More than a week passed, and Mr. Copley was steadily convalescent. He had not left his room yet, but he needed no longer the steady attendance of some one bound to minister to his wants. Dolly was expecting now every day to hear Mr. Shubrick say he must bid them good-bye; and she took herself a little to task for caring so much about it. What was Sandie Shubrick to her, that she should feel such a heart-sinking at the prospect of his departure? It was a very wonderful thing that he, Christina Thayer's Mr. Shubrick, should have come to help this little family in its need; it was very astonishing that he should be there even then, waiting on Dolly Copley's sick father; let her be satisfied with this so unexpected good, and bid him farewell as easily as she had bid him welcome. But Dolly could not. How could she? she said to herself. And every time she saw Mr. Shubrick she feared lest the dreaded words would fall from his lips. So when he came to her one afternoon when she was sitting in the porch, her heart gave a throb of anticipation. However, he said nothing of going, but remarked how pretty the sloping ground looked, on the other side of the little river, with its giant trees and the sunlight streaming through the branches upon the greensward.
"It is very pretty," said Dolly. "The park is beautiful. You ought to see it"—before you go, she was on the point of saying, but did not say.
"Will you come with me, and show me what I ought to look at?"
"Now?" said Dolly.
"If it is not too warm for you. We might take it easily and keep in the shadow of the trees."
"Oh, it is not too warm," said Dolly; and she ran to fetch her garden hat.
It was not August now; the summer was past, yet the weather was fit for the height of summer. Warm, spicy, dry air, showing misty in the distance like a gossamer veil, and near by a still glow over everything. The two young people wandered over the bridge and slowly mounted the bank among the oaks and beeches, keeping in the shade as much as might be. There was a glorious play of shadow and sunlight all over the woodland; and the two went softly along, hardly disturbing the wild creatures that looked at them now and then. For the woods were full of life. They saw a hare cross an opening, and grey squirrels eyed them from the great oak branches overhead; and there was a soft hum of insects filling all the silence. It was not the time of day for the birds to be merry. Nor perhaps for the human creatures who slowly passed from tree to tree, avoiding the spaces of sunlight and summer glow. They were neither merry nor talked much.
"This is very noble," said Sandie at last.
"Were you ever in England before, Mr. Shubrick?"
"Yes."
"Then you have seen many of these fine places already, perhaps?"
"No, not many. My stay has been mostly in London; though I did run down a little into the country."
"People say we have nothing like this in America."
"True, I suppose," said Sandie. "We are too young a people, and we have had something else to do."
"It is like a dream, that anybody should have such a house and such a place as Brierley," Dolly went on. "There is nothing wanting that one can imagine, for beauty and dignity and delight of living and luxury of ease. It might be the Arabian Nights, or fairyland. You must see the house, with its lovely old carvings, and pictures, and old, old furniture; and the arms of the family that built it carved and painted everywhere, on doors and chairs and mantelpieces."
"Of the family that built it?" repeated Mr. Shubrick. "Not the family that owns it now?"
"No. You see their arms too, but the others are the oldest. And then it would take you hours to go through the gardens. There are different gardens; one, most exquisite, framed in with trees, and a fountain in the middle, and all the beds filled with rare plants. But I do not like anything about the place better than these trees and greensward."
"It must be a difficult thing," said Sandie meditatively, "to use it all for Christ."
Dolly was silent a while. "I don't see how itcouldbe used so," she said.
The other made no answer. They went slowly on and on, getting up to the higher ground and more level going, while the sun's rays coming a little more slant as the afternoon declined, gave an increasing picturesqueness to the scene. Mr. Shubrick had been for some time almost entirely silent, when Dolly proposed to stop and rest.
"One enjoys it better so," she said. "One has better leisure to look. And I wanted to talk to you, besides."
Her companion was very willing, and they took their places under a great oak, on the swell of greensward at the foot of it. Ground and grass and moss were all dry. Dolly sat down and laid off her hat; however, the proposed "talk" did not seem to be ready, and she let Mr. Shubrick wait.
