Читать книгу The Stronger Influence - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 7

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During the morning Esmé played tennis with two girls and a man who were staying at the hotel. The tennis court was rough, and a rope stretched across it did service for a net. But the tennis players had brought balls and racquets with them, and, these being good, the defects of the ground were regarded good-naturedly as part of the fun.

The girls were about Esmé’s own age; the man, a little older, paid marked attention to Miss Lester. She introduced an element of new life into the place, and the attractions of the Zuurberg were beginning to pall. There was nothing for a man to do, he explained as they strolled back together towards lunch time.

“But it is pleasant,” the girl said, “to do nothing when one is having a holiday. It is very beautiful here.”

He offered to show her some good walks in the neighbourhood, and put himself very much at her disposal for the remainder of his stay. It transpired that he was leaving at the end of the week.

“There are some beautiful spots to be enjoyed at the expense of a little climbing,” he said. “I’ll show you if you care about it. There’s a kloof within walkable distance that well repays the effort. They found the spoor of a couple of tigers there about a month ago. It’s the sort of place one can imagine wild beasts prowling about in—a tangle of undergrowth, with the moss hanging in long green ribbons from the dead branches of trees. The ferns growing in the water are a sight.”

“It sounds exciting,” Esmé said. “But I’m not keenly anxious to meet wild beasts.”

“No great likelihood of that,” he returned. “They are no, more keen than you are for an encounter. I wish you would let me take you there to-morrow. We could start after lunch. It’s the coolest spot in which to spend a hot afternoon. But you mustn’t play tennis beforehand: it’s quite a good stretch. Will you come?”

Looking up to answer in the affirmative, she became aware as they approached the stoep of the presence in his customary seat near the entrance of the man who excited her curiosity and her sympathy in equal degrees.

“Who is that?” she asked her companion.

He glanced towards the object of her inquiry; and instantly on perceiving the expression in his eyes she regretted having asked the question.

“That! Oh! that’s Hallam—an awful rotter. Drinks like a fish. I’ve not seen him drunk, but I believe he never goes to bed sober.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me that,” she said in a voice that was blank with disappointment.

He stared at her in surprise and changed colour slightly as a man might do who is conscious of being rebuked.

“Perhaps I should have left you to discover it for yourself,” he replied. “But it’s common knowledge. He doesn’t trouble to conceal the weakness. The odd part of it is I have never seen him drink anything stronger than milk and soda. But the thing is obvious enough. He soaks. I don’t suppose there are two people in the hotel with whom he troubles to exchange a remark.”

This speech let in a big ray of light upon her understanding. It became abruptly as clear as the daylight why this man shrunk from intercourse with every one, why he had seemed to shun her society, to almost resent her attempts to converse. She wondered whether her new acquaintance, whose name was Sinclair, had noticed the incident at the breakfast-table and deliberately offered this information with the purpose of putting her on her guard. If this were the case she determined to show him that she did not need advice.

She walked on in silence, and stepped on to the stoep alone, and paused beside the chair of the man whom they had been discussing and smiled down at him. He gazed back at her, surprise and uncertainty struggling in his look.

“I’m so hot,” she said. “We’ve been playing tennis. You look cool sitting there.”

He rose awkwardly to his feet, and stood with his hand resting on the back of the chair, and regarded her steadily.

“It is cool here,” he said. “Take my seat. You have done more to earn the right to it than I have.”

“Thank you, no. It’s a shame to disturb you. I’m going inside to change.”

“That’s the second change this morning,” he said, his eyes on her face.

She laughed brightly.

“It’s something to do,” she replied.

“Yes,” he said.

The old reserve settled upon him once more. She noticed that he looked hesitatingly from her to the wicker chair beside which he stood, looked from it almost furtively towards the entrance. She believed that he purposed retreat, and forestalled him by turning away with a little friendly smile and going within herself.

He did not look after her. There were people present on the stoep: he knew very certainly, without glancing in their direction, the interest they were taking in the little scene. That they had observed the girl’s action in stopping to speak to him, that, with her departure, they continued their observation of himself, he knew instinctively. Their curiosity was a matter of indifference to him.

But the girl’s insistent friendliness troubled him. He sat down again heavily in his seat and reflected deeply, sitting with his elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin sunk on his hands. The gong sounded for luncheon, but he remained where he was and watched the rest go in, and listened to the talk and laughter which came to his ears through the open windows, until, after a while, the lunchers came out again, when he got up quietly and went inside.

Esmé, passing the open windows later on her way into the garden, saw the man seated alone at the table in the deserted room, eating in solitary discomfort, while the coloured servant cleared the table in a manner of sulky protest against this belated service. She quickened her steps and her face flushed warmly. She felt as though she had had her ears boxed. Indignant and angry, she walked as far as the vley and seated herself in the shade of the trees with a book, which she did not read, open on her lap. She could not at the moment concentrate her attention on reading. Her cheeks burned. Twice this man had seemed to snub her, whether intentionally or not she could not determine; but she felt furious, less with the man than with herself for courting a repulse by her persistence. Why should she seek to thrust her society on him when very clearly he did not desire it? Her importunity embarrassed him. That thought rankled. In a desire to be kind to a man whose lonely condition excited her compassion she had been guilty of intruding unwarrantably upon his seclusion. What right had she to force her acquaintance upon him? She had had her lesson; she would profit by it and not repeat the blunder.

Idly she turned the pages of her book; but the printed matter upon which her eyes rested conveyed no meaning to her: between her vision and the open page a man’s face obtruded itself, a face with fine, strongly marked features, and keen, unsmiling eyes. She could not switch her thoughts off this man, in whom, she realised with a sort of impatience, she was more than ordinarily interested. He piqued her curiosity.

Oddly, the ugly fact which she had learned concerning him had not repelled her so much as deepened her sympathy. She wondered about him; wondered what his life had been, what had made him, still a young man, derelict and at enmity with his fellows. He had possibly suffered a great sorrow, she decided; and, womanlike, longed to know the nature of the tragedy which had spoilt his life.

That his weakness awoke pity and not repugnance in her, filled her with a vague surprise. She knew that in another man she would have considered the weakness contemptible. Why should she except this man from censure in her thoughts when she would have held another unworthy for the same failing? A person who drank to excess had always seemed horrible to her. She would have shrunk in fear from a drunken man. But she felt no shrinking from this man: she felt an almost motherly tenderness for him. She would have liked to help him—with sympathy, with her friendship; and the only kindness she could do him was to humour his misanthropy and leave him to himself.

When she passed him again on her return at the tea hour she took no notice of him, but walked along the stoep with an air of not seeing him, and yet with a mind so intent on him that a consciousness of this penetrated his understanding, possibly because he in his turn was thinking about her with a curiosity equal to her own, with an interest which surpassed hers.

He followed her with his glance until she reached the open window of the dining-room and disappeared within. He did not move. Tea was a meal he never attended; he did not drink tea. When Esmé came out again on to the stoep his chair was empty.