Читать книгу Butterfly - Kathleen Thompson Norris - Страница 8

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The morning came to the man and to the Collier girls with a mood of cold awakening. Craig, who had eagerly promised Dora last night that he would certainly attend the Kronski concert to-night in Philadelphia, found himself inclined to do nothing of the kind. The evening party seemed only a flurried memory, he could not account for what he had said, and felt, and done during those three feverish hours; he disliked the idea of meeting Miss Collier in the office this morning, and thought with suddenly reddening cheeks that Tom Lester might at this moment be telling his associates in the village dry goods store of the good company Craig Spaulding could be when he “got started.”

Dora awakened headachy and depressed. Her morning would be spent in sweeping the demoralized living room and in washing a pyramid of sticky plates. Cigar and cigarette ashes were everywhere, and scented everything; there was no butter for breakfast, they had used the last scrap for the impromptu party. She remarked pettishly that she did not care what she wore to the concert; she did not care much about the old concert, anyway; she was sick of living, some people got everything, and some people drudged along all their lives and starved and pinched and scraped and were laughed at for their trouble!

Hilary, for once, found no soothing answers for these familiar complaints. She looked pale, and seemed absent-minded and worried, entirely unlike herself. The glorious evening had left her, Dora knew, in high spirits, and while they were going to bed she had exulted in the memory of it.

“But Butterfly, sweetheart,” she had said to Dora, when, warm and happy and confident, Dora was standing beside her brushing her thick, soft hair, “don’t you realize that all our lives are going to be like that? That’s the way musicians are—that’s the way really great people are—not little snobs like Maude Underwood and Gertrude Morrill!”

But when the room was darkened, and Dora was asleep, Hilary had lain awake, remembering every instant between ten o’clock and one, and suddenly discomfort had touched her; a rapidly deepening discomfort that had presently turned to an active shame. She had sat up straight in bed, unable to bear the suffocating weight of it, and steadily the whole enormity of her humiliation had developed before her.

What had she said—what had she said—parting with Craig Spaulding at the front door? Hilary’s face burned, she knew only too well what she had said.

Craig, in his finished manner, had thanked her for the enjoyable evening. It had been one of real delight to him, as she must surely realize.

And, elated with triumph and the exhilaration of the successful event, Hilary had answered, with a sudden air of intimacy—but what had she answered? Sick with self-contempt, she tried to remember the exact words.

Well, perhaps they had not been so bad, after all; they had all been laughing and excited, and the rooms got very hot, and nobody had been in a critical mood. Yet Hilary wished passionately, in the long, restless hours of this wretched night, that she had never heard of Craig Spaulding, or of Kronski, either, and that the evening had been a dead failure rather than that she should have this school-girlish stupidity of hers to remember!

“It wasn’t anything, he knew I just felt friendly—if I had said it with everyone listening, it would have been perfectly simple!” she told herself. After all, he had shown friendship enough to come to see them—that was something——

“Probably he didn’t hear me. Probably he never gave it another thought——!

“Oh, I can’t bear it!” whispered Hilary, writhing alone in the dark night. “Oh, what possessed me! What on earth can he think of me? And how on earth can I ever go down to the office and face him to-morrow!”

Dora and Kronski had gone down the steps, into the cold midnight darkness; she and Craig had been in the doorway. Again she reviewed the whole episode: his courteous farewells, her fatuous gush of absurdities in answer! What must he think?

What had he answered? It seemed to Hilary that she recalled a surprised and chilled expression on his face. Her heart was sick within her; and the long night was only a succession of restless dozes, wretched awakenings, and miserable remembering all over again.

It was dreadful to find Dora so unreasonable in the morning. Out of doors there was hard, freezing weather; the very disorder of the backyards was frozen into marble firmness, garbage-tins were frozen; harsh sunlight that seemed without warmth struck coldly upon the steaming manure-pile outside of the Fosters’ shabby old stable. A coloured woman was gossiping with the man who was supposed to be cleaning the Fosters’ porch.

Hilary sipped her coffee in silence; it seemed impossible that this forbidding, weary morning could usher in the long-awaited day of the Kronski concert. That Kronski should rush from his Philadelphia hotel to seek herself and Dora out, that Dora should play for him, and he for them, that he should promise to teach her himself, all this would have seemed a miracle of happiness only yesterday! But as it was Hilary found herself strangely apathetic toward Kronski; could she have blotted from existence those last unbearable words between herself and Craig, she would gladly have lost, with them, all the other events of the evening.

“I’ll be home at noon, anyway, Butterfly. And don’t kill yourself with the dishes and things. We can do them to-morrow if we have to. Get in your practice, dear, won’t you?”

“I don’t want to practise!” said Dora, drearily.

“Oh, darling, you must. Think what an incentive you have now. Kronski to teach you—think of it!”

