The Riverman Part 29

But, as they moved toward the ma.s.sive front doors, Mrs. Bishop came down the stairs behind them. She, too, was dressed for the street. She received Orde's greeting and congratulation over her improved health in rather an absent manner. Indeed, as soon as she could hurry this preliminary over, she plunged into what evidently she considered a more important matter.

"You aren't thinking of going out, are you?" she asked Carroll.

"I told you, mother; don't you remember? Mr. Orde and I are going to get a little air in the park."

"I'm sorry," said Mrs. Bishop, with great brevity and decision, "but I'm going to the rectory to help Mr. Merritt, and I shall want you to go too, to see about the silver."

"But, mother," expostulated Carroll, "wouldn't Marie do just as well?"

"You know very well she can't be trusted without direction."

"I DO so want to go to the park," said Carroll wistfully. Mrs. Bishop's thin, nervous figure jerked spasmodically. "There is very little asked of you from morning until night," she said, with some asperity, "and I should think you'd have some slight consideration for the fact that I'm just up from a sick bed to spare me all you could. Besides which, you do very little for the church. I won't insist. Do exactly as you think best."

Carroll threw a pathetic glance at Orde.

"How soon are you going?" she asked her mother.

"In about ten minutes," replied Mrs. Bishop; "as soon as I've seen Honorine about the dinner." She seemed abruptly to realise that the amenities demanded something of her. "I'm sorry we must go so soon," she said briefly to Orde, "but of course church business--We shall hope to see you often."

Once more Orde held aside the curtains. The flame-bird drooped from the twilight of the hall into the dimness of the parlour. All the brightness seemed to have drained from the day, and all the joy of life seemed to have faded from the girl's soul. She sank into a chair, and tried pathetically to smile across at Orde.

"I'm such a baby about disappointments," said she.

"I know," he replied, very gently.

"And it's such a blue and gold day."

"I know," he repeated.

She twisted her glove in her lap, a bright spot of colour burning in each cheek.

"Mother is not well, and she has a great deal to try her. Poor mother!"

she said softly, her head cast down.

"I know," said Orde in his gentle tones.

After a moment he arose to go. She remained seated, her head down.

"I'm sorry about this afternoon," said he cheerfully, "but it couldn't be helped, could it? Jane used to tell me about your harp playing. I'm going to come in to hear you this evening. May I?"

"Yes," she said, in a stifled voice, and held out her hand. She sat quite still until she heard the front door close after him; then she ran to the curtains and looked after his st.u.r.dy, square figure, as it swung up the street.

"Well done; oh, well done, gentle heart!" she breathed after him. Then she went back to the piano.

But Orde's mouth, could she have seen it, was set in grim lines, and his feet, could she have heard them, rang on the pavement with quite superfluous vigour. He turned to the left, and, without pause, walked some ten or twelve miles.

The evening turned out very well, fortunately; Orde could not have stood much more. They had the parlour quite to themselves. Carroll took the cover from the tall harp, and, leaning her cheek against it, she played dreamily for a half hour. Her arms were bare, and as her fingers reached out lingeringly and caressingly to draw the pure, golden chords from the golden instrument, her soft bosom pressed against the broad sounding board. There is about the tones of a harp well played something luminous, like rich, warm sunlight. When the girl muted the strings at last, it seemed to Orde as though all at once the room had perceptibly darkened. He took his leave finally, his spirit soothed and restored.

Tranquillity was not for long, however. Orde's visits were, naturally, as frequent as possible. To them almost instantly Mrs. Bishop opposed the strong and intuitive jealousy of egotism. She had as yet no fears as to the young man's intentions, but instinctively she felt an influence that opposed her own supreme dominance. In consequence, Orde had much time to himself. Carroll and the rest of the family, with the possible exception of Gerald, shared the belief that the slightest real opposition to Mrs. Bishop would suffice to throw her into one of her "spells," a condition of alarming and possibly genuine collapse. "To drive mother into a spell" was an expression of the worst possible domestic crime. It accused the perpetrator--through Mrs. Bishop--of forgetting the state of affairs, of ingrat.i.tude for care and affection, of common inhumanity, and of impiety in rendering impossible of performance the multifarious church duties Mrs. Bishop had invented and a.s.sumed as so many particularly s.h.i.+ning virtues. Orde soon discovered that Carroll went out in society very little for the simple reason that she could never give an unqualified acceptance to an invitation. At the last moment, when she had donned her street wraps and the carriage was at the door, she was liable to be called back, either to a.s.sist at some religious function, which, by its sacred character, was supposed to have precedence over everything, or to attend a nervous crisis, brought on by some member of the household, or by mere untoward circ.u.mstances. The girl always acquiesced most sweetly in these recurrent disappointments.

