Up The Hill And Over Part 44

"Perfectly fierce," said Jane, peering over her shoulder. "Really fierce, I mean, not slang. He looks as if he would love to bite somebody."

"The photographer, probably."

Esther shrugged her shoulders and laid the photo carelessly upon the table. So careless was she, in fact, that a sharp "Look out!" from Jane did not prevent a sudden jerk of her elbow upsetting her steaming cup of coffee right over the pictured face.

With an angry exclamation, Mary sprang forward to rescue her property but Esther had already picked it up and was endeavouring to repair the damage with her table napkin.

"Oh, do take care!" said Mary irritably. "Don't rub so _hard_--you'll rub all the film off--there! What did I tell you?"

"Dear me! who would ever have dreamed it would rub off that easily?"

Esther surveyed the crumpled bits of photo with convincing dismay.

"Any one, with sense. It's ruined--how utterly stupid of you, Esther."

Mary's voice quivered with anger. "You provoking thing! I believe you did it on purpose."

The cold stare from the girl's eyes stopped her, but she added fretfully, "You are always doing things to annoy me. I can't think why, I'm sure."

"She was trying to dry it," declared Jane, belligerently. "She didn't mean to hurt the old photo. Did you, darling?"

"I can hardly see what my motive could have been," said Esther politely, rising from the table. She had deliberately tried to destroy the photograph and was exultantly glad that she had succeeded, yet, so quickly does the actress instinct develop under the spur of necessity, that her face and manner showed only amused tolerance of such a foolish suspicion.

Later, the culprit smiled understandingly at her image in the mirror as she dressed for church. "I did not know I could be so catty," she told her reflection, "but I don't care. She hadn't any right to have that darling picture. Ugly, indeed!" The blue eyes snapped and then became reflective. "Only she didn't think it ugly any more than I did. It was just talk. She was certainly furious when the film rubbed off. I wonder--" She fastened the last dark tress of hair, still wondering.

All the way to church she wondered, walking demurely with Jane up Oliver's Hill, while Mary, nervously gay, fluttered on a step or two ahead. Jane found her unresponsive that morning. The acquaintances they pa.s.sed found her distant. They wondered if Esther Coombe were becoming "stuck up" since she had a school of her own? For although, as Miss Agnes Smith said, it is not quite the thing to do more than nod and smile on the way to church, one doesn't need to pa.s.s one's friends looking like an absent-minded funeral.

Poor Esther! She saw n.o.body because she looked for only one.

"Oh, Esther, Mrs. Sykes has a new bonnet. There she is, Esther, look!"

"Very pretty," murmured Esther absently.

Jane dropped her hand. "You're blind as well as deaf, Esther. It's perfectly, dreadfully awful, and you know it!"

Thus abjured, Esther managed to look at Mrs. Sykes' bonnet. And, having looked, she laughed. Mrs. Sykes had certainly surpa.s.sed herself in bonnets. And poor Ann, her skirts were stiffer, her pig-tails tighter and her small face more mutinous than ever. The doctor was not of the party. Esther had known that, long before Jane had noticed the bonnet.

Still, there was nothing in that. He did not always walk with Ann to church. He might not come up Oliver's Hill at all. He might come from the opposite direction. He might be in church already. Esther's step quickened. But she had no excuse for hurry. Unless one sang in the choir or were threatened with lateness it was not etiquette to push ahead of any one on Oliver's Hill. Decently and in order was the motto, so Esther was sharply reminded when she had almost trodden on the unhastening heels of Mrs. Elder MacTavish.

Mrs. MacTavish turned in surprise but, seeing Esther, relaxed into the usual Sunday smile and bow.

"Good morning, Esther. Good morning, Mrs. Coombe. Good morning, Jane.

What perfect weather we are having. You are all well, I hope?"

"Very well, thank you."

"And dear Miss Amy?"

"Very well indeed."

"So sad that she never cares to come to church. But of course one understands. And it must be a satisfaction to you all that she keeps so well. I said to Mr. MacTavish only last night that I felt sure Dr.

Callandar was not being called in professionally. That is the worst of being a doctor. One can hardly attend to one's social duties without arousing fear for the health of one's friends. Not that Dr. Callandar is overly sociable, usually."

The last word, delivered as if by an afterthought, said everything which she wished it to say. Esther's lips shut tightly. Mary Coombe flushed.

But she was quick to seize the opening nevertheless.

"Such an odd thing, dear Mrs. MacTavish! Dr. Callandar turns out to be quite an old friend of--of my family. We knew each other as boy and girl. In his college days, you know."

