Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

unbearable restlessness that gave her no respite. Of the future ahead of her she did not definitely think. Her marriage still seemed too intangible a matter for serious contemplation. She still in her child's heart believed that marriage would make a difference. He would not make such ardent love to her when they were married. They would both have so many other things to think about. It was the present that so weighed upon her, her lover's almost appalling intensity of worship and her own utter inadequacy and futility.

Again, as often before, the question arose within her, How would Rose have met the situation? Would she have been dismayed? Would she have shrunk from those fiery kisses? Or could she—could she possibly—have remained calm and complacent and dignified in the midst of those surging tempests of love? But yet again she failed completely to picture Rose so mastered, so possessed, by any man; Rose the queen whom all men worshipped with reverence from afar. She wondered again how Sir Eustace had managed to elude the subtle charm she cast upon all about her. He had actually declared that her perfection bored him. It was evident that she left him cold. Dinah marvelled at the fact, so certain was she that had he humbled himself to ask for Rose's favour it would have been instantly and graciously accorded to him.

It would have saved a lot of trouble if he had fallen in love with Rose, she reflected; and then the old thrill of triumph went through her, temporarily buoying her up. She had been preferred to Rose. She had beaten Rose on her own ground, she the little, insignificant adjunct of the de Vigne party! She was glad—oh, she was very glad!—that Rose was to have so close a view of her final conquest.

She began to take comfort in the thought of her approaching wedding and all its attendant glories, picturing every detail with girlish zest. To be the queen of such a brilliant ceremony as that! To be received into the County as one entering a new world! To belong to that Society from which her mother had been excluded! To be in short—her ladyship.

A new excitement began to urge Dinah. She picked up a towel and draped it about her head and shoulders like a bridal veil. Her mother would have rated her for such vanity, but for the moment vanity was her only comfort, and the thought of her mother did not trouble her. This was how she would look on her wedding-day. There would be a wreath of orange-blossoms of course; Isabel would see to that. And—yes, Isabel had said that her bouquet should be composed of lilies-of-the-valley. She even began to wish it were her wedding morning.

The glamour spread like a rosy dawning; she forgot the clouds that loomed immediately ahead. Standing there in her night attire, poised like a brown wood-nymph on the edge of a pool, she asked herself for the first time if it were possible that she could have any pretensions to beauty. It was not in the least likely, of course. Her mother had always railed at her for the plainness of her looks. Did Eustace—did Scott—think her plain? She wondered. She wondered.

A slight sound, the opening of a window, in the room next to hers, made her start. That was Isabel's room. What was happening? It was three o'clock in the morning. Could Isabel be ill?

Very softly she opened her own window and leaned forth. It was one of those warm spring nights that come in the midst of March gales. There was a scent of violets on the air. She thought again for a fleeting second of Scott and their walk through fairyland that morning. And then she heard a voice, pitched very low but throbbing with an eagerness unutterable, and at once her thoughts were centred upon Isabel.

"Did you call me, my beloved? I am waiting! I am waiting!" said the voice.

It went forth into the sighing darkness of the night, and Dinah held her breath to listen, almost as if she expected to hear an answer.

There fell a long, long silence, and then there came a sound that struck straight to her warm heart. It seemed to her that Isabel was weeping.

She left her window with the impetuosity of one actuated by an impulse irresistible; she crossed her own room, and slipped out into the dark passage just as she was. A moment or two she fumbled feeling her way; and then her hand found Isabel's door. Softly she turned the handle, opened, and peeped in.

Isabel was on her knees by the low window-sill. Her head with its crown of silver hair was bowed upon her arm and they rested upon the bundle of letters which Dinah had seen on the very first night that she had seen Isabel. Old Biddy hovered shadow-like in the background. She made a sign to Dinah as she entered, but Dinah was too intent upon her friend to notice.

Fleet-footed she drew near, and as she approached a long bitter sigh broke from Isabel and, following it, low-toned entreaties that pierced her anew with the utter abandonment of their supplication.

"Oh God," she prayed brokenly. "I am so tired—so tired—of waiting. Open the door for me! Let me out of my prison! Let me find my beloved in the dawning—in the dawning!"

Her voice sank, went into piteous sobbing. She crouched lower in the depth of her woe.

Dinah stooped over her with a little crooning murmur of pity, and gathered her close in her arms.

Isabel gave a great start. "Child!" she said, and then she clasped Dinah to her, leaning her face against her bosom.

Dinah was crying softly, but she saw that Isabel had no tears. That sobbing came from her broken heart, but it brought no relief. The dark eyes burned with a misery that found no vent, save possibly in the passionate holding of her arms.

"My darling," she whispered presently, "did I wake you?"

"No, dearest, no!" Dinah was tenderly caressing the snowy hair; she spoke with an almost motherly fondness. "I happened to be awake, and I heard you at the window."

"Why were you awake, darling? Aren't you happy?"

Quick anxiety was in the words. Dinah flushed with a sense of guilt.

