THE MOUNTAIN CREST
That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after
the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the
gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the
sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in
purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a
picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic
chariot through wonderland.
She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child
chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the
faster. She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and
occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was
Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,--Scott,
unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister's
face.
She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which
Dinah called her attention. Her eyes had the intense look of one who
watches perpetually for something just out of sight.
Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which
was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a
contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her. Presently Dinah came
out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance. She watched him
covertly for a time while she still chatted on. And she noted that there
were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of
sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a
longing to help.
The road was one of wild beauty. It wound up a desolate mountain pass
along which great black boulders were scattered haphazard like the mighty
toys of a giant. The glittering snow lay all around them, making their
nakedness the more apparent. And far, far above, the white crags shone
with a dazzling purity in the sunlit air.
Below them the snow lay untrodden, exquisitely pure, piled here in great
drifts, falling away there in wonderful curves and hollows, but always
showing a surface perfect and undesecrated by any human touch. And ever
the sleigh ran smoothly on over the white road till it seemed to Dinah as
if they moved in a dream. She fell silent, charmed by the swift motion,
and by the splendour around her.
"You are quite warm, I hope?" Scott said, after an interval.
She was wrapped in a fur cloak belonging to Isabel. She smiled an
affirmative, but she saw him as through a veil. The mystery and the
wonder of creation filled her soul.
"I feel," she said, "I feel as if we were being taken up into heaven."
"Oh, that we were!" said Isabel, speaking suddenly with a force that had
in it something terrible. "Do you see those golden peaks, sweetheart?
That is where I would be. That is where the gates of Heaven open--where
the lost are found."
Dinah's hand was clasped in hers under the fur rug, and she felt the thin
fingers close with a convulsive hold.
Scott leaned forward. "Heaven is nearer to us than that, Isabel," he said
gently.
She looked at him for a moment, but her eyes at once passed beyond. "No,
no, Stumpy! You never understand," she said restlessly. "I must reach the
mountain-tops or die. I am tired--I am tired of my prison. And I stifle
in the valley--I who have watched the sun rise and set from the very edge
of the world. Why did they take me away? If I had only waited a little
longer--a little longer--as he told me to wait!" Her voice suddenly
vibrated with a craving that was passionate. "He would have come with the
next sunrise. I always knew that the dawn would bring him back to me.
But"--dull despair took the place of longing--"they took me away, and the
sun has never shone since."
"Isabel!" Scott's voice was very grave and quiet. "Miss Bathurst will
wonder what you mean. Don't forget her!"
Dinah pressed close to her friend's side. "Oh, but I do understand!" she
said softly. "And, dear Mrs. Everard, I wish I could help you. But I
think Mr. Studley must be right. It is easier to get to heaven than to
climb those mountain-peaks. They are so very steep and far away."
"So is Heaven, child," said Isabel, with a sigh of great weariness.
As it were with reluctance, she again met the steady gaze of Scott's
eyes, and gradually her mood seemed to change. Her brief animation
dropped away from her; she became again passive, inert, save that she
still seemed to be watching.
Scott broke the silence, kindly and practically. "We ought to reach the
_châlet_ at the head of the pass soon," he said. "You will be glad of
some tea."
"Oh, are we going to stop for tea?" said Dinah.
"That's the idea," said Scott. "And then back by another way. We ought to
get a good view of the sunset. I hope it won't be misty, but they say a
change is coming."
"I hope it won't come yet," said Dinah fervently. "The last few days have
been so perfect. And there is so little time left."
Scott smiled. "That is the worst of perfection," he said. "It never
lasts."
Dinah's eyes were wistful. "It will go on being perfect here long after
we have left," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to think of all the good
things--all the beauty--one misses just because one isn't there?"
"It would be if there were nothing else to think of," said Scott. "But
there is beauty everywhere--if we know how to look for it."
She looked at him uncertainly. "I never knew what it meant before I came
here," she told him shyly. "There is no time for beautiful things in my
life. It's very, very drab and ugly. And I am very discontented. I have
never been anything else."
Her voice quivered a little as she made the confession. Scott's eyes were
so kind, so full of friendly understanding. Isabel had dropped out of
their intercourse as completely as though her presence had been
withdrawn. She lay back against her cushions, but her eyes were still
watching, watching incessantly.
"I think the very dullest life can be made beautiful," Scott said, after
a moment. "Even the desert sand is gold when the sun shines on it. The
trouble is,--" he laughed a little--"to get the sun to shine."
Dinah leaned forward eagerly, confidentially. "Yes?" she questioned.
He looked her suddenly straight in the eyes. "There is a great store of
sunshine in you," he said. "One can't come near you without feeling it.
Isabel will tell you the same. Do you keep it only for the Alps? If
so,--" he paused.
Dinah's face flushed suddenly under his look. "If so?" she asked, under
her breath.
He smiled. "Well, it seems a pity, that's all," he said. "Rather a waste
too when you come to think of it."
Dinah's eyes caught the reflection of his smile. "I shall remember that,
Mr. Greatheart," she said.
"Forgive me for preaching!" said Scott.
She put out a hand to him quickly, spontaneously. "You don't preach--and
it does me good," she said somewhat incoherently. "Please--always--say
what you like to me!"
"At risk of hurting you?" said Scott. He held the small, impulsive hand a
moment and let it go.
"You could never hurt me," Dinah answered. "You are far too kind."
"I think the kindness is on your side," he answered gravely. "Most people
of my acquaintance would think me a bore--if nothing worse."
