Читать книгу The Return of the Prodigal - Sinclair May - Страница 17

Table of Contents

Gibson had been talking a long time to Phœbe. They were sitting together on the beach, under the shadow of the cliff. He was trying to form Phœbe's mind. Phœbe's mind was deliciously young, and it had the hunger and thirst of youth. A little shy and difficult to approach, Phœbe's mind, but he had found out what it liked best, and it pleased him to see how confidingly and delicately it, so to speak, ate out of his hand.

He puzzled her a good deal. And she had a very pretty way of closing her eyes when she was puzzled. In another woman it would have meant that he was boring her; Phœbe did it to shut out the intolerable light of knowledge.

"Ah!—don't," he cried.

"Don't shut my eyes? I always shut my eyes when I'm trying to think," said Phœbe.

He said nothing. That was not what he had meant when he had said "Don't."

"Am I boring you?" he said presently. His tone jarred a little on Phœbe; he had such a nice voice generally.

"No," said she. "Why?"

"Because you keep on doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That."

"Oh!—this?"

She put up her hand and untwisted the little tendril of brown hair that hung deliciously over her left ear.

"I always do that when I'm thinking."

He very nearly said, "Then, for God's sake, don't think."

But Phœbe was always thinking now. He had given her cause to think.

He began to hate the little brown curl that hung over her left ear, though it was anguish to him to hate anything that was Phœbe's. He looked out with nervous anxiety for the movement of her little white hand. He said to himself, "If she does it again, I can't come near her any more."

Yet he kept on coming; and was happy with her until Phœbe (poor, predestined little Phœbe) did it again. Gibson shuddered with the horror of the thing. He kept on saying to himself, "She's sweet, she's good, she's adorable. It isn't her fault. But I can't—I can't sit in the room with it."

And the next minute Phœbe would be so adorable that he would repent miserably of his brutality.

Then, one hot, still evening, he was alone with her in the little sitting-room. Outside, on the grass plot, her father sat in his bath-chair while Effie read aloud to him (out of her turn). Her voice made a cover for Gibson's voice and Phœbe's.

Phœbe was dressed (for the heat) in a white gown with wide, open sleeves. Her low collar showed the pure, soft swell of her neck to the shoulder-line.

She was sitting upright and demure in a straight-backed chair, with her hands folded quietly in her lap.

"That isn't a very comfortable chair you've got," he said.

He knew that she was tired with pushing the bath-chair about all day.

"It's the one I always sit in," said Phœbe.

"Well, you're not going to sit in it now," he said.

He drew the armchair out of its sacred corner and made her sit in that. He put a cushion at her head and a footstool at her feet.

"You make my heart ache," he said.

"Do I?"

He could not tell whether the little shaking breath she drew were a laugh or a sigh.

She lay back, letting her tired body slacken into rest.

The movement loosened the little combs that kept the coil of her brown hair in place. Phœbe abhorred dishevelment. She put up her hands to her head. Her wide sleeve fell back, showing the full length of her white arms.

He saw another woman stretching her arms to the man who leaned above her. He saw the movement of her hands—hands of the same texture and whiteness as her body, instinct with its impulses. A long procession of abominations passed through the white arch of her arms—the arch she raised in triumph and defiance, immortalizing her sin.

He was very tender with Phœbe that night, for his heart was wrung with compunction.

"She's adorable," he said to himself; "but I can't live with that."

Gibson left by the early train next day. He went without saying good-bye and without leaving an explanation or an address.

Phœbe held her head high, and said, day after day, "There's sure to be a letter."

Three weeks passed and no letter came. Phœbe saw that it was all over.

One day she was found (Effie found her) on her bed, crying. She was so weak she let Effie take her in her arms.

"If I only knew what I had done," she said. "Oh, Effie! what could have made him go away?"

"I can't tell, my lamb. You mustn't think about him any more."

"I can't help thinking. You see, it's not as if he hadn't been so nice."

"He couldn't have been nice to treat you that way."

"He didn't," said Phœbe fiercely. "He didn't treat me any way. I sometimes think I must have made it all up out of my own head. Did I?"

"No, no. I'm sure you didn't."

"It would have been awful of me. But I'd rather be awful than have to think that he was. What is my worst fault, Effie?"

"Your worst fault, in his eyes, is that you have none."

Phœbe sat up on the edge of the bed. She was thinking hard. And as she thought her hand went up, caressing unconsciously the little brown curl.

"If I only knew," said she, "what I had done!"

Gibson never saw Phœbe Richardson again. But a year later, as he turned suddenly on to the esplanade of a strange watering-place, he encountered the bath-chair, drawn by Effie and another lady. He made way, lifting his cap mechanically to its occupant.

The General looked at him. The courteous old hand checked itself in the salute. The affable smile died grimly.

Effie turned away her head. The other lady (it must have been "Mary") raised her eyes in somber curiosity.

Phœbe was not with them. Gibson supposed that she was away somewhere, recovering, in her turn.