Читать книгу The Step On The Stair - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 11

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I have thought many times since that I was fortunate rather than otherwise to have received this decided set-back to my hopes before I came into the presence of my lovely young cousin. It at least served to steady me and give to our first meeting a wholesome restraint which it might have lacked if no shadowing doubt had fallen upon my spirits. As it was, there was a moment of self-consciousness, as our hands touched, which made the instant a thrilling one. That she should show surprise at identifying me, her cousin from a far-off land, with a stranger who half an hour before had held her gaze from the gallery above, was to be expected. But any hope that her falling lids and tremulous smile meant more than this was a folly of which I hope I was not guilty. Had I not just seen Edgar under circumstances which showed the power he possessed over the hearts of men? What then must it be over the hearts of women! Orpha could not help but love him and I had been a madman to suppose that even with the encouragement of her father I could dream for a moment of supplanting him in her affections. To emphasize the effect of this conclusion I recalled what I had heard said by one of the two servant-maids who had had countless opportunities of seeing him and Orpha together, “Oh, nobody could put our Mr. Edgar out” and calmed myself into a decent composure of mind and manner, for which she seemed grateful. Why, I did not dare ask myself.

A few minutes later we were whirling in the dance.

I will not dwell on that dance or on the many introductions which followed. The welcome accorded me was a cordial one and had I been free to make full use of my opportunities I might have made a more lasting impression upon my uncle’s friends. But my mind was diverted by my anxiety as to what was going on in the room above, and the question of how soon, if at all, Edgar would reappear upon the scene. It was sufficiently evident from the expression of those about me that his absence had been noted, and I could not keep my eyes from the gallery through which he must pass on his way down.

At last he came into view, but too far back in the gallery for me to determine whether he came as conqueror or conquered from our uncle’s room. Nor was I given a chance to form any immediate conclusion on this important matter, though I passed him more than once in the dance into which he had thrown himself with a fervor which might have most any sentiment for its basis.

But fortune favored me later and in a way I was far from expecting. Having some difficulty in finding my partner for the coming dance, I strolled into one of the smaller rooms leading, as I knew, to a certain favorite nook in the conservatory. On the wall at my left was a mirror and chancing to glance that way, I paused and went no further.

For reflected there, from the hidden nook of which I have spoken, I saw Edgar’s face and figure at a moment when the soul speaks rather than the body, thus leaving its choicest secret no longer to surmise.

He was bending to assist a young lady to rise from the seat which they had evidently been occupying together. But the courtesy was that of love and of love at its highest pitch—love at the brink of fate, of loss, of wordless despair. There was no mistaking his look, the grasp of his hand, the trembling of his whole body; and as I muttered to myself, “This is a farewell,” my heart stood still in my breast and my mind lost itself for the instant in infinite confusion.

For the lady was not Orpha, but a tall superb brunette whose countenance was a mirror of his in its tenderness and desolation. Was this the cause of Uncle’s sudden reversal of opinion as to the desirability of a union between the two cousins? Had some unexpected discovery of the state of Edgar’s feelings towards another woman, wrought such a change in his own that he could ask me, me, whether I could love his daughter warmly enough to marry her? If so, I could easily understand the passion with which he had watched the effect of this question upon the only other man whom his pride of blood would allow him to consider as the heir of his hard gotten fortune.

All this was plain enough to me now, but what drove me backward from that mirror and into a spot where I could regain some hold upon myself was the certainty which these conclusions brought of the end of my hopes.

For the scene of which I had just been the inadvertent witness was one of renunciation. Edgar had yielded to his uncle’s exactions and if I were not mistaken in him as well as in my uncle, the announcement would yet be made for which this ball had been given.

How was I to bear it knowing what I did and loving her as I did! How were any of us to endure a situation which left a sting in every heart? It was for Orpha only to dance on untroubled. She had seen nothing—heard nothing to disturb her joy. Might never hear or see anything if we were all true to her and conscientiously masked our unhappiness and despair. Edgar would play his part,—would have to with Uncle’s eye upon him; and Uncle himself—

This inner mention of his name brought me up standing. I owed a duty to that uncle. He had entrusted me with a message. The time to deliver it had come. Orpha must be told and at once that her father wished to see her in his room upstairs. For what purpose he had not said nor was it for me to conjecture. All that I had to do was to fulfill his request. I was glad that I had no choice in the matter.

Leaving my quiet corner I reentered the court where the dance was at its height. Round and round in a mystic circle the joyous couples swept, to a tune entrancing in melody and rhythm. From their midst the fountain sent up its spray of dazzling drops a-glitter with the colors flashed upon them from the half hidden lights overhead. A fairy scene to the eye of untroubled youth; but to me a maddening one, masking the grief of many hearts with its show of pleasure.

