and hastened step couldcheck. Kennedy had disappeared for some time,--probably busy extricatinghimself from his Dove-Cote scrape,--and she had congratulated herselfon good riddance of the lovesick manikin. But here he was, bolder andmore nauseously enamored than before.
She felt like summoning a bystander to her aid, but as she was walkingclose to the edge of the sidewalk, with Kennedy on the very curbstone,this appeal for help was rendered unnecessary. A quick, firm shove withher brave little hands sent the shadow of a man topsy-turvy into thegutter, while Emily, with burning cheeks and quickened pulse, made on tothe car corner.
An old Hebrew housemaid answered her ring and ushered her into the tinyparlor of the tiny house, none too large for even the three persons whooccupied it--and three is the smallest number that can be called afamily. It need not be said that Emily was all a-flutter with theprivilege of admission to the great lawyer's private acquaintance andthat she cast a curious glance upon the surroundings. There wassomething oriental about them, even to the barely perceptible odor ofmusk in the air.
The carpet was clocked in a Turkish pattern, though the bough birdswoven in the corners suggested that it came from one of the countriesfurther east, where the shah, not the sultan, rules under Allah, and theadmonitions of the prophet are less literally observed. The lamp was asilver fantasy, brazed with arabesques in gold, and the furniture in itsscroll-work and the embroideries, like gossamer, all whispered of ataste exotic and luxurious.
Yet the articles were few and severely disposed in their places. A bustof Swedenborg over a massively carved bookcase, filled with volumes ofroyal exterior, attracted Emily's eye. On the opposite wall were severalshelves, crowded with plainer books, as tattered and dingy as aschoolboy's algebra. A portrait of Spinoza reclined on an easel, and awell-thumbed Marcus Aurelius, of pocket size, with flexible covers, layface down and open on the table. It was a far cry from the Swedishmystic to the imperial stoic of Rome.
"You are welcome, Miss Barlow, to my home," exclaimed Shagarach,extending his hand and sunning her with his great warm eyes.
"Pardon my curiosity. I am a woman and a book-lover," said Emily, whohad been standing before Shagarach's gorgeous volumes when he crossedthe threshold.
"They are not secreted from those who can handle them without danger,"answered the lawyer, opening the bookcase.
"I call them my meeting of the masters."
Emily marveled at the range and judgment of the selection. Here wereHomer, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe in the original tongues, which herown studies just enabled her to distinguish one from the other; theKoran, the Talmud, the Zend-Avesta; Camoens, Luis de Leon and a dozenothers from the hidalgo land; Maimonides and all the great mediaevalHebrews; Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge--whatever richest remnantsremain from the cultured nations of Europe and western Asia. What rarepowers of acquisition, what hermit-like seclusion from the busy world,were implied in the ability to read and enjoy these treasures!
"And which are your especial favorites?" asked Emily.
"The Persian poets," answered Shagarach, pointing to the uppermostshelf, where the titles were in characters she could not read,resembling odd curves of beauty and flourishes of a draughtsman's pen."Firdusi, the weaver of the magic carpet, who spurned back thetreasure-laden caravan of the shah; Sadi, the nightingale of a thousandsongs, planter of the rose garden and the garden of trees; Hafiz, thesugar-lipped dervish of Shiraz, whose couplets are appealed to asoracles by the simple, and whose legion of commentators surround himlike the stars clustering around the orb of the moon."
Was this the criminal lawyer, the granite-lipped reasoner of theimmobile forehead, forever pacing to and fro, folding his arms insolution of problems?
The memory of the barren law office was vivid upon her, and of theaustere occupant, the last being in the world from whom dithyrambicswould be expected. She found it hard to reconcile the task-riddenShagarach with this praiser of Firdusi, the half-fabulous minstrel whohad loved to recline on silken divans, smothered with roses and waitedupon by his hundred slaves.
"Inspect them," said Shagarach. Emily reached for the Persian shelf. Thebooks stuck a little, and when they came away she was surprised to findthat they were attached together in sets of five; still more surprisedwhen she turned them over and saw a fine chain of steel running fromedge to edge through the covers, just where the clasp of an album fits,and meeting again in an exquisite padlock at the middle volume. All thissplendor of beauty and thought was sealed as effectively as if the pageshad been bathed in glue.
"The keys to the padlock?" she looked interrogatively. "There is onlyone," said Shagarach, a divine smile for the first time breaking the setcurve of his lips. "It fits them all, but the dragon is jealous of itspossession. My mother, Miss Barlow."
The lady who had entered approached Emily and greeted her warmly.
"My son said you were beautiful," she said.
Emily blushed. She was usually disconcerted by praise, but somehow theentrance of the mother put her more at her ease. Standing beside herson, the lady appeared to be taller than he, though this may have beenmore in looks than in inches, since the standard of stature for women islower. The resemblance between them was marked. It was from her that theson inherited his beauty, for she must have been queenly in hermaiden-hood. Even now her coloring was autumnally perfect, the rich darkskin, oxidizing like an old painting, having gained in mellowness a partof what it had lost in brilliancy.
"We live plainly, you see," she said, speaking with a strong accent, asif she had learned our stubborn language too late in life ever to masterit.
