It was the first time that Ruth had seen Prince Aglipogue, though
apparently he was on the most congenial and intimate terms of friendship
with Gloria. He was at the piano now, accompanying himself, while he
sang in Italian. He had glossy black eyes, glossy red lips, glossy black
hair, smooth glossy cheeks and what Terry described as a grand opera
figure. He was a Roumanian, and while he sang magnificently, was a
passable pianist and a really good violinist, he was at present earning
his living as a painter.
Gloria had finished her motion picture contract and was relaxing. Ruth
had just come home from the League and found Gloria, Terry, Billie
Irwin, Prince Aglipogue and Angela Peyton-Russell at the house. Ben
Stark had at last started out on tour, or he would also have been there.
Ruth often thought that her aunt’s house was more like a club than a
home. Of course Ruth did not immediately learn all the foregoing details
about Prince Aglipogue, whom Gloria called Aggie, and the others called
Prince. Her information came in scraps gathered from the conversation of
the others. She had slipped quietly into the room while Prince Aglipogue
was singing and was introduced to him when he had finished. He bowed
with surprising depth and grace for a man with no waist line to speak
of, and regarded her out of his glossy, black eyes. He spoke entirely
without accent, but constructed his sentences curiously, Ruth thought.
As always when there were many people Ruth did not talk, but listened.
Mrs. Peyton-Russell had come to talk over with Gloria the details of her
Christmas party. As at present arranged she would have one more man than
woman, and it appeared that her party must be conducted strictly on the
Ark principle, with pairs. She was deeply distressed. She had invited
Billie Irwin in a patronizing burst of generosity, but Billie had also
secured an engagement that would take her out of town and could not
come.
“I don’t know who to have,” Angela complained. “Of course there are
dozens of people I could ask, but I wanted this to be just our little
Bohemian circle—no swank, no society people—just friends.”
No one seemed to mind this remark. George had come in with a tea wagon
and the Prince was engaged in the, to Ruth, alarming, procedure of
drinking whiskey and soda and eating cake. Witnessing this catholic
consumption of refreshment she could easily conceive that an invitation
to any party under any circumstances, would be welcome to him. As for
Gloria, she was accustomed to Angela, and did not mind her airs. Since
her marriage Angela had consistently referred to all her old friends as
“our little Bohemian circle,” a circle, to which she was constantly
reverting for amusement, after unsuccessful attempts to gain access to
the more conventional circles described as Society.
“Angela’s heart is as good as her complexion,” Gloria always said, and
that was indeed high praise.
“Just tea, please, Gloria,” Angela was saying. “I never drink anything
stronger any more—no, no real principle, but people in our position must
set an example, you know. Not sweets—I really don’t dare, well just a
tiny bit. You know there is a tendency to stoutness in our family.”
“There is, I suppose, in that, nothing personal,” said Prince Aglipogue,
hastily swallowing a _petit fours_.
Angela laughed gaily. She pretended to believe everything the Prince
said to be extremely clever.
“But that doesn’t solve my problem,” said Angela. “You are all to come
up on the Friday night train. We’ll meet you at the station at North
Adams. You must be sure and dress warmly, because it’s a twenty-mile
drive through the hills and while there’ll be lots of robes in the
sleigh, one can’t have too much.”
“It will remind me of Russia,” said the Prince.
“You’ll be sure to bring your violin and some music,” said Angela.
Prince Aglipogue assented carelessly.
“I really think it will be tremendously successful,” said Angela, “not a
dull person in the party, only John has invited one of his friends—he’s
coming up early. I forget his name, but anyway I haven’t the slightest
idea what he’s like and he makes my party uneven. Come to think, though,
John said something about his being ill—lungs, I suppose, so perhaps he
won’t want to talk to any one. Anyway I’ll try and think of some one
congenial before it’s too late.”
She rambled on, sipping her tea and forgetting her diet to the extent of
two more cakes, while George moved in and out among them apparently a
model of what a perfect servant could be.
“Of course you’ll sing for us,” she demanded of the Prince.
“You will inspire my best efforts,” he assured her, looking at Gloria.
“And you’ll be sure to have some clever stories, Mr. Riordan.”
Evidently every one would have to pay for their entertainment. Ruth
wondered if she would be expected to draw.
