The Goose Girl and Other Stories (24 page)

He covered his face with his hands, and his fingers moved restlessly. He kneaded the flesh of his cheeks, scrubbed his forehead, and pulled at the shape of his mouth. And apart from him Breadalbane and the Master, turning away in relief that their dreaded interview had passed without loss of office or charge of treason, were also soothing, smoothing, and obliterating (or so trying) from their features their strained and harsh expression.

They rubbed and they scrubbed, and felt beneath their fingers a horny, indurate resistance. They turned about and saw the King, from the head of the littered table, staring at them through the mask of purpose which had grown upon him. The mask of a cold, inhuman purpose that could not be removed.

And the King, staring at Breadalbane and the Master, saw them in the masks they would wear until they died: the masks of bloody intention that would forever stamp their features and shape their memory.

Acertain Philosopher, whom his neighbours called Smoky Philip for a reason that will appear, was reduced by circumstances to a state of dire poverty. He was nobly born, and in his youth had been rich enough. But the calamities to which all men are subject—pestilence, famine, civil war, foreign invasion, the treachery of relatives and the hostility of servants—had done much to destroy his property, and when in middle life he became addicted to philosophy the remainder of his fortune was speedily dissipated.

He had two handsome daughters of marriageable age to whom the future offered little but disappointment, as their father could find for neither the dowry necessary to procure a husband. For some time, indeed, he had found it difficult to provide them with food, even of the cheapest kind. They were intelligent and vivacious girls as any to be found in the neighbourhood, and the prospect of an unwedded and scantily nourished life did not please them. One, whose name was Beta, had red hair which she braided in two glowing pigtails reaching to her waist; the other, called Dowsabell, had raven-black tresses and a very white skin. Their mother was dead.

One day, when they had eaten nothing but a crust of brown bread and an onion, Beta said to Dowsabell, ‘It's high time for us to become sensible and look facts in the face. There is no money in the house, and despite our father's belief in alchemy, there is not the slightest possibility of there ever being any money—that is, unless we obtain it by our own endeavours. We are both strong and really rather nice-looking. So far as I can see there is only one thing for us to do, if we would escape this life of poverty so extreme that the danger of starvation is never absent.'

‘Whatever we decide, the prospect is dreadful for girls so nobly born and delicately nurtured as ourselves,' said Dowsabell, and deeply sighed. Through the open door she could see a group of soldiers loitering. They were fine upstanding fellows, laughing loudly at some joke, and the sun shone brightly on their partial armour. ‘Oh, a dreadful prospect!' said Dowsabell with another sigh.

Beta agreed with her, also looking at the soldiers. ‘But I am afraid
it is necessary,' she said. ‘We cannot live for ever on brown bread and onions—which, incidentally, I detest.'

‘That crust was the last in the house,' said Dowsabell, ‘and there are very few onions left.'

‘We appear to have no choice,' said Beta, moving so that she could follow with her eyes a sturdy and evidently prosperous merchant riding down the cobbled street on a little donkey.

‘We have also our father to consider,' Dowsabell pointed out. ‘He has had nothing to eat for several days, and after he has done so much for us it is clearly our duty to support him, if we can, in the helplessness of his age and philosophic habit of mind.'

‘You're quite right,' said Beta. ‘Let us go and tell him that he will have no further need to worry, because for the future we shall look after him.'

Smoky Philip was on his knees before a small fire that he blew with patient regularity. Every now and then a cloud of soot emerged and settled on his face and whiskers. As he spent many hours a day before the fire, and as he seldom remembered to wash, his whiskers, white in reality, had acquired a permanent dinginess, and his face was black as a collier's. Its lineaments, however, were still kindly, and his brow was extremely noble.

Out of a pot suspended on the fire came a smell, very disgusting, but readily accounted for by the contents of the vessel, which were eggshells, mutton-bones, old iron, frog-spawn, brimstone, horsehair, valerian, dandelions, night-shade, and certain fluids which it is unnecessary to name. Smoky Philip continued to blow at his fire.

‘Father,' said Beta, ‘we have come to tell you of a decision we have made. There is, as you are aware, no money in the house . . .'

