CHAPTER XII
Gabrielle, however, was more affronted than puzzled by it. It made her definitely uneasy. She suspected at once what was in his mind, and in the utter despair that engulfed her she felt that this would be the crowning trial, the crowning indignity, in a life that was filled with both.
The days since her discovery regarding her mother had seemed endless to her. They were the cold dark days that follow the coming in of the new year, there was nothing of the holidays’ snap and exhilaration about them. Rain, clouds, winds, heavy snows, rushing storms had thundered and banged about Wastewater; Gay felt that every out-of-door garment she had was twisted and soaked and half dried; she was sick with loneliness and discouragement.
In vain she made herself practise, made herself walk and study. There was no life in it; everything she did come up against a blank wall, a dreary “What’s the use?” What was the use of living, to find that so much that was weak and stupid and wrong was blended into one’s blood?
If there had been a sweet, interested mother to put her arm about one, or a big father to advise and adore, if there had been normal friendships, neighbours, all the cheerful life of the average American girl—ah, that would have been so different! But Gabrielle was alone, yet curiously imprisoned in this dreary old silent place, tied to the poor little invalid who rarely identified her, and to dismal, quiet Aunt Flora, and to all the ghosts and echoes of Wastewater.
Tied, too, to an unceasing contemplation of Sylvia’s perfections, Sylvia’s good fortune, Sylvia’s charms. Sylvia would be home in June as the daughter of the house, and the heiress; already some papering and painting was being done in preparation for her return; she herself had selected papers and hangings in Boston weeks ago.
Gabrielle had borne bravely the initial shock of discovering her mother but she weakened as the slow, cold weeks went by, let her music go, neglected her books, wept and brooded a great deal. David’s birthday letter brought the first smile of many days to her face, and she opened it with the old brightness he always brought to her shining in her eyes.
The cryptic phrases made her bite her lip thoughtfully; look off into space for a little while. And presently she went for a lonely walk by the sea, and half-a-mile away from the house, seated upon a rock above the ebbing teeth of the cold tide, she read the letter again.
Then she tore it to scraps and buried it under a stone. Her cheeks blazed with colour and a nervous hammering commenced in her heart. He could not mean—but he could not mean that he meant to ask her to marry him?
This would be preposterous; it certainly was not that. Yet as Gabrielle remembered the phrases of the short letter the horrible conviction came to her that her suspicion was justified. He was engaged to Sylvia, or at least there was between them an understanding more or less definite; that was what he meant by Sylvia’s part, Sylvia’s “coming into it a little.” And the rest was between him and Gabrielle.