Part 43 (1/2)

Esther slipped quietly from the room. In the hall outside she paused, breathless. She felt as if she had run a long way. Shame enveloped her, a shame whose cause she could not put into words. She only knew that she had, in the few seconds of that cold greeting, been profoundly humiliated. She quivered with the sting of unwarranted expectancy. But if this had been all, it would have been well. There was something else, some deeper pain surging through the smart of wounded pride, something which led her with blind steps into a dark corner of the stairs where she sat very quiet and still.

Through the open front door, she could see the bars of lamplight on the deserted veranda, and hear from the open windows of the living-room a hum of conversation in which Jane seemed to be taking a leading part.

Then came the tinkle of the old piano and Mary's voice, singing, or attempting to sing, for it was soon apparent that her voice sagged pitifully on the high notes.

Presently Jane came out, banging the door. Jane's manners, Esther thought, were really very bad. She had probably banged the door because she had been sent to bed and she had probably been sent to bed because she had been saucy. Esther wondered what particular form her sauciness had taken, but when Jane called softly, ”Esther!” she did not answer.

She did not want to put Jane to bed to-night. The child flashed past her up the stairs and soon could be heard from an upstair window calling imperatively for Aunt Amy. But Aunt Amy, flitting through the dim garden wringing her hands, did not hear. Jane, much injured, went to bed by herself that night.

In the lamp-lit room there was no more music. The murmur of voices grew less distinct. There were intervals of silence. (Only very old friends can support a silence gracefully--but of course these two were very old friends.) Esther wondered, idly, how it would be best to explain her absence to her mother. Toothache, perhaps? Not that the excuse mattered.

Mary never listened to excuses. She would be cross and fretful anyway and complain that Esther never treated her friends with proper courtesy.

The best thing she could do would be to go to bed. But she made no movement to go; the moments ticked by on the hall clock unnoticed.

After a time, which might have been long or short, there was a stir in the room and her mother's voice called ”Esther! Esther!”

The girl stood up, smoothed her white dress, slipped out on to the veranda and into the garden. From there she answered the call.

”Yes, Mother?”

”Where are you? You sound as if you had been asleep. Doctor Callandar is going.”

Esther came lightly up the steps.

”So soon?”

”It is early,” agreed Mrs. Coombe playfully, ”but I can't keep him.”

Esther, herself in shadow, could see the doctor's face as he stood quietly beside his hostess. It was full of an endless weariness. Her pride melted. Impulsively she put out a warm hand--

”Good night, Miss Esther. How very sweet your garden is at night. But it feels as if our fine weather were over. The wind begins to blow like rain.”

Esther's hand dropped to her side. Perhaps he had not seen it in the dusk.

CHAPTER XXV

We all know that strange remoteness into which one wakes from out deep sleep. Though the eye be open, the Ego is not there to use it. For an immeasurable second, the awakener knows not who he is, nor why, nor where. Only there is, faintly perceptible, a reminiscent consciousness whether of joy or sorrow, a certain flavour of the soul, sweet or bitter, into which the Ego, slipping back, announces, ”I am happy” or ”I am miserable.”

Esther had not hoped to sleep that night but she did sleep and heavily.

When she awoke it was to blankness, a cold throbbing blankness of undefined ill being. Then her Ego, with a sigh, came back from far places; the busy brain shot into focus; all the memories, fears, humiliation of the night before stood forth clear and poignant. She buried her face in the pillow.

Yet, after the first rush of consciousness, there came a difference.

There always is a difference between night and day thoughts. Fresh from its wonder-journey, the soul is braver in the morning, the brain is calmer, the spirit more hopeful. After a half-hour's self-examination with her face in the pillow Esther began to wonder if she had not been foolishly apprehensive and whether it were not possible that half her fears were bogies. The weight began to lighten, she breathed more freely. Looking over the rim of the sheltering pillow the morning seemed no longer hateful.

Foremost of all comforting thoughts was the conviction that instinct must still be trusted against evidence. Through all her speculations as to the unexplained happenings of the previous day, she found that instinct held firmly to its former belief regarding the doctor's feelings toward herself. There are some things which one knows absolutely and Esther knew that Henry Callandar had looked upon her as a man looks upon the woman he loves. He had loved her that night when they paddled through the moonlight; he had loved her when he watched for her coming along the road, but most of all he had loved her when, under the eye of Aunt Amy, they had said good-bye at the garden gate. This much was sure, else all her instincts were foresworn.

After this came chaos. She could not in any way read the riddle of his manner of last night. Had the sudden resumption of his old friends.h.i.+p with her mother absorbed his mind to the exclusion of everything else?

Impossible, if he loved her. Had purely physical weariness or mental worry blotted her out completely for the time being? Impossible, if he loved her. Then what had happened?

Doubtless it would all be simple enough when she understood. She sighed and raised her head from the pillow. At any rate it was morning. The day must be faced and lived through. Any one of its hours might bring happiness again.

The rainstorm which had swept up during the night had pa.s.sed, leaving the morning clean. She needed no recollection to tell her that it was Sunday. The Sabbath hush was on everything; no milkman's cans jingled down the street; no playing children called or shouted; there was a bell ringing somewhere for early service. Esther sighed again. She was sorry it was Sunday. Work-a-day times are easiest.