And the very fact that she accepted few invitations gave Orde many more chances to see her, in spite of Mrs. Bishop's increasing exactions.

He did not realise this fact, however, but ground his teeth and clung blind-eyed to his temper whenever the mother cut short his visits or annulled his engagements on some petty excuse of her own. He could almost believe these interruptions malicious, were it not that he soon discovered Mrs. Bishop well disposed toward him personally whenever he showed himself ready to meet her even quarter way on the topics that interested her--the church and her health.

In this manner the week pa.s.sed. Orde saw as much as he could of Miss Bishop. The remainder of the time he spent walking the streets and reading in the club rooms to which Gerald's courtesy had given him access. Gerald himself seemed to be much occupied. Precisely at eleven every morning, however, he appeared at the gymnasium for his practice; and in this Orde dropped into the habit of joining him. When the young men first stripped in each other's presence, they eyed each other with a secret surprise. Gerald's slender and elegant body turned out to be smoothly and gracefully muscled on the long lines of the Flying Mercury.

His bones were small, but his flesh was hard, and his skin healthy with the flow of blood beneath. Orde, on the other hand, had earned from the river the torso of an ancient athlete. The round, full arch of his chest was topped by a ma.s.s of clean-cut muscle; across his back, beneath the smooth skin, the muscles rippled and ridged and dimpled with every movement; the beautiful curve of the deltoids, from the point of the shoulder to the arm, met the other beautiful curve of the unflexed biceps and that fulness of the back arm so often lacking in a one-sided development; the surface of the abdomen showed the peculiar corrugation of the very strong man; the round, columnar neck arose ma.s.sive.

"By Jove!" said Gerald, roused at last from his habitual apathy.

"What's the matter?" asked Orde, looking up from tying the rubber-soled shoes that Gerald had lent him.

"Murphy," called Gerald, "come here."

A very hairy, thick-set, bullet-headed man, the type of semi-professional "handlers," emerged from somewhere across the gymnasium.

"Do you think you could down this fellow?" asked Gerald.

Murphy looked Orde over critically.

"Who ye ringin' in on me?" he inquired.

"This is a friend of mine," said Gerald severely.

"Beg your pardon. The gentleman is well put up. How much experience has he had?"

"Ever box much?" Gerald asked Orde.

"Box?" Orde laughed. "Never had time for that sort of thing. Had the gloves on a few times."

"Where did you get your training, sir?" asked the handler.

"My training?" repeated Orde, puzzled. "Oh, I see! I was always pretty heavy, and I suppose the work on the river keeps a man in pretty good shape."

Gerald's languor had vanished, and a glint had appeared in his eye that would have reminded Orde of Miss Bishop's most mischievous mood could he have seen it.

"Put on the gloves with Murphy," he suggested, "will you? I'd like to see you two at it."

"Surely," agreed Orde good-naturedly. "I'm not much good at it, but I'd just as soon try." He was evidently not in the least afraid to meet the handler, though as evidently without much confidence in his own skill.

"All right; I'll be with you in a second," said Gerald, disappearing. In the anteroom he rung a bell, and to the boy who leisurely answered its summons he said rapidly:

"Run over to the club and find Mr. Winslow, Mr. Clark, and whoever else is in the smoking room, and tell them from me to come over to the gymnasium. Tell them there's some fun on."

Then he returned to the gymnasium floor, where Murphy was answering Orde's questions as to the apparatus. While the two men were pulling on the gloves, Gerald managed a word apart with the trainer.

"Can you do him, Murph?" he whispered.

"Sure!" said the handler. "Them kind's always as slow as dray-horses.

They gets muscle-bound."