Esther and Dick
Not long after the others had driven away Esther found that it was quite
impossible for her to take a nap as she had planned. She seemed to be
growing more restless and fatigued with every moment spent upon the bed.
Besides, had she not been indoors far too much recently, when they would
so soon be going back to the city where only a comparatively small
amount of outdoor life would be possible?
Esther did not stop to dress with any care; she merely fixed her hair
and slipped a long brown coat over her dress, tying a light scarf about
her hair. And because both Mrs. Ashton and Dick had insisted that no one
of the three girls go any distance from home alone after Betty's
misfortune, she wandered about idly in their small enclosed garden for a
few moments and then sat down in Betty's empty steamer chair under
their single tall linden tree. The light gusts of the October wind sent
down little showers of curled-up yellow leaves and shriveled flowers
upon her head and shoulders, until Esther, glancing up at them, smiled.
When she dropped her eyes again she saw that Dick Ashton was on his way
toward her along the short path from the gate. And he held a bundle of
letters in his hand which he had stopped by the village post-office to
secure. Two of them he dropped into Esther's lap and then sat down on
the ground near her, sighing quite unconsciously.
"Are you all by yourself?" he inquired.
Esther nodded. "Yes, I did not feel like being polite to any one this
afternoon. Betty told me to ask you to walk over and join them if you
are not too tired."
"I am not too tired, yet I have not the remotest idea of going," Dick
returned quietly. "Though I declare to you, Esther, that it seems to me
if Betty really does care for this German fellow, it will be about the
last straw."
Always if you had asked Esther Crippen's friends what they considered
the dominant trait of her character the answer would have been
"sympathy." So now, observing Richard Ashton's anxiety and depression,
she almost entirely forgot her own.
"The last straw, Dr. Ashton?" she repeated. And then smiling and yet
wholly gentle she asked, "Why do you say 'the last straw' in such a
desperate fashion? Surely things are not going so wrong with you! If you
feel so dreadfully unhappy over leaving Betty and your mother behind,
why you know I don't wish to be selfish. Take them with you; I shall
manage somehow."
Leaning over, Dick Ashton touched Esther's hand lightly with his lips in
such a friendly, kindly fashion that the girl did not flush or draw it
away.
"Who says that I am so desperate over leaving mother and the Princess to
take care of our future great American prima donna?" he asked
half-joking and half-serious.
The girl's brows drew together in her effort to understand and
appreciate her friend's real meaning. "Why, I don't see what else there
can be to make you unhappy," she replied thoughtfully. "You are going
back to your own country, which you know you have learned to care more
for with each year that you have spent away from it. And you are going
to commence the practice of the profession you have always loved since
you were a child. But of course if there is anything else that is
worrying you which I have not the right to know, I don't want you to
think that I am trying to make you confide in me. I can sympathize with
you without understanding."
"Then you have a very rare and wonderful gift, Esther," Dick Ashton
replied. "But please read your letters and don't consider me."
Slowly the girl read a letter from her father, which besides its
interest in her work was so full of bits of Woodford interest and gossip
that she felt herself growing sharply homesick. Then, tucking this
letter inside her dress, to re-read to her sister later, Esther slowly
opened the one from her music master in Berlin. It was just what she had
expected. Professor Hecksher felt that she might have a future in grand
opera, only she was far too young and too untrained to attempt it for
several years. So she must stay on in Germany, working unceasingly with
him until they could both understand more thoroughly her capabilities.
Esther let this single sheet of paper slip out of her hand to the
ground, where Dick picked it up, returning it to her. But not before he
had recognized the master's handwriting and letter head.
"It is all right, isn't it?" he queried, surprised at the girl's
expression.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so," she replied, not looking at him but at a far
stretch of country with her eyes and of years with her mind. "Only I
expect I am what both Betty and Polly think me, an ungrateful and
unreasonable person with no ambition and no imagination."
Dick was silent for a moment and then answered, "No, Esther, I do not
believe you appreciate what a great gift you have; you are too modest
and care too little for the applause most of the people in the world are
willing to sacrifice everything for."
Richard Ashton turned his serious dark eyes upward toward the tall, pale
girl sitting in the chair near him. "Esther," he said, "I want to tell
you, to make you believe what a great gift you have. I love you, and
more than anything on earth I want you to be my wife. The other day when
Anthony Graham came with the news from Woodford that Betty had inherited
a small fortune I was happier than I can ever tell you. And it was not
for Betty's sake or even mother's; it was a selfish happiness. For then
I believed that both you and I were released from our first duty to them
and that I had the right to tell you that I cared for you and meant to
try and make you love me. Then came the night of your concert, when I
heard you sing. And since then, Esther, I have realized that I have no
right to ask you to give up the career that is before you and to ask you
to share my uncertain future. For with my work I could not follow yours
and my profession is the one thing I have learned. I had not meant to
tell you this, but, after all, Esther, I don't know why I should not. A
girl can never be hurt by knowing that a man loves her."
And for the second time Dick kissed Esther's hand and then turned his
face away.
The next moment the girl had risen from her chair. "Dr. Ashton, will you
take a walk with me?" she asked. "I am tired sitting here."
Then, without referring to what had just been said between them, the
girl and man walked along, talking quietly of other things until they
came to the stream of water sheltered by trees, with a rim of hills
along the other side. Away from the possibility of being interrupted
Esther stopped, putting her hand on her companion's arm.
She did not look like her usual self; her face was flooded with color
and her shyness and reserve for the moment seemed swept away.
"You were not fair to me just now," she declared. "You had not the right
to tell me you cared for me without asking me what my feeling was for
you. Why does everybody in the world think that because I have a talent
I have to sacrifice my whole life to it? I love my music, but I don't
wish to be an opera singer. I hate the kind of existence it forces one
to lead. I want a home of my own and some one to care for me. Why do
people nowadays think that girls are so changed, that all of us are
wishing to be independent and famous? Why, it was because our old Camp
Fire club taught us that all the best things of life are centered about
the hearth fire that means home, that I first cared for it so much. I
wonder if any one realizes because I was brought up in an orphan asylum
and then lived with other people that I have never had a home of my own
in my life. But of course this would not count, Dick, if I did not care
for you more than I do for my music, or even for Betty. Tell me, then,
is it my duty to go on with my work in Berlin, to give up everything I
wish for a career I don't desire?" And here, overcome by the rush of her
own feelings and her own words, Esther ceased speaking, feeling her old
stupid, nervous trembling seize her.
But Richard Ashton's arms were about her, holding her still.
"The most perfect home that my love can make for you, Esther, shall be
yours so long as we live. And there are other ways where the gift of a
beautiful voice may bring pleasure and reward outside of the life you
dread."