Part 73 (2/2)
CHAPTER VI.
COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?
The weeks went on and Pa.s.sover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with strange things to eat and drink, and a comparative plenty of them--stranger still. Lack of appet.i.te was the chief dietary want now.
n.o.body had any best clothes to put on in a world where everything was for the best in the way of clothes. Except for the speckled Pa.s.sover cakes, there was hardly any external symptom of the sacred Festival.
While the Ghetto was turning itself inside out, the Kensington Terrace was calm in the dignity of continuous cleanliness. Nor did Henry Goldsmith himself go prowling about the house in quest of vagrant crumbs. Mary O'Reilly attended to all that, and the Goldsmiths had implicit confidence in her fidelity to the traditions of their faith.
Wherefore, the evening of the day before Pa.s.sover, instead of being devoted to frying fish and provisioning, was free for more secular occupations; Esther, for example, had arranged to go to see the _debut_ of a new Hamlet with Addie. Addie had asked her to go, mentioned that Raphael, who was taking her, had suggested that she should bring her friend. For they had become great friends, had Addie and Esther, ever since Esther had gone to take that cup of tea, with the chat that is more essential than milk or sugar.
The girls met or wrote every week. Raphael, Esther never met nor heard from directly. She found Addie a sweet, lovable girl, full of frank simplicity and unquestioning piety. Though dazzlingly beautiful, she had none of the coquetry which Esther, with a touch of jealousy, had been accustomed to a.s.sociate with beauty, and she had little of the petty malice of girlish gossip. Esther summed her up as Raphael's heart without his head. It was unfair, for Addie's own head was by no means despicable. But Esther was not alone in taking eccentric opinions as the touchstone of intellectual vigor. Anyhow, she was distinctly happier since Addie had come into her life, and she admired her as a mountain torrent might admire a crystal pool--half envying her happier temperament.
The Goldsmiths were just finis.h.i.+ng dinner, when the expected ring came.
To their surprise, the ringer was Sidney. He was shown into the dining-room.
”Good evening, all,” he said. ”I've come as a subst.i.tute for Raphael.”
Esther grew white. ”Why, what has happened to him?” she asked.
”Nothing, I had a telegram to say he was unexpectedly detained in the city, and asking me to take Addie and to call for you.”
Esther turned from white to red. How rude of Raphael! How disappointing not to meet him, after all! And did he think she could thus unceremoniously be handed over to somebody else? She was about to beg to be excused, when it struck her a refusal would look too pointed.
Besides, she did not fear Sidney now. It would be a test of her indifference. So she murmured instead, ”What can detain him?”
”Charity, doubtless. Do you know, that after he is f.a.gged out with upholding the _Flag_ from early morning till late eve, he devotes the later eve to gratuitous tuition, lecturing and the like.”
”No,” said Esther, softened. ”I knew he came home late, but I thought he had to report communal meetings.”
”That, too. But Addie tells me he never came home at all one night last week. He was sitting up with some wretched dying pauper.”
”He'll kill himself,” said Esther, anxiously.
”People are right about him. He is quite hopeless,” said Percy Saville, the solitary guest, tapping his forehead significantly.
”Perhaps it is we who are hopeless,” said Esther, sharply.
”I wish we were all as sensible,” said Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, turning on the unhappy stockbroker with her most superior air. ”Mr. Leon always reminds me of Judas Maccabaeus.”
He shrank before the blaze of her mature beauty, the fulness of her charms revealed by her rich evening dress, her hair radiating strange, subtle perfume. His eye sought Mr. Goldsmith's for refuge and consolation.
”That is so,” said Mr. Goldsmith, rubbing his red chin. ”He is an excellent young man.”
”May I trouble you to put on your things at once, Miss Ansell?” said Sidney. ”I have left Addie in the carriage, and we are rather late. I believe it is usual for ladies to put on 'things,' even when in evening dress. I may mention that there is a bouquet for you in the carriage, and, however unworthy a subst.i.tute I may be for Raphael, I may at least claim he would have forgotten to bring you that.”
Esther smiled despite herself as she left the room to get her cloak. She was chagrined and disappointed, but she resolved not to inflict her ill-humor on her companions.
She had long since got used to carriages, and when they arrived at the theatre, she took her seat in the box without heart-fluttering. It was an old discovery now that boxes had no connection with oranges nor stalls with costers' barrows.
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