Читать книгу The Stronger Influence - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 6

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The daylight woke Esmé early. The sunbeams found their way through the open window and flashed upon her face and startled her from sleep. She had not drawn her blind overnight; and she lay still for a while and looked at the golden riot without, resting comfortably, with a feeling of lazy contentment and intense ease of mind and body. The sweet freshness of the air poured over her in health-giving breaths. The beauty of the day, the brilliance of the sunshine called her to go out into it and enjoy the morning in its early freshness.

She rose and dressed and opening her window wider, put her foot over the sill and dropped down on to the grass.

The heavy dew silvered the ground and sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. She felt exhilarated, surprisingly happy and glad to be alive. No one seemed to be abroad at that hour except herself. The hotel presented the appearance of a house in which the inmates are all asleep. She went through the garden, past the low hedge, and out into the road. The road, too, looked deserted. She had the world to herself. A sense of freedom gripped her. She was not conscious of feeling lonely; the sunshine was companionable, and the novelty of everything held her attention and kept her interest on the alert.

The daylight disclosed all which the night had hidden from her when she travelled the same road on the previous evening. It had appeared then a land of shadows, of velvety dark under a purple sky; the shadows had rolled back, and the scene revealed wide stretches of veld, with here and there a clump of trees or low bushes to break the sameness of the view. The veld glowed with an intensity of colour that strove with a sort of hard defiance against the golden light of the sun. The sense of space, of solitude, was bewildering in this vast picture of sun-drenched open country, where no sound disturbed the silence save the muffled tread of her own footsteps in the powdery dust of the road.

She broke into a little song as she walked briskly forward, but checked the song almost instantly because the sound of her own voice struck intrusively on the surrounding quiet: the note of a bird would have sounded intrusive even here, where the silence of forgetfulness seemed to have fallen upon the land.

A tiny breath of wind came sighing across the veld; the girl lifted her face to meet it, and her eyes smiled. This was the cradle of the wind; here it had its source upon the mountain. She loved the wind as she loved the sunlight; she loved the warmth and the crudely brilliant colour, the untempered heat of this land of eternal sunshine, of vast spaces, and fierce and splendid life. She loved, too, the dark-skinned people of the country; loved them for their happy dispositions and the childlike simplicity of their natures.

Further along the road a Kaffir woman passed her with a tiny black baby slung in a shawl, native fashion, on her back. Esmé stopped to admire the baby, and touched its soft dark skin with her finger. The native woman and the English girl spoke in tongues incomprehensible to one another; but the language of baby worship is universal; and the Kaffir mother smiled appreciatively, pleased at the notice taken of her babe. She went on her way with the light of the sun in her eyes, which met its fierceness as the eyes of the animals meet the sun, unblinking and without inconvenience. Esmé looked after her and admired her free graceful walk, the upright poise of her head. The people who live in the sun show a superb indifference to its power.

With the disappearance of the native woman a sudden feeling of loneliness came over her, stayed with her, despite the brightness of the day and the sense of returning health which came to her in the wonderful lightness and purity of the air. She walked a little further, to where a curve in the road brought her to a belt of trees which threw a pleasing shade across the path. She halted in the shade and looked about her with inquiring gaze.

It was very beautiful here, and restful, and the air was fragrant with the pungent scent of the mimosa blossoms. She gathered a branch of the flowers and thrust some of them in her belt. Looking upward at the road she had travelled she saw that the descent was greater than she had imagined; the return would necessitate a steady climb.

She rested for a while, leaning against one of the trees, idly watching the play of sunlight through the branches. The shadows of the trees lay along the road in grotesque shapes. The brooding stillness of the day, the brightness and the warmth, were soothing: but the feeling of loneliness deepened; there was something a little awe-inspiring in the general hush. And then, with an abruptness that startled her, a sound struck upon her ears, a sound that was not loud but which was curiously audible in the silence. It was the sound of footsteps crunching upon the road. The figure of a man appeared round the bend and came on quickly, his footstep beating in measured muffled rhythm in the dust. He was quite close to her before he saw her; when he caught sight of her he hesitated for a second; it looked as though he contemplated beating a retreat. Then, coming apparently to a decision, he walked on. When he was abreast of her he raised his hat.

