Ceremony of the Innocent by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

too—for the innocent. ‘Daughter of Toscar.’”
    But Ellen was naively pleased. She studied her palm also. “Well, I’d like to help Aunt May, with money. When will I get it?”
    “Not for some years, gal, but you’ll get it, that’s for sure.”
    She stared for a long minute or two at the rosy palm. Then she uttered a short hard sound as if frightened, and dropped the hand. Her eyes leaped violently. “Don’t mind what I said, even if it’s true. I got just one thing more to say and that’s don’t ever trust and give your heart fully. Not that you’ll remember. Innocents never remember anything that hurts them. Like a snail without its shell, that’s what you are. Snatched up for eating. What else can I tell you, that’s the truth? An innocent pays no mind to truth. It likes to dream, and believe.”
    She turned away, and despite her bulk she hurried as if she had seen a fearful sight and must flee. Ellen watched her go, more baffled than ever. At the door of her battered house, which was hardly larger than May Watson’s, Mrs. Schwartz stopped and looked back at Ellen. “Know what the Bible says, gal? ‘The wicked flourish like a green bay tree.’ And something else: ‘The children of the wicked dance in the streets with joy.’ Keep that in mind. Might help you when you most need it.” She shook her head, and disappeared into her house.
    Ellen examined her palm. It told her nothing. But Mrs. Schwartz had spoken about money, and money would help Aunt May, and that was all that mattered. Money would take away the chronic misery from her aunt’s face, the weariness, the tight despair. Yes, that was all the mattered. Elated, Ellen went singing into the house.
    She looked in the kitchen safe but kept her eyes away from the tempting yellow bowl. Her aunt was always complaining that she was hungry, and she supposed she was. There was a morsel of cracked cheese, a spoonful of tea and a slice of bread and a bit of wizened cake for her supper. It was enough, she said valiantly to herself. Why did she want to eat all the time, anyway? Her heart was still uplifted by what Mrs. Schwartz had said. Soon—there would be money for both her aunt and herself. She leaned against the scrubbed kitchen table and devoured the cheese and the bread and the cake, while the kettle seethed with hot water for a cup of tea.
    The sun was beginning to set. All at once Ellen decided to go into the parlor and sit near the window. She ran into the other room and threw herself into the chair. The window faced west, and now the falling sun lay on the side of the cracked clapboard of the corner of the house, showing every stain, every bulge, every blister. It was a lonely sight, lonely and still, and Ellen was struck into that profound melancholy which she did not understand, but which pervaded her whole spirit. The street was silent for once; only the bleak light was clear and lamentable and foreboding on the clapboards.
    Then Ellen’s gaze mysteriously shifted and she was looking through a tall, narrow leaded window which revealed rosy brick beyond its damask red draperies, and the lonely light stood there on the wall and not even the climbing rose bushes on their trellises could dim its ominousness. The girl stared, half holding her breath. The light deepened, even brightened, but its cheerlessness only increased on that motionless brick wall. Ellen felt a large room behind her, dim with evening, and utterly silent though tenated by bulky masses of excellent furniture, and glimmering mirrors in tall gilt, and a vast unlit chandelier of crystal.
    Ellen uttered a faint cry of fear, and the scene changed again and there was only the clapboard wall and the descending light and the echoing stillness. I was dreaming, she thought, and glanced around the little dolorous room in which she sat. I was dreaming, she thought again. The melancholy lay in her breast like a crushing disease which would kill her, like a direful memory which was not