Fain would I but I dare not; I dare and yet I may not;I may although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.You laugh because you like not; I jest whenas I joy notYou pierce although you strike not; I strike and yet annoy not.—The Shepherd's Description of Love.
Fain would I but I dare not; I dare and yet I may not;I may although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.You laugh because you like not; I jest whenas I joy notYou pierce although you strike not; I strike and yet annoy not.
—The Shepherd's Description of Love.
The Palace clock takes up the echo of the Old Church steeple, the sun-dial is pointing with its hooked nose to the Roman figures on its copper face—eleven o'clock says the Palace clock. People go crossing and re-crossing the distant vistas of Kensington Gardens; the children are fluttering and scampering all over the brown turf, with its autumnal crop of sandwich-papers and orange-peel; governesses and their pupils are walking briskly up and down the flower-walk that skirts Hyde Park. There is a tempting glitter of horsemanship in the distance, and the little girls glance wistfully towards it, but the governesses for the most part keep their young charges to the iron railings and the varied selection of little wooden boards, with Latin names, that are sprouting all along the tangled flower-beds; the gravel paths are shaken over with fallen leaves, old, brown, purple—so they lie twinkling as the sun shines upon them.
One or two people are drinking at the little well among the trees where the children are at play.
'Hoy! hugh! houp!' cries little Betty, jumping high into the air, and setting off, followed by a crew of small fluttering rags. What a crisp noise the dead leaves make as the children wade and splash and tumble through the heaps that the gardeners have swept together. The old place echoes with their jolly little voices. The children come, like the leaves themselves, and disport year after year in the sunshine, and the ducks in the round pond feed upon the crumbs which succeeding generations bring from their tables. There are some of us who still know the ducks of twenty years apart. Where is the gallant grey (goose) that once used to chase unhappy children flying agonized before him? Where is the little duck with the bright sparkling yellow eyes and the orange beak? Quick-witted, eager, unabashed, it used to carry off the spoils of the great grey goose itself, too busy careering upon the green and driving all before it, to notice the disappearance of its crusts, although the foolish floundering white ducks, placidly impatient in the pond, would lift up their canary noses and quack notes of warning. One would still be glad to know where human nature finishes and where ducks begin.
Overhead the sky lies in faint blue vaults crossed by misty autumnal streamers; the rooks sweep cawing and circling among the tree-tops; a bell is going quick and tinkling: it comes from the little chapel of the Palace hard by. The old royal bricks and windows look red and purple in the autumn sunlight, against gold and blue vapours, and with canopies of azure and grey.
All the people are coming and going their different ways this October morning. A slim girl, in black silk, is hurrying along from the wide door leading from the Palace Green. She stops for an instant to look at the shadow on the old sun-dial, and then hurries on again; and as she goes the brazen hour comes striking and sounding from across the house-roofs of the old suburb. A little boy, playing under a tree, throws a chestnut at the girl as she hurries by. It falls to the ground, slipping along the folds of her black silk dress. At the same moment two young men, who have met by chance, are parting at the end of one of the long avenues. The girl, seeing them, stops short and turns back deliberately and walks as far as the old sun-dial before she retraces her steps.
How oddly all our comings and goings, and purposes and cross-purposes combine, fulfil, frustrate each other. It is like a wonderful symphony, of which every note is a human life. The chapel bell had just finished ringing, as Rhoda (for it is Rhoda) turned in through the narrow door leading to the garden, and John Morgan, with Dolly beside him, came quickly across the worn green space in front of the barracks.
'I'm glad I caught you up,' panted good old John, tumbling and flying after Dolly. 'So this is your birthday, and you are coming to church! I promised to take the duty for Mr. Thompson this morning. I have had two funerals on, and I couldn't get home before. We shall just do it. I'm afraid I'm going too quick for you?'
'Not at all,' said Dolly. I always go quick. I was running after Rhoda. She started to go, and then Aunt Sarah sent me after her. Do you know,' Dolly said, 'George, too, has become so very—I don't know what to call it——? He asked me to go to church more often that day he came up.'
'Well,' said John, looking at her kindly, and yet a little troubled, 'for myself, I find there's nothing like it; but then I'm paid for it, you know: it is in my day's work. I hope George is keeping to his?'
'Oh, I hope so,' said Dolly, looking a little wistful.
'H'm,' says John, doubtfully; 'here we are. Go round to the left, where you see those people.' And he darts away and leaves her.