"I wanted to ask you something," said she at last. "I have been wanting to ask you something for a good while."
There she stopped. She was not looking at him; she was taking care not to look at him; she was trying to regard Mr. Shubrick as a foreign abstraction. Seeing which, he began to look at her more persistently than hitherto.
"What is it?" he asked, with not a little curiosity.
"There is nobody else I can ask," Dolly went on; "and if you could give me the help I want, it would be a great thing for me."
"I will if I can."
The young man's eyes did not turn away now. And Dolly was an excessively pretty thing to look at; so taken up with her own thoughts that she was in no danger of finding out that she was an object of attention or perhaps admiration. Her companion perceived this, and indulged his eyes fearlessly. Dolly's fair, flushed face was thin with the work and the care of many weeks past; the traces of that were plain enough; yet it was delicately fair all the same, and perhaps more than ever, with the heightened spirituality of the expression. The writing on her features, of love and purity, habitual self-devotion and self-forgetfulness, patience and sweetness, was so plain and so unconscious, that it made her a very rare subject of contemplation, and, as her companion thought, extremely lovely. Her attitude spoke the same unconsciousness; her dress was of the simplest description; her brown hair was tossed into disorder; but dress and hair and attitude alike were deliciously graceful, with that mingling of characteristics of child and woman which was peculiar to Dolly. Lieutenant Shubrick was familiar with a very diverse type of womanly charms in the shape of his long-betrothed Miss Thayer. The comparison, or contrast, might be interesting; at any rate, any one who had eyes to read this type before him needed no contrast to make it delightful; and probably Mr. Shubrick had such eyes. He was quite silent, leaving Dolly to choose her time and her words at her own pleasure.
"I know you will," she said slowly, taking up his last words;—"you have already; but I am a bad learner. You know what you said, Mr. Shubrick, the day you came, that evening when we were at supper,—about trusting, and not taking care?"
"Yes."
Dolly did not look at him, and went on. "I do not find that I can do it."
"Do what?"
"Lay down care. Quite lay it down."
"It is not easy," Mr. Shubrick admitted.
"Is it possible, always? I find I can trust pretty well when I can see at least a possible way out of difficulties; but when the way seems all shut up, and no opening anywhere,—then—I do not quite lay down care. How can I?"
"There is only one thing that can make it possible."
"I know—you told me; but how then can I get that? I must be very far from the knowledge of Christ—ifthatis what is wanting."
Dolly's eyes filled with tears.
"No," said Mr. Shubrick gently, "but perhaps it does follow, that you have not enough of that knowledge."
"Of course. And how shall I get it? I can trust when I see some light, but when I can see none, I am afraid."
"If I promised to take you home, I mean, to America, by ways known to me but unknown to you, could you trust me and take the steps I bade you."
I am not justifying Mr. Shubrick. This was a kind of tentative speech for his own satisfaction; but he made it, watching for Dolly's answer the while. It came without hesitation.
"Yes," she said. "I should believe you, if you told me so."
"Yet in that case you would follow me blindly."
"Yes."
"Seeing no light."
"Yes. But then I know you enough to know that you would not promise what you would not do."
"Thank you. This is by way of illustration. You would not be afraid?"
"Not a bit. I see what you mean," said Dolly, colouring a little.
"Do you think there is anything friends can give one another, so precious as such trust?"
"No—I suppose not."
"Is it wonderful, if the Lord wants it of His children?"
"No. O Mr. Shubrick, I am ashamed of myself! What is the reason that I can give it to you, for instance, and not to Him? Is it just wickedness?"
"It is rather, distance."
"Distance! Then how shall I get near?"
"Do you know what a question you are asking me? One of the grandest that a creature can ask. It is the question of questions. For, to get near, is to see the Lord's beauty; and to see Him is to love Him, and to love with that absolute confidence. 'Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.' And, 'This is life eternal, to know thee.'"
