THE ROBE (72 page)

'Not much,' confessed Marcellus. 'I am not specially interested in
money--and it's quite beautiful out here in the open, with that majestic
mountain in sight.'

Vobiscus, shielding his eyes, gazed up at the towering peak beyond Arpino,
frowned, looked up again, grinned a little, and rubbed his chin.

'You aren't crazy, are you?' he asked, soberly, and when Marcellus had
said he didn't think so, the overseer told him to go on up to the villa.

Kaeso had the traditional arrogance of a short-statured man of wealth
and authority. He was of a pugnacious stockiness, fifty, smooth-shaven,
expensively dressed, with carefully groomed, grizzled hair and amazingly
well-preserved teeth. It was immediately evident that he was accustomed to
barking impatient questions and drowning timorous replies in a deluge of
belittling sarcasm.

Marcellus had stood quietly waiting while the restless, bumptious fellow
marched heavily up and down the length of the cool atrium, shouting his
unfavourable opinions of scriveners in general and his most recent one in
particular. They were all alike; dishonest, lazy, incompetent. None of them was
worth his salt. Every time Kaeso passed the applicant, he paused to glare at
him belligerently.

At first, Marcellus had regarded this noisy exhibition with an impassive
face, but as it continued, he found himself unable any longer to repress a
broad grin. Kaeso stopped in his tracks and scowled. Marcellus chuckled
good-humouredly.

'It is to laugh--is it?' snarled Kaeso, jutting his chin.

'Yes,' drawled Marcellus, 'it is to laugh. Maybe it wouldn't be funny if
I were hungry--and in dire need of work. I suppose that's the way you talk to
everybody who can't afford to talk back.'

Kaeso's mouth hung open and his eyes narrowed with unbelief.

'But carry on.' Marcellus waved a hand negligently. 'Don't mind me: I'll
listen. Do you care if I sit down? I've been walking all morning, and I'm
tired.' He sat down in a luxurious chair and sighed. Kaeso stalked toward him
and stood with feet wide apart.

'Who are you, fellow?' he demanded.

'Well, sir,' replied Marcellus, with a smile, 'your question, asked in
that tone, deserves no answer at all, but I am an unemployed wayfarer. Your man
Vobiscus insisted that I offer my services as a scrivener. Realizing that this
is your busiest season, I thought I might do you a good turn by helping for a
few days.'

Kaeso ran his stubby fingers through his greying hair and sat down on
the edge of an adjacent lectus.

'And you, sir,' went on Marcellus, 'instead of giving me an opportunity
to explain my call, began to hold forth.' His eyes drifted about through the
well-appointed atrium. 'If I may venture to say so, you probably do not deserve
to live in such a beautiful villa. Your manner of treating strangers doesn't
seem to belong here. In these lovely surroundings, there should be nothing but
quiet courtesy and good will.'

Kaeso, stunned by the stranger's impudence, had listened with amazement.
Now he rose to his feet, his face contorted with anger.

'You can't say things like that to me!' he shouted. 'Who do you think
you are? You insult me in my house--yet you look like a common vagrant--a
beggar!'

'I am not a beggar, sir,' said Marcellus, quietly.

'Get out!' Kaeso snapped.

Marcellus rose, smiled, bowed, walked slowly toward the open peristyle,
and down the broad marble steps, Kaeso following him as far as the portico.
Sauntering through the village, he went back to the melon-field, aware that he
was being trailed at a little distance by a tall Macedonian. Vobiscus viewed
his return with much interest.

'Kaeso didn't want you?' he inquired.

Marcellus shook his head, picked up a basket, and walked through the
field until he came to the first little group of labourers. They glanced up
with sour curiosity. One old man straightened, with a painful grimace, and
looked him over with the utmost frankness.

It was a fine day, observed Marcellus, pleasantly. For a backache,
retorted the old man. This drew a sullen chortle from the neighbours, one of
whom--a toil-stained girl of twenty--bitterly admonished him that he'd better
work awhile, and then tell them how fine a day it was.

Conceding this point so cheerfully that the sulky girl gave him a
reluctant but pathetically childish smile, Marcellus doffed his robe--folding
it carefully and laying it on the ground beside the goatskin bag--and fell to
work with enthusiasm.

'Not so fast, not so fast,' cautioned the old man. 'Kaeso won't pay you
any better for killing yourself.'