The clock began striking eleven slowly from the archway of the old Palace; some dozen people are assembled together in the little Palace chapel, and begin repeating the responses in measured tones. It is a quiet little place. The world rolls beyond it on its many chariot-wheels to busier haunts, along the great high-roads. As for the flesh and the devil, can they be those who are assembled here? They assemble to the sound of the bell, advancing feebly, for the most part skirting the sunny wall, past the sentry at his post, and along the outer courtyard of the Palace, where the windows are green and red with geranium-pots, where there is a tranquil glimmer of autumnal sunshine and a crowing of cocks. Then the little congregation turns in at a side-door of the Palace, and so through a vestibule, comes into the chapel, of which the bell has been tinkling for some week-day service: it stops short, and the service begins quite suddenly as a door opens in the wall, and a preacher, in a white surplice, comes out and begins in a deep voice almost before the last vibration of the bell has died away. As for the congregation, there is not much to note. There are some bent white heads, there is some placid middle-age, a little youth to brighten to the sunshine. The great square window admits a silenced light; there are high old-fashioned pews on either side of the place, and opposite the communion-table, high up over the heads of the congregation, a great square-curtained pew, with the royal arms and a curtained gallery. It was like Dugald Dalgetty's hiding-place, one member of the congregation thought. She used to wonder if he was not concealed behind the heavy curtains. This reader of theLegend of Montroseis standing alone in a big pew, with one elbow on the cushioned ledge, and her head resting on her hand. She has a soft brown scroll of hair, with a gleam of sunlight in it. She has soft oval cheeks that flush up easily, grey eyes, and black knotted eyebrows, and a curious soft mouth, close fixed now, but it trembles at a word or a breath. She had come to meet her friend. But Rhoda, who is not very far off, goes flitting down the broad walk leading to the great summer-house. It used to stand there until a year or two ago, when the present generation carried it bodily away—a melancholy, stately, grandiose old pile, filling one with no little respect for the people who raised so stately a mausoleum to rest in for a moment. There was some one who had been resting there many moments on this particular morning: a sturdy young man, leaning back against the wall and smoking a cigar. He jumped up eagerly when he saw the girl at last, and, flinging his cigar away, came forward to meet her as she hurried from under the shade of the trees in which she had been keeping.
'At last, you unpunctual girl,' he cried, meeting her and pulling her hand through his arm. 'Do you know how many cigars I have smoked while you have been keeping me waiting?'
She did not answer, but looked up at him with a long slow look.
'Dear George, I couldn't get away before; and when I came just now there was some one talking to you. Your aunt came, and Dolly, and they stayed, oh, such a time. I was so cross, and I kept thinking of my poor George waiting for me here.'
She could see George smiling and mollified as she spoke, and went on more gaily.
'At last, I slipped away; but I am afraid Dolly must have thought it so strange.'
'Dolly!' said George Vanborough, impatiently (for, of course, it was George, who had come up to town again with another return-ticket); 'she had better take care and not keep you from me again. Come and sit down,' said he. 'I have a thousand things to say to you....'
'Oh George! it must only be for a moment,' said Rhoda hesitating; 'if anybody were to——'
'Nonsense!' cried George, already agitated by the meeting, and exasperated by his long waiting; 'you are always thinking of what people will say; you have no feeling for a poor wretch who has been counting the minutes till he could see you again—who is going to the devil without you. Rhoda! I cannot stand this much longer—this waiting and starving on the crumbs that you vouchsafe to scatter from your table. What the deuce does it matter if theydon'tapprove? Why won't you marry me this minute, and have done with it? There goes a parson with an umbrella. Shall I run after him and get him to splice us off-hand?'
Rhoda looked seriously alarmed. 'George, don't talk like this,' she said, putting her slim hand on his. 'You would never speak to me again if I consented to anything so dishonourable; Lady Sarah would never give you her living; she would never forg——'
'My aunt be hanged!' cried George, more and more excited. 'If she were ever so angry she could not divide us if we were married. I am not at all sure that I shall take her living. I only want to earn enough bread and butter for you, Rhoda.Now, I believe she might starve you into surrender. Rhoda, take me or leave me, but don't let us go on like this. A woman's idea of honour, I confess, passes my comprehension,' said he, somewhat bitterly.
'Can't you understand my not wanting to deceive them all?' Rhoda said.
'Deceive them all?' said George. 'What are we doing now? I don't like it. I don't understand it. I am ashamed to look Dolly in the face when she talks to me about you. Rhoda, be a reasonable, good, kind little Rhoda.' And the young fellow wrung the little hand he held in his, and thumped the two hands both down together upon the seat.
He hurt her, but the girl did not wince. She again raised her dark eyes and looked fixedly into his face. When she looked like that she knew very well that George, for one—poor tamed monster that he was—could never defy her.
'Dearest George, you know that if I could, I would marry you this moment,' she said. 'But how can I ruin your whole future:—you, who are so sensitive and ill able to bear things? How could we tell Lady Sarah just now, when—when you have been so incautious and unfortunate——?'
'When I owe three hundred pounds!' cried George, at the pitch of his voice: 'and I must get it from my aunt one way or another—that is the plain English, Rhoda. Don't be afraid; nothing you say will hurt my feelings. If only,' he added, in a sweet changing voice—'if only you love me a little, and will help a poor prodigal out of the mire——But no: you virtuous people pass on with your high-minded scruples, and leave us to our deserts,' he cried, with a sudden change of manner; and he started up and began walking up and down hastily in front of the summer-house.
The girl watched him for an instant—a hasty, stumpy figure going up and down, and up and down again.
'George! George!' faltered Rhoda, frightened—and her tears brimmed over unaffectedly—'haven't you any trust in my love? won't you believe me when I tell you, I—I——youknowI would give my life for you if I could!'
George Vanborough's own blue eyes were twinkling. 'Forgive me, darling,' he said, utterly melting in one instant, and speaking in that sweet voice peculiar to him. It seemed to come from his very heart. He sank down by her again. 'You are an angel—there, Rhoda—a thousand thousand miles away from me, though we are sitting side by side; but when you are unhappy, then I am punished for all my transgressions,' said George, in his gentle voice. 'Now I will tell you what we will do: we will tell Dolly all about it, and she will help us.'
