She now came to call Sue to tea, and, finding that the girl did not
respond for a moment, entered the room just as the other was hastily
putting a string round each parcel.
"Something you have been buying, Miss Bridehead?" she asked,
regarding the enwrapped objects.
"Yes--just something to ornament my room," said Sue.
"Well, I should have thought I had put enough here already," said
Miss Fontover, looking round at the Gothic-framed prints of saints,
the Church-text scrolls, and other articles which, having become too
stale to sell, had been used to furnish this obscure chamber. "What
is it? How bulky!" She tore a little hole, about as big as a wafer,
in the brown paper, and tried to peep in. "Why, statuary? Two
figures? Where did you get them?"
"Oh--I bought them of a travelling man who sells casts--"
"Two saints?"
"Yes."
"What ones?"
"St. Peter and St.--St. Mary Magdalen."
"Well--now come down to tea, and go and finish that organ-text, if
there's light enough afterwards."
These little obstacles to the indulgence of what had been the merest
passing fancy created in Sue a great zest for unpacking her objects
and looking at them; and at bedtime, when she was sure of being
undisturbed, she unrobed the divinities in comfort. Placing the pair
of figures on the chest of drawers, a candle on each side of them,
she withdrew to the bed, flung herself down thereon, and began
reading a book she had taken from her box, which Miss Fontover knew
nothing of. It was a volume of Gibbon, and she read the chapter
dealing with the reign of Julian the Apostate. Occasionally she
looked up at the statuettes, which appeared strange and out of place,
there happening to be a Calvary print hanging between them, and,
as if the scene suggested the action, she at length jumped up and
withdrew another book from her box--a volume of verse--and turned to
the familiar poem--
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean:
The world has grown grey from thy breath!
which she read to the end. Presently she put out the candles,
undressed, and finally extinguished her own light.
She was of an age which usually sleeps soundly, yet to-night she
kept waking up, and every time she opened her eyes there was enough
diffused light from the street to show her the white plaster figures,
standing on the chest of drawers in odd contrast to their environment
of text and martyr, and the Gothic-framed Crucifix-picture that was
only discernible now as a Latin cross, the figure thereon being
obscured by the shades.