Читать книгу A Woman of Samaria - Rita - Страница 5

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The two girls were dressing for the concert. Two white gowns lay on the bed in Cynthia's room, and two exquisite bouquets of white flowers with trails of green foliage lay beside them. Cynthia stood before the glass, radiant in déshabillé of snowy mysteries and giving finishing touches to her hair. The door opened and Dolores entered. She moved with a languid step, and her face was pallid and anxious.

"You look awful!" exclaimed Cynthia, with sisterly candour. "I can't think what's come over you! For goodness sake, child, try and put off that melancholy Ophelia business for once. Really, people will begin to notice you. You're just like a ghost. I declare I'd make you rouge if I had any. I've heard geranium petals do as well; but it's not the season for them. Try a rough towel."

Dolores made no reply. She did indeed look ill. Her face had lost its youthful roundness and grown sharp and thin. Dark circles shadowed her eyes and intensified the dusky length of lashes. Her step was slow and languid, and her lips never smiled. She seemed to move and act and speak by mechanical instinct. The verve and spring of life had gone from her.

"No letter yet?" observed Cynthia, enquiringly. "Well, after all, he's not been gone so very long. You'll have to adopt my philosophy, dear. 'If he do not write to me, what care I how nice he be!' Not that Cyril was ever 'nice' in my opinion. He thought too much of himself. A conceited man never makes a satisfactory lover. Now my poor old dear is rather too fond of bringing himself to my notice. See there!" She pointed to the flowers, and then took up a trinket box from the dressing-table.

"'This—to my Anthea,'" she read, and opening it showed the sparkle of a diamond circlet, which was speedily transferred to a slender finger. "Pretty, isn't it? That's the third ring he has given me. I suppose the fourth will be the one."

"Miss Tatton has excelled herself," said Cynthia presently, in approval of her own appearance. "Taste and the 'Lady's Pictorial' can do wonders even in a country village. These gowns have quite a town-made touch about them, I assure you. I've not studied Mrs. Ferrers's frocks for nothing. I hope your bodice will fit, Dolly? Mine is barely comfortable; but you want singing-room. Goodness! there's Aunt Sarah calling, and you're not dressed. What a nuisance punctual people are."

"I'll take this into my room," exclaimed Dolores, hurriedly. "She'll only fuss and detain me. Keep her here for goodness sake. Show her your ring—anything." She seized her bodice and fled.

A quarter of an hour later the two girls were in the drawing-room of the Vicarage, undergoing the criticism of father and aunt. Cynthia was radiant. Her lovely colouring was all the more brilliant in contrast to her colourless attire. Dolores, too, had no lack of roses to complain of, but the flush on her cheeks was too feverishly brilliant to last, and her eyes had a wild strained look that spoke of mental tension.

The Vicar regarded them with admiring interest, their aunt with a due appreciation of the dressmaker's skill as an adjunct of youth and beauty.

Her father's eyes rested on Dolly's face with a dawning expression of wonder, and their gaze growing more intent, noted some change in that face that gave him a momentary pang; it brought out the likeness to that dead wife so strongly. But why should the child look ill, and what had brought that hunted, half-terrified look into her soft eyes? Those eyes which had always seemed to foreshadow sorrow even in childhood.

Ere he could frame his troubled thoughts into words she had thrown her cloak over her shoulders and turned away on pretence of finding her music. Her hands shook, she felt cold and sick. The names and titles of the songs swam hazily before her eyes. She wondered how she would ever get through the evening with this new sense of terror weighing upon her heart.

When she stood on the platform and gazed down on the familiar faces it seemed to her that they all wore a look of curiosity, or question. The blood mounted to her brow, the beating of her heart was quick and painful. Her eyes fell on the flowers she held in her hand, and their snowy purity seemed to mock her agonised thoughts. As one in a dream she heard the accompaniment to her song, and knew the bar that gave the signal for the voice. With a rush of emotion she began,

"The stars shine on his pathway, The trees bend back their leaves, To guide him to the meadow Among the golden sheaves."

The passionate words, the burst of joy that proclaimed the "waiting" over, sent a thrill through the listeners. It seemed as if the singer's very soul was in the music, its longings and abandonment and delight, for it was her own love and longing that she sang, and memory carried her back to hours when she had waited for a footfall and trembled with ecstasy in her lover's embrace. Then Hope arose and whispered that as it had been so it should be again. Her eyes were like stars, and men looking at her thought that she sang too well of love for one to whom love was an unknown guest. But they recalled her again and again, for no voice there was like hers, and the joy and beauty and pathos of it left strange memories behind.