'Oh! not Dolly,' said Rhoda, imploring; 'George! everybody loves her, and she doesn't know what it means to be unhappy and anxious. Let us wait a little longer, George: we are happy now together, are we not? You must pass your examination, and take your degree, and it will be easier to tell them then. Come.'
'Come where?' said George.
'There are so many people here,' said Rhoda, 'you mustn't write to me again to meet you. You had much better come and see me at the house.'
'I will come and see you there, too,' said George. 'I met Raban just now. He will be telling them I am in town; he says my aunt wants to see me on business. Confound him!'
'Was that Mr. Raban?' said Rhoda, opening her eyes. 'Oh! I hope he will not tell them.' She led him across the grass, into a quiet place, deep among the trees, where they were safe enough; for where so many come and go, two figures, sitting on a felled trunk, on the slope of a leafy hollow, are scarcely noticed. The chestnuts fell now and then plash into the leaves and grasses, the breezes stirred the crisp leaves, the brown sunset of autumn glow tinted and swept to gold the changing world: there were still birds and blue overhead, a sea of gold all round them. George was happy. He forgot his debts, his dreams, the deaths and doubts and failures of life—everything except two dark eyes, a soft harmony of voice and look beside him.
'You are like Mendelssohn'sSongs without Words, Rhoda,' said George.
Rhoda didn't answer.
'George, what o'clock is it?' she said.
An' I hallus comed to's choorch afoar moy Sally wur deäd,An' eerd un a bummin' awaäy loike a buzzard clock ower my yeäd,An' I niver knaw'd whot a meän'd, but I thowt a ad summut to saäy,An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaäy.
An' I hallus comed to's choorch afoar moy Sally wur deäd,An' eerd un a bummin' awaäy loike a buzzard clock ower my yeäd,An' I niver knaw'd whot a meän'd, but I thowt a ad summut to saäy,An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaäy.
Meanwhile Dolly, who has been looking for Rhoda in vain, stands alone in the pew, listening to the opening exhortation, and, at the same time, wondering alongside of it, as she used to do when she and Rhoda were little girls at Paris long ago. Her thoughts run somewhat in this fashion:—'Inner life,' thinks Dolly. 'What is inner life? George says he knows. John Morgan makes it all into the day's work and being tired. Aunt Sarah says it is repentance. Robert won't even listen to me when I speak of it. Have I got it? What am I?' Dolly wonders if she is sailing straight off to heaven at that moment in the big cushioned pew, or if the ground will open and swallow it up one day, like the tents of Korah and Abiram. This is what she is at that instant—so she thinks at least: Some whitewashed walls, a light through a big window; John Morgan's voice echoing in an odd melancholy way, and her own two hands lying on the cushion before her. Nothing more: she can go no farther at that minute towards 'the eternal fact upon which man may front the destinies and the immensities.'
So Dolly, at the outset of life, at the beginning of the longest five years of her life, stands in the strangers' great pew in Kensington Palace Chapel—a young Pharisee, perhaps, but an honest one, speculating upon the future, making broad her phylacteries; and with these, strange flashes of self-realisation that came to puzzle her all her life long—standing opposite the great prayer-books, with all the faded golden stamps of lions and unicorns. It was to please her brother George that Dolly had come to church this Saint's Day. What wouldn't she have done to please him? Through all his curious excursions of feeling he expected her always to follow, and Dolly tried to follow as she was expected.
'For our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of life,' the reader ran on. Dolly was ready enough to be grateful for all these mercies, only she thought that out of doors, in the gardens, she would have felt as grateful as she did now; and she again wondered why it was better to tender thanks in a mahogany box with red stuffings, out of a book, instead of out of her heart, in the open air. 'Can this be because I have no inner life?' thought Dolly, with her vacant eyes fixed on the clergyman. A bird's shadow flitted across the sun-gleam on the floor. Dolly looked up and saw the branch of the tree through the great window, and the blue depths shining, dazzling, and dominant. Then the girl pushed her hand across her eyes, and tried to forget other thoughts as she stood reading out of the big brown prayer-book. Dolly's gloves had fallen over the side of the pew, and were lying in the oak-matted passage-place, at the feet of a little country cookmaid from one of the kitchens of the Palace, who alternately stared down at the grey gloves and up at the young lady. The little cook, whose mistress was away, had wandered in to the sound of the bell, and sat there with her rosy cheeks, like some russet apple that had fallen by chance into a faded reliquary belonging to a sumptuous shrine. Was it because it was Saturday, Dolly wondered, that she could not bring her heart to the altar?—that the little chapel did not seem to her much more than an allegory? Are royal chapels only echoes and allegories? Do people go there to pray real prayers, to long passionately, with beating hearts? Have dried-up tears ever fallen upon the big pages of the old books with their curlingt's and florids's? Books in whose pages King George the Third still rules over a shadowy realm, Queen Charlotte heads the Royal Family!
Dolly had started away from her vague excursions when the Epistle ended. 'Of the tribe of Zabulon twelve thousand, of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand....' It seemed to Dolly but a part of the state and the ceremony that oppressed her. As the armies passed before her, she seemed to hear the chaunt of the multitude, to follow the endless processions of the elect filing past with the seals on their triumphant brows, the white robes and palms in their extended hands!
But listen, what is this? John Morgan thundered out the long lists of the tribes; but his voice softened as he came to the well-loved gospel of the day:—'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom: blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers....'
