The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 9

"But here," she went on, as voices were heard in the hall, "here, in good time, are the Rector and his wife. What a blessing they didn't arrive sooner!"

The words had hardly left her lips before the Rector and his wife were ushered in, the latter uttering voluble apologies for being late, and laying all the blame on the erratic behavior of the village hackman, who feeling an utter contempt for people who did not keep their own carriages, reserved the privilege of calling for them at what hour he pleased. The theme of his unpunctuality was so engrossing that the Rector's wife would have enlarged on it for some time, had she not caught sight of Elizabeth, and in her surprise subsided into a chair and momentary silence. And then strolled in Bobby Van Antwerp, fair, well-groomed, amiable, and mildly bored at the prospect of entertaining his neighbors; and immediately afterwards followed the Hartingtons, still more bored at the prospect of being entertained; after which they all went in to dinner, and Elizabeth found herself seated between the Rector and Gerard.

"You live here all the year round, don't you?" the latter said to her, somewhere about the third course, when he had given utterance to several other conventional remarks, and she had grown accustomed to the multiplicity of forks at her plate, and had decided that the light of wax candles, beaming softly under rose-colored shades, was eminently becoming to every one. She looked at him now with an odd little challenge in her eyes, called forth, in spite of herself, by the wearied civility of his conversational efforts.

"Yes, I live here all the year round," she said, in her clear, flute-like voice. "I--I'm a country girl, you see."

He smiled. "You are to be congratulated, I think."

"Do you think so?" asked Elizabeth, in genuine surprise.

"Why, yes, I love the country; don't you," he said tranquilly.

She was silent for a moment, her eyes resting absently on the graceful erection of ferns in the centre of the table, which rose, like a fairy island, from a lake of gla.s.s. "It's not a conventional thing to say,"

she answered at last, slowly "but if you want the truth"--

"I always want the truth," said Gerard.

"Well, then, I don't think I do care for the country," she said. "I've had too much of it. I--there are times when I detest it." She spoke with sudden vehemence, and she met his wondering gaze with eyes that were curiously hard.

Gerard's face clouded. "You don't care for the country," he said, slowly, "and yet you live here all the year round?"

"Ah, that's the very reason," she said, lightly. "People always tell you that you don't appreciate your blessings; but how can you reasonably be expected to, when you don't have any voice in choosing them?"

"If you did, you probably wouldn't like them any better," he retorted.

"And it would be more annoying to think that you had had a voice in the matter and had chosen wrong."

"Perhaps," said Elizabeth, "but I should like to make the experiment."

And she stared again thoughtfully at the feathery forms of the ferns.

"Well, if you had your choice," said Gerard, lazily, "what would you choose as an improvement on the present state of things?"

She turned towards him with a slight start. "What should I choose,"

she said, slowly "as an improvement on my life just now?"

"Yes, if you had a fairy G.o.dmother," suggested Gerard.

"With unlimited power?" questioned Elizabeth.

He laughed. "Well, not quite that, perhaps," he said, "but--a fairy G.o.dmother who could give you a good deal. A very charming one, too,"

he added, in a low voice.

Elizabeth knit her brows and pouted out her full lips, in apparently deep reflection. "If I had a fairy G.o.dmother," she said, musingly, "and she were to give me three wishes--three, you know, is the magic number in the fairy tales--why, I should choose first of all, I think, a season in town"--

"Which you might tire of in a month," suggested Gerard.

"Not at all," said Elizabeth, decidedly, "because my second wish would be for the capacity to be always amused."

"And do you really think," said Gerard, "that you would like that--to go through life as if it were a sort of opera bouffe?"

"Why not?" said Elizabeth. "I'm a frivolous person. I confess I like opera bouffe."

"For an evening, perhaps," said Gerard, "but after a time you'd get tired of it--oh, yes, I'm sure you would--and you'd begin to think"--

"Ah, no, I shouldn't," she interrupted him, eagerly "for that's what my third wish should be. I should ask for the power never to think.

Thought--thought is horrible." She spoke the last words very low, more to herself than him, and broke off suddenly, as an odd, frightened look crept into her eyes. Gerard watched her in some perplexity.

"This girl," he said to himself "who must be, I suppose, somewhere about twenty, and has seen, according to Eleanor, nothing of the world, talks sometimes like a thoughtless child, and sometimes like a woman of thirty, and an unhappy one at that. I can't quite make her out." Aloud he said, in an odd, dry voice that he had not hitherto used towards her, "Now that you have pretty well in theory at least, reduced yourself to the level of a brainless doll, why not ask, now that you are about it, for the power not to feel? Then you would really be a complete automaton, and nothing on earth could have power to hurt you."

Elizabeth had grown very pale, and her hands were tightly locked together under the table. "Ah," she said, wearily "I've exhausted my three wishes. And, besides, it's too much to ask. No fairy G.o.dmother, I'm afraid, could give one the power not to feel."