She was succeeded by Mr. Lilliecrapp, whose performance afforded intense amusement to all and sundry, and tried his fiancée's nerves and patience to a degree that the diamond circlet scarcely rendered passive. However, he was so well satisfied with himself that comment was superfluous. Certainly none was made.

Dolores had to sing once more, and this time selected the old ballad of "Robin Gray." There were few dry eyes in the little hall when she had finished, and her own were wet as she left the platform.

Mrs Ferrers greeted her with enthusiasm. "I wonder you don't go into the profession," she said. "With a year's training your voice would be admirable. You'd create a furore in London."

"Nonsense! Don't try to turn the child's head," exclaimed Mr. Lilliecrapp. He did not particularly desire his future wife's sister to adopt a public profession. He had the curious middle-class prejudice against art. It was not a thing by which fortunes were rapidly made; and therefore of small account, commercially considered. Besides, this chit of a child had created quite a sensation where his efforts had only met with polite toleration. It argued badly for country tastes.

To Dolores herself the whole evening was an ordeal from which she was longing to escape. She refused Mrs. Ferrers's invitation to return to supper with the rest of the concert party. She declared her head ached, she was tired, she must go home, and persuasions were useless.

When she was alone in her own room she threw off her pretty frock with a sudden disregard of everything but relief. Then she sat down at the little table in her window, and wrote a letter. It was not long, and as she wrote it all the girlish beauty of her face seemed to harden and grow cold and fierce and determined. When she had sealed and addressed it she blew out her light and sat for long by the open window, gazing out at the starlit garden.

"If I could only stop thought until I get his answer!" she cried to herself. "I cannot bear this silence and suspense. I feel as if I should go mad. Has he altered? Has he forgotten? Oh! if he has, what will become of me!"

She sank down on her knees, her head pillowed against the hard window seat, alone with the night and desolation.

* * * * * * *

The door handle was softly turned. Someone looked in.

"Are you asleep, Dolly?" said a voice. The girl lifted her head and struggled to her feet.

"Why, good gracious me, I thought you were in bed. Don't tell me you've been moping in the dark all this time. How silly you are! And we had such a good time at the Hall. Why wouldn't you come?"

"I didn't want to," said the girl, dully.

"Didn't want to? But why? Surely it was better than sitting up here alone fretting yourself ill. Why," touching her suddenly, "you're as cold as death. Really, Dolly, you want a good shaking! I shall tell father about you. You do nothing but sulk and mope; it's getting unbearable."

"What did you come in for? To tell me this?"

"No. I just came in to say the day has been fixed. I'm going to be married the end of next month. Tom declares he won't wait any longer, and Mrs. Ferrers and I were talking about the bridesmaids' dresses. I'll only have two, and a page to hold up my train. That pretty boy of Mrs. D'Arcy's will do. She's promised him. He has been at lots of weddings, and can be trusted. There's very little time, but it's no use thinking of a grand wedding here. Now what colours do you say? White and pink is pretty, and suits the season, too; and you always look well in pink."

A little uncertain laugh broke from Dolores. "Do I? Well, it's all one to me; have what colour you wish."

"If a girl cannot take an interest in a wedding, and her own sister's, too, there must be something radically wrong about her!"

"What do you mean?" cried Dolores, sharply, her face growing suddenly white.

"Just what I say. You don't show the least interest or sympathy; and it's very hard, considering how we've been brought up together and had everything in common."

"Except our sympathies," said Dolores, coldly. "They were always at variance, to the best of my recollection. And as for your marriage, what do you expect me to say? I know you don't care a rap for this man. You are marrying solely for money and position. You can't expect to be happy. He is vulgar and common and old."

"Thank you; that will do. I might have guessed the sort of things you would say."

She turned, away with the dignity of wounded feelings. The moonlight, flooding the room, showed the two white girlish figures, one seated on the bed with clasped hands and lowered eyes, the other erect and scornful and offended. As her hand was on the door Dolores spoke.

"Say good-night, don't let us part bad friends. It won't be for so very long that we shall be together. And we've no mother to wish us Godspeed on our life's journey, or counsel us by the way."

"No," said Cynthia, suddenly melting. "And I've made my choice and you've made yours. There's no need to quarrel because they're so different. We never did think alike about anything."

She came back to the quiet figure. They kissed each other silently in the moonlight. The tears that were wet on Dolores's cheek were no tribute of her own aching heart as she turned away from the closed door.