'Are these the real tribes upon earth for whom the blessing is kept? Am I of the tribe of the merciful, of the peacemakers?' Dolly asked herself again. 'How can I make peace?—there is no one angry,' thought the girl; 'and I'm sure no one has ever done me any harm to be forgiven, except—except Mr. Raban, when he spoke to Aunt Sarah so cruelly about George. Ought I to forgive that?' thought the sister, and yet she wished she had not spoken so unkindly....
When the end came there was a rustle. The old ladies got up off their knees, the curtains stirred in the big Dugald Dalgetty pew: Dolly was to meet John Morgan in the outer room, but the old clerk gave her a message to say that Mr. Morgan had gone to the chaplain's, and would meet her in the clock court of the Palace.
'There was a gentleman asking for him just a minute by,' said the old clerk.
So Dolly, instead of filing off with the rest of the congregation, went sweeping along the dark vaulted passages with the sunlight at either end—a grey maiden floating in the shade.
Dolly's dress was demure enough: for though she liked bright colours, by some odd scruples she denied herself the tints she liked. If she sometimes wore a rose or a blue ribbon, it was Lady Sarah who bought them, and who had learnt of late to like roses and blue ribbons by proxy. Otherwise, she let Dolly come, go, dress as she liked best; and so the girl bought herself cheap grey gowns and economical brown petticoats: luckily she could not paint her pretty cheeks brown, nor her bright hair grey. Sometimes Rhoda had proposed that they should dress in black with frill caps and crosses, but this Aunt Sarah peremptorily refused to permit. Lady Sarah was a clever woman, with a horror of attitudinising, and some want of artistic feeling. The poor people whom she visited, Rhoda herself, soon discovered the futility of any of the little performances they sometimes attempted for Lady Sarah's benefit.
Dolly stepped out from the dark passage into the Palace courtyard, with its dim rows of windows, its sentinel, its brasses shining, the old doorways standing at prim intervals with knobs and iron bells, which may be pulled to-day, but which seem to echo a hundred years ago, as they ring across the Dutch court. The little cookmaid was peeping out of her kitchen-door, and gave a kind little smile. Some one else was waiting, pacing up and down that quiet place, where footsteps can be heard echoing in the stillness. But as Dolly advanced, she discovered that it was not John Morgan, as she imagined. The gentleman, who had reached the end of his walk, now turned, came towards her, looking absently to the right and the left. It was the very last person in the whole world she had expected or wished to see. It was Frank Raban, with his pale face, who stopped short when he saw her. They had not met since that day when he had talked so strangely.
If Dolly looked as if she was a little sorry to see Mr. Raban, Mr. Raban also looked as if he had rather not have met Dolly. He gave a glance round, but there was no way by which he could avoid her, unless he was prepared, like harlequin in the pantomime, to take a summersault and disappear through one of the many windows. There was no help for it. They both came forward.
'How do you do, Miss Vanborough?' said Raban, gravely, holding out his hand, and thinking of the last time they had met.
'How do you do?' said Dolly, coldly, just giving him her fingers. Then melting a little, as people do who have been over-stiff—'Have you seen George lately? how is he?' said Dolly, more forgivingly.
Raban looked surprised. 'He is quite well ... Don't you—has he not——' he interrupted himself, and then he went on, looking a little confused: 'I am only in town for an hour or two. I have been calling at John Morgan's, and they sent me here to find him. Shall I find Lady Sarah at home this afternoon?'
Dolly flushed up. In a moment all her coldness was gone. Something in his manner made her suspect that all was not well. 'It is something more about George?' she said, frightened, and she fixed her two circling eyes upon the man. Why was he for ever coming—evil messenger of ill tidings? She guessed it, she felt it, she seemed to have some second sight as regards Raban. She almost hated him. A minute ago she had thought she could forgive him.
Dolly's cheeks flushed in vain, her eyes flashed harmless lightning.
'Yes, it is about your brother,' said the young man, looking away. 'I have at last been able to make that arrangement to help him, as Lady Sarah wished. It has taken me some time and some trouble;' and without another word he turned and walked away towards the passage.
I think this was the first time Dolly had ever been snubbed in all her life, except by George, and that did not count.
A furtive, quick, yet hesitating footstep flutters after Frank. 'Mr. Raban,' says Miss Vanborough.
He stopped.
'I did not mean to pain you,' blushing up (she was very indignant still, and half-inclined to cry. But she was in the wrong, and bent upon apology). 'I beg your pardon,' she said, in a lofty, condoning, half-ashamed, half-indignant sort of way; and she held out her hand.
Frank Raban did not refuse the outstretched hand; he took it in his, and held it tight for an instant, with a grip of which he was scarcely aware, and then he dropped it. 'You don't know,' he said, with some emotion,—'I hope you will never know, what it is to have done another great wrong. I cannot forget what you said to me that last evening we met; but you must learn more charity, and believe that even those who have failed once may mean to do right another time.'
How little she guessed that, as he spoke, he was thinking what a madness had been his; wondering what infatuation had made him, even for one instant, dream they could ever be anything to one another.
As the two made it up, after a fashion, a bell tinkled through the court, a door opened, and John Morgan came running down some worn steps, twirling his umbrella like a mill.
