Читать книгу Enchanted Ground - Temple Bailey - Страница 6

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When Mary Hamilton waked, it was late in the afternoon. The house was very still. She went to the window and looked out. The bayou was purple with twilight—a half-dozen white herons were like small ghosts in the dimness—fragrance floated up and around her; the scent of roses in the garden; the sharper scent of orange blooms from the orchard beyond. She found in the scene much that fitted her mood. Peace. Loveliness.

But there was more in her mood. Expectancy.

She went to her mirror, pulled the chains of the twin lights at the side, and was immediately enveloped in a rosy haze. She drew a comb through her hair, and was aware of its brightness and beauty. She went to the closet and chose a dress of faint orchid with a silver girdle. It seemed to match the twilight. No jewels. Just the silver of her girdle and the gold of her hair....

As she went downstairs, Jinks met her. “Darling child, did you dress for dinner?”

“Why not?”

Jinks’ voice had a note of awe in it, “Do you—always?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Well, Doctor Ferry won’t. He’s had a dreadful day of it—a baby and two operations. He came in about five and said he would try to get back for dinner ...”

“Oh—he must get back....” Mary had a sense of panic.

“Your father’s all right,” Jinks assured her. “Peter gave me plenty of directions, so if he had to stay tonight at the hospital I’d know what to do.”

Mary went on to the dining-room. The table was set for two.

“Why two, Julia?” she said to the old colored woman who was bringing in the glasses. “Miss Bowie will join us.”

“No, honey. She say she’ll eat later. Then Doctor Ferry can stay with your Daddy.”

So Peter and she would dine alone—or, if Peter didn’t come, she would have no company. She passed through the long hall and stood in the front door. The purple of the twilight had given way to the darkening of the night; the gray moss hanging from the trees was silvered by the light on the driveway. Yet there was now nothing sinister in the outlook. There was, rather, a pensive loveliness. If only Peter would come—she could fight the depression which was sweeping back upon her.

Jinks spoke from the hall behind her, “Your father wants you.”

She went at once, and bent to kiss his forehead, but he held back from her. “Why are you wearing that dress? You look like a rich man’s daughter. And we haven’t any money. We haven’t any money to pay this nurse, or the doctor, or Julia. You ought to wear sackcloth and ashes.”

Mary said, soothingly, “I’ll change if you wish.”

“Did I ask you to change? Mary, there’s something I want you to do for me ...” He stopped and spoke to Jinks, “I should like to be left alone with my daughter.”

Jinks went out—but set the door ajar. And when Peter came a few moments later, she said, “Go in and rescue that poor child. My patient sent me away, and I didn’t like to cross him. His temperature’s up—and he’s flighty.”

Peter went in, and Jinks sat on the doorstep and thought that this was her wedding night, and that all day she had had only a few words with Denis in the garden. And now he was far away, yet so near that his arms seemed about her. “Denis,” she whispered, “Denis.”

At dinner Mary told Peter, “Father wants me to go to see Boone Musgrave. He says he has been cheated, and that he must have his money back.”

“Don’t go.”

“But I had to promise. Father was so excited.”

“I see ...” Peter ate his soup and thought about it. Then he said, “He may treat you civilly. I think he will. He’s not often rude to a woman. But I wish you—wouldn’t.”

“I told Father I’d go the first thing in the morning. He raged when he saw me in this gown. He said I was dressed like a rich man’s daughter, and that we haven’t any money.”

Peter looked at her across the table. He had come in weary with the day’s work, and still wore the clothes he had put on that morning. But now his weariness had fallen from him. The dining-room was a dim and pleasant place. Old Julia had lighted the candles, and there was a bowl of pale sweet peas. Mary, in her faintly colored gown, was like something of which he had always dreamed. He wanted to tell her that, but instead he said, “That gown is a peach.”

“You—like it?”

“Love it.” They smiled at each other across the candles.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Mary told him.

“And I was afraid I couldn’t. That darned baby—and just an old woman to help me. Gee, how I wanted Jinks!”

Julia served their coffee on the porch, and Jinks came out and sat with them while her patient slept.

“Denis telegraphed,” she told them. “And it didn’t sound a bit like a husband.”

Peter laughed, “What did it sound like?”

“Like—Denis.”

Out of a silence, Peter said, “Jinks, I’m going to give you a party—when Denis comes back. Just the three of us, and Miss Hamilton. At my house.” He glanced at Mary, “Will you come?”

“Will I—?”

“It’s settled then,” Peter said as he passed his cup for more coffee. Mary poured it, and the three of them were again silent.

At last Jinks yawned, “I’ll go to bed, Peter. If you’ll give me three hours, you can sleep the rest of the night.”

She went away, and Peter said, “Her wedding night! She’s a brave little soul. She’s had a hard life. Perhaps some day it will all be made up to her.”

“Her Denis would say—in Heaven ...”

The slight hint of skepticism in her tone made Peter say, “You don’t believe it?”

“That we get in another world our heart’s desire? No.”

“You think there is no other world?”

“Father thinks there isn’t.”

“And he has taught you?”

“Yes.”

“You are old enough to think for yourself, Mary.”

A quick lift of her head. Peter said, “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have called you that.”

“Why not? Only don’t do it before father.”

“Not before anybody unless you wish it. Just between ourselves?”

“Between—ourselves—” She rose and held out her hand to him, “Good-night.”

He kept her hand in a tight grasp, “Good-night, Peter.”

She said it, smiling, and he watched her as she went up the stairs. Then he went back to his patient, and sat there thinking about it. Men had talked to him of love at first sight, and he had always had a pathological explanation. But there was nothing pathological about his feeling for Mary. They might have been disembodied spirits for all the thought he had of her as a human entity. She was for him, at the moment, the incarnation of the ideals which had been his before the years at college and university had touched him with sophistication—the lily maid of Astolat, the Beatrice whom Dante loved, the Blessed Damozel—at these shrines he had worshipped before real life brought him face to face with the women of his own wise-cracking, gold-digging generation. He had grown, he had to admit, a bit skeptical about the thing called by the old poets “true love.” Doctors, he told himself, were like that. Seeing, perhaps, too much of the seamy side of romance, the workaday aspect of marriage.

And now, in a moment, all of his theories had tumbled in a heap! He wanted nothing so much as to take this exquisite child to his heart, to hold her safe from harm, to shield her from the fears which beset her—from the whims and fancies of the man lying there on the bed.

When the time came for Jinks to take his place in the sick-room, Peter went upstairs to the south chamber which had been assigned to him. He knew he ought to rest, that he needed sleep. But sleep would not come. He sat by the window and looked forth into the night. The moonlight, pouring down in a silver flood, showed far away on the crest of a hill a white house, wide and low, with a row of royal palms casting their shadows sharp upon it.

Boone Musgrave’s house! One reached it from here by a winding path which went through the orange groves. Tomorrow Mary would follow that path, and Boone Musgrave would be aware of her beauty. Peter hated the thought of it. He wished that Hamilton might have found another emissary. Boone was an attractive man, and knew it, and it would please his vanity if Mary Hamilton might be brought to concede his attractions, to provide for him again the excitement of pursuit.