'And Vobiscus will be bawling at us for shirking,' added a cloddish
fellow, up the line a little way.

'These are the finest melons in the world!' remarked Marcellus, stopping
to wipe his dripping forehead. 'It's a pleasure to work with the finest--of
something. Not many people have a chance to do that. Sunshine, blue sky,
beautiful mountains--and the finest--'

'Oh, shut up!' yelled the clod.

'Shut up yourself!' put in the old woman of twenty. 'Let him talk! They
are
good melons!'

For some unknown reason everybody laughed at that, in various keys and
tempers, and the mood of the sweating toilers brightened a little. Presently
the overseer strolled over from the gate and the melon-pickers applied
themselves with ostentatious diligence. He paused beside Marcellus, who looked
up inquiringly. Vobiscus jerked his head toward the villa.

'He wants to see you,' he said, gruffly.

Marcellus nodded, picked up his basketful of melons, and poured out a
few into the old man's basket. Then he gave some to the worn-out girl, who
raised her eyes in a smile that was almost pretty. On up the line of workers,
he distributed his melons, emptying the last dozen of them into the basket of
the oaf who had derided him. The sullen fellow pulled an embarrassed grin.

'Will you be coming back?' squeaked the old man.

'I hope so, sir,' said Marcellus. 'It is pleasant work--and good
company.'

'Oh, it's
sir
you are now, old one?' teased the oaf. Much
boisterous laughter rewarded this sally. The girl with the scowl did not join
in the applause.

'What's paining you, Metella?' yelled the witty one.

She turned on him angrily.

'It's a pity that a stranger can't show us a little decent respect
without being cackled at!'

As Marcellus turned to go, he gave her an approving wink that smoothed
out the scowl and sent a flush through the tan. A dozen pairs of eyes followed
him as he moved away at the side of Vobiscus, who had been an impatient
spectator.

'They're not out here to joke--and play,' mumbled Vobiscus.

'You'd get more melons picked,' advised Marcellus. 'People work better
when they're happy. Don't you think so?'

'I don't know,' said Vobiscus. 'I never saw anybody working who was
happy.' He lengthened his steps. 'You'd better stretch your legs, fellow. Kaeso
isn't good at waiting.'

'He's probably as good at waiting as I am at hurrying,' replied
Marcellus, dryly.

'You don't know Kaeso,' muttered Vobiscus, with an ominous chuckle. 'He
doesn't coddle people; only horses.'

'I can believe that,' said Marcellus. Throwing the old bag over his
shoulder, he strolled out to the highway, tarried for another look at the
mountain, and sauntered up the hill.

Kaeso was at his desk when Marcellus was shown in. He was making a showy
pretence of being busily engaged and did not glance up. After Marcellus had
stood waiting before the desk for what seemed to him a long time, without
receiving any attention he turned away and walked over to a window that looked
out upon a flower-garden.

'You say you are a scrivener?' called Kaeso, sharply.

'No, sir.' Marcellus slowly retraced his steps. 'Your man asked me if I
could read, write, and compute. I can do that--but I am not a scrivener by
profession.'

'Humph! How much do you want?'

'You will know, sir, how much my services are worth to you. I shall
accept what you think is just.'

'I gave the last man ten sesterces--and his keep.'

'It seems a trifling wage,' observed Marcellus, 'but if you cannot
afford to pay more--'

'It's not a question of what I can afford!' retorted Kaeso, pompously.
'It's a question of what you will take!'

'I shouldn't have thought that a proud and successful man like you, sir,
would want a stranger to give away part of his time serving you. You called me
a beggar, an hour ago, in a tone indicating that you had no respect for
beggars. Perhaps I misunderstood you.'

Kaeso pushed his folded arms halfway across the desk and glared up into
Marcellus's complacent eyes. He appeared to be contemplating a savage
rejoinder; but impulsively changed his tactics.

'I'll give you twenty,' he grumbled, 'and let me tell you something!'
His voice was rising to an angry pitch. 'There's to be no shirking, and no
mistakes and no--'

'Just a moment!' broke in Marcellus, coolly. 'Let me tell
you
something! You have a bad habit of screaming at people. I can't believe that
you get any pleasure out of terrorizing others who can't help themselves. It's
just a habit--but, it's a hateful habit--and I don't like it--and you're not to
indulge in it when you're addressing
me!'