'Here I am, Dolly. Why, Raban!' he shouts, 'where do you come from? Dr. Thompson is better—he kept me discussing the church-rates. I couldn't get away. You see, where the proportion of Dissenters——Will you have an arm?'
'No, thank you,' said Dolly.
'——where the proportion is one-fiftieth of the population——'
The curate, always enthusiastic, seized Raban's arm, and plunged with him into the very depths of Dr. Thompson's argument. Dolly lingered behind for a minute, and came after them, along the passage again and out by a different way into an old avenue which leads from the Palace stables, and by a garden enclosed in high brick walls. It used to be Lady Henley's garden, and Dolly sometimes walked there. Now she only skirted the wall. The sun was casting long shadows, the mists were gone, a sort of sweet balmy ripeness was in the air, as they came out upon the green. The windows of the old guard-house were twinkling; some soldiers were lounging on the grass. Some members of the congregation were opening the wicket-gates of one of the old houses that stood round about in those days, modest dependencies of the Palace, quaint-roofed, with slanting bricks and tiles, and narrow panes, from whence autumnal avenues could be descried.
There is a side-door leading from Palace Green to Kensington Gardens. Within the door stands an old stone summer-house, which is generally brimming over with little children, who for many years past have sat swinging their legs upon the seat.
As Dolly passed the gate she heard a shout, and out of the summer-house darted a little ragged procession, with tatters flying—Mikey and his sister, who had spied their victim, and now pursued her with triumphant cries.
'Tsus!—hi, Mikey!—Miss Vamper!' (so they called her).
'Give us a 'napeny,' says Mikey. 'Father's got no work, mother was buried on Toosdy! We's so 'ungry.'
'Why, Betty,' said Dolly, stopping short, and greatly shocked, 'is this true?'
'Ess,' says little Betty, grinning, and running back through the wicket.
'What did you have for dinner yesterday?' says Dolly, incredulous, and pursuing Betty towards the summer-house.
'Please, Miss, mother give us some bread-and-drippin',' says Mikey, with a caper. 'I mean father did. We's so....'
'You mean that you have been telling me a wicked story,' interrupted Dolly. 'I amveryangry, Mikey. Ineverforgive deception. I shall give you no apples—nothing. I....' She stopped short; her voice suddenly faltered. She stood quite still watching two people, who came advancing down the avenue that led to the little door, arm-in-arm, and so absorbed in each other, that for a minute they did not see that she was standing in the way. It was a chance. If it had not happened then, it would have happened at some other time and place.
Rhoda had waited until the service was over, and in so doing she had come upon the last person whom she wished to see just then. There stood Dolly by the summer-house, with a pale face, confronting her, with the little ragged crew about her knees. Mikey, looking up, thought that for once 'Miss Vamper' was in the tantrums.
Rhoda started back instinctively, meeting two blank wondering eyes, and would have pulled George away, but it was too late.
'Nonsense,' said George; and he came forward, and then they all were quite silent for a minute, George a little in advance, Rhoda lingering still.
'What does this mean?' said Dolly, coldly, speaking at last.
'What does it mean!' George burst out. 'Don't you see us? don't you guess? It is good news, isn't it?—Dolly, she loves me. Have you not guessed it all along—ever since—months ago?'
He was half-distracted, half-excited, half-laughing. His eyes were dim with moisture. Any one might see him. What did he care for the ragged children, the people passing by—those silent crowds that flit through our lives! He came up to Dolly.
'You will be tender to her, won't you, and help her, for my sake, and you will be our friend, Dolly? We had not meant to tell you yet; but you wish us joy, won't you, dear?'
'Tender to her? Help her? What help could she want?' thought Dolly, looking at Rhoda, who stood silent still, but who made a little dumb movement of entreaty. 'Was it George who was asking her to befriend him? Was it George, who had mistrusted her all this long time, and kept her in ignorance...?'
'Why don't you answer? Why do you look like that? Do you wonder that I or that anybody else should love her?' he went on eagerly.
'What do you want me to do?' Dolly asked. 'I cannot understand it.'
Her voice sounded hard and constrained: she was hurt and bewildered.
George was bitterly disappointed. Her coldness shocked him. Could it be possible that Rhoda was right and Dolly hard and unfeeling?
Poor Dolly! A bitter wave of feeling seemed suddenly to rise from her heart and choke her as she stood there. So! there was an understanding between them? Did he come to see Rhoda in secret, while she was counting the days till they should meet? Was it only by chance that she was to learn their engagement? They had been stopping up the way; as they moved a little aside to let the people pass, Rhoda timidly laid one hand on Dolly's arm,—'Won't you forgive me? won't you keep our secret?' she said.
'Why should there be any secret?' cried Dolly, haughtily. 'How could I keep one from Aunt Sarah? I am not used to such manœuvrings.'
Rhoda began to cry. George, exasperated by Dolly's manner, burst out with 'Tell her, then! Tell them all—tell them everything! Tell them of my debts! Part us!' he said. 'You will make your profit by it, no doubt, and Rhoda, poor child, will be sacrificed.' He felt he was wrong, but this made him only the more bitter. He turned away from Dolly, and pulled Rhoda's hand through his arm.
'I will take care of you, darling,' he said.
'George! George!' from poor Dolly, sick and chilled.
'Dolly!' cried another voice from without the gate. It was John Morgan's. He had missed her, and was retracing his steps to find her.
