The Silver Chalice (32 page)

The sandals were attached to long pads of leather that had been of the same shade of blue originally. These extended to the knee and were enriched with embossed threads of gold carrying in miniature the design of the eagle and serpent. The leather had mellowed to a soft haze of color throughout the years. Strapping the pads about his calves, Basil ran his fingers with a feeling almost of reverence over the soft leather, being strongly drawn always to things of beauty.

It might have been expected that, attired in such splendor, he would exhibit some traits of pride. But the cool of the linen on his skin and a consciousness of the fineness of the outer garments gave him instead a feeling of humility. In donning the clothes he seemed to have become a part of the family of Joseph and to have taken on obligations that would have belonged to the Stephen for whom they had been designed. He felt very clearly a responsibility in the matter of Deborra. Stephen would have protected her. He would have made himself a buckler between her and all evil.

“Now you see yourself with an open eye,” he thought. “You are not worthy of her. You have evil in you that you seem incapable of controlling.”

“The clothes fit you well,” declared Luke, nodding his head with satisfaction.

“I wish,” said Basil, “that they did not make me so well aware of my shortcomings.”

On their way to the airy corner of the great house where Deborra’s rooms were located, they passed a door before which Ebenezer was standing
guard. He gave them a reassuring nod of his bald and yellowed head. “He is deep in documents and has no suspicions as yet. A few moments ago he did come to the door and say, ‘Is not the house very quiet?’ I answered him, ‘All are mourning the inevitable.’ ‘Why are you here? Are you not a free man?’ I answered, ‘Yes, I am a free man, but I am also a man of habit. Have you commands for me?’ He shook his head and frowned. ‘I shall never have commands for
you
.’ And then he went back and closed the door.”

The main room in Deborra’s quarters was filled with maidservants who were bustling about with great heaps of clothing in their arms and so much excitement in their minds that an elderly woman, clutching a piece of parchment importantly, had to keep admonishing them. “Sarah, come hither!” she would say. Or, “Marianne, have your feet gone to sleep? Hurry, child!”

To spare them the discomfort of all this confusion, the two visitors were shown into a smaller room, which contained the bed of the lady of the house. It was a small bed and it looked cool and virginal in the modesty of a corner. Basil, feeling that more than a single glance would be a profanation, turned his back and looked out a window that afforded him a full view of the white splendor of the Temple. He heard Luke leave, but he did not know that Deborra had entered until she spoke.

“Basil! I—I am back from the exile into which I was sent because of my folly.”

He turned slowly. Deborra, he saw, had been yielding to her feelings, because there was a hint of redness about her eyes. She had striven to repair the ravages of grief, however, and she even had a smile for him as they faced each other.

She was in a snow-white simplicity of raiment that did not suggest readiness for immediate travel. This surprised him, particularly when he noticed that her hair was hanging freely on her shoulders. Although the dress was modest, it allowed her arms to show. They were white and rounded with the sweetness of youth. Her sandals were thin, with delicate bands of silk as white as the feet they clasped.

“You look well,” she said when he failed to find the words of greeting he sought. “Such a beautiful blue you are wearing! I envy you. I have been told I look well in blue, but I have never worn anything so fine as that.”

She was carrying a cloth bag in one hand, tied rather daintily with yellow ribbon. This she now held out to him. When he took it from her he knew from the feel and the weight of it that it was filled with money.

“Grandfather kept it under his pillow,” she said. “It is to pay for the making of the Chalice.”

He could tell that the bag contained enough to pay for his travels and leave him an ample reward as well. Such a feeling of exultation swept over him that he wanted to toss it into the air.

“This is the first money I have had in over two years,” he said. “I cannot tell you what a new sense of freedom it gives me. I am indeed my own man now.”

She seemed to forget her grief for a moment and even to share his mood. A smile lighted up her eyes. It was for a few moments only, however. A look of intense gravity succeeded. Yielding then to an emotion that could be nothing but panic, she covered her face with her hands.

“Basil, Basil, how am I to say it!”

“What is it you wish to say?”

