The Black Opal, Katharine Susannah Prichard [i have read the book a hundred times txt] 📗

Sophie drew her chair further back so that the piano screened her. The disappointment and stillness which had descended upon her since she came into the room tightened and settled. She had thought Arthur would surely come to ask her for this dance; but when the waltz began she saw he was dancing again with Phyllis Chelmsford. She sat very still, holding herself so that she should not feel a pain which was hovering in the background of her consciousness and waiting to grip her.

It was different, this sitting on a chair by herself and watching other people dance, to anything that had ever happened to her. She had always been the centre of Ridge balls, courted and made a lot of from the moment she came into the hall. Even Arthur Henty had had to shoulder his way if he wanted a waltz with her.

As the crowd brushed and swirled round the room, it became all blurred to Sophie. The last rag of that mood of tremulous joyousness which had invested her as she drove over the plains to the ball with her father, left her. She sat very still; she could not see for a moment. The waltz broke because she did not hear her father when he called her to turn the page of his music; he knocked over his stand trying to turn the page himself, and exclaimed angrily when Sophie did not jump to pick it up for him.

After that she watched his book of music with an odd calm. She scarcely looked at the dancers, praying for the time to come when the ball would end and she could go home. The hours were heavy and dead; she thought it would never be midnight or morning again. She was conscious of her crushed dress and cotton gloves, and Mrs. Watty’s big, old-fashioned fan; but after the first shock of disappointment she was not ashamed of them. She sat very straight and still in the midst of her finery; but she put the fan on the chair behind her, and took off her gloves in order to turn over the pages of her father’s music more expertly.

She knew now she was not going to dance. She understood she had not been invited as a guest like everybody else; but as the fiddler’s little girl to turn over his music for him. And when she was not watching the music, she sat down in her chair beyond the piano, hoping no one would see or speak to her.

Mrs. Henty spoke to her occasionally. Once she called pleasantly:

“Come here and let me look at your opals, child.”

Sophie went to her, and Mrs. Henty lifted the necklace.

“What splendid stones!” she said.

Sophie looked into those bright eyes, very like Arthur’s, with the same shifting sands in them, but alien to her, she thought.

“Yes,” she said quietly. She did not feel inclined to tell Mrs. Henty about the stones.

Mrs. Henty admired the earrings, and looked appreciatively at the big flat stone in Mrs. Grant’s brooch. Sophie coloured under her attention. She wished she had not worn the opals that did not belong to her.

Looking into Sophie’s face, Mrs. Henty became aware of its sensitive, unformed beauty, a beauty of expression rather than features, and of a something indefinable which cast a glamour over the girl. She had been considerably disturbed by Arthur’s share in the brawl at Newton’s. It was so unlike Arthur to show fight of any sort. If it had not happened after she had sent the invitation, Mrs. Henty would not have spoken of Sophie when she asked Rouminof to play at the ball. As it was, she was not sorry to see what manner of girl she was.

But as Sophie held a small, quiet face before her, with chin slightly uplifted, and eyes steady and measuring, a little disdainful despite their pain and surprise, Mrs. Henty realised it was a shame to have brought this girl to the ball, in order to inspect her; to discover what Arthur thought of her, and not in order that she might have a good time like other girls. After all, she was young and used to having a good time. Mrs. Henty heard enough of Ridge gossip to know any man on the mines thought the world of Sophie Rouminof. She had seen them eager to dance with her at race balls. It was not fair to have sidetracked her about Arthur, Mrs. Henty confessed to herself. The fine, clear innocence which looked from Sophie’s eyes accused her. It made her feel mean and cruel. She was disturbed by a sensation of guilt.

Paul was fidgeting at the first bars of the next dance, and, knowing the long programme to go through, Mrs. Henty’s hand fell from Sophie’s necklace, and Sophie went back to her chair.

But Mrs. Henty’s thoughts wandered on the themes she had raised. She played absentmindedly, her fingers skipping and skirling on the notes. She was realising what she had done. She had not meant to be cruel, she protested: she had just wished to know how Arthur felt about the girl. If he had wanted to dance with her, there was nothing to prevent him.

Arthur was dancing again with Phyllis, she noticed. She was a little annoyed. He was overdoing the thing. And Phyllis was a minx! That was the fourth time she had slipped and Arthur had held her up, the rose in her hair brushing his cheek.

“Mother!” Polly called. “For goodness’ sake⁠ ⁠… what are you dreaming of?”

The music had gone to the pace of Mrs. Henty’s reverie until Polly called. Then Mrs. Henty splashed out her chords and marked her rhythm more briskly.

After all, Mrs. Henty concluded, if Arthur and Phyllis had taken a fancy to each, other⁠—at last⁠—and were getting on, she could not afford to espouse the other girl’s cause. What good would it do? She wanted Arthur to marry Phyllis. His father did. Phyllis was the only daughter of old Chelmsford, of Yuina Yuina, whose cattle