Greatheart

by Ethel M. Dell

CHAPTER VI

CINDERELLA

"Come and sit down!" said Scott.

Dinah gave a little start. She was standing close to him, but she had not seen him. She looked at him for a second with far-away eyes, as if she did not know him.

Then recognition flashed into them. She smiled an eager greeting. "Oh, Mr. Studley, I want to thank you for the very happiest evening of my life."

He smiled also as he sat down beside her. "You are enjoying yourself?"

"Oh yes, indeed I am!" she assured him. "Thank you a hundred million times!"

"Why thank me?" questioned Scott.

She drew a long, long breath. "Because you were the magician who pulled the strings. I should never have got dressed in the first place but for you."

He gave a laugh of amused protest. "Oh, surely! I don't feel I deserve that!"

She laughed with him. "You did it anyhow. And in the second place you got me out of a villainous bad temper and turned an ugly goblin into a very happy butterfly. I'm downright ashamed of myself for being so horrid about Rose de Vigne. She isn't at all a bad sort though she is so impossibly beautiful. Your brother is going to dance with her now. See! There they go!"

She looked after them with a smile of complete content.

"You're feeling generous," remarked Scott.

She turned to him again, flushed and radiant. "I can afford to—though it's for the first time in my life. I've never had such a happy time,—never, never, never! Isn't your brother wonderful? His dancing is—" Words failed her. She raised her hands and let them fall with a gesture expressive of unbounded admiration.

"You mustn't let him monopolize you," said Scott. "He has plenty to choose from, you know. Others haven't."

She laughed. "He says—I wonder if it's true!—he says I am the best dancer he has ever met!"

Scott smiled at her beaming face. "That is very nice—for him," he observed. "I thought you seemed to be getting on very well."

Her eyes travelled across the room again to her late partner and the beautiful Miss de Vigne. She watched them intently for a few seconds.

"Poor Rose!" she said suddenly.

Scott was watching her. "Isn't she a good dancer?" he asked.

She turned back to him. "Oh yes, I believe she is. She always has plenty of partners anyway. At least I've always heard so. Is your sister dancing? I don't think I can have seen her yet."

"No. She is in her sitting-room upstairs. I wanted her to come down, but she wouldn't be persuaded. She—" Scott hesitated a moment—"is not fond of gaiety."

"Then I shan't see her!" said Dinah in tones of genuine disappointment.
"I did so want to thank her for lending me these lovely things."

"I can take you to her if you'll come," said Scott.

"Oh, can you? Yes, I'll come. I can come now. But are you sure she will like it?" Dinah's bright eyes met his with frank directness. "I don't want to intrude on her, you know," she said.

He smiled a little. "I am sure you won't intrude. Shall we go then? Are you sure there is no one else you want to dance with here?"

"Oh, quite sure." Again momentarily Dinah's look sought her late partner; then briskly she stood up.

Scott rose also, and gave her his arm. She bestowed a small, friendly squeeze upon it. "I've never enjoyed myself so much before," she said. "And it's all your doing."

"Oh, not really!" he said.

She nodded vigorously. "But it is! I should never have been presentable but for you. And I should certainly never have danced with your brother. He has actually promised to help me with my skating to-morrow. Isn't it kind of him?"

"I wonder," said Scott.

"What do you wonder?" Dinah looked at him curiously.

But he only smiled a baffling smile, and turned the subject. "Wouldn't you like something to drink before we go up?"

Dinah declined. She was not in the least thirsty. She did not feel as if she would ever want to eat or drink again.

"Only to dance!" said Scott. "Well, I mustn't keep you long then. Who is that lady making signs to you? Hadn't you better go and speak to her?"

"Oh, bother!" said Dinah. "You come too, then. It's only Lady
Grace—Rose's mother. I'm sure it can't be anything important."

Scott piloted her across the vestibule to the couch on which Lady Grace sat. She was a large, fair woman with limpid eyes and drawling speech. She extended a plump white hand to the girl.

"Dinah, my dear, I think you have had almost enough for to-night. And they were so very behind time in starting. Your mother would not like you to stay up late, I feel sure. You had better go to bed when this dance is over. You are not accustomed to dissipation, remember."

A swift cloud came over Dinah's bright face. "Oh, but, Lady Grace, I'm not in the least tired. And I'm not a baby, you know. I'm nearly twenty. I really couldn't go yet."

"You will have plenty more opportunities, dear," said Lady Grace, quite unruffled. "Rose has decided to retire after this dance, and I shall do the same. The Colonel is suffering with dyspepsia, and he does not wish us to be late."