She raised her eyes with a suggestion of almost desperate courage. “I think it would be kind if you—if you would turn your back. That would make it easier for me.” When he had complied with her wish by turning around so completely that she could see nothing but the back of his head and the gold-fringed blue outer cloak, she still hesitated. “I cannot find the words. Have you any idea of what I must say to you? No, you could not know. It was promised that you would be given no hint.” Then she caught her breath like a swimmer before plunging into cold water. “Basil, will you be my husband?”

For a moment he was incapable of any reaction save one of surprise. Then he was assailed by a feeling of alarm, of fear for the ambitious plans that had filled his head since his last talk with Helena. If he married Deborra and settled down in Jerusalem, or wherever she might prefer, what chance would he have to make a place for himself in the world of art? Would it be possible for him to develop still further the perceptiveness of his mind and the skill of his hands?

Following this hasty reaction came other thoughts. He was torn by conflicting loyalties. He owed so much to Deborra and her family that he could never pay the debt. To them he owed his liberty and his selection to make the Chalice. To Deborra he was indebted in less tangible ways; for her immediate sympathy, her understanding, her comradeship. He had liked her from the first moment, and this had been tending inevitably to love. When they stood together on the crest of the valley after their escape from the Roman officers, it had seemed to both of them that love had come, that thenceforward their feet would tread the same path.

Then he had seen Helena and had become aware of two things, that his feelings were not so far committed that he could be unaware of all other women, and that he was deeply obligated to her also. The service she had rendered him in sending the note of warning could not be overlooked, nor could he forget the picture she had spread before him of what life in Rome could be. She had conceived plans for him in which she expected to play some part. He had promised to meet her in Rome. Here, then, was another loyalty to be considered.

These thoughts, which take so long in setting down, consumed the briefest possible time in passing through his mind. They had caused him to pause, nonetheless; and in such a situation the shortest delay can be cause for doubt and distress. Basil was perhaps unaware that his decision was not an instant one, that he had delayed on the brink to look back. His decision, however, was the only thinkable one in view of his ties to the family of Joseph and the relationship that had grown up between himself and Deborra.

“May I turn now?” he asked.

“Yes.” A change could be noted in Deborra’s voice. Something had gone out of it. Some of the spontaneity. She had not failed to notice his hesitation and she was wondering, with a dismay that was frightening because unexpected, what had caused it. “Yes, Basil. I—I have managed to say it. And now we must talk.”

He turned about. Her eyes had been fixed on the floor, but she raised them at once and studied his face. Why? they asked. Why did you hesitate? Have I been taking too much for granted?

“I am—I am deeply honored,” he said. His voice was quiet, even formal. There was another pause, an almost imperceptible one. Was it because some of his doubts still persisted? “I have not been in a position to propose marriage to you. It is doubtful if I ever would be. And so I am happy that you have spoken.”

She seemed to stand on tiptoe in her desire to look closely into his eyes. Her head was tilted upward and her hands were clasped tightly together. “Oh, Basil, Basil!” she said. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure?”

He took her closely interlocked fingers in his hands and smiled down at her. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “Yes, I am quite sure.” But the intensity of her eyes caused him to stop. Could he be anything but completely honest? His smile changed to a puzzled frown.

“We are deciding the whole course of our lives,” she said. “We must be so very sure.”

His frown deepened until a crease appeared between his dark brows. “I am at a loss,” he declared. “The Christian code is very strict. I do not understand it fully. If I obeyed it, as I am desirous of doing, would it be necessary for me to tell you everything that is in my mind?”

Her eyes filled with troubled thought and she allowed them to fall. “Because what I have done is so unusual, so unnatural, I am doubly sensitive. And when you hesitated, I did not know what to think—— Are there things you should tell me?”

“Perhaps,” he said unhappily. “But I am not sure. It is very strict, this code of yours. I think it is good, but I do not know what it demands of me.”

Deborra began to speak slowly and with obvious reluctance. “I, too, am at a loss. Doubts that I do not understand have come up between us. Perhaps I should speak of something I had intended to keep locked up in my own heart.” She drew back and clasped her hands tightly together again. “As soon as I arrived back, there was a meeting to decide what steps should be taken. The advisability of an immediate marriage for me was agreed upon. I said that I—would speak to you.”

“I am an ex-slave, a freedman,” said Basil.