"Then how, Mr. Shubrick?" said Dolly. "How is one to do?" She was almost tearful in her earnestness. But he spoke, earnestly enough, yet with a smile.
"There are two sides to the question. On your side, you must do what you would do in any case where you wanted to cultivate a friendship. How would that be?"
Dolly pondered. "I never put it so to myself," she said slowly, "and yet I suppose it must be so. Why, in any such case I should try to see a great deal of the person I wanted to make a friend of. I would be in the person's company, hear him talk, or hear her talk, if it was a woman; and talk to her. It would be the only way we could become known to each other."
"Translate, now."
"Translate?" said Dolly. "You mean,"——
"Apply to the case in hand."
"You mean," said Dolly, "that to study the Bible is to hear the Lord speak; and to pray, is to speak to Him."
"To study the Bible with a heart ready to obey all it finds—thatis hearing the Lord speak; and if prayer is telling Him your thoughts and wishes in your own language, that is speaking to Him."
"But it is speaking without an answer."
"I beg your pardon. It is speaking without an audible answer; that is all."
"Then how does the answer come?"
"In receiving what you ask for; in finding what you seek."
Dolly brushed away a tear again.
"One needs to take a good deal of time for all that," she said presently.
"Can you cultivate a friendship on any other terms?"
"Perhaps not. This is quite a new view of the whole matter, Mr. Shubrick. To me."
"Common sense. And Bible."
"Does the Bible speak of it?"
"The Bible speaks of the life of religion as contained in our knowing God and in His knowing us."
"But He,—He knows everybody."
"Not in this way. It is the sweet knowledge of intimate friendship and relations of affection. 'I know thee by name,' was one of the reasons given why the Lord would grant Moses' bold prayer. 'I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine,' is the word to His people Israel. 'He calleth His own sheep by name,' you know it is said of the Good Shepherd. And 'they shall all know Me,' is the promise concerning the Church in Christ. While, you remember, the sentence of dismissal to the others will be simply, 'I know you not.' And, 'the Lord knoweth them that are His.'"
There was silence; and then Dolly said, "You said there were two sides to the question."
"Yes. Your part we have talked about; it is to study, and ask, and obey, and believe. The Lord's part is to reveal Himself to you. It is a matter of revelation. You cannot attain it by any efforts of your own, be they never so determinate. Therefore your prayer must be constantly like that of Moses—'I beseech thee, show me Thy glory.' And you see, that makes your part easy, because the other part is sure."
"Mr. Shubrick, you are a very comforting talker!" said Dolly.
"Nay, I am only repeating the Lord's words of comfort."
"So I am to study, and yet study will not do it," said Dolly; "and I am to pray, and yet prayer will not give it."
"Study will not do it, certainly. But when the Lord bestows His light, study becomes illumination. No, prayer does not give it, either; yet you must ask if yon would have. And Christ's promise to one who loves Him and keeps His commandments is,—you recollect it,—'I will love himand will manifest Myself to him.'"
"That will do, Mr. Shubrick, thank you," said Dolly rising. "You need not say any more. I think I understand. And I am very much obliged to you."
Mr. Shubrick made no answer. They went saunteringly along under the great trees, rather silent both of them after that. As the sun got lower the beauty of the wooded park ground grew more exceeding. All that a most noble growth of trees could show, scattered and grouped, all that a most lovely undulation of ground surface could give, in slope and vista and broken light and shadow, was gilded here and there with vivid gold, or filled elsewhere with a sunny, misty glow of vapourous rays, as if the air were streaming with gold dust among the trees. All tints and hues of greensward, moss, and fern, under all conditions of illumination, met their wondering eyes; and for a while there was little spoken but exclamations of delight and discussion of beautiful effects that came under review. They went on so, from point to point, by much the same way that Dolly had taken on her first visit to the park; till they came out as she had done from the thinner part of the woodland, and stood at the edge of the wide plain of open greensward which stretched on up to the House. Here they stood still. The low sun was shining over it all; the great groups of oaks and elms stood in full revealed beauty and majesty; and in the distance the House looked superbly down over the whole.