Dinah bit her lip. "Oh, very well," she said somewhat shortly; and to
Scott, "We had better go at once then."

He led her away obediently. They ascended the stairs together.

As they reached the top of the flight Dinah's indignation burst its
bounds. "Isn't it too bad? Why should I go to bed just because the
Colonel's got dyspepsia? I don't believe it's that at all really. It's
Rose who can't bear to think that I am having as good a time—or
Better—than she is."

"May I say what I think?" asked Scott politely.

She stopped, facing him. "Yes, do!"

He was smiling somewhat whimsically. "I think that—like Cinderella—you may break the spell if you stay too long."

"But isn't it too bad?" protested Dinah. "Your brother too—I can't disappoint him."

Scott's smile became a laugh. "Oh, believe me, it would do him good, Miss
Bathurst. He gets his own way much too often."

She smiled, but not very willingly. "It does seem such a shame. He has been—so awfully nice to me."

"That's nothing," said Scott airily. "We can all be nice when we are enjoying ourselves."

Dinah looked at him with sudden attention. "Are you pointing a moral?" she asked severely.

"Trying to," said Scott.

She tried to frown upon him, but very abruptly and completely failed. Her pointed chin went up in a gay laugh. "You do it very nicely," she said. "Thank you, Mr. Studley. I won't be grumpy any more. It would be a pity to break the spell, as you say. Will you explain to the prince?"

"Certainly," he said, leading her on again. "I shall make it quite clear to him that Cinderella was not to blame. Here is our sitting-room at the end of this passage!"

He stopped at the door and would have opened it, but Dinah, smitten with sudden shyness, drew back.

"Hadn't you better go in first and—and explain?" she said.

"Oh no, quite unnecessary," he said, and turned the handle.

At once a woman's voice accosted him. "For the Lord's sake, Master Stumpy, come in quick and shut the door behind ye! The racket downstairs is sending Miss Isabel nearly crazy, poor lamb. And it's meself that's wondering what we'll do to-night, for there's no peace at all in this wooden shanty of a place."

"Be quiet, Biddy!" Scott's voice made calm, undaunted answer. "You can go if you like. I've come to sit with Miss Isabel for a while. And I've brought her a visitor. Isabel, my dear, I've brought you a visitor."

Dinah moved forward in response to his gentle insistence, but her shyness went with her. She was aware of something intangible in the atmosphere that startled, that almost frightened, her.

The gaunt figure of a woman clad in a long, white robe sat at a table in the middle of the room with a sheaf of letters littered before her. Her emaciated arms were flung wide over them, her white head was bowed.

But at Scott's quiet announcement, it was raised with the suddenness of eager expectancy. For the fraction of a second Dinah saw dark, sunken eyes ablaze with a hope that was almost terrible in its intensity.

It was gone on the instant. They looked at her with a species of dull wonder. "Are you a friend of Scott's? I am very pleased to meet you," a hollow voice said.

A thin hand was extended to her, and as Dinah clasped it a sudden great pity surged through her, dispelling her doubt. Something in her responded swiftly, even passionately, to the hunger of those eyes. The moment's shock passed from her like a cloud.

"My sister Mrs. Everard," said Scott's voice at her shoulder. "Isabel, this is Miss Bathurst of whom I was telling you."

"You lent me your jewels," said Dinah, looking into the wasted face with a sympathy at her heart that was almost too poignant to be borne. "Thank you so very, very much for them! It was so very kind of you to lend them to a total stranger like me."

The strange eyes were gazing at her with a curious, growing interest. A faint, faint smile was in their depths. "Are we strangers, child?" the low voice asked. "I feel as if we had met before. Why do you look at me so kindly? Most people only stare."

Dinah was suddenly conscious of a hot sensation at the throat that made her want to cry. "It is you who have been kind," she said, and her little hand closed with confidence upon the limp, cold fingers. "I am wearing your things still, and I have had such a lovely time. Thank you again for letting me have them. I am going to return them now."

"You need not do that." Isabel spoke with her eyes still fixed upon the girlish face. "Keep them if you like them! I shall never wear them again. They tell me—they tell me—I am a widow."

"Miss Isabel darlint!" Biddy spoke sibilantly from the background. "Don't be talking to the young lady of such things! Won't ye sit down then, miss? And maybe I can get ye a cup o' tay."

"Ah, do, Biddy!" Scott put in his quiet word. "There is no tea like yours. Isabel, Miss Bathurst is a keen dancer. She and Eustace have been most energetic. It was a pity you couldn't come down and see the fun."

