_ PART II CHAPTER XIII. THE BROKEN HEART
The return home was to Dinah like a sudden plunge into icy depths after a brief sojourn in the tropics. The change of atmosphere was such that she seemed actually to feel it in her bones, and her whole being, physical and mental contracted in consequence. Her mother treated her with all her customary harshness, and Dinah, grown sensitive by reason of much petting, shrank almost with horror whenever she came in contact with the iron will that had subjugated her from babyhood.
Before the first week was over, she was counting the days to her deliverance; but of this fact she hinted nothing in her letters to her lover. These were carefully worded, demure little epistles that gave him not the smallest inkling of her state of mind. She was far too much afraid of him to betray that.
Had she been writing to Scott she could scarcely have repressed it. In one letter to Isabel indeed something of her yearning for the vanished sunshine leaked out; but very strangely Isabel did not respond to the pathetic little confidence, and Dinah did not venture to repeat it. Perhaps Isabel was shocked.
The last week came, and with it the arrival of wedding-presents from her father and friends that lifted Dinah out of her depression and even softened her mother into occasional good-humour. Preparations for the wedding began in earnest. Billy, released somewhat before the holidays for the occasion, returned home, and everything took a more cheerful aspect.
Dinah could not feel that her mother's attitude towards herself had materially altered. It was sullen and threatening at times, almost as if she resented her daughter's good fortune, and she lived in continual dread of an outbreak of the cruel temper that had so embittered her home life. But Billy's presence made a difference even to that. His influence was entirely wholesome, and he feared no one.
"Why don't you stand up to her?" he said to his sister on one occasion when he found her weeping after an overwhelming brow-beating over some failure in the kitchen. "She'd think something of you then."
Dinah had no answer. She could not convince him that her spirit had been broken for such encounters long ago. Billy had never been tied up to a bed-post and whipped till limp with exhaustion, but such treatment had been her portion more times than she could number.
But every hour brought her deliverance nearer, and so far she had managed to avoid physical violence though the dread of it always menaced her.
"Why does she hate me so?" Over and over again she asked herself the question, but she never found any answer thereto; and she was fain to believe her father's easy-going verdict: "There's no accounting for your mother's tantrums; they've got to be visited on somebody."
She wondered what would happen when she was no longer at hand to act as scapegoat, and yet it seemed to her that her mother longed to be rid of her.
"I'll get things into good order when you're out of the way," she said to her on the last evening but one before the wedding-day, the evening on which the Studleys were to arrive at the Court. "You're just a born muddler, and you'll never be anything else, Lady Studley or no Lady Studley. Get along upstairs and dress yourself for your precious dinner-party, or your father will be ready first! Oh, it'll be a good thing when it's all over and done with, but if you think you'll ever get treated as a grand lady here, you're very much mistaken. Home broth is all you'll ever get from me, so you needn't expect anything different. If you don't like it, you can stop away."
Dinah escaped from the rating tongue as swiftly as she dared. She knew that her mother had been asked to dine at the Court also--for the first time in her life--and had tersely refused. She wasn't going to be condescended to by anybody, she had told her husband in Dinah's hearing, and he had merely shrugged his shoulders and advised her to please herself.
Billy had not been asked, somewhat to his disgust; but he looked forward to seeing Scott again in the morning and ordered Dinah to ask him to lunch with them.
So finally Dinah and her father set forth alone in one of the motors from the Court to attend the gathering of County magnates that the de Vignes had summoned in honour of Sir Eustace Studley and his chosen bride.
She wore one of her trousseau gowns for the occasion, a pale green gossamer-like garment that made her look more nymph-like than ever. Her mother had surveyed it with narrowed eyes and a bitter sneer.
"Ok yes, you'll pass for one of the quality," she had said. "No one would take you for a child of mine any way."
"That's no fault of the child's, Lydia," her father had rejoined good-humouredly, and in the car he had taken her little cold hand into his and asked her kindly enough if she were happy.
She answered him tremulously in the affirmative, the dread of her mother still so strong upon her that she could think of nothing but the relief of escape. And then before she had time to prepare herself in any way for the sudden transition she found herself back in that tropical, brilliant atmosphere in which thenceforth she was to move and have her being.
She could not feel that she would ever shine there. There were so many bright lights, and though her father was instantly and completely at home she felt dazzled and strange, till all-unexpectedly someone came to her through the great lamp-lit hall, haltingly yet with purpose, and held her hand and asked her how she was.
The quiet grasp steadied her, and in a moment she was radiantly happy, all her troubles and anxieties swept from her path. "Oh, Scott!" she said, and her eyes beamed upon him the greeting her lips somehow refused to utter.
