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

"No, I don't forgive you for that."

She broke down utterly and sobbed aloud. "I wish—I wish I hadn't! How could I do it? I hate myself!"

"No—no," he said. "It's all right. You've done nothing wrong. Run home, child! Don't cry! Don't cry!"

His hand touched her hair under the soft cap, touched and lingered. But he did not hold her to him.

"Run home!" he said again.

"And—and—you won't—won't—tell—Scott?" she whispered through her tears.

"But I don't think even I am such a bounder as that!" he said gently. "Do you?"

She lifted her face impulsively. She kissed him with quivering lips.
"No—no. I didn't mean it. Good-bye Oh, good-bye!"

He kissed her in return. "Good-bye!" he said.

And so they parted.

CHAPTER XIX THE FURNACE

The bridal dress with its filmy veil still lay in its white box—a fairy garment that had survived the catastrophe. Dinah sat and looked at it dully. The light of her single candle shimmered upon the soft folds. How beautiful it was!

She had been sitting there for hours, after a terrible scene with her mother downstairs, and from acute distress she had passed into a state of torpid misery that enveloped her like a black cloud. She felt almost too exhausted, too numbed, to think. Her thoughts wandered drearily back and forth. She was sure she had been very greatly to blame, yet she could not fix upon any definite juncture at which she had begun to go wrong. Her engagement had been such a whirlwind of Fate. She had been carried off her feet from the very beginning. And the deliverance from the home bondage had seemed so fair a prospect. Now she was plunged, back again into that bondage, and she was firmly convinced that no chance of freedom would ever be offered to her again. Yet she knew that she had done right to draw back. Regret it though she might again and again in the bitter days to come, she knew—and she would always know—that at the eleventh hour she had done right.

She had been true to the greatest impulse that had ever stirred her soul. It had been at a frightful cost. She had sacrificed everything—everything—to a vision that she might never realize. She had cast away all the glitter and the wealth for this far greater thing which yet could never be more to her than a golden dream. She had even cast away love, and her heart still bled at the memory. But she had been true—she had been true.

Not yet was the sacrifice ended. She knew that a cruel ordeal yet awaited her. There was the morrow to be faced, the morrow with its renewal of disgrace and punishment. Her mother was furious with her, so furious that for the first time in her life her father had intervened on her behalf and temporarily restrained the flow of wrath. Perhaps he had seen her utter weariness, for he had advised her, not unkindly, to go to bed. She had gone to her room, thankful to escape, but neither tea nor supper had followed her thither. Billy had come to bid her good night long ago, but, though he had not said so, he also, it seemed, was secretly disgusted with her, and he had not lingered. It would be the same with everyone, she thought to herself wearily. No one would ever realize how terribly hard it had all been. No one would dream of extending any pity to her. And of course she had done wrong. She knew it, was quite ready to admit it. But the wrong had lain in accepting that overweaning lover of hers, not in giving him up. Also, she ought to have found out long ago. She wondered how it was she hadn't. It had never been a happy engagement.

Again her eyes wandered to the exquisite folds of that dress which she was never to wear. How she had loved the thought of it and all the lovely things that Isabel had procured for her! What would become of them all, she wondered? All the presents downstairs would have to go back. Yes, and Eustace's ring! She had forgotten that. She slipped it off her finger with a little dry sob, and put it aside. And the necklace of pearls that she had always thought so much too good for her, but which would have looked so beautiful on the wedding-dress; that must be returned. Very strangely that thought pierced the dull ache of her heart with a mere poignant pain. And following it came another, stabbing her like a knife. The sapphire for friendship—his sapphire—that would have to go too. There would be nothing left when it was all over.

And she would never see any of them any more. She would drop out of their lives and be forgotten. Even Isabel would not want her now that she had behaved so badly. She had made Sir Eustace the talk of the County. So long as they remembered her they would never forgive her for that.

Sir Eustace might forgive. He had been extraordinarily generous. A lump rose in her throat as she thought of him. But the de Vignes, all those wedding guests who were to have honoured the occasion, they would all look upon her with contumely for evermore. No wonder her mother was enraged against her! No wonder! No wonder! She would never have another chance of holding up her head in such society again.

A great sigh escaped her. What was the good of sitting there thinking? She had undressed long ago, and she was cold from head to foot. Yet somehow she had forgotten or been too miserable to go to bed. She supposed she had been waiting for the soothing tears that did not come. Or had she meant to pray? She could not remember, and in any case prayer seemed out of the question. Her life had been filled with delight for a few delirious weeks, but it had all drained away. She did not want it back again. She scarcely knew what she wanted, save the great Impossible for which she lacked the heart to pray. And no doubt God was angry with her too, or she could not feel like this! So what was the good of attempting it?

Wearily she turned to put out her candle. But ere her hand reached it, she paused in swift apprehension.