"Oh! Did you enjoy it?" Isabel still looked into the brown, piquant face as though loth to turn her eyes away.

"I loved it," said Dinah.

"Was Eustace kind to you?"

"Oh, most kind." Dinah spoke with candid enthusiasm.

"I am glad of that," Isabel's voice held a note of satisfaction. "But I should think everyone is kind to you, child," she said, with her faint, glimmering smile. "How beautiful you are!"

"Me!" Dinah opened her eyes in genuine astonishment. "Oh you wouldn't think so if you saw me in my ordinary dress," she said. "I'm nothing at all to look at really. It's just a case of 'Fine feathers,'—nothing else."

"My dear," Isabel said, "I am not looking at your dress. I seldom notice outer things. I am looking through your eyes into your soul. It is that that makes you beautiful. I think it is the loveliest thing that I have ever seen."

"Oh, you wouldn't say so if you knew me!" cried Dinah, conscience-stricken. "I have horrid thoughts often—very often."

The dark, watching eyes still smiled in their far-off way. "I should like to know you, dear child," Isabel said. "You have helped me—you could help me in a way that probably you will never understand. Won't you sit down? I will put my letters away, and we will talk."

She began to collect the litter before her, laying the letters together one by one with reverent care.

"Can I help?" asked Dinah timidly.

But she shook her head. "No, child, your hands must not touch them. They are the ashes of my life."

An open box stood on the table. She drew it to her, and laid the letters within it. Then she rose, and drew her guest to a lounge.

"We will sit here," she said. "Stumpy, why don't you smoke? Ah, the music has stopped at last. It has been racking me all the evening. Yes, you love it, of course. That is natural. I loved it once. It is always sweet to those who dance. But to those who sit out—those who sit out—" Her voice sank, and she said no more.

Dinah's hand slipped softly into hers. "I like sitting out too sometimes," she said. "At least I like it now."

Isabel's eyes were upon her again. They looked at her with a kind of incredulous wonder. After a moment she sighed.

"You would not like it for long, child. I am a prisoner. I sit in chains while the world goes by. They are all hurrying forward so eager to get on. But there is never any going on for me. I sit and watch—and watch."

"Surely we must all go forward somehow," said Dinah shyly.

"Surely," said Scott.

But Isabel only shook her head with dreary conviction. "Not the prisoners," she said. "They die by the wayside."

There fell a brief silence, then impetuously Dinah spoke, urged by the fulness of her heart. "I think we all feel like that sometimes. I know at home it's just like being in a cage. Nothing ever happens worth mentioning. And then quite suddenly the door is opened and out we come. That's partly why I am enjoying everything so much," she explained. "But it won't be a bit nice going back."

"What about your mother?" said Scott.

Dinah's bright face clouded again. "Yes, of course, there's Mother," she agreed.

She looked across at Scott as if she would say more; but he passed quietly on. "Where is your home, Miss Bathurst?"

"Right in the very heart of the Midlands. It is pretty country, but oh, so dull. The de Vignes are the rich people of the place. They belong to the County. We don't," said Dinah, with a sigh.

Scott laughed, and she looked momentarily hurt.

"I don't see what there is funny in that. The County people and the shop people are the only ones that get any fun. It's horrid to be between the two."

"Forgive me!" Scott said. "I quite see your point. But if you only knew it, the people who call themselves County are often the dullest of the dull."

"You say that because you belong to them, I expect," retorted Dinah. "But if you were me, and lived always under the shadow of the de Vignes, you wouldn't think it a bit funny."

"Who are the de Vignes?" asked Isabel suddenly.

Dinah turned to her. "We are staying here with them, Billy and I. My father persuaded the Colonel to have us. He knew how dreadfully we wanted to go. The Colonel is rather good-natured over some things, and he and Dad are friends. But I don't think Lady Grace wanted us much. You see, she and Rose are so very smart."

"I see," said Scott.

"Rose has been presented at Court," pursued Dinah. "They always go up for the season. They have a house in town. We always say that Rose is waiting to marry a marquis; but he hasn't turned up yet. You see, she really is much too beautiful to marry an ordinary person, isn't she?"

"Oh, much," said Scott.

Dinah heaved another little sigh; then suddenly she laughed. "But your brother has promised to help me with my skating to-morrow anyhow," she said. "So she won't have him all the time."

"Perhaps the marquis will come along to-morrow," suggested Scott.

"I wish he would," said Dinah, with fervour.