“And the best part of the entertainment is to be a secret.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t to most of them,” said Gloria. “Professional pride
got the better of George’s discretion and he told Terry and Terry told
Ruth.”
“What is it?” asked the Prince, evidently fearing a rival attraction.
“It’s George,” explained Gloria. “He used to be a music hall magician
and he’s going to do his tricks for us.”
“Oh!” Prince Aglipogue shrugged his fat shoulders.
“You won’t be so scornful when you’ve seen him. He was one of the best
and if he hasn’t forgotten he’ll astonish you. George is a Hindoo, you
know, and he doesn’t need a lot of props to work with.”
“And he is working here as your—as your butler.” It was indeed difficult
to classify George. His duties were so numerous and varied.
“Yes, Aggie, as my butler, footman, and he will be cook and maid as
well, I’m afraid, for Amy has given notice. She’s leaving at the end of
the week, unless Ruth can persuade her to stay.”
“Why Ruth?” asked Terry.
“I don’t know. Servants always have favourites and while George is
devoted to me, Amy is devoted to Ruth.”
“Devotion? Among servants!” Angela threw out her hands in a despairing
gesture and then launched forth on a discussion of servants to which no
one paid much attention, with the possible exception of Billie Irwin,
who listened to every one on every subject, showing her keen attention
to their words by sundry nods, smiles, and shakes of the head.
Angela was taking Gloria away with her to dinner and Prince Aglipogue,
finally having consumed the last scrap of cake, and convinced that he
would not be asked to come with them, took his departure. Billie Irwin
went up to her room to rest, Gloria and Angela went away and Terry also
departed, leaving Ruth alone. She rather hated these evenings when
Gloria was away and she had to dine alone. Amy usually served her on
these occasions, George hardly thinking that one person at the table
justified his appearance. She was wondering whether she should tell her
not to trouble with dinner and go out, when George came in to take away
the tea things. Ruth was almost as much afraid of George as Amy, but she
nerved herself to speak to him now, because she questioned whether she
would again have such a good opportunity.
“How is your pet?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon,” said George, capturing a glass from the piano and a
tea cup from the floor with what looked like one movement.
“I mean the snake that you use in your—in your tricks.”
“I do not perform _tricks_ with the daughter of Shiva.”
“But you said you were rehearsing the day Mr. Riordan and I looked in on
you?”
“You knew that I was not speaking the truth.”
As he talked he went on about his duties. There was in his attitude
toward her nothing of the servant. He did not pronounce her name once,
but spoke as one speaks to an equal.
“Why should I think that you were speaking anything but the truth? If
you were not telling the truth I must speak to Miss Mayfield. I don’t
think she would like the idea of having a snake in the house.”
He put down the cup in his hand and turned to her.
“Miss Mayfield is well aware that the daughter of Shiva is with me. She
has been with me since my birth and was with my father before me, and
she is sacred.”
“George, you ought to be ashamed to believe all that superstition—an
educated—” she stopped, the word nigger on her lips—“man like you. It’s
nothing short of idolatry.” She was trying to talk to him as she would
have scolded at one of her mother’s coloured servants.
“You prefer the mythology of the Hebrews?” asked George.
Ruth decided to ignore this.
“And now you’ve frightened poor Amy so that she is leaving. That ought
to concern you, for it may be some time before Miss Mayfield can find
any one to take her place.”
“That is of no importance, for on the first of the year the house will
revert to its original owner and she will not need servants. She will be
travelling with her new husband.”
“Her what?” Ruth forgot that she was talking to George. She stared at
him wide eyed, unwilling to believe that she had heard him rightly.
His blue lips curled up in a thin smile:
“Certainly—wait and you will see that I am right. She herself does not
know it, but she will marry Prince Aglipogue on the first of the new
year.”
“She will do nothing of the sort—she can’t—he’s fat!”
Ruth was protesting not to George but to herself, for even against her
reason she believed everything George said to her. He shrugged his
shoulders, still smiling at her, and it seemed to her that the iris of
his eyes was red, concentrating in tiny points of flame at the pupils.
