Belshazzar

Chapter X The Happy House

With pomp and ceremony Pharaoh Amasis departed up Nile to Thebes. Yet ere he went he laid various offices on me as one marked for his especial favour; high offices not to be refused, to fill which I must take public oaths, swearing by the gods to be faithful to him and his House under pain of death and the curse of heaven. Also he appointed me as overseer of the architects employed upon the rebuilding of sundry temples, and especially of the great shrine of Ptah in Memphis.

Thus it came about that soon I must work from dawn till dark as never I had worked before, scarcely finding leisure to eat, much less to read with Myra or even to talk with her, of whom now I saw but little. When I met my mother, however, which was not often for I was out before she rose, and for the most part returned only after she had sought her bed, I noted a change in her. She seemed to be full of mystery and to follow more than ever after foolish pomps, seating herself in a chair that was like to a throne, with servants who held fans standing behind her, and even wearing marks of royalty when there were no strangers there to see, such as a circlet of gold upon her head from which rose the uraeus snake.

The sight of this angered me, so much that at last I asked her sharply what it meant and if she wished to bring trouble on me, by aping a rank that was not hers.

"Not so," she answered smiling. "Yet may not she who has borne a son to him who was Pharaoh bear the mark of royalty, that is, when she has special leave so to do, from him who is Pharaoh?"

"I do not know what you mean, my mother, but I do know that if this were the law, there would be many women in Egypt wearing the royal uraeus," I answered bluntly, adding, "I pray you therefore to lay that ornament aside lest my head should pay the price of what you set upon your own."

Then growing angry, she rose and left me as one who might answer but who would not, nor did she appear again before me adorned like Pharaoh's queen or daughter. Indeed I saw her but seldom and when we met she would rarely speak to me.

On a certain feast day, that appointed to some god when none laboured, Belus said,

"You bade me buy you a house and I have done so out of your moneys in my hands," (for I trusted all my wealth to Belus). "Also with the help of Myra I have furnished it. Come now, and look upon your new home."

"Does my mother know of this?" I asked astonished.

"I have not told her," he answered. "Yet I think she guesses. At least she said to me but yesterday that perhaps it was as well that you should live apart because you no longer agreed together; moreover she held it that it would be more fitting to your new dignities that you should have a dwelling of your own."

So I went to see this new abode and found it very beautiful. It was an old palace outside the great wall of the city, and therefore surrounded by a large garden, of which, because of the narrow space, there were few within the wall. In the ancient days when the Pharaohs lived at Memphis, this palace, it was said, had been that of the heir of the king. In later times, however, it had become a private dwelling, also a home of priests; but now for a generation, save for caretakers, it had been deserted though still used as a store–house so that the roof and walls were saved from decay. Further, the gardens had been hired to a husbandman who grew in them fruit and vegetables for sale in the city, also beneath the palm trees green barley for fodder.

Now all this had passed by purchase to me and already Belus, having all my revenues at his command, had set numbers of the best artificers and artists in Memphis to work to make the place beautiful, and once more a fitting home for a great noble or a prince. Moreover Myra was in the secret and throwing her heart into the business, laboured joyously that our new home—for never for a moment did she doubt that it would be hers as well as mine—should be made even fairer than that at Salamis, one of the most perfect indeed in all Egypt.

To this end all the furnishings which I had brought from Cyprus, the statues, the inlaid and enamelled chests, the chairs and beds, the vessels of gold and silver, and I know not what besides, which for years it had been my pleasure to collect as the choicest wares and examples of ancient art from Syria, Cyprus and Egypt, were gathered from the places where they had been stored because my mother's house would not contain them. Here and there Myra said they should stand, even before the rooms were ready to receive them, so that they must be covered up with cloths for fear of damage by the artists and the plasterers.