"There is hardly anything about Brierley that I like better than this," said Dolly. "Isn't it lovely? I always delight in this great slope of wavy green ground; and see how it is emphasised and set off by those magnificent trees? And the House looks better from nowhere than from here."
"It is very noble—it is exceeding beautiful," Mr. Shubrick assented.
"Now this, I suppose, one could not see in America," Dolly went on; "nor anything like it."
"America has its own beauties; doubtless nothing like this. There is the dignity of many generations here. But, Miss Dolly, as I said before,—it would be difficult to use all this for Christ."
"I do not see how it could be done," said Dolly. "Mr. Shubrick, I happen to know, it takes seven or eight thousand a year—or more—to keep the place up. Pounds sterling, I mean; not dollars. Merely to keep the establishment up and in order."
"And yet, if I were its owner, I should find it hard to give up these ancestral acres and trees, or to cease to take care of them. I am glad I am a poor man!"
"Give them up?" said Dolly. "Do you thinkthatwould be duty?"
"I do not know. How could I take seven or eight thousand pounds a year just to keep up all this magnificence, when the money is so wanted for the Lord's work, in so many ways? When it would do such great things, given to Him."
"Then, Mr. Shubrick, the world must be very much mistaken in its calculations. People would not even understand you, if they heard you say that."
"Doyouunderstand me?"
"Oh yes. And yet I cannot tell you what delight I take in all this, every time I see it. The feeling of satisfaction seems to go to my very heart. And so when I am in the house,—and the gardens. Oh, you have not seen the gardens, nor the House either; and there is no time to-day. But I do not know that I enjoy anything much more than this view. Though the House is delicious, Mr. Shubrick."
"I can believe it," he said, smiling. "You see what reason I have to rejoice that I am a poor man."
Dolly thought, poor child, as they turned and went homeward, she could hardly go so far as to rejoice that she was a poor woman. Not that she wanted Brierley; but she did dread possible privation which seemed to be before her. She feared the uncertainty which lay over her future in regard to the very necessaries of life; she shrank a little from the difficulty and the struggle of existence, which she knew already by experience. And then, Mr. Shubrick, who had been such a help and had made such a temporary diversion of her troubled thoughts, would be soon far away; she had noticed that he did not speak of some other future opportunity of seeing the house and gardens, when she remarked that it was too late to-day. He would be going soon; this one walk with him was probably the last; and then the old times would set in again. Dolly went along down among the great oaks and beeches, down the bank now getting in shadow, and spoke hardly a word. And Mr. Shubrick was as silent as she, probably as busy with his own thoughts. So they went, until they came again in sight of the bridge and the little river down below them, and a few steps more would have brought the cottage into view.
"We have come home fast," said Mr. Shubrick. "Do you think we need go in and show ourselves quite yet? Suppose we sit down here under this tree for a few minutes again, and enjoy all we can."
Dolly knew it must be approaching the time for her to see about supper; but she could not withstand the proposal. She sat down silently and took off her hat to cool herself.
"I come here very often," she said, "to get a little refreshment. It is so pleasant, and so near home."
"You call Brierley 'home.' Have you accepted it as a permanent home?"
"What can we do?" said Dolly. "Mother and I long to go back to America—we cannot persuade father."
"Miss Dolly, will you excuse me for remarking that you wear a very peculiar watch-chain," Mr. Shubrick said next, somewhat irrelevantly.
"My watch-chain! Oh, yes, I know it is peculiar," said Dolly. "For anything I know, there is only one in the world."
"May I ask, whose manufacture it is?"
"It was made by somebody—a sort of a friend, and yet not a friend either—somebody I shall never see again."
"Ah? How is that?"
