Evelyn Innes Part 26

"Did you?"

"No, I didn't go, Miss, but I heard Mr. Dean and your father talking of you. I've read about you in the papers; only this morning there was a long piece."

"If father talks of me he'll forgive me," thought Evelyn. The girl's wonderment made her smile, and she said--

"But you've not told me your name."

"My name is Agnes, miss."

"Have you been long with my father? When I left, Margaret--"

"Ah! she's dead, miss. I came to your father the day after the funeral."

Evelyn walked up the room, overcome by the eternal absence of something which had hitherto been part of her life. For Margaret took her back to the time her mother was alive; farther back still--to the very beginning of her life. She had always reckoned on Margaret.... So Margaret was dead. Margaret would never know of this meeting. Margaret might have helped her. Poor Margaret! At that moment she caught sight of her mother's eyes. They seemed to watch her; she seemed to know all about Owen, and afraid of the haunting, reproving look, Evelyn studied the long oval face and the small brown eyes so unlike hers. One thing only she had inherited from her mother--her voice. She had certainly not inherited her conduct from her mother; her mother was one of the few great artistes against whom nothing could be said. Her mother was a good woman.... What did she think of her daughter? And seeing her cold, narrow face, she feared her mother would regard her conduct even more severely than her father.... "But if she had lived I should have had no occasion to go away with Owen." She wondered. At the bottom of her heart she knew that Owen was as much as anything else a necessity in her life.... She moved about the room and wished the hands of the clock could be advanced a couple of hours, for then the terrible scene with her father would be over. If he could only forgive her at once, and not make her miserable with reproaches, they could have such a pleasant evening.

In this room her past life was blown about her like spray about a rock.

She remembered the days when she went to London with her father to give lessons; the miserable winter when she lost her pupils.... How she had waited in this room for her father to come back to dinner; the faintness of those hungry hours; worse still, that yearning for love. She must have died if she had not gone away. If it had to happen all over again she must act as she had acted. How well she remembered the moment when she felt that her life in Dulwich had become impossible. She was coming from the village where she had been paying some bills, and looking up she had suddenly seen the angle of a house and a bare tree, and she could still hear the voice which had spoken out of her very soul. "Shall I never get away from this place?" it had cried. "Shall I go on doing these daily tasks for ever?" The strange, vehement agony of the voice had frightened her.... At that moment her eyes were attracted by a sort of harpsichord. "One of father's experiments," she said, running her fingers over the keys. "A sort of cross between a harpsichord and a virginal; up here the intonation is that of a virginal."

"I forgot to ask you miss"--Evelyn turned from the window, startled; it was Agnes who had come back--"if you was going to stop for dinner, for there's very little in the house, only a bit of cold beef. I should be ashamed to put it on the table, miss; I'm sure you couldn't eat it.

Master don't think what he eats; he's always thinking of his music. I hope you aren't like that, miss?"

"So he doesn't eat much. How is my father looking, Agnes?"

"Middling, miss. He varies about a good bit; he's gone rather thin lately."

"Is he lonely, do you think ... in the evenings?"

"No, miss; I don't hear him say nothing about being lonely. For the last couple of years he never did more than come home to sleep and his meals, and he'd spend the evenings copying out the music."

"And off again early in the morning?"

"That's it, miss, with his music tied up in a brown paper parcel.

Sometimes Mr. Dean comes and helps him to write the music."

"Ah!... but I'm sorry he doesn't eat better."

"He eats better when Mr. Dean's here. They has a nice little dinner together. Now he's taken up with that 'ere instrument, the harpy chord, they's making. He's comin' home to-night to finish it; he says he can't get it finished nohow--that they's always something more to do to it."

"I wonder if we could get a nice dinner for him this evening?"

"Well, miss, you see there's no shops to speak of about here. You know that as well as I do."

"I wonder what your cooking is like?"

"I don't know, miss; p'r'aps it wouldn't suit you, but I've been always praised for my cooking."

"I could send for some things; my coachman could fetch them from town."

"Then there's to-morrow to be thought about if you're stopping here. I tell you we don't keep much in the house."

"Is my father coming home to dinner?"

"I can't say for certain, miss, only that he said 'e'd be 'ome early to finish the harpy chord. 'E might have 'is dinner out and come 'ome directly after, but I shouldn't think that was likely."

"You can cook a chicken, Agnes?"

"Lor'! yes, miss."

"And a sole?"

"Yes, miss; but in ordering, miss, you must think of to-morrow. You won't like to have a nice dinner to-night and a bit of hashed mutton to-morrow."

"I'll order sufficient. You've got no wine, I suppose?"

"No, we've no wine, miss, only draught beer."

"I'll tell my coachman to go and fetch the things at once."

When she returned to the music-room, Agnes asked her if she was going to stop the night.

"Because I should have to get your rooms ready, miss."

"That I can't tell, Agnes.... I don't think so.... You won't tell my father I'm here when you let him in?... I want it to be a surprise."

"I won't say nothing, miss. I'll leave him to find it out."

Evelyn felt that the girl must have guessed her story, must have perceived in her the repentant daughter--the erring daughter returned home. Everything pointed to that fact. Well, it couldn't be helped if she had.

"If my father will only forgive me; if that first dreadful scene were only over, we could have an enchanting evening together."

She was too nervous to seek out a volume of Bach and let her fingers run over the keys; she played anything that came into her head, sometimes she stopped to listen. At last there came a knock, and her heart told her it was his. In another moment he would be in the room. But seeing her he stopped, and, without a word, he went to a table and began untying a parcel of music.

"Father, I've come to see you.... You don't answer. Father, are you not going to speak to me? I've been longing to see you, and now--"

"If you had wanted to see me, you'd have come a month ago."

"I was not in London a month ago."

"Well, three weeks ago."

"I ought to have done so, but I had no courage. I could only see you looking at me as you are looking now. Forgive me, father.... I'm your only daughter; she's full of failings, but she has never ceased to love you."

He sat at the table fumbling with the string that had tied the parcel he had brought in, and she stood looking at him, unable to speak. She seemed to have said all there was to say, and wished she could throw herself at his feet; but she could not, something held her back. She prayed for tears, but her eyes remained dry; her mouth was dry, and a flame seemed to burn behind her eyes. She could only think that this might be the last time she would see him. The silence seemed a great while. She repeated her words, "I had not the courage to come before."

At the sound of her voice she remembered that she must speak to him at once of his choir, and so take their thoughts from painful reminiscence.

"I went to St. Joseph's on Thursday, but you weren't there. You gave Vittoria's ma.s.s last Sunday. I started to go, but I had to turn back."

She had not gone to hear her father's choir, because she could not resist Lady Ascott's invitation, and no more than the invitation could she resist the lie; she had striven against it, but in spite of herself it had forced itself through her lips, and now her father seemed to have some inkling of the truth, for he said--