Poor weak-minded Dolly! now brought to the trial and found wanting: how could she withstand those she loved? All her life long it was so with her. As George turned away from her, her heart went after him.
'Oh, George! don't look at me so. My profit! You have made it impossible for me to speak,' she faltered, as she moved away to meet the curate and Frank Raban.
'What is the matter? are you ill?' said John Morgan, meeting Dorothea in the doorway. 'Why did you wait behind?'
'Mikey detained me. I am quite well, thank you,' said Dolly, slowly, with a changed face.
Raban gave her a curious look. He had seen some one disappear into the summer-house, and he thought he recognised the stumpy figure.
John Morgan noticed nothing; he walked on, talking of the serious aspect things were taking in the East—of Doctor Thompson's gout—of the church-rates. Frank Raban looked at Dolly once or twice, and slackened his steps to hers. They left her at the corner of her lane.
Make denials,Increase your services: so seem as ifYou were inspired to do those duties whichYou tender to her....—Cymbeline.
Make denials,Increase your services: so seem as ifYou were inspired to do those duties whichYou tender to her....
—Cymbeline.
Dolly heard the luncheon-bell ringing as she walked slowly homewards. It seemed to her as if she had been hearing a story which had been told her before, with words that she remembered now, though she had listened once without attaching any meaning to them. Now she seemed to awake and understand it all—a hundred little things, unnoticed at the time, crowded back into her mind and seemed to lead up to this moment. Dolly suddenly remembered Rhoda's odd knowledge of George's doings, her blushes, his constant comings of late: she remembered everything, even to the gloves lying by the piano. The girl was bitterly hurt, wounded, impatient. Love had never entered into her calculations, except as a joke or a far-away impossibility. It was no such very terrible secret after all that a young man and a young woman should have taken a fancy to each other; but Dolly, whose faults were the faults of inexperience and youthful dominion and confidence, blamed passionately as she would have sympathised. Then in a breath she blamed herself.
How often it happens that people meaning well, as Dolly did, undoubtedly slide into some wrong groove from the overbalance of some one or other quality. Dolly cared too much and not too little, and that was what made her so harsh to George, and then, as if to atone for her harshness, too yielding to his wish—to Rhoda's wish working by so powerful a lever.
Lady Sarah came home late for luncheon, and went up to her room soon after. Dolly gave Frank Raban's message. She herself stopped at home all day expecting George, but no George came, not even Rhoda, whom she both longed and hated to see again. Every one seemed changed to Dolly; she felt as if she was wandering lost in the familiar rooms, as if George and her aunt and Rhoda were all different people since the morning.
'Why are you looking at me, child?' said Lady Sarah, suddenly. Dolly had been wistfully scanning the familiar lines of the well-known face; there was now a secret between them, thought the girl.
Mr. Raban came in the afternoon, as he had announced, and Dolly, going into the oak room, found him there, standing in the shadow, with a bundle of papers under his arm, and looking more like a lawyer's clerk than a friend who had been working hard in their service.
Dolly was leaving the room again, when her aunt called her back for a minute.
'Did George tell you anything of his difficulties the last time he was in town?' Lady Sarah asked from her chimney-corner. 'When was it you saw him, Dolly?' She was nervously tying some papers together that slipped out of her hands and fell upon the floor.
Poor Dolly turned away. There was a minute's silence.
Dolly flushed crimson. 'I—I don't—I can't tell you,' she said, confusedly.
She saw Frank Raban's look of surprise as she turned. What did she care what he thought of her? What was it to him if she chose to tell a lie and he guessed it? Oh. George! cruel boy! what had he asked?
Frank Raban wondered at Dolly's silence. Since she wished to keep a secret, he did not choose to interfere; but he blamed her for that, as for most other things; and yet the more he blamed her the more her face haunted him. Those girl's eyes, with their great lights and clouds; that sweet face, that looked so stern and yet so tender too. When he was away from her he loved her; when he was with her he accused her.
It was a long, endless day. Miss Moineaux was welcome at tea-time, with her flannel bindings and fluttering gossip.
It seemed like a little bit of common-place, familiar everyday coming in. Dolly went to the door with her when she left them, and saw black trees swaying, winds chasing across the dreary sky, light clouds sailing by. The winds rose that night, beating about the house. A chimney-pot fell crashing to the ground; elm-branches broke off from the trees and were scattered along the parks. Dolly, in her little room, lay listening to the sobs and moans without, to the fierce hands beating and struggling with her window. She fell into a sleep, in which it seemed to her that she was railing and raving at George again: she awoke with a start to find that it was the wind. She dreamt the history of the day over and over. She dreamt of Raban, and somehow he always looked at her reproachfully. She awoke very early in the morning, long before it was time to get up, with penitent, loving words on her lips. Had she been harsh to George? Jealous—was she jealous? Dolly scorned to be jealous, she told herself. It was her hatred of wrong, her sense of justice, that had made her heart so bitter. Poor Dolly had yet to discover how far she fell short of her own ideal. My poor little heroine was as yet on the eve of her long and lonely expedition in life. There might be arid places waiting for her, dreary passes, but there were also cool waters and green pastures along the road. Nor had she yet journeyed from their shade, and from the sound of her companions' voices and the shelter of their protection.