"It is a great while ago," said Dolly. "I was a little girl. At that time I was at school in Philadelphia, and staying with my aunt there. O Aunt Hal! how I would like to see her!—The girls were all taken one day to see a man-of-war lying in the river; our schoolmistress took us; it was her way to take us to see things on the holidays; and this time it was a man-of-war; a beautiful ship; the 'Achilles.' My chain is made out of some threads of a cable on board the 'Achilles.'"
"You did not make it?"
"No, indeed. I could not, nor anybody else that I know. The manufacture is exquisite. Look at it," said Dolly, putting chain and watch in Mr. Shubrick's hand.
"But somebody must have made it," said the young officer, examining the chain attentively.
"Yes. It was odd enough. The others were having lunch; I could not get into the little cabin where the table was set, the place was so full; and so I wandered away to look at things. I had not seen them half enough, and then one of the young officers of the ship found me—he was a midshipman, I believe—and he was very good to me. He took me up and down and round and about; and then I was trying to get a little bit of a piece off a cable that lay coiled up on the deck and could not, and he said he would send me a piece; and he sent me that."
"Seems strong," said Mr. Shubrick, still examining the chain.
"Oh, it is very strong."
"This is a nice little watch. Deserves a better thing to carry it."
"Better!" cried Dolly, stretching out her hand for the chain. "You do not appreciate it. I like this better than any other. I always wear this. Father gave me a very handsome gold chain; he was of your opinion; but I have never had it on. This is my cable." She slipped the chain over her neck as she spoke.
"What makes you think you will never see the maker of the cable again?"
"Oh, that is a part of the story I did not tell you. With the chain came a little note, asking me to say that I had received it, and signed 'A. Crowninshield.' I can show you the note. I have it in my work-box at home. Do you know anybody of that name in the navy, Mr. Shubrick?"
"Midshipman?"
"He might not be a midshipman now, you know. That is nine years ago."
"True. I do not know of a Lieutenant Crowninshield in the navy—and I am sure there is no captain of that name."
"That is what I thought," said Dolly. "I do not believe he is alive. Whenever I saw in the papers mention of a ship of the navy in port, I used to go carefully over the lists of her officers; but I never could find the name of Crowninshield."
Mr. Shubrick here produced his pocket-book, and after some opening of inner compartments, took out a small note, which he delivered to Dolly. Dolly handled it at first in blank surprise, turned it over and over, finally opened it.
"Why, this is my note!" she cried, very much confounded. "My own little note to that midshipman. Here is my name. And here is his name. How did you get it, Mr. Shubrick?" she asked, looking at him. But his face told her nothing.
"It was given to me," he said.
"By whom?"
"By the messenger that brought it from you."
"The messenger? But you you—you—are somebody else!"
Mr. Shubrick laughed out.
"Am I?" said he. "Well, perhaps,—though I think not."
"But you are not that midshipman?"
"No. I was he, though."
"Your name,—your name is not Crowninshield?"
"Yes. That is one of my names. Alexander Crowninshield Shubrick, at your service."
Dolly looked at him, like a person awake from a dream, trying to read some of the remembered lineaments of that midshipman in his face. He bore her examination very coolly.
"Why—Oh, is it possible you are he?" cried Dolly with an odd accent of almost disappointment, which struck Mr. Shubrick, but was inexplicable. "Why did you not sign your true name?"
"Excuse me. I signed my true name, as far as it went."
"But not the whole of it. Why didn't you?"
"I had a reason. I did not wish you to trace me."
"But please, why not, Mr. Shubrick?"
"We might say, it was a boy's folly."
"I shall not say so," said Dolly, tendering the note back. "I daresay you had some reason or other. But I cannot somehow get my brain out of a whirl. I thought you were somebody else!—Here is your note, Mr. Shubrick. I cannot imagine what made you keep it so long."
His hand did not move to receive the note.
"I have been keeping it for this time," he answered. "And now, I do not want to keep it any longer, Miss Dolly, unless—unless I may have you too."