"How very pleasant. But I always understood your family lived in Cleveland. Did Dr. Callandar take his degree in the States?"

"Oh, no, of course not, but I was visiting in Canada when we knew each other. Mutual friends and--and all that, you know."

"Very romantic," said Mrs. MacTavish. Her tone was pleasantly cordial, yet there was a something, a tinge--her quick glance took in Mrs.

Coombe's pretty dress and flowered hat, and the beginning of a smile moved her thin lips. She said nothing. But then she did not need to say anything. Mind reading is common with women.

Mrs. Coombe was furious. Esther laughed suddenly, a bubbling, girlish laugh, and then pretended that she had laughed because Jane had stubbed her toe. Jane looked hurt, Mrs. Coombe suspicious and Mrs. MacTavish amused. So in anything but a properly Sabbatical frame of mind the little party arrived at the church door.

Who does not know, if only in memory, that exquisite thrill of fear and expectation with which Esther entered the place which might contain the man she loved? Another moment, a breath, and she might see him!... And who has not known that stab of pain, that awful darkness of the spirit, which came upon her as, instantly, she knew that he was not there?

He was not in the church. Mental telepathy is recognised as well by its absence as by its presence. Esther knew that the church was empty of her lover and that it would remain empty. He was not coming to church to-day. Fortunate indeed that Mrs. MacTavish was not looking, for the girl's lip quivered, an unnatural darkness deepened the blue of her eyes. Then, smiling, she followed her mother up the aisle. Girls are wonderfully brave and if language is given us to conceal our thoughts smiles are very convenient also.

Mary Coombe settled herself with a flutter and a rustle, and then, behind the decorous shield of a hymn book, she whispered,

"Did you see Dr. Callandar as we came in?"

"No."

"Look and see if he is here."

The girl glanced perfunctorily around.

"No," she said.

Mrs. Coombe frowned. She was patiently annoyed and Esther felt cold anger stir again. What difference could the doctor's absence possibly make to Mary Coombe?

The singing of the psalm and the reading were long drawn out wearinesses. Esther had not come to church to worship that morning. We do not comment upon her att.i.tude. We merely state it. To-day, church, the service and all that it stood for had been absolutely outside of her emotions. Yet with the prayer came the thought of G.o.d and with the thought a thrill of angry fear--a fear which was an inevitable after effect of her very orthodox training. G.o.d, she felt dimly, did not like people to be very happy. He was a jealous G.o.d. He was probably angry now because she had come to church thinking more of Dr. Callandar than of Him. "Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me!" Awful, mystical words!

Did they mean that one couldn't have any human G.o.d at all? Not even a near, kind protecting G.o.d--like the doctor? It frightened her.

She found herself explaining to G.o.d that her lover was not really a rival. That although she loved him so terribly it was in quite a different way and would never interfere with her religious duties. Then, feeling the futility of this, she pretended carelessness, trying to deceive G.o.d into the belief that she didn't think so very much of the doctor anyway.

This was in the prayer, while she sat with her eyes decorously shaded by her hand. Above her in the pulpit, the minister in an ecstasy of pet.i.tion set forth the needs of the church, the state and the individual. Esther did not hear a word until a sudden dropping of his voice forced a certain phrase upon her attention. He was praying, with an especial poignancy for "that blessing which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow."

Was there such a blessing? A blessing which would make rich and add no sorrow? No wonder the minister prayed for it. To Esther, whose mind was saturated with the idea of G.o.d as the author of chastenings, the possibility came with a shock of joy. She, too, began to pray, and she prayed for one thing only, over and over--the blessing that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow. There was no need, she felt, to specify further.

G.o.d was sure to guess what blessing she meant.

A subdued rustle, a swaying as of barley in a gentle breeze and the prayer was over. Esther removed her hand from her eyes and looked up at the minister. For a tiny second his glance met hers. A thrill shot through her, a thrill of dismay. With all the force of a new idea, it came to her that she and he were in the same parlous case. He loved her, as she loved--somebody else.

And that meant that he must suffer, suffer as she had suffered last night. Last week when he had told her of his love she had been surprised, sorry and a little angry. But last week he had spoken of unknown things. Love and suffering had been words to her then, now they were realities.

Then, for she was learning quickly now, came another flash of enlightenment. They had been praying for the same thing. He, too, had prayed for the blessing which maketh rich--and he had meant _her_. She knew it. He had been asking G.o.d to give her to him. Horrible!