Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
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Название: Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume
Автор: Annie Haynes
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075832535
isbn:
Hilda’s eyes were full of trouble, the colour had not come back to her cheeks, her lips drooped pathetically.
“I have tried—oh, how I have tried!—to remember where I came from, and it is all no use.”
“Isn’t that just what the doctors said you were not to do?”
“I can’t help it. How can I?” Hilda broke out passionately. “Sometimes I fancy I am on the verge of recalling everything, and then it all goes away again. When I think of that night—the time I came here—try as I will it only seems like a sort of maze—a bad dream. I imagine that some one was unkind to me—I fancy I can remember angry words, and then it was dark and wet everywhere, and I was cold, so cold. Then through the mist and the damp I saw your face, and you were good to me—very, very good to me. Ah, I can never forget your kindness, even if I do not remember my own name!”
Arthur’s own eyes were misty now, and there was a suspicious trembling in his voice.
“Ah, if only I could make you understand how thankful we are to have you here—how desolate this house will be to some of us when you go!”
He leaned forward and dared to lay his hands on hers, and was not repulsed.
“When I go!” Hilda repeated forlornly, her hand resting in his as if unconsciously. “Ah, I must—I am sure I ought to go; and perhaps I know enough to teach, if that has not all gone too! But who would take me, Sir Arthur? I should have no references—I could give no account of myself.”
“Stop!” Arthur cried hoarsely. “Do not say another word of that sort. You know we—my mother and I—would never consent to anything of the kind. We look upon you as our special charge, sent to us from Heaven. Hilda, promise me that you will not speak of that again—that you will stay with us until you find your own home!”
“But when will that be?” Hilda’s eyes were downcast; her long lashes lay like dark shadows on her fair skin.
“Never mind! Promise!” said Arthur imperiously.
The girl gave him one shy upward glance.
“I—promise,” she murmured obediently, “since you are so kind as to wish to keep me.”
Meanwhile upstairs in her room Dorothy was making desperate attempts to remove the traces of her agitation; she smoothed her hair and bathed her face, but as she looked at the forlorn reflection in the glass her tears threatened to break out again.
“If only she is good enough for him,” she murmured as she rubbed her pale cheeks in a vain attempt to bring back her colour, “if only she will make him happy, I do not mind; it does not matter about me.”
Chapter VIII
“You are fond of music, Miss Hilda?” Garth Davenant had been standing by the piano turning the leaves of her music while Mavis tried over a new song. He crossed now to Hilda, who, with Sir Arthur in close attendance, was listening with an absorbed face.
“I love it,” she said, with an abstracted air. “I cannot help thinking—I seem to have heard that song before.”
“Well, it is not exactly new,” Mavis said with a light laugh. “I dare say you will hear it a good many times yet, for I don’t learn anything very easily.”
“Do you play or sing yourself, Miss Hilda?” Garth asked, watching the girl’s changing face.
“I—I don’t know.” She hesitated and looked round appealingly. “I—I can’t remember.”
“Try!” he said, going over to her and silencing Arthur s objection with a glance. “Come, I am sure by your face that you do!”
The girl rose and stood for a moment, her hands pressed to her head, then she crossed the room slowly. As she sat down to the piano her expression altered.
“Oh!” she exclaimed delightedly. “I—I think—I believe—I remember!”
Davenant placed a symphony of Beethoven’s on the stand and took his place beside her, watching her face critically.
For a moment the white fingers strayed over the keys in a vague uncertain fashion; then they altered, settled on the right notes, and the opening chords rang out. It was evident from the beginning to all in the room that they were listening to a real musician, one, too, whose touch and technique showed that she must have received a careful training.
“Capital! Thank you very much!” Davenant said as she finished and rose from her seat with flushed cheeks.
“That was quite right, was it not?” she asked with childish delight. “It is a step in the right direction, I believe. Fancy, until to-day I have not known that I could do anything! The rest—ah, surely the rest will come soon, will it not, Mr. Davenant?”
Sir Arthur had joined the group at the piano.
“Are you so tired of us then?” Davenant heard him whisper under cover of rearranging the music; he caught too the upward look with which she rewarded the speech, and his face darkened.
But Hilda had appealed to him.
“Oh, yes. I feel quite sure that your memory will be as good as ever in a very short time,” he said as he looked across the room. “Mavis, do you remember you promised to be kind to me this morning? I want you to walk as for as the village with me. Will you?”
Mavis hesitated a moment, but a glance at his anxious face decided her. She caught up the coat and hat she had thrown down a few minutes before and put them on.
“Don’t say that I keep you waiting. You will not mind if I take the dogs—they are waiting for me in the hall.”
Outside the air was fresh, in spite of the heat; rain had fallen heavily during the preceding night, and the storm had served to clear the air; the dogs gamboled round joyfully.
Mavis lifted up her face appreciatively and drew a deep breath.
“How charming everything smells! We will go by the Home Coppice and across the footpath that brings us out near the Wishing Well. It is the nearest way, and it will be delightfully cool this morning. What do you think of Hilda, Garth?”
“She is very beautiful.”
Mavis laughed as, screened from the house by the trees, she tucked her arm under his.
“Certainly, anyone can see that, stupid boy! I mean, how do you like her? Is she not perfectly delightful?”
Garth hesitated; he looked away from the gay, piquant face of the girl at his side into the green, leafy depths of the Home Coppice.
Mavis gave his arm a little shake.
“If СКАЧАТЬ