Also through Belus, who was foolish where she was concerned and, like her old nurse, Metep, unable to withstand her smallest fancy, Myra bought in Memphis the loveliest that it had to sell of hangings and carpets and couches and silver swinging lamps, all of which she set about the chambers, especially in those that were to be allotted to me. Yet when I entered her own I found it with bare walls and but plainly furnished; a low bed of white wood, some stools and chairs with feet shaped like to those of antelopes, also of white wood and hide–seated, and three chests to hold her garments, painted with scenes of wild–fowl disporting themselves among lotus plants, or rushing in alarm through papyrus reeds.

"How is this?" I asked. "My chamber is as that of Pharaoh, while yours might be the sleeping–place of the daughter of a village sheik."

"Because I would have it so," she answered, tossing her head. "Moreover in time to come the walls shall be painted, when I have finished the design and Belus can find an artist who is not a fool."

"I have found one," said Belus.

"Who is that artist?" she asked.

"Yourself," Belus answered, laughing drily, then turned and fled before she could scold him.

Indeed I was the only one who did not laugh over all this business when in the end I found that it had cost me the quarter of my fortune, no less.

"What does it matter?" said Belus in reply to my complaining. "What does anything matter, especially when there is plenty left which gathers day by day; that is, if it pleases Myra?"

"You are right," I said, "nothing matters if it pleases Myra. Now she will have little left for which to wish."

"I am not so sure," said Belus, and went away before I could ask him what he meant.

At length we took up our abode in this fine new home, although as yet it was far from finished. My mother came to view it, borne in a chair such as was used by a wife of Pharaoh when she went abroad, and when she discovered that all had been planned by Myra, found much fault with every thing, saying that I should have done better to be guided by her own purer Grecian tastes.

"Still," she added, "the place is fine and the furnishings and decorations are of small account, for when your daughter Myra leaves it to become the consort of some mighty man, they can be changed."

"I do not understand you, my mother," I answered. "Myra does not wish to change her state; also, she is not my daughter."

"Then, Ramose, if she is not your daughter, why is she not your wife? Surely you would make nothing less of her."

Having shot this bitter arrow, she went away without waiting for an answer.

"What does she mean?" I asked of Belus, who had heard these words.

"What she says, or so I think. Hearken, Ramose. There is some plot afoot. I know not what it is, but it has to do with Myra. If you would keep her at your side, Ramose, let it be as your wife. Remember that your mother is right. If you give it out that she is not your daughter and she continues to dwell in your house with no other woman save an old nurse, although you forget it because she has lived with you from a babe, you will cast a slur upon her name."

Now hearing this I was much disturbed.

"Are you mad, Belus?" I asked. "Have we three not always lived together? And for the rest, is it fitting that I who am almost old enough to be her father and who for years have forsworn women, should wed this young maid?"

"Would it then grieve you so much to take her was a wife, Ramose?" asked Belus in his quiet fashion.

Now I felt the blood come to my face, as I answered,

"It would not grieve me at all; to tell the truth it would delight me more than anything on earth. It was not of myself that I thought, but of the poor child who, if I spoke to her of marriage with me, would take it as a command and obey because she held it to be her duty, for that reason abandoning all hope of a husband of her own years."

"I thought that not so long ago she might have pleased herself in this matter, and would not, Ramose."

"It is true, but because a woman turns from one man it does not follow that she turns from all. After all that count was an empty–headed coxcomb; there are better than he in Memphis."

"It is a strange thing, Ramose, that those who are wise in nine matters, are often foolish in the tenth, and those whose sight is so keen that it can note a lizard on a housetop, often cannot discern the pitfall that yawns before their feet, or the sharp stone that will lame them. Such, I hold, is your case, Ramose. Now I pray you, if you have any faith in what you call my foresight and my vision, put this matter to the proof and show me that I am wrong."

"How, Belus?"

"By asking Myra whether or not it would please her to become your wife. Ask her, and soon. To–morrow Pharaoh returns from Thebes to bury the Apis that is dead, and then passes on at once to Sais."

"What has that to do with Myra and myself?" I asked angrily, because, to tell the truth, I knew that Belus never spoke without reason. Words that from another would signify little or nothing, on his lips were full of meaning.

"More than you think, perhaps, Ramose," he replied, adding,

"Do you promise to prove that I am wrong, if you can, not next year, or next moon, but this very day?"

