“She is married,” said Rhoda, desperately. “Her husband is in Australia.”
Obtuse as he was, the old gentleman could yet perceive that he had touched upon an awkward topic. Poor Rhoda was a bad actress. Her face always betrayed her feelings. She sat bolt upright against the wall, looking so intensely uncomfortable that her companion quitted her in dismay.
There she remained for three long hours; sometimes catching a glimpse of the lilac silk among the dancers. From fragments of talk that went on around her, she learned that Helen was the centre of attention. And at last, when a galop was over, and the groups parted to left and right, she caught sight of her cousin surrounded by the officers.
She now saw Helen under a new aspect. Her looks and gestures were those of a practised coquette, who had spent half her life in ball-rooms. People were looking on—smiling, whispering, wondering. The squire himself was evidently amused and astonished. Even if she had been less beautiful, Helen’s dress and jewellery would have attracted general notice. It was, perhaps, the most miserable evening that Rhoda had ever passed. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was the question that she asked herself a hundred times. Was she indeed to blame for suffering Helen to come to this place? The music and dancing and flattering speeches had fired Helen’s blood like wine. The gaiety that would have been innocuous to many was poisonous to her.
At last a loud gong sounded the summons to supper. The repast was spread in a large tent which had been erected in the park. Out swept the crowd into the balmy August night, Helen still clinging to the arm of her last partner, and carefully avoiding a glance in her cousin’s direction. Rhoda strove in vain to get nearer to her; the press was too great. But she contrived to reach William Gill, and to say to him earnestly—
“We must go away as soon as supper is over, Mr. Gill. I promised father that we would come back early.” The moon had risen, large and red, and the night was perfectly still. Chinese lanterns illuminated the great supper-tent from end to end. Flowers and evergreens, mingled with wheat ears, decorated the long tables. The light fell on rows of flushed and smiling faces. Rhoda, pale and sad, sat down on the end of a bench close to the tent entrance.
“I’m ’most worn out,” said Mrs. Gill’s voice beside her. “I’m downright glad that you’re for going home early, Miss Farren. Old women like me are better a-bed than a-junketing at this time o’ night! Mercy on us, how your cousin has been a-going on, my dear! And brought up so strict too!”
The words cut Rhoda like a knife. There she sat, lonely and miserable, amid a merry crowd. The golden moonshine flooded the park, and the sweet air kissed her face as she turned it wearily towards the tent-entrance. Once a sudden rush of perfume came in and overwhelmed her. It was the breath of the fast fading roses that hung in white clusters about the squire’s windows, and shed their petals on the ground below.