‘In five hours and thirteen minutes,' benignly interrupted the philosopher, ‘provided that I am successful in maintaining this fire at an equable temperature, there will be in that pot a substance out of which, by fermentation, putrefaction, congolation, calcination, and other processes, I shall presently produce the
magisterium,
and with that, making projection upon base metals, deliver to you an infinite quantity of pure gold. Do not disturb yourselves about our momentary embarrassment, for in a very little time—some five months or so—I shall control the riches of the whole world.'

‘We've heard that tale before,' said Dowsabell with some impatience, ‘and we're still hungry. So are you, my dear father, however much you may endeavour to ignore the fact. And so, for your good as well as our own, we mean to sacrifice our delicacy, our good name, and our
very selves. In a word, we propose to barter our virtue for bodily sustenance.'

‘Now tell me,' exclaimed the philosopher, ‘do you mean by virtue some form of conduct motivated by the sweetness and flavour discernible in absolute good; or a primarily disinterested affection whose direct object is the good of others?'

‘This is no time for academic discussion,' said Beta coldly. ‘In case you did not understand the significance of what my sister told you, let me explain that we intend to seek the society of men.'

‘A womanly pleasure,' said her father, blowing a cloud of ashes from the fire.

Angrily Dowsabell seized and shook his arm. ‘We are going to sell ourselves for bread!' she shouted.

‘I shall be greatly obliged if you will also buy me some brass knobs, a packet of sulphur, and a bundle of good dry wood, all of which I require for my experiments,' said the philosopher.

‘There's no use speaking to him,' said Beta furiously. ‘He will never, never understand the sacrifice we are making for him! Come, Dowsabell, or it will be too late. The Count's archers are going on guard tonight.'

They turned to the door, and were astonished to see, framed in that narrow entrance, the figure of a venerable man whose face, so far as they could discern its expression in a poor light, was not only noble but full of compassion. He wore a pilgrim's grey gown and a broad-brimmed hat made heavy by many saintly images. He carried a heavy staff, and from his shoulders depended a long chain of cockle-shells. His voice, when he spoke, had a clear bell-like quality, and the air seemed to sparkle with the minute vibrations that it caused.

‘I am weary,' he said, ‘for I have journeyed far. I seek rest and comfort. Do I find them here, or must I travel to another door?'

‘If you like cold water, you are welcome to it,' said Beta, ‘but that is all we can offer you.'

‘A cup of water is my heart's desire,' said the pilgrim, and seated himself upon a stool. Bending over the water he blessed it, whereupon it changed colour and exhaled a pleasant odour. He drank it and appeared considerably refreshed.

‘I could not help hearing, as I stood in the door, the end of your discussion,' he said confidently, ‘and I am not exaggerating when I confess that I have rarely been so distressed and shocked in the course of all my travels, which I may say have been extensive. Is it really necessary that you should make a sacrifice so painful to consider and
so abhorrent to yourselves? For the manner in which you spoke of it convinced me of the loathing with which you regard this awful step. Is it, I repeat, really necessary?'

‘The alternative is starvation,' said Beta, replaiting one of her splendid red pigtails.

‘Starvation not only for ourselves, but for our father,' added Dowsabell, polishing her nails with an old cloth.

‘Dear, dear,' said the pilgrim. ‘Never have I heard anything so sad. Is your father deaf, may I ask?' For all this time the philosopher had continued to blow his fire and stir his evil-smelling pot without paying any attention to his visitor.

‘No, I'm not deaf!' said Smoky Philip. ‘But it's a waste of time talking to people, and this furnace needs all the breath I've got.' He blew vigorously, and the fringe of his beard caught fire. He extinguished the little frizzle of flame between his blackened hands, and continued with some irritation: ‘I've told my daughters, time and time again, that if they will only have patience for a while I shall have more money than even they can spend, and I shall give them dowries big enough to buy counts or princes for their husbands. Meanwhile, of course, I admit that we suffer the embarrassment of comparative poverty, and so there's a lot to be said for their idea of going on the street. But if they consider it such a sacrifice, then surely they can endure our present discomfort for another month or two, or perhaps a little longer. Alchemy, as you know, is an exact science, and my search for the Philosopher's Stone is not only governed by reason, but assured of success provided that I remember the proper order of the thirty-seven different processes necessary for its perfection.'

