The Sorceress (complete). Oliphant Margaret
looked at calmly, without flurry or haste, the better moment would bring better views, and who could say that all might not yet be well?
CHAPTER VI
Emboldened by this thought Bee went downstairs to breakfast, which was spread again in the verandah in the warm sunshine of the autumnal morning. The new hope, though it were a forlorn one, restored her youthful appetite as well as her courage, and her coffee and roll were a real restorative after the long fast and agitated night. But there was no appearance of Aubrey, neither at the table nor in the passages, nor anywhere about. He seemed to have disappeared as if he had never been. When Charlie came down from his mother’s room, where he had been shut up with her for some time, Bee, who had no particular respect for Charlie’s opinion or inclination to allow him any authority over herself, such as an elder brother is sometimes supposed to have, began at once to question him. “Where is Aubrey?” she said. “Why doesn’t he come to breakfast? Will you go and look for Aubrey, Charlie?”
“Indeed, I will do no such thing,” said Charlie, almost roughly. “I hope he has had the sense to go away. I should just like to see him come calmly down to breakfast as if nothing had happened. If he came, then I can answer for it, you should not be allowed to say a word to him, Bee.”
“Who should prevent me?” cried Bee, looking up with her eyes on fire and her nostrils dilating. She had not noticed before what a cloud was upon Charlie’s face and how heavy and scowling were his brows. She added, springing up, “We shall soon see about that. If you think I shall do what you tell me, or condemn any man unheard – ”
“The cad! He never denied it. You can ask mamma.”
“I will not ask anyone but Mr. Leigh,” said Bee, throwing back her head; “and I advise you to mind your own business, and not to call names that may come back upon yourself.”
“Stop where you are, Bee. I never went out into the world under false pretences. A man is a cad when he does that.”
“I shall not stop for you, nor anyone but my parents,” said Bee, in a splendid flush of anger, her countenance glowing, her eyes blazing. “Stand out of my way. Oh, if that is all, and you want to make a scene for the edification of the tourists, I can go in by the other door.”
And she did so, leaving Charlie standing flushed and angry, but quite unable, it need scarcely be said, to coerce his sister. To make an attempt of this kind, which comes to nothing, is confusing and humiliating. He looked round angrily for a moment to see if it were possible to intercept her, then, yielding to necessity, sat down where Betty, eager and full of a thousand questions, sat calling for explanations. That is the good of a family party, there is always someone ready to hear what you have to say.
Bee went at once to the English-speaking waiter, and asked for Mr. Leigh, whom the man, curious as all lookers-on are at a social drama going on under their eyes, declared to be still in his room. She sent him off instantly with a message, and stood in the hall awaiting his return, angry and brave, like the rose in George Herbert’s poem, yet soon getting shamefaced and troubled, as the people coming and going, travellers, visitors, attendants, stared at her and brushed against her as they passed. Bee never forgot all her life the gleam of the river at the foot of the steps, of which she had a glimpse through the doorway – the Rhine barges slowly crossing that little space of vision, the little boats flitting across the gleam of the rosy morning, and the strong flowing tide, the figures going up and down breaking the prospect.
The man came back to her after a time, looking half sympathetic, half malicious, with the message that the gentleman was just going out.
“Just going out!” She repeated the words half-consciously. “Was it Aubrey that sent her that message? Aubrey – who yesterday would not let her out of his sight, who followed her everywhere, saw every sign she made, heard every word almost before it was spoken!” The surprise and the pang together made her heart sick. She could not rush upstairs and knock at his door and call him out imperatively, to tell her immediately what it all meant – at least, though it occurred to her that this would be the most natural thing to do, she did not. Intimidated by the circumstances, by the half impertinence of the waiter, by the stare of the people about, she reflected for a moment breathlessly that he must come out this way, and that if she remained there she must see him. But Bee’s instinct of a young woman, now for the first time awakened, made her shrink from this. When she was only a little girl, so very short a time ago, she did not mind who looked at her, who pushed past her. But now everything was different!
She went away, still holding her head high that nobody (above all not Charlie, who was watching her through the glass of the verandah) should guess that her courage was drooping, and going into the deserted sitting-room, where last night that blow had fallen upon her, sat down and wrote to her lover a hurried little note:
“Oh, Aubrey, what is the matter? Have you deserted me without a word? Do you think I am like them, to take up any report? I don’t know what report there is – I don’t know what it is, this terrible thing that has come between us. What is it? I will take your word and nobody else’s. I don’t believe you have done anything that is wrong. Aubrey! come and tell me out of your own mouth. I told mamma last night I would hear nothing unless you were there; but you were gone away, they said. And now you send me word that you are going out and can’t see me. Going out and can’t see me! What does it all mean?
“If it is some fad of honour, of not seeing me against their will – though I do think your first duty is to me, Aubrey, before anyone else in the world – but if it should be so, mamma will be down here at twelve o’clock – and I invite you to meet her, to hear what is said, to answer for yourself and for me. If you have done anything wrong, what does that matter? Don’t we all do wrong? And why should it come between you and me? Am I without sin that I should throw stones at you? Aubrey, you can’t throw everything away without a word. You can’t desert me without a word. I can bear anything – anything, rather than this.
Bee, poor child, shrank from intrusting this to the impertinent waiter, who had a leer in his eye as if he were defending his own side from the importunities of the other. She went out furtively into the hall and studied the numbers of the rooms and the names of the tenants upon the board, necessity quickening her perceptions, and then she stole upstairs and gave her poor little appeal into the hands of the stout chambermaid who watched over that part of the hotel. It was for the Herr in No. 10, and the answer was to be brought immediately to the little salon No. 20 downstairs. “Eine Antwort,” she said over and over again in her imperfect speech. “Schnell, schnell!” This, with the aid of a thaler – for it was before the days of the mark – produced perfect understanding in the mind of the maid, who with becks and wreathed smiles accepted the commission, and in a short time brought her back the answer for which she waited with feverish anxiety. It was very much shorter than her own.
“I am not worthy to stand before you. I cannot and I must not take advantage of your innocence; better I should disappear altogether than wound your ears with what they say. But I will not since you will it so. At twelve o’clock then, Bee, my darling, I will stand up before your mother, and say what I can for myself. Bee, my own dearest, my only hope!”
This last was scrawled across the paper as if he had put it in after the despair of the former part. It was this that the poor little girl fixed upon – the sweet words to which she had been accustomed, which her heart was fainting for. It was not, one would have said, a very cheerful note for a love-letter. But Bee was ridiculously cheered by it. So long as she was his own dearest, his hope, his darling – so long as there was no change in his love for her – why then, in the long run, whatever was said, everything must come right.
I need not follow Bee to her mother’s bedside, when Mrs. Kingsward woke and for the first moment did not remember what had happened.
“Is that you, Bee?” she said, smiling, not thinking.
“Are you better, mamma?”
“Oh, yes, just in my usual – ,” said Mrs. Kingsward. And then she caught a fuller sight of her daughter’s face. Bee had none of her usual pretty colour, the light in her eyes was like fire. The mother