"Yes. That is, how can I who must go at once to attend to matters in the city that cannot be postponed?"

"You return to supper, I believe, and after supper it is customary for Myra and you to read together. Do you promise?"

"To please you I promise, though I do not know why you should force me to give Myra pain and to bring shame upon myself."

"Perhaps ere long you will find out. However you have promised and it is enough, for when did you ever break your word, Ramose?"

Then he went, leaving me wondering where I had heard those words before. Ah! it came back to me—from the lips of Myra herself after that boastful fop had asked her in marriage, and she had made me swear that I would protect her from all men. How came it then that these two spoke as with one voice? Had they agreed together to ply me with the same flattery? Nay, that was not in the nature of either of them; they did but say what they believed. They had set me, a man full of weakness and of failings, like a statue upon a pylon or a pyramid, one to be admired as higher than others; one to be loved more than others. This I could understand in the case of Belus who with all his learning and gifts from heaven was but a fond philosopher who, being childless and with few friends in his exile, had cherished me from my boyhood.

But what of Myra who knew all my faults and follies and must suffer from my moods? Could it be that there was something in her heart which caused her to forgive these many imperfections and to gild my clay with the gold of love? I did not know, but as I had promised Belus, I would discover the truth before I slept that night. Oh! if it should prove that this sweetest of all maidens loved me, not as a child loves her father, but as a woman loves a man, then how blessed would be my lot. Nay, it was too much to hope and I must be on my guard; I must watch lest her kind heart, duty and a desire to please, should put on the mask of love.

I went about my business which was very urgent, for much must be made ready before Pharaoh returned upon the morrow, asking account of my labours under his royal commission. All day I worked in the heat of the sun, much vexed with those that had failed me and with the foolishness of a self–willed architect, and at last as it sank, wearied out, was borne to my new home.

Here I bathed and clad myself in clean garments of linen. Then led by a servant I went to the eating–chamber, a very fine room where once the royal princes of old Egypt had banqueted with their friends and women, that now cleaned and repaired, we used for the first time. This apartment, of which the walls were painted with scenes of feasting and of gay sports, somewhat faded perhaps, seeing that the artist who limned them had been dead for hundreds upon hundreds of years, opened on to a gallery that looked over the gardens and the intervening lands down upon the distant Nile. From this gallery or portico the room was separated by painted columns formed of heads of Hathor, goddess of love, between which columns hung rich curtains that the furnishers had placed there only that day, those that Pharaoh's sons had used having rotted many generations gone.

In the centre of this beautiful room, illumined by hanging lamps that we had brought with us from Cyprus, Myra had set a table of black wood inlaid with electrum, and on it cups of gold and silver taken from my store, and alabaster vases filled with flowers. Here at this fair table I ate my first meal in that house, Belus sitting at one side of it and I at its head. At its foot, in the place of the Lady of the House, was Myra who in honour of this event had been pleased to array herself in her richest garments and ornaments, such as she had worn at the feast my mother had given to Pharaoh. Thus with the lamplight falling on her she looked beautiful indeed, I think the most beautiful woman that ever I saw, except perhaps Atyra whose loveliness was of a richer order and more matured. It was strange to see that this Atyra's memory should rise up and refuse to leave me on that night when I did not desire its fellowship. Yet it was so; had her spirit been standing at my side, like the Double watching in a tomb, she could not have been more present.

Myra was in her merriest mood. She laughed and talked and jested, till at length I asked what made her so joyous.

"Oh! many things, Ramose," she answered, "but chiefly because to–night I am like a slave whose fetters have been struck off and whose lord has granted her freedom."

"When did you wear fetters, Myra?"