This was Rhoda's explanation. She was standing before Dolly, looking prettier than ever. She held a flower in her hand, which she had offered her friend, who silently rejected it. Rhoda had looked for Dolly in vain in the house. She found her at last, disconsolately throwing crumbs to the fishes in the pond. Dolly stood sulky and miserable, scarcely looking up when Rhoda spoke. They were safe in the garden out of reach of the quiet old guardians of the house. Rhoda began at once.
'He urged it,' said Rhoda, fixing her great dark eyes steadily upon Dolly, 'indeed he did. I said no at first; I would not even let him be bound. One day I was weak and consented to be engaged. I sinned against my own conscience; I am chastised.'
'Sinned?' said Dolly, impatiently; 'chastised? Rhoda, Rhoda, you use long words that mean nothing. Oh! why did you not tell Aunt Sarah from the beginning? She loves George so dearly—so dearly that she would have done anything, consented to everything, and this wretchedness would have been spared. How shall I tell her? How shall I ever tell her? I can't keep such a secret. Already I have had to tell a lie.'
'I could not bear to be the means of injuring him,' Rhoda said, flushing up. 'I daresay you won't understand me or believe me, but it is true. Indeed, indeed, it is true, Dolly. Lady Sarah would never forgive him now if he were to marry me. She does not like me. Dolly, you know it. I have been culpably foolish; but I will not damage his future.'
'Of course it is foolish to be engaged,' said Dolly; 'but there are worse things, Rhoda, a thousand times.'
'Yes,' said Rhoda. 'Dolly, you don't know half. He has been gambling—dear, foolish boy—borrowing money from the Jews. Uncle John heard of it through a pupil of his. He wrote to Mr. Raban. Oh, Dolly, I love him so dearly, that it breaks my heart. How can I trust him? How can I? Oh, how difficult it is to be good, and to know what one should do.'
Rhoda flung herself down upon the wooden bench as she spoke, leaning her head against the low brick wall, with its ivy sprays. Dolly stood beside her, erect, indignant, half softened by the girl's passion, and half hardened when she thought of the deception that she had kept up. Beyond the low ivy wall was the lane of which I have spoken, where some people were strolling; overhead the sky was burning deep, the afternoon shadows came trembling and shimmering into the pond. Lady Sarah had had a screen of creepers put up to shelter her favourite seat from the winds; the great leaves were still hanging to the trellis, gold and brown.
'If I thought only of myself should I not have told everybody?' said Rhoda, excitedly, and she clasped her hands; 'but I feel there is a higher duty to him. I will be his good angel and urge him to work. I will leave him if I stand in his way, and keep to him if it is for good. Do you think I want to be a cause of trouble between him and Lady Sarah? She might disinherit him. It is you she cares for, and not poor George; I heard Mr. Raban say so only yesterday,' cried Rhoda, in a sudden burst of tears. 'He told me so.'
Dolly waited for a moment, and then slowly turned away, leaving Rhoda still sobbing against the bricks. She couldn't forgive her at that instant; her heart was bitter against her. What had she done to deserve such taunts? Why had Rhoda come making dissension and unhappiness between them? It was hard, oh, it was hard. There came a jangling burst of music from the church bells, as if to add to her bewilderment.
'Dear Rhoda,' said Dolly, coming back, and melting suddenly, 'do listen to me. Tell them all. I cannot see one reason against it.'
'Except that we are no longer engaged,' said Rhoda, gravely. 'I have set him free, Dolly; that is what I wanted to tell you. I wrote to him, and set him free; for anything underhand is as painful to me as to you. It was only to please George I consented. Hush! They are calling me.'
Engaged or not, poor Dorothea felt that all pleasure in her friend's company was gone; there was a tacit jar between them—a little rift. Dolly for the first time watched Rhoda with critical eyes, as she walked away down the path that led to the house, fresh and trim in her pretty dress, and her black silk mantlet, and with her flower in her hand. Dolly did not follow her. She thought over every single little bit of her life after Rhoda had left her, as she sat there alone, curled up on the wooden seat, with her limp violet dress in crumpled folds, and her brown hair falling loose, with pretty little twirls and wavings. Her grey eyes were somewhat sad and dim from the day's emotion. No, she must not tell her aunt what had happened until she had George's leave. She would see him soon; she would beg his pardon; she wouldmakehim tell Aunt Sarah. She had been too hasty. She had spoken harshly, only it was difficult not to be harsh to Rhoda, who was so cold—who seemed as if she would not understand. All she said sounded so good, and yet, somehow, it did not come right. Then she began to wonder if it could be that Rhoda loved George more than Dolly imagined. Some new glimmer had come to the girl of late—not of what love was, but of what it might be. Only Dolly was fresh and prim and shy, as girls are, and she put the thought far away from her. Love! Love was up in the stars, she thought hastily. All the same she could not bring herself to feel cordially to Rhoda. There was something miserably uncomfortable in the new relations between them; and Dolly showed it in her manner plainly enough.
Lady Sarah told Dolly that afternoon that she had written to George to come up at the end of the week. 'He has had no pity on us, Dolly,' she said. 'I have some money that a friend paid back, and with that and the price of a field at Bartlemere, I shall be able to pay for his pastimes during the last year.
'Aunt Sarah,' said Dolly suddenly illuminated, 'can't you take some of my money; do, please, dearest Aunt Sarah.'