Kaeso rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand.

'Nobody ever dared to talk to me like that!' he smouldered. 'I don't
know why I let you do it.'

'I'll gladly tell you.' Marcellus laid his hands flat on the desk and
leaned far forward with a confidential smile. 'You have accumulated a great
deal of property and power, but you are not contented. There is something you
lack--something you would like to have. You are not sure what it is, but you
think
I
know. That is why you sent for me to come back, Kaeso.'

'I sent for you, fellow'--Kaeso was wagging his head
truculently--'because I need a scrivener!'

'Well, I'm not a scrivener,' drawled Marcellus, turning away, 'and
you're shouting again. If you will excuse me, I'll go back to the melon-field.
I found some very companionable people out there.'

'What? Companionable? Those melon-pickers?' rasped Kaeso. 'They're a pack
of dirty, lazy thieves!'

'Not naturally, I think,' said Marcellus, judicially. 'But for their
extreme poverty and drudgery, they might be quite decent and industrious and
honest--just as you, sir, might be a very charming person if you had no
opportunity to be a bully.'

'See here, fellow!' snarled Kaeso. 'Are you going out there to gabble
with these idlers, and try to make them believe they're unjustly treated?'

'No, any man who works from dawn to dusk at hard labour--for three
sesterces--will not need to be told that he's getting bad treatment.'

'So they've been complaining, eh?'

'Not to me, sir. When I left them, I thought they were in quite a merry
mood.'

'Humph! What have they got to be merry about?' Kaeso pushed back his
chair, rose; and, opening a tall cabinet in the corner, drew out a large sheaf
of papyrus sheets and an armful of scrolls. Dumping the correspondence on his
desk, he pointed to it significantly.

'Sit down!' he commanded. 'Take up that stylus, and I'll tell you how to
reply to these letters. They are orders from markets and great houses in
Rome--for melons, and grapes and pears. You will read them to me and I shall
tell you what to say. And have a care! I do not read--but I will know what they
are saying!'

Disinclined to argue, and alive with curiosity to see what might come of
this unfamiliar business, Marcellus sat down and began to read the letters
aloud. Kaeso seemed childishly pleased. He was selling melons! Cartloads and
cartloads of choice Arpino melons! And getting a top price for them! And
advance orders for grapes in August. Presently Marcellus came upon a letter
written in Greek, and started to read it in that language.

'Ah, that Greek!' snorted Kaeso. 'I do not understand. What does it
say?' And when Marcellus had translated it, he inquired, with something like
respect, 'You write Greek, too? That is good.' He rubbed his hands with
satisfaction. It would be pleasant to let these great ones know that he could
afford to have a scholar for a scrivener. When the letter was ended, he
remarked, irrelevantly, 'We will find you a better tunic.'

'I have a better tunic, thank you,' said Marcellus, without looking up.

'Is it that you like flowers?' asked Kaeso, after they had finished for
the day; and when Marcellus had nodded, he said, condescendingly, 'The
scrivener is permitted to walk in the gardens of the villa. If you like horses,
you may visit my stables.'

'Very gracious of you, sir,' said Marcellus, absently.

Antonia Kaeso was at least a dozen years younger than her husband. But
for her tightly pursed mouth and unlighted eyes she might have been considered
attractive, for her features were nicely moulded, her figure was shapely, and
her tone was refined. Marcellus, encountering her among the roses with garden
shears and a basket, had reasons for surmising that she was a victim of
repression.

She greeted him casually, unsmilingly, remarking in a flat monotone that
she supposed he must be her husband's new scrivener. Marcellus admitted this,
adding that he was pleased to find employment in such a pleasant environment,
which drew a sidelong, bitter smile from her eyes, a smile in which her lips
had no share.

'You mean the flowers--and the mountain,' she said.

'Yes, they are beautiful.' He was for sauntering on, seeing that his
permission to walk in the garden had not included the right to a leisurely chat
with the mistress of the villa; but the enigmatic wife of Kaeso detained him.

'What is your name, scrivener? My husband did not say.'

'Marcellus Gallio.'

'There is a Senator of that name--Gallio.' She was cutting the
half-opened roses with long stems and tossing them at random toward the basket.
Marcellus stooped and began arranging them in orderly fashion.