Dividing Waters. I. A. R. Wylie
Would you like it?"
The proposal came so suddenly, and yet in such a matter-of-fact tone, that Nora caught her breath and looked up at her mother in blank surprise.
"You mean," she began slowly, "that I should go and live in a German family?"
"Yes."
"With a lot of fat, greasy, gobbling Germans?"
"Do you know any Germans?"
"No—at least there was our German music-master at school, and he was fat and greasy, and I am sure he must have gobbled. He must have done. They all do."
"You used to say he played like an angel," Mrs. Ingestre interposed.
"So he did. But I hated him all the same. I hate all Germans."
Her tone rang with a sort of school-girl obstinacy. Her attitude, with lifted chin and straight shoulders, was eloquent with national arrogance and scorn.
Mrs. Ingestre turned away.
"I shall write to Fräulein Müller and tell her to make all arrangements," she said. "I think, if everything proves suitable, that you had better go to Karlsburg."
"Mother! You haven't even given me the choice!"
"I do not think it wise to do so," Mrs. Ingestre answered gravely. "You are right, Nora; you must see the world. You must go away from here, not just for the sake of the music, the change, and excitement, but in order that your heart may grow wider, in order to learn to love the good that lies outside your own little sphere. There are great things, great people outside Delford, Nora—yes, and outside England. You must learn to know them."
The girl's face flushed crimson.
"At the bottom we all despise foreigners and foreign ways," she said in self-defence. "Father does, Miles does, the Squire does. And they have all travelled; they have seen for themselves."
"They have travelled with their eyes open and their hearts closed," Mrs. Ingestre answered.
"How do you know, mother? You have never been out of England."
Mrs. Ingestre shook her head. A rather melancholy smile passed over her wan features.
"No," she said; "I have never been out of England, but I have been often, very often, ill, and during the long hours I have travelled great distances, and I have begun to think that God cannot surely have reserved all the virtues for us English. I fancy even the poor benighted Germans must have their share of heaven."
Nora laughed outright.
"I expect they have, now I come to think of it," she admitted gaily. "Mother, you are a much better Christian than father, though you won't call every one 'dearly beloved,' and you are yards better than I am. I can't help it—I despise all foreigners, especially——"
She stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Ingestre smiled.
"Still, you will try Karlsburg. It will be an experience for you, and you will hear good music. The family is a very old one, and perhaps the members, being of noble birth, may gobble less than the others."
"All Germans are of noble birth," Nora observed scornfully.
"So much the better for them," Mrs. Ingestre returned. "Are you willing to try? You know the alternative."
"May I think it over, mother?"
"Yes, you may think over it, if you like. It is, after all, only a question of your willingness."
"That means you have made up your mind?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Ingestre saw the strong young face set into lines of defiance. She went back to the sofa and lay down with a sigh.
"Little Nora," she said, almost under her breath, "you know it is not my custom to preach. You won't think, therefore, that I am just 'talking' when I tell you: years ago I would have given anything—anything—to have had this chance."
For the first time in their long interview the girl stopped listening to the self-pitying confusion of her thoughts. The elder woman's voice had penetrated her youthful egoism, and she turned with that curious tugging at the heart which we experience when we have unexpectedly heard a smothered cry of pain break from lips usually composed in lines of peace and apparent content.
"Mother!" Nora exclaimed. The room was now in almost complete shadow. She came closer and bent over the quiet face. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of roses, and it flashed through Nora's mind as she stood there that her mother was like a rose—pale and faded, but still beautiful, still breathing a wonderful perfume of purity and sweetness.
"Mother!" she repeated, strangely awe-struck.
Mrs. Ingestre opened her eyes and smiled.
"I am very tired," she said. "I think I could sleep a little. Go and think it over. I want you to be willing."
Nora bent and kissed her.
"If you wish it, I am willing," she said with impulsive, whole-hearted surrender. She crept out on tiptoe, and for a few minutes all was quiet in the great shadowy room. Then the door opened again, and the Rev. John entered and peered round short-sightedly. He saw that his wife's eyes were closed, and, since it is not kind to waken a weary invalid, he merely knocked some books off the table and coughed. Truth to tell, it annoyed him that his wife should have chosen that identical moment to rest. He wanted to talk to her, but since in spite of all his indirect efforts she remained quiet, he went out again, a disconsolate victim of his own gentle consideration.
But Mrs. Ingestre had not been asleep. Her eyes were shut, but the eyes of her mental vision were open. They were watching sunlit panoramas of long rivers with mountain banks and frowning ruins, glorious, heaven-inspiring cathedral spires and great cities. The ears of her imagination had not heard the Rev. John's clumsy movements. They were listening to the song of the ocean, the confusion of a strange tongue, the rich crescendo of a wonderful music.
Mrs. Ingestre had left the room and the vicarage and the village far behind, and was travelling swiftly through a world which she had never seen and—since for her life was near its close—would never see. And as she travelled, the same thought repeated itself to her with stern persistency:
"Whatever it costs you, she must go. You must not, dare not keep her."
CHAPTER III
AN EXPERIMENT
Breakfast with the Ingestres was a movable and unsociable feast. The various members of the family came down when it suited them, the only punishment being the inevitable one of cold eggs and bitter tea, and conversation was restricted to the barest necessities. The Rev. John was usually engrossed in parochial letters, Mrs. Ingestre was never present at all, and Miles only at such a time when it pleased him. Thus Nora, choosing on the morning following the momentous interview to be an early riser, found little difficulty in making her escape. The Rev. John was more absorbed than usual in his post, since it contained not only letters dealing with his cure of souls, but also some disagreeable business facts which he swallowed with his tea in melancholy gulps.
Nora kissed him lightly on the high forehead as she ran toward the open French window. Rather to her surprise, the customary caress seemed to arouse her father from his reflections. He looked up and blinked, like a man who is trying to remember some important matter.
"My dear," he said, before Nora had reached the lawn, "is it really true that you want to go abroad? Your mother was talking to me about it last night."
"We were thinking about it," Nora admitted, fidgeting nervously with the blind-cord. "Mother said she thought it would be good for me."
"But, my dear child, what shall we do without you?" her father complained.
Nora made an almost imperceptible movement of impatience. She knew of what her father was thinking, and it did not move her to any great degree of sympathy.
"You will manage all right," she said. "Mr. Clerk will help you with your letters."