"Till yesterday, Ramose, yonder in your mother's house, where, though you knew it not, I was always watched. Here I am free—free! Belus, first of prophets, be kind. Use your skill, Belus, and tell me my fortune. Here is water into which you may gaze; without are stars— that is, unless the moon has devoured them; here is my hand covered with a hundred tiny lines. Gaze into the water, read the stars and the birth–writings stamped upon my flesh, and tell me my fortune. Tell me that I shall have many years of joy in this place. Do you know what was its ancient name? I have discovered it from an old man who works in the garden who had it from his grandfather. It was called the Happy House in the byegone days when it was the home of princes and great lords. Tell me that it will be the Happy House for me and for Ramose and for you too, dear Belus."

Now Belus shook his head, saying that his arts were needless because her words had already fulfilled her wish. Still she would not let him be, but went on teasing him till at length he said,

"Give me that little lily you wear upon your breast, O foolish maid, who cannot be content with the hour and its joys."

She obeyed. He took the fair white lily, warm from her bosom, and cast it into a bowl of rich–hued glass that was filled with water for the dipping of hands when the meals were done, muttered some words that I could not understand, and breathed upon it; after which he watched it for a long while. Now, growing uneasy for I shrank from this jest who doubted whether Belus could play the conjurer even when he tried, he who was filled with so strange and true a wisdom, I rose and looked over his shoulder into the bowl.

There was the lily floating, but as I watched it seemed to lose its shape as though it had been grasped and crumpled; its whiteness also. The water, too, though this may have been fancy or because of the colour of the red Eastern glass, to my sight grew first to the hue of wine, and then to that of blood, so that suddenly I remembered the blood of murdered Atyra that lay beneath the robe upon the floor of her chamber at Sais, and shivered.

I glanced at the face of Belus and noted that it was not that of one who played a trick to please a girl. Nay, it was strained and anxious and on his brow appeared beads of sudden sweat. I was about to speak, or overthrow the bowl, but divining it although I stood behind him, he held up a finger and checked me. For a minute or more he went on watching, covering the most of the bowl with his hands, so that I could no longer see within it. Then his face changed and once more became quiet and impenetrable, also he sighed, a sigh of relief, such as is uttered when a great danger has passed by ourselves or one we love.

Removing his hands from the edge of the bowl, he said,

"Look."

I did so and behold! there floated the little lily as white as it had been when it was gathered, in water as pure as when it was drawn from the well. He took the flower and gave it back to Myra, saying,

"Press it in a book, child, and cherish it all your life; nay, set it between two plates of crystal as a talisman."

"Oh! my lily," she cried, "how fair you are and how sweet you smell; although so small your fragrance perfumes the room. Ramose, you shall make me a present. You shall order the jeweller to enclose this little lily in a tiny shrine of crystal, hung upon a golden chain, such as I can always wear. That is, you shall do this to–morrow, to–night I will keep it for myself. But I forget! What did my magic flower tell you, Belus? Nay, do not shake your head. Speak, I command you, and truly. In the name of the Truth we worship, speak truly."

"Being thus adjured, it seems that I must obey," said Belus slowly. "Your magic lily told me that your wish will be fulfilled and that in this abode which is named the Happy House you will spend many years of such joy as is given to those who wander upon earth."

She clapped her hands rejoicing.

"Those are good words," she laughed; "those are most fortunate words."

"Yes, Myra, they are good and fortunate, wherefore forget them not when good fortune seems far away. You have not heard the end of them, Myra, which since you commanded me to speak all the truth, I must declare to you. Between this night of joy and those years of joy to come lies a space of fear and black doubt, such as crushes the hearts of mortals. Steel yourself to bear them, Myra, as others must who love you, as I did but now when I saw the white lily blacken in the cup and the water on which it floated turn to a pool of blood. Remember always, even when hope seems gone, that the lily will once more grow white and fragrant, and the water once more be pure."

"I will remember," she answered quietly and very gravely, who suddenly understood that this was no child's game, but something that the strength of Belus had wrung out of the clenched hand of Fate, something she could not understand, and perhaps that he himself did not altogether understand.

Belus rose and went; the servants came and did their office swiftly enough who were well trained, having been with me in Cyprus, leaving us alone.

"The place is hot," I said, "nor can we go to the chamber chosen for our studies, for it is not prepared, all is in confusion there. Come, Myra, let us sit without and watch the moon rise up on the Nile."

