The Emperor. Complete

Soon after this Selene had gone alone to the factory, had discussed all that was necessary with the manager, and had then begun, with Arsinoe, to work regularly in the factory where they now for two years had spent some hours of every day in gumming the papyrus-leaves together.

How many a time at the beginning of a new week, or when under the influence of a special fit of aversion to her work, had Arsinoe refused to go with her ever again to the factory; how much persuasive eloquence had she expended, how many new ribbons had she bought, how often had she consented to allow her to go to some spectacle, which consumed half a week’s wages, to induce Arsinoe to persist in her work, or to avert the fulfilment of her threat to tell her father, whither her daily walk—as she called it—tended.

When Selene, who had been carried as far as the door of her own work-room, was sitting once more in her usual place in front of the long table on which she worked, and where hundreds of prepared papyrus strips were to be joined together, she felt scarcely able to raise the veil from her face. She drew the uppermost sheets towards her, dipped the brush in the gum-jar, and began to touch the margin of the leaf with it—but in the very act, her strength forsook her, the brush fell from her fingers, she dropped her hands on the table and her face in her hands, and began to cry softly.

While she sat thus, her tears slowly flowing, her shoulders heaving, and her whole body shaken with shuddering sobs, a woman who sat opposite to her, beckoned to the deformed girl, and after whispering to her a few words grasped her hand firmly and warmly and looked straight into her eyes with her own, which though lustreless were clear and steady; then the little hunchback silently took Arsinoe’s vacant place by Selene, and pushed the smaller half of the papyrus leaves over to the woman, and both set diligently to work on the gumming.

They had been thus occupied for some time when Selene at last raised her head and was about to take up her brush again. She looked round for it and perceived her companion, whom she had not even thanked for her helpfulness, busily at work in Arsinoe’s seat. She looked at her neighbor with eyes still full of tears, and as the girl, who was wholly absorbed in her task, did not notice her gaze, Selene said in a tone of surprise rather than kindliness.

“This is my sister’s place; you may sit here to-day, but when the factory opens again she must sit by me again.”

“I know, I know,” said the workwoman shyly. “I am only finishing your sheets because I have no more of my own to do, and I can see how badly your foot is hurting you.”

The whole transaction was so strange and novel to Selene that she did not even understand her neighbor’s meaning, and she only said, with a shrug:

“You may earn all you can, for aught I can do; I cannot do anything to-day.”

Her deformed companion colored and looked up doubtfully at her opposite neighbor, who at once laid aside her brush and said, turning to Selene:

“That is not what Mary means, my child. She is doing one-half of your day’s task and I am doing the other, so that your suffering foot may not deprive you of your day’s pay.”

“Do I look so very poor then?” exclaimed Keraunus’ daughter, and a faint crimson tinged her pale cheeks.

“By no means, my child,” replied the woman. “You and your sister are evidently of good family—but pray let us have the pleasure of being of some help to you.

“I do not know—” Selene stammered.

“If you saw that it hurt me to stoop when the wind blows the strips of papyrus on to the floor, would you not willingly pick them up for me?” continued the woman. “What we are doing for you is neither less nor yet much more than that. In a few minutes we shall have finished and then we can follow the others, for every one else has left. I am the overseer of the room, as you know, and must in any case remain here till the last work-woman has gone.”

Selene felt full well that she ought to be grateful for the kindness shown her by these two women, and yet she had a sense of having a deed of almsgiving forced upon her acceptance, and she answered quickly, still with the blood mounting to her cheeks. “I am very grateful for your good intentions, of course, very grateful; but here each one must work for herself, and it would ill-become me to allow you to give me the money you have earned.”

The girl spoke these words with a decisiveness which was not free from arrogance, but this did not disturb the woman’s gentle equanimity—“widow Hannah,” as she was called by the workwoman—and fixing the calm gaze of her large eyes on Selene, she answered kindly:

“We have been very happy to work for you, dear daughter, and a divine Sage has said that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Do you understand all that that means? In our case it is as much as to say that it makes kind-hearted folks much happier to do others a pleasure than to receive good gifts. You said just now that you were grateful; do you want now to spoil our pleasure?”

“I do not quite understand—” answered Selene. “No?” interrupted widow Hannah. “Then only try for once to do some one a pleasure with sincere and heartfelt love, and you will see how much good it does one, how it opens the heart and turns every trouble to a pleasure. Is it not true Mary, we shall he sincerely obliged to Selene if only she will not spoil the pleasure we have had in working for her?”

“I have been so glad to do it,” said the deformed girl, “and there—now I have finished.”

“And I too,” said the widow, pressing the last leaf on to its fellow with a cloth, and then adding her pile of finished sheets to Mary’s.