"I admire your furnishings," answered Emily, "but your library amazes memost of all."
The son and mother exchanged a sparkling glance, while Shagarachreplaced the Persian set on its shelf. But he did not explain themystery of his padlocked treasures.
"Miss Barlow has been wondering at my taste in the poets," he said,diverting the conversation a little. "She forgets, perhaps, that we areorientals, a long way back. And still in my dreams at times I feel therocking rhythm of the camel ride and the winged bulls of the Assyriansseem to haunt me like familiar sights."
All at once Emily remembered that she had often divined a more emotionaland mystical side to the criminal lawyer.
And then in a flash many things became clear to her--Shagarach'sconstant repression of emotion, his frugality and tireless toil, hisshutting out of the gypsy violinist's strain that day when she broughthim the news of Bertha--all these told of some great resignation, theruthless division of a dual nature and the discarding of one part,perhaps the better beloved, and the abandonment with that resignation ofalmost all that was personal to him in life--leaving only the restlesslyenergizing intellect, the ethical strenuousness as of a modern Isaiah,the filial love and these sealed mementos of a more congenial butprobably less successful past.
"And this is Spinoza--the greatest of our race," added Shagarach. "Notthe least refined of human faces."
"My ancestors were his kinsmen," added the mother, not without pride."We were Spanish once and my son can claim the title of count in Spainif he chose--"
"And many a castle in that country besides," added the son, smiling therare, sweet smile which he reserved for this privacy of his home.
"But my mother speaks the truth, Miss Barlow. She is an accuratehistorian, as you see. An ancestor of mine rose to power in the court ofFerdinand and left his wealth to two sons. The elder, bearer of thetitle, chose exile when our people were harried from Spain. The younger,by apostatizing,
succeeded to his name and property, and the heirs ofthat brother still survive in Valencia. That makes us feel for Spinoza,who was also an exile--and a heretic," he concluded, in a lower tone.
"This way, Miss Barlow," the mother led Emily through portieres into arear room, not unlike the parlor in its furnishings. "Here are theflowers which you were so good, so thoughtful, to send. I have changedthe water twice every day, and last night put them out to drink in therain, for they love the rain from heaven, it is manna to them." Themother fondled them as if they were living things, and gave them toEmily to smell. They were indeed wonderfully fresh, considering thenumber of days they had been kept.
Shagarach stepped to the cleft in the portieres and excused himself toanswer a ring at the doorbell. Emily was left chatting alone in the dimlight with his mother. From flowers to other subjects of feminineinterest the transition was easy, and the old lady's vivacity, strongsense and above all her warmth of heart made the minutes passdelightfully for the sensitive young girl. She had not been conscious ofany unusual merit in offering Shagarach a simple bouquet, yet it haddeeply touched the lonely son and his devoted mother, both of whomseemed to regard her now with that intensity of friendship which theArab lavishes upon the stranger whom he admits to his hospitality.
It was while they were alone in the rear chamber, and Shagarach wasconversing in low tones with the visitor behind the drawnportieres--probably a client calling in the evening--that Emily'sattention was called to a tapping noise which seemed to come from thewindow. She thought it best not to speak of it, though it continued foralmost a minute. Besides, she remembered having often arisen in thenight to investigate the origin of just such a tapping, and lifted thesash to find nothing and hear nothing, not even a departing sparrow,who, perched on the sill, might have been feeling his way along thetransparent glass. Shagarach's mother was talking herself at the timeand probably the sound of her voice obscured the interruption.
"Is it not pleasanter in here, mother?" Shagarach had thrown theportieres aside and stood again in the cleft, widening it for the ladiesto pass. His visitor had been dismissed, but it was a few moments beforehe recovered his earlier manner. By a graduated ascent, however, hisconversation rose to its former glow of enthusiasm, and Emily could nothelp contrasting its richness and elasticity with the sententiousness,the compressed statement, bare of all accessories, which characterizedhim when at his desk in the office. Probably this was the style he hadused in addressing his caller, and the transition to and fro was noteasy.
"'Try how the life of a good man suits thee,'" Shagarach began readingfrom his Marcus Aurelius; "'the life of him who is satisfied with hisportion out of the whole and satisfied with his own just acts andbenevolent disposition.' That is the advice I gave to my visitor andcharged him nothing for it."
"It was Simon Rabofsky's voice?" asked the mother keenly.
"Yes," answered Shagarach.
"Then you did wrong. You should have charged him double. He is a rogue."
"For the emperor's wisdom?" smiled Shagarach.
"What mischief is he about?"
"He wishes to sell Mrs. Arnold's jewels. It is his legal right, sinceshe has defaulted in the payment, but I have counseled a postponement ofits exercise."
"And will he postpone it?" asked Emily, sympathetically.
"He? My dear, you do not know him," said the mother. "He is of the tribeof Aaron, who worshiped the golden calf."
Emily wondered if some of the proud Spanish blood had not become mingledwith the Hebrew in her veins. Scorn of petty avarice was betrayed inevery line of her noble face. Yet Emily felt sure that it was she whohad called Shagarach away from the companionship of the Persian poetsand impelled him to write his signet on the living world in letters ofself-assertion and honorable achievement.
The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery Page 27