Dolly looked at him now with a face of startled inquiry and uneasiness. Whether she were more startled or incredulous of what she heard, it would be impossible to say. The expression in her eyes grew to be almost terror. But Mr. Shubrick smiled a little as he met them.
"I kept the note, for I always knew, from that time, that I should marry that little girl, if ever I could find her,—and if she would let me."
Dolly's face was fairly blanched. "But—you belong to somebody else," she said.
"No," said he,—"I beg your pardon. I belong to nobody in the world, but myself. And you."
"Christina told me"——
"She told you true," said Mr. Shubrick quite composedly. "There was a connection subsisting between us, which, while it lasted, bound us to each other. It happened, as such things happen; years ago we were thrown into each other's company, in the country, when I was home on leave. My home was near hers; we saw a great deal of each other; and fancied that we liked each other more than the fact was, or rather in a different way. So we were engaged; on my part it was one of those boyish engagements which boys frequently form before they know their own minds, or what they want. On the other side you can see how it was from the circumstances of the case. Christina did not care enough about me to want to be married; she always put it off; and I was not deeply enough concerned to find the delay very hard to bear. And then, when I saw you in Rome that Christmas time, I knew immediately that if ever in the world I married anybody, it would be the lady that wore that chain."
"But Christina?" said Dolly, still with a face of terrified trouble. Was then Mr. Shubrick a traitor, false to his engagements, deserting a person to whom, whether willingly or not, he was every way bound? He did not look like a man conscious of dishonourable dealing, of any sort; and he answered in a voice that was both calm and unconcerned.
"Christina and I are good friends, but not engaged friends any more. Will you read that?"
He handed Dolly another letter as he spoke, and Dolly, bewildered, opened it.
"Ischl,May6, 18—.
"DEAR SANDIE,—"You are quite ridiculous to want me to write this letter, for anybody that knows you, knows that whatever you say is the truth, absolutely unmixed and unvarnished. Your word is enough for any statement of facts, without mine to help it. However, since you will have it so, here I am writing.
"But really it is very awkward. What do you wish me to say, and how shall I say it? You want a testimony, I suppose. Well, then, this is to certify, that you and I are the best friends in the world, and mean to remain so, in spite of the fact that we once meant to be more than friends, and have found out that we made a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith declare you free,—that is what you want me to say, is it not?—free with all the honours, and with the full preservation of my regards and high consideration. Indeed, I do not believe I ever shall hold anybody else inquitesuch high consideration; but perhaps that very fact made me unfit to be anything but your friend. I am afraid you are too good for me, in stern earnest; but I have a notion that will be no disadvantage to you in certain other sweet eyes that I know; the goodness, I mean, not anything else.
"We are here, at this loveliest of lovely places; but we have got enough of it, and are going to spend some weeks in the Tyrol. I suppose I know where to imagineyou, at least part of the summer. And you will know where to imagine me next winter, when I tell you that in the fall the probability is that I shall become Mrs. St. Leger. You may tell Dolly. Didn't I remark to her once that she and I had better effect an exchange? Funny, wasn't it? However, for the present I am, as I have long been, your very sincere friend, CHRISTINA THAYER."
Dolly read the letter and stared at it, and finally returned it without raising her eyes. And then she sat looking straight before her, while her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St. Leger had talked to her on this very same subject, she had been able to answer him with scarcely a rise of colour in her cheeks; with a calm and cool exercise of her reasoning powers, which left her fully mistress of the situation and of herself. She had not been disturbed then, she had not been excited. What was the matter now? For Dolly was overtaken by an invincible fit of shyness, such as never had visited her in all her life. I do not think now she knew that she was blushing; according to her custom, she was not self-conscious; what she was conscious of, intensely, was Mr. Shubrick's presence, and an overwhelming sense of his identity with the midshipman of the "Achilles." Whatthathad to do with Dolly's shyness, it might be hard to tell; but her sweet face flushed till brow and neck caught the tinge, and the eyelids fell over the eyes, and Dolly for the moment was mistress of nothing. Mr. Shubrick looking at her, and seeing those lovely flushes and her absolute gravity and silence, was in doubt what it might mean. He thought that perhaps nobody had ever spoken to her on such a subject before; yet Dolly was no silly girl, to be overcome by the mere strangeness of his words. Did her silence and gravity augur ill for him? or well? And then, without being in the least a coxcomb, it occurred to him that her excessive blushing told on the hopeful side of the account. He waited. He saw she was as shy as a just caught bird; was she caught? He would not make so much as a movement to startle her further. He waited, with something at his heart which made it easier every moment for him to wait. But in the nature of the case, waiting has its limits.