He was laughing a little; his look was quizzical. "I have been on the look-out for you," he told her. "It's the best man's privilege, isn't it? Won't you introduce me to your father?"
She did so, and then Rose glided forward, exquisite in maize satin and pearls, and smilingly detached her from the two men and led her upstairs.
"We are to have a little informal dance presently," she said. "Did I tell you in my note? No? Oh, well, no doubt it will be a pleasant little surprise for you. How very charming you are looking, my dear! I didn't know you had it in you. Did you choose that pretty frock yourself?"
Dinah, with something of her mother's bluntness of speech, explained that the creation in question had been Isabel's choice, and Rose smiled as one who fully understood the situation.
"She has been very good to you, poor soul, has she not?" she said. "She is not coming down to-night. The journey has fatigued her terribly. That funny, old-fashioned nurse of hers has asked very particularly that she may not be disturbed, except to see you for a few minutes later."
"Is she worse?" asked Dinah, startled.
Whereat Rose shook her dainty head. "Has she ever been better? No, poor thing, I am afraid her days are numbered, nor could one in kindness wish it otherwise. Still, I mustn't sadden you, dear. You have got to look your very best to-night, or Sir Eustace will be disappointed. There are quite a lot of pretty girls coming, and you know what he is." Rose uttered a little self-conscious laugh. "Put on a tinge of colour, dear!" she said, as Dinah stood before the mirror in her room. "You look such a little brown thing; just a faint glow on your cheeks would be such an improvement."
"No, thank you," said Dinah, and flushed suddenly and hotly at the thought of what she had once endured at her mother's hands for daring to pencil the shadows under her eyes. It had been no more than a girlish trick--an experiment to pass an idle moment. But it had been treated as an offence of immeasurable enormity, and she winced still at the memory of all that that moment's vanity had entailed.
Rose looked at her appraisingly. "No, perhaps you don't need it after all, not anyhow when you blush like that. You have quite a pretty blush, Dinah, and you are wise to make the most of it. Are you ready, dear? Then we will go down."
She rustled forth with Dinah beside her, shedding a soft fragrance of some Indian scent as she moved that somehow filled Dinah with indignation, like a resentful butterfly in search of more wholesome delights.
Eustace was in the hall when they descended. He came forward to meet his _fiancee_, and her heart throbbed fast and hard at the sight of him. But his manner was so strictly casual and impersonal that her agitation speedily passed, and by the time they were seated side by side at dinner--for the last time in their lives, as the Colonel jocosely remarked--she could not feel that she had ever been anything nearer to him than a passing acquaintance.
She was shy and very quiet. The hubbub of voices, the brilliance of it all, overwhelmed her. If Scott had been on her other side, she would have been much happier, but he was far away making courteous conversation for the benefit of a deaf old lady whom no one else made the smallest effort to entertain.
Suddenly Sir Eustace disengaged himself from the general talk and turned to her. "Dinah!" he said.
Her heart leapt again. She glanced at him and caught the gleam of the hunter in those rapier-bright eyes of his.
He leaned slightly towards her, his smile like a shining cloak, hiding his soul. "Daphne," he said, and his voice came to her subtle, caressing, commanding, through the gay tumult all about them, "there is going to be dancing presently. Did you hear?"
"Yes," she whispered with lowered eyes.
"You will dance with only one to-night," he said. "That is understood, is it?"
"Yes," she whispered again.
"Good!" he said. And then imperiously, "Why don't you drink some wine?"
She made a slight, startled movement. "I never do, I don't like it."
"You need it," he said, and made a curt sign to one of the servants.
Wine was poured into her glass, and she drank submissively. The discipline of the past two weeks had made her wholly docile. And the wine warmed and cheered her in a fashion that made her think that perhaps he was right and she had needed it.
When the dinner came to an end she was feeling far less scared and strange. Guests were beginning to assemble for the dance, and as they passed out people whom she knew by sight but to whom she had never spoken came up and talked with her as though they were old friends. Several men asked her to dance, but she steadily refused them all. Her turn would come later.
"I am going up to see Mrs. Everard," was her excuse. "She is expecting me."
And then Scott came, and she turned to him with eager welcome. "Oh, please, will you take me to see Isabel?"
He gave her a straight, intent look, and led her out of the throng.
His hand rested upon her arm as they mounted the stairs and she thought he moved with deliberate slowness. At the top he spoke.
"Dinah, before you see her I ought to prepare you for a change. She has been losing ground lately. She is not--what she was."
Dinah stopped short. "Oh, Scott!" She said in breathless dismay.
His hand pressed upon her, but it seemed to be imparting strength rather than seeking it. "I think I told you that day at the Dower House that she was nearing the end of her journey. I don't want to sadden you. You mustn't be sad. But you couldn't see her without knowing. It won't be quite yet; but it will be--soon."