"Of course I am happy," she made answer. "What more could I have to wish for? But, Isabel, you—you!"

"Ah, never mind me!" Isabel said. She rose with the movement of one who would shield another from harm. "You ought to be in bed, sweetheart. Shall I come and tuck you up?"

"Come and finish the night with me!" whispered Dinah. "We shall both be happy then."

She scarcely expected that Isabel would accede to her desire, but it seemed that Isabel could refuse her nothing. She turned, holding Dinah closely to her.

"My good angel!" she murmured tenderly. "What should I do without you? It is always you who come to lift me out of my inferno."

She left the letters forgotten on the window-sill. By the simple outpouring of her love, Dinah had drawn her out of her place of torment; and she led her now, leaning heavily upon her, through the passage to her own room.

Biddy crept after them like a wise old cat alert for danger. "She'll sleep now, Miss Dinah darlint," she murmured. "Ye won't be anxious at all, at all? It's meself that'll be within call."

"No, no! Go to your own room and sleep, Biddy!" Isabel said. "We are both going to do the same."

She sank into the great double bed that Dinah had found almost alarmingly capacious, with a sigh of exhaustion, and Dinah slipped in beside her. They clasped each other, each with a separate sense of comfort.

Biddy tucked up first one side, then the other, with a whispered blessing for each.

"Ah, the poor lambs!" she murmured, as she went away.

But Isabel's voice had reassured her; she did not linger even outside the door.

Mumbling still below her breath her inarticulate benisons, Biddy passed through her mistress's room into her own. She was very tired, for she had been watching without intermission for nearly five hours. She almost dropped on to her bed and lay as she fell, deeply sleeping.

The letters on the window-sill were forgotten for the rest of that night.

CHAPTER XI THE NET

When Dinah met her lover in the morning she found him in a surprisingly indulgent mood. The day was showery, and he announced his intention of accompanying them in the car up to town.

"An excellent opportunity for selecting the wedding-ring," he told her lightly. "You will like that better than a picnic."

And Dinah in her relief admitted that this was the case.

Up to the last moment she hoped that Scott would accompany them also, but when she came down dressed for the expedition she found that he had gone to the library to write letters. She pursued him thither, but he would not be persuaded to leave his work.

"Besides, I should only be in the way," he said. And when she vehemently negatived this, he smiled and fell back upon the plea that he was busy.

Just at the last she tried to murmur a word of thanks to him for intervening on her behalf to induce Eustace to abandon the picnic, but he gently checked her.

"Oh, please don't thank me!" he said. "I am not a very good meddler, I assure you. I hope you are going to have a good day. Take care of Isabel!"

Dinah would have lingered to tell him of the night's happening, but Sir
Eustace called her and with a smile of farewell she hastened away.

She enjoyed that day with a zest that banished all misgivings. Sir Eustace insisted upon the purchase of the ring at the outset, and then she and Isabel went their way alone, and shopped in a fashion that raised Dinah's spirits to giddy heights. She had never seen or imagined such exquisite things as Isabel ordered on her behalf. The hours slipped away in one long dream of delight. Sir Eustace had desired them to join him at luncheon, but Isabel had gravely refused. There would not be time, she said. They would meet for tea. And somewhat to Dinah's surprise he had yielded the point.

They met for tea in a Bond Street restaurant and here Sir Eustace took away his fiancée's breath by presenting her with a pearl necklace to wear at her wedding.

She was almost too overwhelmed by the gift to thank him. "Oh, it's too good—it's too good!" she said, awestruck by its splendour.

"Nothing is too good for my wife," he said in his imperial fashion.

Isabel smiled the smile that never reached her shadowed eyes. "A chain of pearls to bind a bride!" she said.

And the thought flashed upon Dinah that there was truth in her words. Whether with intention or not, by every gift he gave her he bound her the more closely to him. An odd little sensation of dismay accompanied it, but she put it resolutely from her. Bound or not, what did it matter—since she had no desire to escape?

She thanked him again very earnestly that night in the conservatory, and he pressed her to him and kissed the neck on which his pearls rested with the hot lips of a thirsty man. But he had himself under control, and when she sought to draw herself away he let her go. She wondered at his forbearance and was mutely grateful for it.

At Isabel's suggestion she went up to her room early. She was certainly weary, but she was radiantly happy. It had been a wonderful day. The beauty of the pearls dazzled her. She kissed them ere she laid them out of sight. He was good to her. He was much too good.

There came a knock at the door just as she was getting into bed, and Biddy came softly in, her brown face full of mystery and, Dinah saw at a glance, of anxiety also.

She put up a warning finger as she advanced. "Whisht, Miss Dinah darlint! For the love of heaven, don't ye make a noise! I just came in to ask ye a question, for it's worried to death I am."

"Why what's the matter, Biddy?" Dinah questioned in surprise.

"And ye may well ask, Miss Dinah dear!" Tragedy made itself heard in Biddy's rejoinder. "Sure it's them letters of Miss Isabel's that's disappeared entirely, and left no trace. And