"Be thankful for that," he said, quickly. "A woman who has no capacity for suffering is--is--would be unspeakably repellant."

"Would she?" said Elizabeth, dreamily. "I should think, for my part, that she would be rather enviable." She sat staring absently before her, and Gerard did not try to break the silence. In a moment Mrs.

Hartington on his other side claimed his attention, and Elizabeth was not sorry. She felt vaguely resentful towards him for having made her think of unpleasant things, which she had resolved not to do that evening. The dinner went on, and she helped herself mechanically to dish after dish which was pressed upon her. The Rector turned to her and made a few labored remarks, adapted as he thought to her youthful intelligence, and she answered them absently. Bobby Van Antwerp told, in a languid way, a funny story for the benefit of the table, and the conversation grew general for awhile. Dinner was nearly over when Gerard said, turning to her with a pleasant smile:

"I'm not a prophet, and yet I am going to venture on a prediction. In a little while, I think, you'll find your fairy G.o.dmother, and have your season in town, though I don't know if the other things will be thrown in; and then some time in the course of it, I'll ask you if you are satisfied, and you'll tell me perhaps, that you are sick of it all, and are pining for the country, the green fields, and--a--the view of the river"--

He stopped as Elizabeth interrupted him flippantly. "Oh, no, never,"

she cried. "I'd prefer city streets to green fields any day, and as for the river--I've looked at it all my life, and I'm afraid I've exhausted its possibilities." She was quite herself again, her cheeks were pink; she looked up at him with laughing eyes. "Confess that you think me terribly frivolous," she said; "confess that you disapprove of me entirely."

"On the contrary," said Gerard, with rather a cold smile "I think there is a good deal to be said for your point of view--and as for disapproval, that's a priggish sensation that I hope I don't allow myself to feel towards any one. Wait till I see you in town," he went on, more genially "and then perhaps we'll agree better."

"Ah, but you never will see me in town," she said, sadly.

"Never?" he returned, slightly raising his eye-brows. "That's rather a rash prediction. I think I may have the pleasure of meeting you there before very long. You see I believe in fairy G.o.dmothers," he added, lightly, as Mrs. Bobby gave the signal, and, rising, he pushed back Elizabeth's chair.

She paused for a moment, as she gathered up in one hand the soft white folds of her gown. "I wish your faith could perform miracles," she said. And then she followed dreamily in the wake of the well-worn black satin gown, which had been seen, on many another festive occasion, on the broad back of the Rector's wife.

"He does disapprove of me," the girl thought to herself. "He would have liked me better if I were a little bread-and-b.u.t.ter miss, in white muslin and blue ribbons, who babbled of green fields and taught a cla.s.s in Sunday school. That's the kind of woman he admires. He thinks me hard and flippant, but--I don't care. At least he dropped that weary, society manner. It is something to have inspired him with an emotion of some sort, even if it happens to be disapproval."

_Chapter XIV_

The Rector's wife, after the first surprise, was very glad to see Elizabeth. It made her feel more at home, and she drew her down now eagerly, beside her on the sofa by the fire, whose warmth on that autumn evening modified the somewhat chill atmosphere of the state drawing-room.

"My dear Elizabeth, I never expected to see you here." Increased respect mingled with the surprise in her tone. Elizabeth had certainly gone up several degrees in her estimation. "It's quite an honor to be asked--the Courtenays never are, I know, though don't repeat that I said so. Of course we are asked every year, as is only due, you know, to the Rector's position, my dear; but almost always the children are ill, or something goes wrong, and it's three years now since we've been able to come. It was unfortunate our being late this time. Do you think Mrs. Bobby was much annoyed?" The Rector's wife lowered her voice anxiously, as she for the first time waited for a response.

"Oh, no," Elizabeth was able truthfully to a.s.sure her. "I'm sure she wasn't annoyed."

"Well, to be sure, the Hartingtons were later"--in a tone of relief--"but these great swells can do as they please. You look very nice, Elizabeth, very nice indeed. I never saw that dress before. It must be pleasant to have something new occasionally"--and the Rector's wife gave a gentle sigh. "You see I have had the color changed on this dress--red, I think, makes it look quite different, and it is warm and pretty for the autumn. Don't repeat this, Elizabeth, but I wore the same dress here the last time I came to dinner four years ago--only then it was trimmed with pale blue. It was summer, you see, so it looked cool. Do you suppose Mrs. Bobby would remember?"

"Oh, I don't suppose Mrs. Bobby cares"--Elizabeth began absently "much about dress," she added, hastily. She was looking vaguely about her, wondering as the familiar voice meandered on, if she were really at dinner at the Van Antwerps', or prosaically seated as she had so often been before, in the Rectory parlor.

Mrs. Hartington, a large fair woman, very splendidly dressed, had seized upon Mrs. Bobby and was talking to her on a sofa at the other end of the room.