Wild Honey: Stories of South Africa - Cynthia Stockley

Then Sarah Berry’s tragic contralto at its wildest and saddest rang out and filled the hall with words of Cowen’s Promise of Life. When she had finished, and the whole house was on its feet calling her back, Dolores sat hushed, stricken in her seat by the conviction which had come to her with the song—the conviction that Sorrow had not done with her—that she was Tragedy’s own.

The old cold gnaw was back at her heart; she felt with a terrible sense of premonition that she was waiting to be struck; and, while she waited, a woman’s smooth, superficial voice said behind her:

“Have you heard, Miss Wilde, that one of the Ravenhill Company was drowned in the bay this afternoon? He and some others were going to the rescue of some wrecked people. Quite young, they say. Dreadful, isn’t it? The theatre is closed.”

Someone cried, “Hush!” Sarah Berry had come back, and was singing again the last verse of her song.

There is no life that hath not held some sorrow,
There is no soul but hath its secret strife.
Still our eyes smile—our hearts pray for to-morrow,
Fair in its promise of more perfect Life.
Earth is not all. His angels ever hearken
Heaven shall make perfect our imperfect life.

Dolores sat ashen-faced and stony-eyed; but peace was in her heart. She could not grieve “as others which have no hope.”