BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
garret.
One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust
his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good
lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race;
they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury
to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser,
and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool
of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this
tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves
"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is
no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds'
worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of
straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if
there is such a milk business in existence.
This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't
you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money
matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the
jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think
you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"
The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of
the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be
practical! The cleverest man in the world--advise him to be practical;
as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.
To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.
But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since
the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying
fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.
Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open,
and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
the ricks.
At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see
what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and
gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to
certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's
system had been overstrained by these continual worries.
Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
her.
After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.
When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.
On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--
"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.
The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
only.
That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
only.
So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
these many, many days.
The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the
world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do
with it--with just one of those golden disks!
Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr.
Chenery (of _The Times_), translated twenty-six of his poems from the
Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion
of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical
unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is
vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom
is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep
jest.
Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar,
the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the
obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other
causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates
belong to it. First he chants its praises:--
How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
Told abroad are its fame and repute:
Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
Its bright look is loved by mankind,
As though it had been molten of their hearts.
By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
Charming are its sufficiency and help.
How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it,
would be endless!
How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has
softened.
How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
mighty.
All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--
Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
looks on it,
The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
withholds;
Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
Is that it helps thee not in straits,
Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
lover,
Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
"I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"
"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
fleeing like a runaway slave.
But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all
powerful to bless.
How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and
full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be
taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of
things.
It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
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