“You are speaking foolishly out of the few years of your present
existence; back of that you have the unerring knowledge of many
incarnations and you know that what I say is true. Has she not already
had three husbands? I tell you she will have one more before she finally
finds her true mate. She has suffered, but before she knows the truth
she must suffer more. Through the Prince she will come to poverty and
disgrace, and when these things are completed she will see her true
destiny and follow it.”
A mist was swimming before Ruth’s eyes so that she no longer saw the
room or the figure of George—only his red eyes glowed in the deepening
shadows of the room, holding her own. She struggled to move her gaze,
but her head would not turn; she tried to rise, to leave him as if his
words were the silly ravings of a demented servant, but her limbs were
paralysed. Only her lips moved and she heard words coming from them, or
echoing in her brain. She could not be sure that she really made a
sound.
“What do you mean?”
“In the whole world there are only two men who are fit to walk beside
her—and of those one is slowly dying of an unknown disease. He whom the
gods chose will soon be gone, but I remain because I have knowledge. In
the _Mahabharata_ it is written, ‘Even if thou art the greatest sinner
among all that are sinful, thou shalt yet cross over all transgressions
by the raft of knowledge,’ and the Vedas tell of men who armed with
knowledge have defied the gods themselves—”
He paused and turned on her almost fiercely:
“Do you think that I have renounced my caste, that I have lived with the
unclean and served the unclean for nothing—the price has been too high
for me to lose—but no price will seem too high after I have won!”
Ruth woke to find herself alone and in darkness, save for the light from
the street lamps that shone through the curtained windows. With her
hands stretched out in front of her to ward off obstacles she moved
cautiously through the room until she found a light to turn on. She felt
weak and dizzy, but she remembered everything that George had said. It
could not be true—it could not, but with her denials she still heard
George’s voice speaking of the raft of knowledge and she half remembered
the incomprehensible contradictions of Indian mythology—of heroes and
holy Brahmans who had actually fought with gods and conquered, but these
men had only won power through self-denial. Possibly George thought that
by living as a servant for eleven years he was performing
austerities—possibly did not know what he believed. Certainly modern
Hindoos did not believe as he did. His mind seemed to be a confused mass
of knowledge and superstition, ancient and modern, but one thing he
had—faith and absolute confidence in his power, and she remembered some
words she had read, when, as a child, she pored over books of mythology
instead of fairy tales: “All this, whatever exists, rests absolutely on
mind,” and “That man succeeds whom thus knowing the power of austere
abstraction, practises it.”
She was roused from her thoughts by the entrance of Amy.
“Ain’ yo’ goin’ eat dinnah? That voodoo man, he’s gone out, an’ I saw
you-all sleepin’ here and didn’t like to disturb yo’. Yo’ dinnah’s cold
by now, but I’ll warm it up—now he’s gone I ain’ ’fraid to go in the
kitchen.”
“I’m not hungry, Amy, and I’m sorry you’re going.”
“Dat’s all right. I ain’ so anxious fo’ wu’k as that. I don’ haf to wu’k
with devils. An’ yo’ bettah eat. You-all too thin. It’s a shame you-all
havin’ ter eat alone heah while Mis’ Glorie go out to pahties. She don’
treat yo’ like folks. Dat devil man he’s hoodooed her. I’ve seen him
lookin’ at her with his red eyes.”
She went on muttering and returned with dinner on a tray, and Ruth
knowing the uselessness of resistance dutifully ate, while Amy hovered
near.
“Tell me all about it, Amy. What has George been doing now? I thought
you would be satisfied when I let you sleep upstairs.”
“No, sir, I ain’ satisfied nohow. I wouldn’t wu’k heah or sleep heah
’nother night not for all the money in the worl’. Dat man he sets an’
sets lookin’ at nothin’ an’ then he runs knives inter his hans—an’ he
don’ bleed. He ain’ human—that’s what.”
“I’m sorry, Amy—I don’t want you to go and neither does Gloria, but of
course we can’t keep you. Let me know if you don’t get another place or
if anything goes wrong. Perhaps later George may go and then you can
come back.”
“He won’t go. One mawnin’ you-all will wake up dade—that’s what goin’
happen.”
She shook her head, looking at Ruth with real tears in her eyes.
Apparently she thought she looked at one doomed to early death, and
Ruth, though she knew the threatened evil was not for herself, had long
since lost the ability to laugh at Amy’s superstitions.