Esmé regarded him curiously. It was the man whose seat was next hers at table, the man whose personality had arrested her attention, in whom she felt unaccountably interested. He carried a stick, which he used occasionally to walk with and more frequently to strike with at the grass which bordered the roadside. He carried it as a man carries something from which he derives a sense of companionship. It was all the companionship he ever had upon his walks.

“Good-morning,” the girl said in response to his mute salutation; and added, after a barely perceptible pause: “It is glorious, the air up here.”

“Yes,” he said, and halted irresolutely.

She believed that he resented, not only her speaking to him, but her presence there. He resented neither; but he felt averse from beginning an acquaintance which, once started, it would be impossible to draw back from, and which he foresaw might develop into something of very deep significance. Instinctively he feared this acquaintance. But courtesy demanded some response from him; he made it reluctantly and in a manner which did not encourage her to persevere.

“You are an early riser,” he said. “Usually at this hour I have the day to myself.”

Again it seemed to her that he looked on her presence as an intrusion, that he preferred to take his rambles without the thought of encountering any one. An emotion that was a mixture of impatience and anger seized her at his selfishness.

“There is room for both of us,” she said with a touch of scorn in her voice. “And we travel in opposite directions.”

The man’s features relaxed in a smile, the first she had seen cross his face, an involuntary, whimsical smile. A gleam of understanding lit his eye.

“Yes,” he allowed briefly, and lifted his hat again, and walked on, leaving the girl with the feeling of having suffered a snub.

She looked after him, as he went on, still hitting aimlessly at the grass with his thick stick as he walked, until he rounded the bend and disappeared from her view. Then, dispirited and out of humour with the day, she left the shade of the trees and took her way upward and returned to the hotel.

At breakfast she saw the man again. He came in late, and dropped into his seat beside her with an air of weariness, as though he had walked far and was tired. She did not look at him; but she felt his gaze on her when he came behind her chair and drew his own chair back from the table. When he sat down he glanced at her deliberately. She went on with her breakfast and ignored his presence. Later, this struck her as unkind and somewhat childish. But it was not possible to make amends; the opportunity was past.

He sat, as he always sat at table, with his head bent over his plate in complete disregard of every one. But the presence of the girl beside him, her partly averted face, the nearness of a projecting elbow with its white, prettily rounded arm, forced themselves on his notice, made him intensely self-conscious. He put out a hand for the glass of milk and soda which stood beside his plate and lifted it unsteadily. The sight of his own shaking hand unnerved him, made him horribly and painfully alive to this ugly physical defect. Impatiently he jerked his arm upward; the glass tilted and the contents foamed over, ran down the cloth and on to the girl’s skirt. He fumbled awkwardly, almost dropped the glass in his agitation, righted it clumsily and turned, napkin in hand, his face crimson, and began to sop up the liquid.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he mumbled. “I can’t think how I came to do that. I’m sorry.”

Esmé turned quietly and watched him while with increasing embarrassment he timidly wiped her dress. In pity for him she put out a hand and took the napkin from him.

“Don’t trouble,” she said. “It’s nothing really.”

“I’ve spoilt your dress,” he said.

“Oh! no. It’s a frock on friendly terms with the wash-tub. That will be all right.”

“It’s kind of you to make light of it,” he said. “But I’m ashamed of my clumsiness.”

She felt intensely sorry for him as he turned again to his breakfast and resumed eating with a sort of uncomfortable shyness that was painful to witness. His hands, she noticed, shook more than usual. He did not attempt to lift his glass again, though it had been placed refilled before him; he was physically incapable of making the effort. Out of consideration for him she did not address him again, but finished her breakfast quickly and got up silently and left the room.

She went down the passage and into her own room and changed into a clean frock. It was her smartest dress which had been soiled. She took it off with a sorry little smile at the pang which it cost her vanity to have to lay it aside. But her earlier resentment against the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap gave place to a deep compassion when she recalled the confused crimson of his face and the fierce yet diffident embarrassment in his eyes. She was sorry for him without understanding why she should feel pity for a man who made no appeal to her sympathy. His solitary condition was the result of his deliberate choice. When a man shuns the society of his fellows the fault lies within himself.

But the look in his eyes continued to distress her. She resolved that when next she encountered him she would make him talk to her.