As Cyril had told Jean, the house was furnished, albeit in an old fashioned style. Dark pictures in heavy frames half covered the walls; thick curtains shut out much of Heaven's light; chairs of ponderous make stood solemnly about the small rooms; and huge centre-tables left little space around.
Emmeline did what she could to improve matters. She arranged and re-arranged the uncompromising furniture; she draped the curtains anew; she dragged centre-tables into corners; above all, she shed the light of her own smiling presence through the little house, and in a measure transformed it—for others, rather than for herself. The shining of a star flows outward, not inward; and a blazing body like the sun may conceivably have a dark interior.
Emmeline's mental "interior" was not dark; she was too brave-spirited to be often a victim of depression. Still, when a week in the new home had gone by, she was conscious of a dreary aspect to things generally—more conscious than on their first arrival. She had worked desperately hard; and now she was tired, and little remained to be done.
Moreover, she was labouring under a sense of disappointment, which means a worse kind of tiredness than mere weariness of back or limbs. Through the whole week Sir Cyril Devereux had never once been near the house. Nobody had been. Nobody had called. Nobody had spoken a word or left a message of welcome. The three seemed to be stranded on a barren shore, where none cared to greet them. Emmeline had known much of such isolation in her short life; yet somehow she never grew used to it, for she always saw how different life was to other people. There are some kinds of mental, as of bodily pain, to which the sufferer never does or can grow really used.
Like most girls, she had her girlish love of friends and companions, her girlish enjoyment of chatter and fun, her girlish longings and dreams. She had built a good deal—much more than she was aware—on the prospect of Sir Cyril's friendship; not so much for herself as for her parents. She was hardly more than a child yet; but she knew how much her father liked Sir Cyril, and how good it was for him to have outside interests—so long as no danger was involved—and how it cheered her mother to have her father in good spirits.
When Captain Lucas had written to tell Sir Cyril of their plans, he had replied that he "would be sure to look in directly they came." And Emmeline had set her little heart on the fulfilment of this promise.
It had not been fulfilled, and Emmeline was sorely disappointed, because she felt that it was a disappointment to her father and mother. She liked Sir Cyril herself, with a frank girlish liking; but it was honestly for their sake that she grieved. It did seem hard that nobody could be depended on.
"Only a week, of course!" commented Emmeline. "One week is not long. But he said directly—and if I were a man, I would do what I had said, if it were ever so hard."
Persistent rain had fallen all the morning and was falling still, making the Dutton pavements wet, making the Dutton world muddy. To keep up one's spirits on such a day is always more difficult than in sunshine.
Emmeline stood at the window of the crooked little drawing-room, looking across at a second-rate grocer's shop, in the open doorway of which stood a woman, contemplating the weather. There was not much else to be contemplated. A cart jogged slowly by, between the two gazers; but not many vehicles came this way. The red house stood out of the main line of traffic.