He spoke with the utmost quietness; his face never varied. His eyes with their steady comradeship looked straight into hers, stilling her distress.
"She is so tired," he said gently. "I don't think it ought to grieve us that her rest is drawing near at last. She has so longed for it, poor girl."
"Oh, Scott!" Dinah said again, but she said it this time without consternation. His steadfast strength had given her confidence.
"Shall we go to her?" he said. "At least, I think it would be better if you went alone. She is quite determined that nothing shall interfere with your coming happiness, so you mustn't let her think you shocked or grieved. I thought it best to prepare you, that's all."
He led her gravely along the passage, and presently stopped outside a closed door. He knocked three times as of old, and Dinah stood waiting as one on the threshold of a holy place.
The door, was opened by Biddy, and he pressed her forward. "Don't stay long!" he said. "She is very tired to-night, and Eustace will be wanting you."
She squeezed his hand in answer and passed within.
Biddy's wrinkled brown face smiled a brief welcome under its snowy cap. She motioned her to approach. "Ye'll not stay long, Miss Dinah dear," she whispered. "The poor lamb's very tired to-night."
Dinah went forward.
The window was wide open, and the rush of the west wind filled the room. Isabel was lying in bed with her face to the night, wide-eyed, intent, still as death.
Noiselessly Dinah drew near. There was something in the atmosphere--a ghostly, hovering presence--that awed her. In the sound of that racing wind she seemed to hear the beat of mighty wings.
She uttered no word, she was almost afraid to speak. But when she reached the bed, when she bent and looked into Isabel's face, she caught her breath in a gasping cry. For she was shocked--shocked unutterably--by what she saw. Shrivelled as the face of one who had come through fiery tortures, ashen-grey, with eyes in which the anguish of the burnt-out flame still lingered, eyes that were dead to hope, eyes that were open only to the darkness, such was the face upon which she looked.
Biddy was by her side in a moment, speaking in a rapid whisper. "Arrah thin, Miss Dinah darlint, don't ye be scared at all! She'll speak to ye in a minute, sure. It's only that she's tired to-night. She'll be more herself like in the morning."
Dinah hung over the still figure. Biddy's whispering was as the buzzing of a fly. She heard it with the outer sense alone.
"Isabel!" she said; and again with a passionate earnestness, "Isabel--darling--my darling--what has happened to you?"
At the sound of that pleading voice Isabel moved, seeming as it were to return slowly from afar.
"Why, Dinah dear!" she said.
Her dark eyes smiled up at her in welcome, but it was a smile that cut her to the heart with its aloofness, its total lack of gladness.
Dinah stooped to kiss her. "Are you so tired, dearest? Perhaps I had better go away."
But Isabel put up a trembling, skeleton hand and detained her. "No, dear, no! I am not so tired as that. I can't talk much; but I can listen. Sit down and tell me about yourself!"
Dinah sat down, but she could think of nothing but the piteous, lined face upon the pillow and the hopeless suffering of the eyes that looked forth from it.
She held Isabel's hand very tightly, though its terrible emaciation shocked her anew, and so for a time they were silent while Isabel seemed to drift back again into the limitless spaces out of which Dinah's coming had for a moment called her.
It was Biddy who broke the silence at last, laying a gnarled and quivering hand upon Dinah as she sat.
"Ye'd better come again in the morning, mavourneen," she said. "She's too far off to-night to heed ye."
Dinah started. Her eyes were full of tears as she bent and kissed the poor, wasted fingers she held, realizing with poignant certainty as she did it the truth of the old woman's statement. Isabel was too far off to heed.
Then, as she rose to go, a strange thing happened. The tender strains of a waltz, _Simple Aveu_, floated softly in broken snatches in on the west wind, and again--as one who hears a voice that calls--Isabel came back. She raised herself suddenly. Her face was alight, transfigured--the face of a woman on the threshold of Love's sanctuary.
"Oh, my dearest!" she said, and her voice thrilled as never Dinah had heard it thrill before. "How I have waited for this! How I have waited!"
She stretched out her arms in one second of rapture unutterable; and then almost in the same moment they fell. The youth went out of her, she crumpled like a withered flower.
"Biddy!" she said. "Oh, Biddy, tell them to stop! I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"
Dinah went to the window and closed it, shutting out the haunting strains. That waltz meant something to her also, something with which for the moment she felt she could not cope.
Turning, she saw that Isabel was clinging convulsively to the old nurse, and she was crying, crying, crying, as one who has lost all hope.
"But it's too late to do her any good," mourned Biddy over the bowed head. "It's the tears of a broken heart." _