Hetty Dorval Read Online Free PDF Page A

do not propose to spend my time paying attention to all kinds of people. You know perfectly well that I can’t have people running in, and you must stop it.” (It might have been Mrs. Broom’s fault.) “All I ask of anybody is to be left alone and not be interfered with. I’m sure I always leave people quite alone and interfere with nobody.”
    “You!”
said Mrs. Broom with a peculiar intonation. And she gave a short little laugh that sounded to me like “Ha!” as she went out with the tea things.
    Mrs. Dorval was quite serene now that she had handed Mr. Thompson and the population of Lytton over to Mrs. Broom. She took off her hat and tossed it on to the couch. Then she went to the piano and began to play. I sat still and bolt upright.
    She turned to me. “Do you like singing?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she began to sing.
    “Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine …”
    This old song was new to me, but the simple repeated phrases within their small compass of notes made the tune familiar before it died away.
    “Oh …” I began, but she went on as if I were not there.
    “There is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleas’d my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.”
    (“Why, that’s Mrs. Dorval her very own self!” I thought, bedazzled.) And then she sang some comical-sounding French songs. They made me laugh, though I couldn’t understand them. She had a sweet, true voice, and strong, although for the most part she sang softly. You could see that she loved singing. As for me, a country child, I had come under a very fancy kind of spell, near to infatuation.
    She stopped. I felt suddenly that I had stayed too long, and said so. She came with me to the door and told me to be sure to come and have tea with her again, and of course I said “Yes” ardently. I was very happy because she seemed to like me.
    “But,” she said slowly, “perhaps you’d better not tell other people that you’ve been. If they know that you come they’ll all come – calls, calls, calls, and I don’t want them, I can’t bear it – no, don’t say a word to anyone, will you, Frankie? Promise! Save, me, won’t you?”
    Whatever she had asked me, then, I would have agreed to do, and this seemed a small thing to promise, so I did. Butit passed through my mind that it would be a funny thing if I came to this house and my mother couldn’t come, that is, even if she wanted to. But I was only twelve, and was under a novel spell of beauty and singing and the excitement of a charm that was new, and I went away almost in a trance. As I mounted Maxey I caught sight of Mouse standing in the doorway a step above Mrs. Dorval, who gave a wave of farewell.
    “Keeping your hand in, I see, Hester,” said Mouse disagreeably and quite loudly.
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Mouse,” said Mrs. Dorval, and went inside.
    As I rode down the hill I tried to collect my impressions. Through all the surprise and delight ran a mean little disturbing thought. I was to tell no one of my visit. Not Mother and Father?
    I did not tell Ernestine or anyone in Lytton, and nearly a week had passed before I was at the ranch again and by that time I had become used to the idea of not telling.

FOUR
    F ollowing my first visit to Hester Dorval I had an existence that was not natural for a child. While I lived my life in the accustomed routine of school and of visits home to the ranch each week, I, who had never had secrets, was possessed by two desires which were secret. One was not to disclose by any slip of speech my acquaintance with Mrs. Dorval lest I should embarrass or disturb her, and the other desire was that I should in some way see her again and could accept the invitation to come and have tea with her. Everything turned on these things. But I lived in a glass goldfish bowl where the behaviour of each fish was visible to all the other fishes, and also to grown-up people