CHAPTER VIII
Two years had passed away, and the January of the third had begun. The scene was once again upon the hillside, a bright starlit night in January 1889. But the same miserable wind of two years back was moaning through the trees, and well it might.
On the broken seat sat Genius all alone, his head bent in his hands, unconscious of the wind, the cold, the night.
Whilst he sat thus thoughtful Plucritus glided silent on the scene. The blood-red light from the blood-red ring shone round about him in glorious, feverish light. There was nothing dull nor dark about it now.
“Ho! you here, Genius? How disappointing! I came for a little quiet midnight stroll far from the haunts of spirits and of men, only to meet with you.”
“Liar!” And looking up Genius revealed a face fraught with all pain and suffering.
“Call me what names you will, I am in glorious form to-night. I have compassed death and bound a captive, spreading much suffering.”
“Ay. And be careful in that same net you get not bound yourself,” Genius observed, springing up.
“Threats are like foam on water—idle and useless when applied to me. I have been with the farmer through all his so-called agony, and it was very fine.”
“Is he then dead?”
“Oh! dead as these sodden leaves beneath us is his body. Drowned in the winter water. I was with him to the end. I whispered in his ear his many sins, I and my brother. And when the end came the heavens were shining bloody red around the dying sun, and their ironical glory struck even him.”
“And well they might,” said Genius, speaking huskily, “and well they might.”
“Once I remember when he was a lad he fell in the mill dam and was dragged out more dead than living. Later in life, perhaps some fifteen years ago from now, he went to London with a friend to look round an exhibition. As they stood watching some machinery working the thing exploded. By curious fate the friend beside him was killed upon the spot, but he remained untouched. He returned to the country alone. The one was taken and the other left. Is it not strange that he whom Providence twice spared as by a miracle should in the end have come to curse his birth and take his life?”
“Yes, it is strange,” replied Genius, “and passing strange. Devil incarnate! how much had you to do with it?”
“Why, everything and nothing. It was my little fire-fly, my glorious Will-o’-the-wisp that danced among the dark and blackened branches. Ting! Ting! the magic music played, clear and entrancing. ‘Providence has spared you once. Providence has spared you twice. All for what? Can it be that you are kept—simply just to be bereft of all life’s pleasures? Ting! Ting! No. No. Try again! This only once.’ Tinkle! Tinkle! And he tried—only once—only once—on, on, to the bitter end—when the clear ball burst.”
As Plucritus spoke he moved about from spot to spot, laughing at almost every line. “Poor, misguided fool! How he shuddered and paled when Fate raised the pall and showed him his own death of shame. How he stared aghast and hollow-eyed when he understood the trickery played on him!” and he laughed again.
“Have you no mercy nor consideration?”
“Well, yes. Of the bread-poultice sort. I put it on luke-warm and forget to remove it when cold. It sends such a delicious feeling of ill-comfort through the sufferer. Poor Genius! Poor tricked fool! Poor poser of impossible virtues! Why are you here?”
“Because at present I am not wanted elsewhere.”
“And why so melancholy? Are you not thankful for a holiday? Away from all the tawdry narrowness, you should shine. Now listen to me.” And suddenly he turned and came and sat upon the seat.
“I am listening. But keep that damned light of yours out of my sight.”
“Oh, certainly.” And with a sudden movement all had darkened.
“Now listen to me. For the last twelve years or more you have been a failure. You have been placed in soil in which you do not thrive—soil having very little nutriment.”
“Pardon me,” said the other, laughing scornfully. “The duller the background the brighter and clearer the picture shines. Mind your own business and leave me to mind mine.”
“I am minding my own business, and your business is mine, and I am capable of managing both,” replied Plucritus.
“Well, continue.”
“I say you are in the wrong place. Go away. Leave her. I can put you where you can be far better thought of, far better loved.”
“And could you find me a more unconscious or more loving pupil?”
“I could find you a more appreciative one,” Plucritus answered quickly.
“That is not the point, and I prefer for once to stay.”
“It is sheer pig-headedness.”
“Exactly. The pig has always interested me. Have you anything more to say?”
“What! you will stay with the daughter of a thief?”
“Even so.”
“He who took the widow’s substance that was trusted to him?”
“Even so.”
“You will stay with the daughter of the coward and the suicide?”
“Even so.”
“Are you thinking what you’re saying?”
“Even so.”
“When, may I ask you, are you going to move the curse?”
“When the time comes.”
“You will not move it, you will deepen it.”
“I will argue it when the time comes.”
“Genius,” said the other one after a pause, and in a different voice, “I do not think you fully appreciate the extent of my powers.”
“Perhaps I do not.”
“I—I am stronger than you think,” he went on warily.
“I think I can fathom the depth of your strength.”
Just then the white light flashed across the ground and showed Plucritus in the act of throwing back his head and laughing silently.
“Ha! what are you up to now?” asked Genius, hastily. But in an instant Plucritus had flashed the counter red light on the scene.
“There is Virginius somewhere round about. I was laughing in the dark to be reminded of the farmer’s death. Thinking that justice at last would have its day.”
“The farmer is not damned?”
“Oh! excellently damned. Irrevocably damned,” and Plucritus laughed. “Now comes the farce ironical. I am most interested in my prayer. To-night and last night it has altered slightly. There are no more prayers for a prosperous business, no more prayers for a happy death-bed, no more prayers for a long life and lasting happiness. It’s all merged into one insane and childish cry ‘God, bring him back—Oh, please, God, do!’”
“When will they know the actual facts?”
“On Wednesday, I think. I am going to be merciful, you see, and bring him back. His crossing to Ireland simply meant more expense. The dock wall or the river would have answered any day. But that has nothing to do with my present quest. I have come to ask you for the last time, Will you go or stay?”
Genius rose, and round him shone his own warm, dazzling lights all intermingled.
“Had you been kinder I might have acted differently. But you forget, or reason is at fault. They say on this earth that such as I are born in pain; rightly or wrongly I would not presume to say. But as it is this suffering simply draws the sufferer nearer to me.”
“And farther off from God.”
“As you will. That is Virginius’s duty, none of mine. Why do you laugh?”
“You speak so innocently, so childishly, you make me laugh.”
“I understand you,” answered Genius, with some slight contempt. “It is useless bandying words with you.”
“On the contrary, I laugh from the very bottom of my heart—or what in me corresponds to that function in the human breast. I laugh at a delicate joke, the flavour of which even you cannot appreciate.”
“Enjoy it whilst you may—at a future time must come the reckoning day.”