The next instant sharply she started round to see the door open, and her mother entered the room.

Gaunt, forbidding, full of purpose, she walked in, and set her candle down beside the one that Dinah had been about to extinguish.

"Get up!" she said to the startled girl. "Don't sit there gaping at me! I've come here to give you a lesson, and it will be a pretty severe one I can tell you if you attempt to disobey me."

"What do you want me to do?" breathed Dinah.

She stood up at the harsh behest, but she was trembling so much that her knees would scarcely support her. Her heart was throbbing violently, and each throb seemed as if it would choke her. She had seen that inflexibly grim look often before upon her mother's face, and she knew from bitter experience that it portended merciless treatment.

Mrs. Bathurst did not reply immediately. She went to a little table in a corner which Dinah used for writing purposes, and opened a blotter that lay upon it. From this she took a sheet of note-paper and laid it in readiness, found Dinah's pen, opened the ink-pot. Then, over her shoulder, she flung a curt command: "Come here!"

Dinah went, every nerve in her body tingling, her face and hands cold as ice.

Mrs. Bathurst glanced at her with a contemptuous smile. "Sit down, you little fool!" she said. "Now, you take that pen and write at my dictation!"

Dinah shrank at the rough words. She felt like a child about to receive corporal punishment. The vindictive force of the woman seemed to beat her down. Writhe and strain as she might, she was bound to suffer both the pain and the indignity to the uttermost limit; for she lacked the strength to break free.

She did not sit down however. She remained standing by the little table.

"Mother," she said through her white lips, "what do you want me to do?"

She could scarcely keep her teeth from chattering, and Mrs. Bathurst noted the fact with another grim smile.

"What am I going to make you do would be more to the purpose, my girl, wouldn't it?" she said. "Sit down there, and you'll find out!"

Dinah leaned upon the little table to steady herself. "Tell me what it is
I am to do!" she said.

"Ah! That's better." A note of bitter humour sounded in Mrs. Bathurst's voice. "Sit down!"

She thrust out a bony hand, and gripped her by the shoulder, forcing her downwards.

Dinah dropped into the chair, and sat motionless.

"Take your pen!" Mrs. Bathurst commanded.

She hesitated; and instantly, with a violent movement, her mother snatched it up and held it in front of her.

"Take it!"

Dinah took it with fingers so numb that they were almost powerless.

"Now," said Mrs. Bathurst, "I will tell you what you are going to do. You are going to write to Sir Eustace at my dictation, and tell him that you are very sorry, you have made a mistake, and beg him to forget it and marry you to-morrow as arranged."

"Mother! No!" Dinah started as if at a blow; the pen dropped from her fingers. "Oh no! I can't indeed—indeed!"

"You will!" said Mrs. Bathurst.

Her hand gripped the slender shoulder with cruel force. She bent, bringing her harsh features close to her daughter's blanched face.

"Just you remember one thing!" she said, her voice low and menacing. "You've never succeeded in defying me yet, and you won't do it now. I'll conquer you—I'll break you—if it takes me all night to do it!"

Dinah recoiled before the unshackled fury that suddenly blazed in the gipsy eyes that looked into hers. Sheer horror sprang into her own.

"Oh, but I can't—I can't!" she reiterated in an agony. "I don't love him. He knows it. I ought to have found out before, but I didn't. Mother—Mother—" piteously she began to plead—"you—you can't want to make me marry a man I don't love? You—you would never—surely—have done such a thing yourself!"

Mrs. Bathurst made a sharp gesture as if something had pierced her. She shook the shoulder she grasped. "Love!" she said. "Oh, don't talk to me of love! Do you imagine—have you ever imagined—that I married that fox-hunting booby—for love?"

A great and terrible bitterness that was like the hunger of a famished animal looked out of her eyes. Dinah gazed at her aghast. What new and horrible revelation was this? She felt suddenly sick and giddy.

Her mother shook her again roughly, savagely. "None of that!" she said. "Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to marry—for love?"

Her face was darkly passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches of a tigress. "What—what do you mean?" she faltered through her quivering lips.

"What do I mean?" Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. "Ha! What do I mean?" she said. "I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you! I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I married because of you—for no other reason. I married because I'd been betrayed—and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick and choose—you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my side ever since you first stirred there—a perpetual reminder of what I would have given my very soul to forget? Do you understand, I say? Do you understand? Or must I put it plainer still? You—the child of my shame—to dare to set yourself up against me!"

She ended upon what was almost a note of loathing, and Dinah shuddered from head to foot. It was to her as if she had been rolled in pitch. She felt overwhelmed with the cruel degradation of it, the unspeakable shame.

Mrs. Bathurst watched her anguished distress with a species of bitter satisfaction. "That'll take the fight out of you, my girl," she said. "Or if it doesn't, I've another