‘Your toil is an impious one,' said the pilgrim, ‘for you are endeavouring to upset the established order of creation. Metals as well as men should abide in that calling to which they were called.'

‘Nonsense,' said Smoky Philip. ‘Every single thing in the world is in a state of flux, and is constantly trying to improve its condition. Lead is only lead because it hasn't had time to become gold. But I'm going to remedy that with my
magisterium.'

‘Lead is lead because it was ordained to be lead from the beginning,' said the pilgrim.

‘You might as well say that eggs were ordained to be eggs, and forbid the hen to sit on them,' retorted the philosopher. ‘But hens are wiser than you, and know that eggs are chickens
in potentia . . .'

Beta, who was growing weary of this discussion, plucked at her sister's sleeve, saying, ‘Come, Dowsabell, or we shall be late. The archers go on guard at sundown.'

‘Stop,' said the pilgrim, and the air sparkled under the weight of his melodious voice as though a sunbeam were in the room. ‘Stop!' he said. ‘If there were money in the house to buy but one day's measure of bread, would not your sacrifice be averted?'

‘Of course it would,' said Dowsabell. ‘Nothing but dire necessity brought us even to contemplate this awful step.'

‘There isn't a penny in the house,' added Beta. ‘Come, Dowsabell. I'm waiting for you.'

‘Look carefully about you before you go,' said the pilgrim in a kindly way.

As if by magic all eyes were turned to something that lay on the floor not far from his feet. It was a new penny, brightly shining.

‘Well!' said Beta.

‘I declare!' said Dowsabell.

‘After I'd replaited my hair,' said Beta.

‘And I polished my nails,' added Dowsabell.

‘A miracle!' exclaimed the pilgrim with some complacency. ‘And now you are saved from that loathsome though heroic sacrifice, for a penny is more than enough to purchase a sufficiency of bread for us all.'

‘Remember to buy me some brass knobs,' said Smoky Philip with his face to the fire.

After a simple meal of bread and onions the pilgrim spread his cloak on a bench and prepared to sleep; Dowsabell and Beta retired to their garret; and the philosopher blew upon his fire with more strength than he had shown for many days.

The remainder of the bread, with another onion or two, was sufficient for their breakfast, but after that the household was no better off than it had been the previous day. The pilgrim sat on his stool, rattling his cockle-shells and telling stories of his journey from Jerusalem, and the philosopher sniffed with great interest a new smell that was emerging from his pot.

In the afternoon Dowsabell stood up and looked wistfully through the open door. In the sunshine stood a group of the Count's archers, laughing at some jest, the light gleaming on their strong brown faces and their jerkins of chain-mail. Dowsabell sighed. ‘Our sacrifice,' she said, ‘was only deferred, I fear. The same compulsion of poverty exists today as existed yesterday, and to save our father and our guest from the torture of starvation we must certainly subjugate our finer feelings and sell ourselves to these brutal men-at-arms. Come, poor Beta!'

‘In one minute, when I've washed my face,' answered Beta.

‘Look carefully before you go,' said the pilgrim. ‘Perhaps there will be another miracle.'

Raising her face, still wet, from the small tin basin in which she performed her ablutions, Beta perceived immediately a bright new penny lying almost at the pilgrim's feet.

‘Well!' she said.

Dowsabell stooped and picked it up.

‘Oh, it's perfectly genuine,' said the pilgrim.

‘What do you know about it?' she asked. ‘Is it yours? Did you drop it?'

‘I?' said the pilgrim. ‘Oh dear no! We pilgrims never carry money. We live by faith and are justified for our belief in Providence by constant manifestations of its benevolence. Be assured that the presence of that penny constitutes a miracle.'

‘Well, it looks very funny to me,' said Dowsabell.

‘And to me,' said Beta suspiciously, examining the penny in her turn.