“Yes, I know,” Dora muttered, lifelessly. “I’m just sick of hearing how wonderful it’s all going to be!” she added, rebelliously. “I’d like it to begin!”

“Well, didn’t it? Didn’t something begin last night?” Hilary asked, resolutely cheerful, although with a spasmodic thought at the same instant that last night had been a miserable failure.

“Gertrude Morrill—what does she know about music—she never practised an hour in her life!” burst out Butterfly, bitterly. “And how does she go to the concert? Oh, in Grandpa’s car, of course! They’ll start about four, and have dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford and probably have the best seats——!”

Hilary rose from her place, sighed, and placed her cup and plate among the heaped plates at the sink. She put away the sugar-bowl, filled both kettles with water to heat for the dishes, and put on her shabby coat. Dora watched her furtively. The little sister’s heart was aching; she didn’t want Hilary to go away in this depressed mood. But Dora was exhausted with excitement, fatigue, and the taste of a new and poisonous cup touched for the first time to her lips.

She was silent, and kept her bright head sullenly bent as Hilary kissed the crown of her hair for good-bye. She was alone.

The fresh cold air outside braced Hilary hearteningly; so much so that she had not reached Spy Street before she wished that she had urged Butterfly to take a brisk turn about the block before beginning the morning’s drudgery. But just some such vague resentment and fundamental discouragement as had kept Dora silent held her now, and she walked on to the office without interruption.

Fortune was with her. Old Kraut was there, and Craig was not. The mail came in, and when Craig did finally appear, at about ten o’clock, she could approach him quite naturally.

“Mr. Spaulding, is your uncle back yet? I think this is very important. That entire shipment to the Barbadoes man ...”

Kraut pushed his old spectacles up on his bald forehead; Craig stood beside Hilary reading the unwelcome letter; he formed his lips for a whistle.

“Yes, my uncle’s home. That’s bad, isn’t it? I’ll get in touch with him, I believe he is coming down later. I may have to go into New York and see the Lamport-Holt people about that.”

Hilary could sit down at her desk again, her heart quiet for the first time in some hours. She had seen him, and shown him a perfectly cool, dispassionate front. Later, he said to her suddenly:

“Tired out, at your house, after last night?”

“Well, with to-night’s dissipation still to come ...” she returned, composedly. She picked up her telephone.

“She certainly called me Craig last night, but I don’t believe she knows it!” Craig thought, in relief. “I may have been getting a little too friendly here. I’ll stop it! I won’t be able to get to that concert to-night, I’m sorry to say,” he added, aloud.

“Too bad!” Hilary commented, evenly. Her heart sank. In spite of her utmost effort to be sane she had been sitting here thinking how wonderful it would be if he suddenly decided to attend the concert, and to drive Dora and herself in to Philadelphia for dinner before it and if afterward they went to his dressing room and saw Kronski ...

The dream died, and Hilary went soberly home over the cold, dirty snow at noon, and helped Dora with the last of the dishes, and improvised a luncheon of toasted rye bread, eggs, and sardines, and some softening ginger-snaps left on a plate.

Then it was time to dress for the concert, but somehow the life and sparkle had gone out of the whole thing. The prospect of two quietly dressed sisters going in to town at two o’clock and having an hour or two to shop sedately before eating a mild little dinner somewhere, and attending a violin concert, had strangely lost its charm. Hilary had always loved little expeditions with Dora; the quietest of them had always possessed for her a certain delight. Just to sit in the train was exciting; just to say “See, Butterfly, isn’t that an adorable baby in that backyard?” or, “Dora, you can’t remember, but I can, when people used to stand in the streets and stare up at aëroplanes as if they were black magic!”

To-day she felt jaded, oddly discontented and soul-weary. Everyone else in the world was having a nicer time than the Colliers; but the Colliers were so simple that they deceived themselves into thinking that they were unusually destined—unusually fortunate!

This mood was not unknown to Dora, but finding it reflected in herself alarmed Hilary. This would not do! She must somehow redeem this forlorn expedition; it was delightful, it was a great occasion!

She conscientiously tried. She admired Dora in her pressed old black velvet, she laughed cheerfully when they had to run for their train, she said that they would be wildly extravagant and have a really fine dinner somewhere.

But it all fell flat. Everything was an anticlimax, after last night. In spite of herself a little conviction of disappointment, of being unjustly treated, would creep into her heart. Even before the concert she began feverishly to wish that the whole thing was over, and that she and Dora were home again, and that it was a peaceful, commonplace Sunday morning, with the world lost to them, and they lost to the world. Life wasn’t for ever, anyway.

Their seats, in the big hall, were surprisingly good, and the music was glorious. Kronski played to a full house, and seemed once more the remote celebrity that he had been to them at this time yesterday. Dora and Hilary, after some rather heated debate, in which neither knew exactly what she wished to do, went in to congratulate him afterward, and found him cordial and kind even among a push of other enthusiastic admirers.

