The Black Opal - Katharine Susannah Prichard (open ebook .TXT) 📗

a preliminary flourish; Mrs. Newton threw a bunch of chords after him, and they cantered into a waltz time the Ridge loved. Roy O’Mara, M.C. for the occasion, shouted jubilantly: “Take y’r partners for a waltz!” Couples edged out from the wall, and in a moment were swirling and whirling up and down on the bared space of the hall. There were squeals and little screams as feet slipped and skidded on the polished floor; but people soon found their dancing feet, got under way of the music, and swung to its rhythms with more ease, security, and pleasure. Sophie watched the dance for a while. She saw Martha dancing with Michael. Every year at the Ridge ball Michael danced the first dance with Martha. And Martha, dancing with Michael⁠—no one on the Ridge was happier, though they moved so solemnly, turning round and round with neat little steps, as if they were pledged to turn in the space of a threepenny piece!

Sophie smiled at Martha’s happy seriousness. Arthur Henty was dancing with his wife. Sophie had not seen him so clearly since her return to the Ridge. When she had passed him in the township, or at Newton’s, he had been riding, and she had scarcely seen his face for the beard which had overgrown it and the shadow his hat cast. She studied him with unmoved curiosity. His beard had been clipped close, and she recognised the moulding of his head, the slope of his shoulders, a peculiar loose litheness in his gait. Her eyes followed him as he danced with his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henty were waltzing in the perfunctory, mechanical fashion of people thoroughly bored with each other.

Then Sophie swung with Potch into the eddying current of the dancers. Potch danced in as steady and methodical a fashion as he did everything. The music did not get him; at least, Sophie could not believe it did.

His eyes were deep and shining as though it were a great and holy ceremony he were engaged in, but there was no melting to the delight of rhythmic movement in his sober gyrations. Sophie felt him a clog on the flow of her own action as he steered and steadily directed her through the crowd.

“For goodness’ sake, Potch, dance as if you meant it,” she said.

“But I do mean it, Sophie,” he said.

As he looked down at her, his flushed, happy face assured her that he did mean dancing, but he meant it as he meant everything⁠—with a dead earnestness.

After that dance all her old friends among men of the Ridge came round Sophie to ask her to dance with them. Bully and Roy sparred for dances as they did in the old days, and Michael and George and Watty threatened to knock their heads together and throw them out of the room if they didn’t get out of the way and give some other chaps a chance to dance with Sophie. Between the dances, Sophie went over to talk to Maggie Grant, Mrs. Watty, Mrs. George Woods, and Martha. She had time to tell Martha how nice her dress and the pink stockings looked, and how the opals in her bracelet flashed as she was dancing.

“You can see them from one end of the hall to the other,” Sophie whispered.

“And you, lovey,” Martha said. “It’s just lovely, the dress. You should have seen how they stared at you when you came in.⁠ ⁠… And Potch looking so nice, too. He wouldn’t call the King his uncle tonight, Sophie!”

Sophie laughed happily as she went off to dance with Bully, who was claiming her for a polka mazurka.

The evening was half through when John Armitage appeared in the doorway. Sophie had just come from dancing the quadrilles with Potch when she saw Armitage standing in the doorway with Peter Newton. Potch saw him as Sophie did; their eyes met. Michael came towards them.

“Mr. Armitage did come, I see,” Sophie said quietly, as Potch and Michael were looking towards the door. “I had a letter from him a few weeks ago saying he thought he would be here for the ball,” she added.

“Why has he come?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “To see me, I suppose⁠ ⁠… and to find out whether the men will do business with him again.”

Michael’s gesture implied it was useless to talk of that.

Sophie continued: “But you know what I said, Michael. I can’t be happy until it has been arranged. I owe it to him to put things right with the men here.⁠ ⁠… You must do that for me, Michael. They know I’m going to marry Potch⁠ ⁠… and if they see there’s no ill feeling between John Armitage and me, they’ll believe I was more to blame than he was⁠—if it’s a question of blame.⁠ ⁠… I want you and Potch to stand by me in this, Michael.”

Potch’s eyes turned to her. She read their assurance, deep, still, and sure. But Michael showed no relenting.

Armitage left his place by the door and came towards them. All eyes in the room were on him. A whisper of surprise and something like fear had circled. He was as aware of it, and of the situation his coming had created, as anyone in the hall; but he appeared unconscious and indifferent, and as if there were no particular significance to attach to his being at the ball and crossing to speak to Sophie.

She met him with the same indifference and smiling detachment. They had met so often before people like this, that it was not much more for them than playing a game they had learned to play rather well.

Sophie said: “It is you really?”

He took the hand she held to him. “But you knew I was coming? You had my letter?”

“Of course⁠ ⁠… but⁠—”

“And my word is my bond.”

The cynical, whimsical inflection of John Armitage’s voice, and the perfectly easy and friendly terms Sophie and he were on, surprised people who were near them.

Michael was incensed by it; but Potch, standing beside Sophie, regarded