Andrews knelt up on the floor with clenched fists. He was filled with a childish personal animosity for the dead man. “I have not a penny in the world,” he said. “I ask you—what have I gained? Is this so much? But he—where did he get his money?”
“I learned that later,” Elizabeth said quietly, her voice falling like the touch of cool fingers on a hot, aching brow. “He had cheated his employers, that was all. One day I opened the Bible at random as usual and began to read. It was the parable of the unjust steward. I felt, though I was looking at the page and not at him, that he was listening with unusual intentness. When I reached the point where the steward calls his lord’s debtors and says to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord; and he says: a hundred barrels of oil; and the steward says: Take the bill and sit down quickly and write fifty; when I reached that point Mr. Jennings—I never called him anything else—gave a sort of gasp of wonder. I looked up. He was staring at me with a mixture of fear and suspicion. ‘Does it say that there,’ he asked, ‘or are you making it up?’ ‘How could I make it up?’ I said. ‘People gossip so,’ he answered, ‘go on,’ and he listened hard, sitting forward a little in the chair. When I read ‘And the Lord commended the unjust steward, for as much as he had done wisely,’ he interrupted me again. ‘Do you hear that?’ he said, and gave a sigh of satisfaction and relief. He watched me for a little with his eyes screwed up. ‘I’ve been worrying,’ he said at last, ‘but that’s at an end. The Lord has commended me.’
“I said, ‘But you are not the unjust steward,’ and added with a trace of conceit, ‘and anyway this is a parable.’
“Mr. Jennings told me to close the Bible and put it away. ‘It’s no use talking,’ he said, ‘you can’t get over scripture. It’s strange,’ he added. ‘I never thought I was doing right.’
“He told me then, sure in the Lord’s approval, how he had earned the money on which he had retired. All the time that he was a clerk in the Customs he was in receipt of an income from certain seamen, who had not the courage to become regular smugglers. They would declare about three quarters of the amount of spirit they carried, and Mr. Jennings would check their cargo and turn a blind eye on what they had not declared. Can’t you imagine him,” she said with a laugh, “picking his way delicately among the cases of spirit, noting carefully a certain proportion? But unlike the unjust steward for a hundred barrels he would write seventy-five, and if that particular captain’s payments to him were in arrears, he would even put down the full hundred as a warning. Then he would go home and open the Bible at random and read perhaps some terrifying prophecy of hell fire and be in a panic for hours. But after he had heard the parable of the unjust steward, he never asked me to read the Bible to him again and I never saw him open the Book. He was comforted and perhaps he feared to find a contradictory passage. He was cunning, I suppose, and wicked in his way, but he had a childish heart.”
“Was he as blind as a child?” Andrews asked. “Couldn’t he see that you were beautiful?” He knelt with clenched fists before her with eyes half shut as though he were battered by contrary winds, by admiration, wonder, suspicion, jealousy, love. “Yes, I am in love,” he said to himself, with sadness and not with exaltation. “But are you, are you, are you?” the inner critic mocked him. “It’s just the old lusts. This is not Gretel. Would you sacrifice yourself for her? You know that you wouldn’t. You love yourself too dearly. You want to possess her, that is all.” “Oh be quiet and let me think,” he implored. “You are wrong. I am a coward. You cannot expect me to change my spots so soon. But this is not the old lust. There is something holy here,” and as though exorcised the critic fell again into silence.
Elizabeth smiled wryly. “Am I beautiful?” she asked, and then with a sudden, vehement bitterness, “If it’s beauty which makes men cease to be blind as children, I don’t want it. It only means unhappiness. He was unhappy at the end. One day a year ago—it was just before my eighteenth birthday—I rebelled more than usual against the loneliness of life here. I disappeared in the morning early before he got up and left his breakfast unmade. I didn’t return till quite late at night. I was really frightened at my own action. I had never broken away quite so drastically before. I opened the door of this room very quietly and saw him asleep in front of the fire. He had made himself some supper, but he had hardly touched it, and the poverty and untidiness of it touched me. I nearly went across to him and apologised, but I was afraid, so I slipped off my shoes and got to my room without waking him. It must have been after midnight. I had just taken off my clothes, when he opened the door suddenly. He had a strap in his hand and I could see that he meant to beat me. I snatched at a sheet from my bed to cover myself. He had a very angry look in his eyes, but it changed in one moment to amazement. He dropped the strap and put out his hands. I thought he was going to take me in his arms and I screamed. Then he lowered his hands and went out, slamming the