"What are you going to do about it?" he inquired at length, in a very gentle manner. "Give me my note back again, with the conditions?"
Dolly did nothing of the kind. She held the note, it is true, and looked at it, but without making any movement to restore it to its owner. So decided an action did not seem at the moment possible to her. She looked at the little note, with the prettiest sort of embarrassment, and presently rose to her feet. "I am sure it is time to have supper," she said, "and they cannot do anything at home till I come."
Mr. Shubrick rose too and followed Dolly, who set off unceremoniously down the bank towards the bridge. He followed her, half smiling, and wholly impatient. Yet though a stride or two would have brought him alongside of her, he would not make them. He kept behind, and allowed her to trip on before him, which she did with a light, hasty foot, until they neared the little gate of the courtyard belonging to the house. Then he stepped forward and held the gate open for her to enter, not saying a word. Dolly passed him with the loveliest shy down-casting of her eyelids, and went on straight into the house. He saw the bird was fluttering yet, but he thought he was sure of her.
Dolly threw off her hat and went down to the kitchen premises. Mr. Shubrick repaired to the sick-room and relieved Mrs. Copley. That lady, descending to the lower part of the house, found Dolly very busy with the supper-table, and apparently much flushed with the hot weather.
"Your father's getting well!" she said with a sigh.
"That's good news, I am sure, mother."
"Yes,—it's good news," Mrs. Copley repeated doubtfully; "but it seems as if everything good in this world had a bad side to it."
Dolly stood still. "What's the matter?" she said.
"Oh, he's so uneasy. As restless end fidgetty as a fish out of water. He is contented with nothing except when Mr. Shubrick is near him; he behaves quietly then, at least, however he feels. I believe it takes a man to manage a man. Though I never saw a man before that could manage your father.Helaughs at it, and says it is the habit of giving orders."
"Who laughs at it?"
"Mr. Shubrick, to be sure. You don't suppose your father owns to minding orders? But he does mind, for all that. What will become of us when that young man goes away?"
"Why, mother?"
"My patience, Dolly! what have you done to heat yourself so! Your face is all flushed. Do keep away from the fire, or you'll certainly spoil your complexion. You're all flushed up, child."
"But father,—what about father?"
"Oh, he's just getting ready to take his own head, as soon as Mr. Shubrick slips the bridle off. He's talking of going up to town already; and he will go, I know, as soon as hecango; and then, Dolly, then—I don't know what will become of us!"
Mrs. Copley put her hands over her face, and the last words were spoken with such an accent of forlorn despair, that Dolly saw her mother must have found out or divined much that she had tried to keep from her. She hesitated with her answer. Somehow, the despair and the forlornness had gone out of Dolly's heart.
"I hope—I think—there will be some help, mother."
"Where is it to come from?" said Mrs. Copley sharply. "We are as alone as we can be. We might as well be on a desert island. Now you have sent off Mr. St. Leger—oh, how obstinate children are! and how little they know what is for their good!"