"Yes," she said, and led the way between the curtains to the portico or colonnade that was built along that front of the old palace which faced towards the Nile. Here were ancient marble seats and on one of these, that nearest to the corner of the house where a wall was built across the roofed–in colonnade, we sat ourselves down in the shadow.

"What did Belus mean, Ramose?" she asked, awaking from her silence. "Do you believe in these prophecies of his?"

"I am not sure, Myra. Sometimes I believe and sometimes I do not. Certainly some of them seem to have come true; but this may be by chance, for a wise physician who watches all things and has great knowledge of the hearts of men, cannot always read the future wrong, whether or not the stars reveal it to him. At least this last oracle of his is one of good omen, so let us accept it and be content."

"I am content, Ramose, now that we three are alone together as we were in Cyprus. Yonder I was not, for it seemed to me there, in your mother's house, I was like a bird in a cage or one about whom a net was being drawn."

"Why should my mother wish to play the spider to you?" I asked disturbed.

"I do not know, Ramose. Perhaps because she is jealous of me; perhaps because she wishes to use me who am called your daughter—always of late she speaks of me as your daughter when there are any to listen, as she did to Pharaoh—to advance your fortunes and her own. I say I do not know, but believe me, so it was; also that at the last she would have prevented me from coming here, aye and might have done so had it not been for Metep who outwitted her, how I will not tell you now for the tale is long. It is enough that to–night at last I am free and once more with you and Belus as we were at Salamis. Yet I pray you, Ramose, set a guard about this house that free I may remain, and near to you."

"Do you then desire always to remain near to me, Myra?"

"Aye, Ramose."

"You know that you are not my daughter, Myra, and indeed no kin of mine, whatever my mother or others may say."

"Aye, Ramose, I know it."

"Do you know, also, Myra, that it is hard for a man to dwell with such a one as you are who is not his daughter, and not to wish that she were even more than his daughter? Yes, that it is very hard, though it may chance that in years he might almost be her father?"

Myra sat up upon the seat, gripping the edge of it with her hands and glancing at me sideways, which things I could see in the twilight.

"Why is it hard? What do you mean, Ramose?" she asked in a low voice.

As she spoke the great moon appeared from a bank of cloud, her rays making a path of silver across the broad waters of the Nile and the cultivated land, flooding the pillared portico and striking upon the beautiful girl who sat at my side, her beast heaving, her lips parted. I gazed at her and of a sudden passion took hold of me. Yes, passion in its strength, and I knew that above all earthly things I desired her no longer as a daughter and a friend, but as my wife; yes, to be all my own.

"I mean, Myra," I answered, "I mean that I love you."

"This you have always done, Ramose."

"Aye, but now I love you in another fashion. Do you not understand?"

"I think I understand, Ramose."

"I suppose that it has been so for long, Myra. But to be plain I have been ashamed to tell you so, who was a man grown when you were but a babe. I have feared, Myra, lest if I did, you should hold it to be your duty to give yourself to me, not because of the hunger of your heart, but because it was I who asked it of you, to me, a man whose hair begins to grow grey upon his temples."

She smiled a little; the moonlight showed it; a somewhat mysterious smile such as is to be seen upon the carven faces of sphinxes, which told of secret thoughts hidden behind her eyes.

"You who are so wise, in some ways were ever foolish, Ramose," she answered and once more was silent, words that left me wondering, though in substance they did but repeat what Belus had said that morning.

Thrice I tried to speak, and thrice I failed, while still she watched me with that dreaming smile upon her face. At last in poor, bald syllables the common question broke from my lips.

"Myra, though I have seen some eight and thirty summers, can you love me as your husband?"

Very slowly she turned her head and now I saw that her cheeks glowed and that her wonderful dark eyes swam with tears. She strove to answer and in turn, failed. Then she took another road, sinking upon my heart and lifting her lips towards my own.

It was done. My arms were about her, her head rested on my shoulder.

"Oh! Ramose," she sobbed, "for all these years since I became woman, how could you be so blind?"