What Orpha thought of me as I finally came upon her at the end of the dance, I have often wondered. She appeared startled, possibly because I was looking anything but natural myself. But she smiled in response to my greeting, only to grow sober again, as I quietly informed her that her father was a trifle indisposed and would be glad to see her for a few minutes in his own room.

“Papa, ill? I don’t understand,” she murmured. “He is never ill.” Then suddenly, “Where is Edgar?”

The question as she uttered it struck me keenly. However I managed to reply in a purposely careless tone:

“In the library, I think, where they are practicing some new steps. Shall I take you to him?”

She shook her head, but accepted my arm after a show of hesitation quite unconscious I was sure. “No, I will go right up.”

Without further words I led her to the foot of the great staircase. As she withdrew her arm from mine she turned her face towards me. Its look of trouble smote sorely on my heart.

“Shall I go up with you?” I asked.

She shook her head as before, and with a strange wavering smile I found it hard to interpret, sped lightly upward.

A few minutes later I had located my missing partner and was dancing with seeming gayety; but almost lost my step as Edgar brushed by me with a girl whom I had not seen before on his arm. He was as pale as a man well could be who was not ill and though his lips wore a forced smile the girl was doing all the talking.

What was in the air? What would the next half hour bring to him—to me—to all of us?

I tried to do my duty by my partner, but it was not easy and I hardly think she carried away a very favorable impression of me. When released, I sought to hide myself behind a wall of flowering shrubs as near the foot of the stairs as possible. Much can be read from the human countenance, and if I could catch a glimpse of Orpha’s face as she rejoined her guests, some of my doubts might be confirmed or, as I secretly hoped, eliminated.

That Edgar had the same idea was soon apparent; for the first figure I saw approaching the stairs was his, and while he did not go up, he took his stand where he would be sure to see her the moment she became visible in the gallery.

There was, however, a reason for this, aside from any personal anxiety he may have had. They two, as acting host and hostess, were to lead the procession to the supper-room.

I was to take in a Miss Barton and while I kept this young lady in sight, I remained where I was, watching Edgar and those empty stairs for the coming of that fairy figure whose aspect might reveal my future fate. Nothing could be so important as this hoped-for freeing of my mind from its heavy doubts.

Fortunately I had not long to wait. She presently appeared, and with my first view of her face, doubt became certainty in my bewildered mind. For she came with a joyful rush, and there was but one thing which could so wing her feet and give such breeziness to her every movement. The desire of her heart was still hers. Nothing that her father had said had robbed her of that. Then as Edgar advanced, I perceived that her feelings were complex and quite evenly balanced between opposite emotions. Happiness lay before her, but so did trouble, and I could not feel at ease until I knew just what this trouble was. Then I remembered; she had found her father ill. That was certainly enough to account for the secret care battling with her joy. And so all was clear again to my mind. But not to my heart. For by the way Edgar received her and the quiet manner in which they interchanged a few words, I saw that they understood each other. That was what disturbed me and gave to my hopes their final blow. They understood each other.

Whenever I think of the next half hour it is with astonishment that I can remember so little of it. I probably spoke and answered questions and conducted myself on the whole as a gentleman is expected to do on a festive occasion. But I have no memory of it—none whatever. When I came to myself, the supper was half over and the merriment, to which I had probably added my full quota, at its height. With quick glances here and there I took in the whole situation, and from that moment on was quite conscious of how frequently my attention wandered from my ingenuous little partner to where Orpha sat with Edgar, lovely as youth and happiness could make her, but with never a look for me, much as I longed for it.

That he should fail to see and appreciate this loveliness, was no longer a matter of surprise to me who had seen him under the complete domination of his secret passion for Miss Colfax. But the fear that others might note it and wonder, was strong within me. For while he offered her no slight, his glances like mine would seek the face of the woman he loved, who to my amazement occupied the seat at his right. What a juxtaposition for him! But she did not seem to be affected by it, but chatted and smiled with a composure startling to see in one who to my unhappy knowledge had just passed through one of the really great crises in life. How could she look just that way, smile just that way, with a breaking heart beneath her silks and laces? It was incomprehensible to me till I suddenly awoke to the fact that I was smiling too and quite broadly at some remark made by my friendly little partner.

Meantime the moment was approaching which I was anticipating with so much dread. If the announcement of Edgar and Orpha’s engagement was to be made, it would be during, or immediately after, the dessert and that was on the point of being served. Edgar, I could see was nerving himself for the ordeal, and as Orpha’s eyes sought her plate, I prepared myself to hear what would end my evanescent dream and take away all charm from life.