'What would be the use of that?' said Lady Sarah. 'I want the interest for your expenses, Dolly.' She spoke quite sharply, as if in pain, and she put her hand to her side and went away. If Lady Sarah had not been ill herself and preoccupied, she might have felt that something also ailed Dolly, that the girl was constrained at times, and unlike herself. Dolly only wondered that her aunt did not guess what was passing before her, so patent did it seem, now that she had the key.
One day Marker persuaded her mistress to go to a doctor. Lady Sarah came back with one of those impossible prescriptions that people give. Avoid all anxiety; do not trouble yourself about anything; live generously; distract yourself when you can do so without fatigue.
Lady Sarah came home to find a Cambridge letter on the table, containing some old bills of George's, which a tradesman had sent on to her; a fresh call from the unlucky bank in which Mr. Francis had invested so much of her money: an appeal from Mikey's fever-stricken cellar, and a foreign scented letter, that troubled her more than all the rest together:—
Trincomalee, September 25, 18—.Dearest Sarah,—I have many and many a time begun to write to you, only to destroy bitter records of those sorrows which I must continue to bearalone. Soon we shall be leaving this ill-fated shore, where I have passed so many miserable years gazing with longing eyes at the broad expanse lying so calm and indifferent before me.Before long Admiral Palmer sails for England. He gives up his command with great reluctance, and returnsviáthe Cape; but I, in my weak state of health, dare risk no longer delay. Friends—kind, good friends, Mrs. and Miss M'Grudder—have offered to accompany me overland, sharing all expenses, and visiting Venice and Titian's—the great master's glorious works—en route, to say nothing of Raphael, and Angelo the divine. We shall rest a week at Paris. I feel that after so long a journey utter prostration will succeed to the excitement which carries me through where I see others, more robust than myself, failing on every side. And then I am in rags—a study for Murillo himself! I cannot come among you all until my wardrobe is replenished. How I look forward to the time when I shall welcome my Dorothea—ours, I may say—for you have been all but a mother to her. On my return I trust to find some corner to make my nest; and for that purpose I should wish to spend a week or two in London, so as to be within easy reach of all. Sarah, my first husband's sister, will you help me; for the love of 'auld lang syne,' will you spare a little corner in your dear old house? Expensive hotels I cannot afford. My dear friends here agree that Admiral Palmer's ungraciously-given allowances are beggarly and unworthy of his high position. How differently dear Stan would have wished him to act! Silver and gold have I none—barely sufficient for my own dress. Those insurances were most unfairly given against the widow and the orphan. Tell my darlings this; tell them, too, that all that I have is theirs. When I think that for the last six years, ever since my second marriage, a tyrant will has prevented me from folding them to my heart, indignation nearly overcomes the prudence so foreign to my nature. Once more, fond love to you, to my boy, and toma fille; and trusting before long to be once more at home,Ever your very affectionatePhilippa.P.S.—Since writing the above few lines, I find that my husband wishes to compass my death. He again proposes my returning with him by the Cape. Sarah, will you spare me the corner of a garret beneath your roof?
Trincomalee, September 25, 18—.
Dearest Sarah,—I have many and many a time begun to write to you, only to destroy bitter records of those sorrows which I must continue to bearalone. Soon we shall be leaving this ill-fated shore, where I have passed so many miserable years gazing with longing eyes at the broad expanse lying so calm and indifferent before me.
Before long Admiral Palmer sails for England. He gives up his command with great reluctance, and returnsviáthe Cape; but I, in my weak state of health, dare risk no longer delay. Friends—kind, good friends, Mrs. and Miss M'Grudder—have offered to accompany me overland, sharing all expenses, and visiting Venice and Titian's—the great master's glorious works—en route, to say nothing of Raphael, and Angelo the divine. We shall rest a week at Paris. I feel that after so long a journey utter prostration will succeed to the excitement which carries me through where I see others, more robust than myself, failing on every side. And then I am in rags—a study for Murillo himself! I cannot come among you all until my wardrobe is replenished. How I look forward to the time when I shall welcome my Dorothea—ours, I may say—for you have been all but a mother to her. On my return I trust to find some corner to make my nest; and for that purpose I should wish to spend a week or two in London, so as to be within easy reach of all. Sarah, my first husband's sister, will you help me; for the love of 'auld lang syne,' will you spare a little corner in your dear old house? Expensive hotels I cannot afford. My dear friends here agree that Admiral Palmer's ungraciously-given allowances are beggarly and unworthy of his high position. How differently dear Stan would have wished him to act! Silver and gold have I none—barely sufficient for my own dress. Those insurances were most unfairly given against the widow and the orphan. Tell my darlings this; tell them, too, that all that I have is theirs. When I think that for the last six years, ever since my second marriage, a tyrant will has prevented me from folding them to my heart, indignation nearly overcomes the prudence so foreign to my nature. Once more, fond love to you, to my boy, and toma fille; and trusting before long to be once more at home,
Ever your very affectionate
Philippa.
P.S.—Since writing the above few lines, I find that my husband wishes to compass my death. He again proposes my returning with him by the Cape. Sarah, will you spare me the corner of a garret beneath your roof?
The letter was scented with some faint delicious perfume. 'Here, take it away,' says Lady Sarah. 'Faugh! Of course she knows very well that she can have the best bed-room, and the dressing-room for her maid; and you, my poor Dolly, will have a little amusement and some one better fitted to——'
'Don't,' cries Dolly, jumping forward with a kiss.