Deborra flamed to his defense. “You were born a citizen of Rome and sold into slavery through a great injustice. You have been restored to your standing, and in Antioch they think well of you and have nothing but sympathy for you.”

She seemed reluctant about telling the rest. “There were two with me, Grandfather being too ill to take any part. One of them approved my choice at once. That was Luke. The other had nothing to say, but after the meeting he came to me and said he did not approve. There was something, he said, that I should know. You had been kept under watch and so it was known you had left the house three times. He meant to continue and tell me everything he knew, but I would not let him.” She looked up at him with stormy eyes. “I told him I would not listen to another word! That I would not believe any ill of you!”

“What he told you was true.” Basil spoke in a low tone. “They had given me a dark hole in the warehouse as a hiding place. I was warned not to venture out, but I disobeyed them. Three times, as he said. Twice in the night and once during the day. I knew it would lead to serious trouble if I were caught, but I felt that I had to go.” He paused and seemed at a loss as to what he must tell. “Each time it was to see Helena, the girl who assists Simon the Magician.”

She looked incredulous. It was clear she had not expected to hear anything like this. There was a long moment of silence. “I have heard of her,” said Deborra finally. “It is said she is—quite lovely to look at.”

“She had been a slave in my father’s house in Antioch. Soon after I was adopted she ran away and I heard nothing more of her until I saw her on the platform with Simon. I went to the Gymnasium with Luke and I recognized her as soon as she appeared.” He found now that he had a deep reluctance to tell her the reason for the two visits he had paid to the House of Kaukben. “It is a long story, Deborra, and I will not take time to tell you about it now. I had good reason for going to see her, and this much I will say: it was not interest in her that took me there. She told me then that she had sent me the note of warning about the intentions of Linus. I felt deeply indebted to her. She urged me to make my plans for living in Rome because there would be such opportunities for me there. It was agreed between us that I would see her when I reached Rome.” He paused again. “If I hesitated before answering you, it was because of this.”

She asked in a voice that seemed drained of all feeling: “Are you in love with her? Is that what you are trying to tell me?”

Basil shook his head. “I am not in love with her. But I think now that I must tell you she has been much in my mind.”

Neither of them seemed able to break the silence that fell between them. Deborra was thinking: “He says he does not love her. But—but I wonder. I can be sure of one thing now: he does not love me.” Basil, thoroughly miserable and at the same time angry with himself, found nothing further to say.

The maidservant Sarah came into the room with a message on her lips. It had to do with the rapid passage of time and the need to hurry with the many things that remained to be done. Something in their attitude, however, served to warn her that they must not be interrupted. They stood near the open door opening on the balcony, their faces taut with emotion, their eyes so intent on each other that they were completely unaware of her arrival in the room. They were ignorant that the sun had climbed high enough into the sky to shine down directly on them with a furious intensity. The insects in the trees below were droning sleepily and incessantly.

Sarah asked herself, “What is disturbing them, these two pretty young ones?” She had no doubt that it was something most serious; and after a moment she turned silently and left the room, her message undelivered.

It was Deborra who broke the silence. “Basil, do you know how hard
it was to ask you to marry me? And now I must say something more that will be—quite as hard for me.”

She walked to the door that gave access to the balcony. For several moments she leaned against it, gazing out into the brilliant, glittering sunlight. When she turned back, her mood had changed. Her manner had become composed, her voice normal in tone. She even smiled. “My grandfather always said that I took after him in many ways. I think that I do. I knew how his mind worked and so I am sure what advice he would have given us at this moment. He would have said: ‘My children, this money was saved and laid aside so that my assistance to the impoverished little church of our Lord Jesus could be continued after my death. It is necessary for you to see that my wishes are carried out.’ Yes, he would have said that. And now, Basil, I find I must say the other thing that is going to be so hard. I cannot suggest marriage to anyone else. Not—not now. I cannot humble myself a second time. And we must hurry in making up our minds because there is so little time. I think that Grandfather would suggest as the only solution, since between us we have so many doubts, a marriage of—of form only. It is not at all unusual. With us many marriages begin that way. It may be”—she was watching him intently—“that you would find this a more acceptable way.”