"Most people have never really met you, Stumpy," said Isabel
unexpectedly. "Dinah is one of the privileged few, and I am glad she
appreciates it."
"Good heavens!" said Scott, flushing a deep red. "Spare me, Isabel!"
Dinah broke into her gay, infectious laugh. "Please--please don't be
upset about it! I'm glad I'm one of the few. I've felt you were a prince
in disguise all along."
"Very much in disguise!" protested Scott. "Remove that, and there would
be nothing left."
"Except a man," said Isabel, "You can't get away, Stumpy. You're caught."
A fleeting smile crossed her face like a gleam of light and was gone. She
turned her look upon Dinah, and became silent again.
Scott, much disconcerted, hunted in every pocket for his cigarette-case.
"You don't mind my smoking, I hope?" he murmured.
"I like it," said Dinah. "Let me help you light up!"
She made a screen with her hands, and guarded the flame from the draught.
He thanked her courteously, recovering his composure with a smile that
was not without self-ridicule, and in a moment they were talking again
upon impersonal matters. But the episode, slight though it was, dwelt in
Dinah's mind thereafter with an odd persistence. She felt as if Isabel
had given her a flashlight glimpse of something which otherwise she would
scarcely have realized. In that single fleeting moment of revelation she
had seen that which no vision of knight in shining armour could have
surpassed.
They reached the _châlet_ at the top of the pass, and descended for tea.
The windows looked right down the snow-clad valley up which they had
come. The sun had begun to sink, and the greater part of it lay in
shadow.
Far away, rising out of the shadows, all golden amid floating mists, was
a mighty mountain crest, higher than all around. The sun-rays lighted up
its wondrous peaks. The glory of it was unearthly, almost more than the
eye could bear.
Dinah stood on the little wooden verandah of the _châlet_ and gazed and
gazed till the splendour nearly blinded her.
"Still watching the Delectable Mountains?" said Scott's voice at her
shoulder.
She made a little gesture in response. She could not take her eyes off
the wonder.
He came and stood beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his
cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which
presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned
herself from the great vision that so drew her.
He was leaning against a post of the verandah, and she read again in his
attitude the weariness that she had marked earlier in the afternoon.
"Are you--troubled about your sister?" she asked him diffidently.
He threw away the end of his cigarette and straightened himself. "Yes, I
am troubled," he said, in a low voice. "I am afraid it was a mistake to
bring her here."
"I thought her looking better this morning," Dinah ventured.
His grey eyes met hers. "Did you? I thought it a good sign that she
should make the effort to speak to strangers. But I am not certain now
that it has done her any good. We brought her here to wake her from her
lethargy. Eustace thought the air would work wonders, but--I am not sure.
It is certainly waking her up. But--to what?"
His eyelids drooped heavily, and he passed his hand across his forehead
with a gesture that went to her heart.
"It's rather soon to judge, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes," he admitted. "But there is a change in her; there is an
undoubted change. She gets hardly any rest, and the usual draught at
night scarcely takes effect. Of course the place is noisy. That may have
something to do with it. My brother is very anxious to put a stop to the
sleeping-draught altogether. But I can't agree to that. She has never
slept naturally since her loss--never slept and never wept. Biddy--the
old nurse--declares if she could only cry, all would come right. But I
don't know--I don't know."
He uttered a deep sigh, and leaned once more upon the balustrade.
Dinah came close to him, her sweet face full of concern. "Mr. Studley,"
she murmured, "you--you don't think I do her any harm, do you?"
"You!" He gave a start and looked at her with that in his eyes that
reassured her in a moment. "My dear child, no! You are a perfect godsend
to her--and to me also, if you don't mind my saying so. No--no! The
mischief that I fear will probably develop after you have gone. As long
as you are here, I am not afraid for her. Yours is just the sort of
influence that she needs."
"Oh, thank you!" Dinah said gratefully. "I was afraid just for a moment,
because I know I have been silly and flighty. I try to be sober when I am
with her, but--"
"Don't try to be anything but yourself, Miss Bathurst!" he said. "I have
confided in you just because you are yourself; and I wouldn't have you
any different for the world. You help her just by being yourself."
Dinah laughed while she shook her head. "I wish I were as nice as you
seem to think I am."
He laughed also. "Perhaps you have never realized how nice you really
are," he returned with a simplicity equal to her own. "Ah! Here comes
Isabel! I expect she is ready. We had better go in."
They met her as they turned inwards. The reflection of the sunset glory
was in her face recalling some of its faded beauty. She took Dinah's arm,
looking at her with a strangely wistful smile.
"I want you now, sweetheart," she said. "Scott can have his
turn--afterwards."
"I want you too," said Dinah instantly, squeezing her hand very closely.
"Come and look at the mountains! They are so glorious now that the sun is
setting."
They turned back for a few moments and Isabel's eyes went to that far and
wonderful mountain crest. The gold was turning to rose. The glory
deepened even as they watched.
"The peaks of Paradise," breathed Dinah softly.
Isabel was silent for a space, her eyes fixed and yearning. Then at
length in a low voice that thrilled with an emotion beyond words she
spoke.
"I know now where to look. That is where he is waiting for me. That is
where I shall find him."
And then swiftly she turned, aware of her brother close behind her.
He looked at her with eyes of deep compassion. "Some day, Isabel!" he
said gently.
She made a swift gesture as of one who brushes aside every hindrance.
"Soon!" she said. "Very soon!"
Scott's eyes met Dinah's for a single instant, and she thought they held
suffering as well as weariness. But they fell immediately. He stood back
in silence for them to pass.