Dark Hester by Anne Douglas Sedgwick — Read

Monica saw Captain Ingpen once again before the summer was over. He came down seldom, it seemed, leaving most of the ordering of his new home to Norah's efficient hands, but on going one afternoon to have a practice with Celia she found him at the cottage, seated in the window behind Norah and the tea-table, stretching out one hand to stir the cup of tea that stood on the window-sill beside him and turning the pages of a book with the other. He was an inconsiderate person; she had said that of him, on sufficient evidence, she thought, and his desultory manner as he sat there now, reading his book and drinking his tea, reinforced the opinion. He was not surly or discourteous in his withdrawal; but he was certainly not assiduous, and it vexed Monica a little to see that he treated her dear Celia with as little ceremony as he did his niece. As she greeted them all she felt that her smile, though including, passed him over intentionally, and hoped that he would feel the edge of its aloofness. He remained standing, dark against the window, for a moment after she had taken her place, his head bent forward, as though the ceiling were too low for him, and she saw that he was looking across at her as he had looked the first time they had met; and recalling her impression then, a slight feeling of discomfort grew in her as she became aware that even after resuming his seat he continued to look at her and not at his book. Perhaps he did not know, sitting against the light as he was, that she observed this, but she suspected suddenly, as his silence and his scrutiny persisted, that he did know, and perhaps expected acquiescence on her part. Again old memories were revived in her, of pursuing suitors. She remembered even, while she chattered on to Celia and Norah, all unaware, the man in India, Charlie's friend and brother-officer, who had dared one day to make mad love to her in his absence. She remembered her rage and his folly of despair, and as she sat there before Captain Ingpen a little flame of angry colour rose up to her cheek, anger with herself that this stranger should have the power of awakening such memories in her. He sat crouched a little forward, a finger between the pages of his book, raising his cup to his lips now and then, and reaching it out once over Norah's shoulder, to ask in the coolest tone for a fresh one, and, as the flame of the old memory sank, Monica was able to ask herself, whether it was that he admired her and was willing that she should know it, or whether it was that he was sorry for her. The one was almost as absurd and incensing as the other, yet, as she talked and laughed, making Celia and Norah laugh with her, she grew more and more aware of her unhappiness. It was as if something passed between her and the silent stranger; as if she could not keep something from him. He heard, as well as she, that her laughter rang false; he as well as she knew that grief burned in her heart. There was a complicity of consciousness between them, for he, too, was unhappy and he, too, knew that she knew it.

She would have liked to escape, to evade the practice, when tea was over, but Celia had brought out her violin and when Norah said: ‘I must be about my work; -will you stay and listen, Uncle Godfrey? -Do you mind his listening? ' it was settled, with no word said, that he was to stay and she not to mind playing the Brahms sonata to him. He changed his seat as she and Celia took their places. He moved into Celia's vacated corner of the sofa, where it was true that he could listen more comfortably but where, also, he could continue to look at her as she sat in profile to him at the piano. But, when they began to play, she saw that he was no longer looking. He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched out his long legs, and sat, absorbed, brooding, his heart enfranchised and appeased, she knew, as was her own heart, by the splendour and magnanimity of the music. She played her part well. And Celia played well. Captain Ingpen did not look up at them when they had finished. He remained sitting in his corner, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes fixed before him. Only when she was definitely moving towards the door, did he rise to go to open it for her and Celia to pass through, and as she gave him her hand in farewell, she could no longer interpret the cold dark glance that floated, from far away it seemed, to rest as if with a bitter physical pressure upon her. ‘He cares for music, that speechless person,' she said to Celia at the door. And Celia said: ‘It's difficult to be sure of anything he cares for; but I feel that, too. He always sits and listens when I play.'