Salome

MAPLESTONE COURT was a pretty, spacious, and comfortable English home. The house was built of old red brick, which took a deep, rich colour in the rays of the western sun as it shone upon the wide porch and the many windows. Before the house there was a wide expanse of emerald turf, skirted by stately trees; and this lawn was not cut up into flower-beds, but rolled and shaven close, so that the dark shadows of the trees lay upon it in unbroken masses morning and evening.

To the right of the house the ground sloped gently down to what was called by courtesy a river, though it was but a little rippling stream, which had taken many curves and windings, and just below Maplestone had made for itself a deep basin, called by the same courtesy a lake.

Lake or pond, mere or tarn, this was a delightful refuge in sultry noon-tide. Here the water-lilies rocked themselves to sleep; here the plumy ferns hung over the crystal depths; and here the children of Maplestone Court brought their small craft of every shape and size to sail across from one side to the other of the lake, often to make shipwreck amongst the reeds and lilies, sometimes to sink in the clear water!

A rude wooden bridge crossed the stream just above the lake; and several seats, made of twisted boughs and ornamented with the large cones of the firs which shut in Maplestone at the back, were to be found here and there on the banks.

On one of these seats, on a hot August day, Salome was half-sitting, half-lying, looking dreamily down upon the water. Her wide straw hat was lying at her feet, a book with the leaves much crumpled was in the crown. One little foot hung down from the bench; the other was curled up under her in a fashion known and abhorred by all governesses and those who think the figure of a girl of fifteen is of greater importance than careless ease of position like Salome's at this moment.

The rounded cheek, which was pillowed by the little hand as Salome's head rested against the rough arm of the seat, was not rosy. It was pale, and all the colour about her was concentrated in the mass of tawny hair which was hanging over her shoulders, and varied in its hue from every shade of reddish brown to streaks of lighter gold colour.

It was wonderful hair, people said; and that was, perhaps, all that any one ever did see at all out of the common in Salome.

Quiet and thoughtful, liking retirement better than society, she often escaped out of the school-room to this favourite place, and dreamed her day-dreams to her heart's content.

Salome was the elder of two sisters, and she had one brother older than herself and three younger. Sorrow or change had as yet never come near Maplestone. The days went on in that serene happiness of which we are none of us conscious till it is over. When we hear the rustle of the angels' wings, then we know they are leaving us for ever, and when with us we had not discerned their presence.

Salome roused herself at last, picked up her hat and book, and uncurling herself from her position, stood up and listened. "Carriage wheels in the drive," she said to herself. "I suppose it is nearly luncheon time. I hope no stupid people are coming; that's all. I hate – "

Salome's meditations were broken off here; for a boy of thirteen or fourteen came clattering over the wooden bridge and took a flying leap down into the hollow, and exclaimed, "The bell will ring directly. Make haste, Sal; you are all in a tangle as usual. And won't Miss Barnes be angry? There is the book she has been hunting all over the place for; and the cover is in rags and tatters, and no mistake!"

Salome looked ruefully at the book, a French story by Madame Pressensé which has delighted many children in its day and generation.

"'L'Institutrice' does not belong to Miss Barnes," Salome said; "it is Ada's. Why should she be in such a fuss? and Ada won't mind."

"Well, come on," Reginald said; "and don't put out every one by being late."

"Who is come?" Salome asked, as the brother and sister walked towards the house together. "Who came in the carriage just now?"

"It was only father. Mr. Stone brought him back from Fairchester in his brougham."

"Father!" Salome exclaimed. "How very odd! And why did Mr. Stone drive him home?"

The sound of the bell stopped any reply from Reginald; and Salome, being obliged to go up to her room to give her hair a superficial combing, and her hands a hasty dip in water, entered the dining-room just as the whole party were assembled.

Mrs. Wilton always lunched with the children at one o'clock, but to-day her place at the head of the table was taken by Miss Barnes.

"Where is mother?" was Salome's instant inquiry.

"You are very late, as usual, Salome," was Miss Barnes's rejoinder; it could not be called a reply.

"I asked where mother was. Do you know, Ada?"

Ada, a pretty, fair girl of fifteen, fresh as a rose, trim as a daisy, without an imperfection of any kind in her looks or in her dress, said, "Father wanted her, I believe;" while Salome, half satisfied, turned to her eldest brother Raymond.