“You will be doing this some day—if you are a good Butterfly and work hard!” Dora had to remember, as a special personal word from the lion of the hour, and to Hilary, Kronski said confidentially: “You look at all this, in your good, motherly heart, and you say it is all nonsense, and is it not so? ‘Take a cup and drink it up and call the neighbours to come in!’ That’s better, eh?”

After this the circling crowd somewhat pushed them aside, and they stood irresolute and troubled, smiling automatically as they watched him, not knowing quite what to do. Then Hilary said suddenly in a low tone:

“I think we had better slip away. So many people ... Don’t you think we had better?”

And Dora, discontentedly, and with a hint of moisture in her eyes, answered desolately:

“Yes, I guess so.”

It was all over. They had seen Kronski, heard him not only in public but in private; made of him a warm friend, and won from him all that their mother and father could ever have hoped for Dora. And yet there was a bitter disappointment about it all that made it harder than ever for Dora to work patiently and steadily and that marked even for sober and sensible Hilary a certain turning point in her life.

She began to long to get away; to leave this petty environment of Underwoods and Spauldings and Morrills. She imagined Dora and herself in some clean little pension abroad, studying, working, planning, everything in the world to each other once more!

Craig had been different since the evening party in Sugarhouse Lane. She saw it, and felt it keenly, and met it with a change on her own part. He should not think that she was entirely a sentimental idiot. She had had a moment of weakness, never to be remembered without blazing cheeks and a quickened heart, but it was over now. She was Miss Collier, his uncle’s secretary, who planned to take her sister abroad for musical work in the fall.

About a week after the party Craig told her, casually and in Kraut’s presence, that he had seen Kronski again. Mrs. Dwyer had given him an evening reception after his last New York concert; Kronski had been sailing in the morning. Craig did not tell her that the young violinist, with his shock of black hair, and his black eye-glass ribbon, and the tiny coloured emblem of his foreign decoration in his buttonhole, had been a surprisingly imposing, almost a forbidding, figure, in the Dwyers’ elaborately equipped music-room. He, Craig, had found him impressive, oddly restored by his very ungraciousness to that pedestal upon which he had originally placed him. There was nothing of the genial peasant in Kronski seen thus; Mrs. Dwyer indeed had pronounced him to be disobliging and conceited, and with some truth. But Craig could forgive the musician for showing his worst side in that particular atmosphere!

“Some of us, the Vanderworts and the Pickerings, saw him off on the Aquitania the next morning,” Craig told Hilary. The girl felt a bitter resentment seize her. What was the matter with her in these days?—she asked herself, impatiently. What was it to her, if some idle rich people went laughing and chattering to the big liner, to wave good-bye to Konrad Kronski? They had always been doing these pretty, agreeable things, and they always would. Why should it so suddenly begin to prick Hilary Collier?

Nevertheless, the pain persisted, and against her own better judgment she found herself telling Dora about it that evening.

“H’m!” Dora commented, compressing her lips as she tightened an E string. They went through a duet conscientiously; stopping dutifully to repeat and repeat and repeat a troublesome passage. Then Dora added suddenly: “We do the work, and introduce him to Craig Spaulding, and then these Dwyers who don’t know Strauss from jazz take him up and make much of him!”

Hilary felt a pang of compunction. The thought had been pricking her all day; but might she not have been generous enough to spare Dora? The shadow on the lovely little face haunted her, and during the next few days, as she went to and fro, she discovered new heights of courage and self-denial in herself, and rose to them heroically.

“I have gotten a long way,” Hilary reminded herself bravely, “since those terrible days seven years ago, when Father died. We are both well, and out of debt, and we have saved money for study, as I told him we would. And we love each other, and we do have lots of fun working out verbs with Madama Ghecchi, and improvising, and everything! I used to pray in those days, and dedicate myself to what I had planned to do, and ask God to help me do it. And now I must make a fresh start, and plan again, and pray more than I do.

“And first of all,” she reminded herself, more than once, walking through the shabby old streets in the heavy January weather, “first of all, I must put this nonsense about Craig Spaulding out of my head! Even supposing that he did love me, I couldn’t marry him with the idea that I could help Butterfly that way! Every marriage is a whole job by itself, and I should have a pretty hard time keeping up with those friends of his, and not making stupid mistakes! And what would Butterfly do? What could she do, except marry some miserable young spendthrift like Victor Morrill——

“Besides, it’s all so silly! Craig Spaulding doesn’t ever think of me—he’s in love with that pretty little Mrs. Vanderwort, if he is with anybody. So now that’s settled, and I know that if I do my share God will find me the right place in life, and help me to become a good, busy, useful, happy woman!”