“Thank you very much,” murmured Selene, with downcast eyes, and rising from her seat, but she tried to support herself on her lame foot and this caused her such pain, that with a low cry, she sank back on the stool. The widow hastened to her side, knelt clown by her, took the injured foot with tender care in her delicate and slender hands, examined it attentively, felt it gently, and then exclaimed with horror:

“Good Lord! and did you walk through the streets with a foot in this state?” and looking up at Selene she said affectionately. “Poor child, poor child! it must have hurt you! Why the swelling has risen above your sandal-straps. It is frightful! and yet—do you live far from this?”

“I can get home in half an hour.”

“Impossible! First let me see on my tablets how much the paymaster owes you that I may go and fetch it, and then we will soon see what can be done with you. Meanwhile you sit still daughter dear, and you Mary rest her foot on a stool and undo the straps very gently from her ankle. Do not be afraid my child, she has soft, careful hands.” As she spoke she rose and kissed Selene on her forehead and eyes, and Selene clung to her and could only say with swimming eyes, and a voice trembling with feeling:

“Dame Hannah, dear widow Hannah.”

As the warm sunshine of an October clay reminds the traveller of the summer that is over, so the widow’s words and ways brought back to Selene the long lost love and care of her good mother; and something soothing mingled in the bitterness of the pain she was suffering. She looked gratefully at the kind woman and obediently sat still; it was such a comfort once more to obey an order, and to obey willingly—to feel herself a child again and to be grateful for loving care.

Hannah went away, and Mary knelt down in front of Selene to loosen and remove the straps which were half buried in the swelled muscles. She did it with the greatest caution, but her fingers had hardly touched her, when Selene shrank back with a groan, and before she could undo the sandal, the patient had fainted away. Mary fetched some water and bathed her brow, and the burning wound in her head, and by the time Selene had once more opened her eyes, dame Hannah had returned. When the widow stroked her thick soft hair, Selene looked up with a smile and asked: “Have I been to sleep?”

“You shut your eyes my child,” replied the widow. “Here are your wages and your sister’s, for twelve days; do not move, I will put it in your little bag. Mary has not succeeded in loosening your sandal, but the physician who is paid to attend on the factory people will be here directly, and will order what is proper for your poor foot. The manager is having a litter fetched for you.—Where do you live?”

“We?” cried Selene, alarmed. “No, no, I must go home.”

“But my child you cannot walk farther than the court-yard even if we both help you.”

“Then let me get a litter out in the street. My father—no one must know—I cannot.”

Hannah signed to Mary to leave them, and when she had shut the door on the deformed girl, she brought a stool, sat down opposite to Selene, laid a hand on the knee that was not hurt, and said:

“Now, dear girl, we are alone. I am no chatterbox, and will certainly not betray your confidence. Tell me quietly who you belong to. Tell me—you believe that I mean well by you?”

“Yes,” replied Selene, looking the widow full in the face—a regularly-cut face, set in abundant smooth brown hair, and with the stamp of genuine and heart-felt goodness. “Yes—you remind me of my mother.”

“Well, I might be your mother.”

“I am nineteen years old already.”

“Already,” replied Hannah, with a smile. “Why my life has been twice as long as yours. I had a child, too, a boy; and he was taken from me when he was quite little. He would be a year older than you now, my child—is your mother still alive?”

“No,” said Selene, with her old dry manner, that had become a habit. “The gods have taken her from us. She would have been, like you, not quite forty now, and she was as pretty and as kind as you are. When she died she left seven children besides me, all little, and one of them blind. I am the eldest, and do what I can for them, that they may not be starved.”

“God will help you in the loving task.”

“The gods!” exclaimed Selene, bitterly. “They let them grow up, the rest I have to see to—oh! my foot, my foot!”

“Yes, we will think of that before anything else. Your father is alive?”

“Yes.”

“And he is not to know that you work here?”

Selene shook her head.

“He is in moderate circumstances, but of good family?”

“Yes.”

“Here, I think, is the doctor. Well? May I know your father’s name? I must if I am to get you safe home.”

“I am the daughter of Keraunus, the steward of the palace, and we have rooms there, at Lochias,” Selene answered, with rapid decision, but in a low whisper, so that the physician, who just then opened the room door, might not hear her. “No one, and least of all, my father, must know that I work here.”

The widow made a sign to her to be easy, greeted the grey-haired leech who came in with his assistant; and then, while the old man examined the injured limb, and cut the straps with a sharp pair of scissors, she bathed the girl’s face and cut head with a wet handkerchief, supported the poor child in her arms, and, when the pain seemed too much for her, kissed her pale cheeks.