This subject was threadbare. Dolly let it drop. It may be said she did that with every subject that was started that evening. Mr. Shubrick at supper made brave efforts to keep the talk a going; but it would not go. Dolly said nothing; and Mrs. Copley in the best of times was never much help in a conversation. Just now she had rather a preoccupied manner; and I am by no means certain that, with the superhuman keenness of intuition possessed by mothers, she had not begun to discern a subtle danger in the air. The pressure of one fear being removed, there was leisure for any other to come up. However, Mr. Shubrick concerned himself only about Dolly's silence, and watched her to find out what it meant. She attended to all her duties, even to taking care of him, which to be sure was one of her duties; but she never looked at him. The same veil of shy grace which had fallen upon her in the wood, was around her still, and tantalised him.
Nor did he get another chance to speak to her alone through the next two days that passed; carefully as he sought for it. Dolly was not to be found or met with, unless sitting at the table behind her tea-urn and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity. She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as he did narrowly and constantly, he could perceive now and then a slight break in the gravity of her looks, which made his heart bound with a great thrill. It was not so much a smile as a light upon her lips; a play of them; which he persuaded himself was not unhappy. The loveliness of the whole manifestation of Dolly during those two days, went a good way towards keeping him quiet; but naturally it worked two ways. And human patience has limits.
The second day, Mr. Shubrick's had given out. He came in from his walk to the village, bringing Mrs. Copley something she had commissioned him to get from thence; and found both ladies sitting at a late dinner. And not the young officer's eyes alone marked the sudden flush which rose in Dolly's cheeks when he appeared, and the lowered eyelids as he stood opposite her.
"We began to review the park, the other day," he said, eyeing her steadily. "Can we have another walk in it this afternoon, Miss Dolly? The first was so pleasant."
"I shouldn't think you'd go pleasuring just now, Dolly, when your father wants you," said Mrs. Copley. "You have seen hardly anything of him lately. I should think you would go and sit with him this afternoon. I know he would like it."
Whether this arrangement was agreeable to the present parties concerned, or either of them, did not appear. Of course the most decorous acquiescence was all that came to light. A little later, Mr. Shubrick himself, being thus relieved from duty, quitted the house and strolled down to the bridge and over it into the park; and Dolly slowly went upstairs to her father's room. It was true, she had been there lately less than usual; but there had been a reason for that. Her conscience was not charged with any neglect.
Mr. Copley seemed sleepily inclined; and after a word or two exchanged with him Dolly began to go round the room, looking to see if anything needed her ordering hand. Truly she found nothing. Coming to the window, she paused a moment in idle wistfulness to see how the summer sunshine lay upon the oaks of the park. And standing there, she saw Mr. Shubrick, slowly going over the bridge. She turned away and went on with her progress round the room.
"What are you about there, Dolly?" Mr. Copley called to her.
"Just seeing if anything wants my attention, father."
"Nothing does, I can tell you. The room is all right, and everything in it. I've been kept in order, since I have had a naval officer to attend upon me."
"Don't I keep things in order, father?"
"If you do, your mother don't. She thinks that anywhere is a place, and that one place is as good as another."
"Mother seems to think I have neglected you lately. Have you missed me?"
"Missed you! no. I have had care and company. Where did you pick up that young man, Dolly?"
"I, father? I didn't pick him up."
"How came he here, then? What brought him?"
"I don't know," said Dolly. "Would you like to have me read to you?"
"No, child. Shubrick reads to me and talks to me. He's capital company, though he's one of your blue sort."
"Father! He is not blue, nor am I. Do you think I am blue?"
"Sky blue," said her father. "He's navy blue. That's the difference."
"I do not understand the difference," said Dolly, half laughing.
"Never mind. What have you done with Mr. Shubrick?"
"I?" said Dolly, aghast.
"Yes. Where is he?"
"Oh!—I believe, mother sent him into the park."
"Sent him into the park? What for?"
"I do not mean that she sent him," said Dolly, correcting herself in some embarrassment; "I mean, that she sent me up here, and he went into the park."
"I wish he'd come back, then. I want him to finish reading to me that capital article on English and European politics."
"Can I finish it?"
"No, child. You don't understand anything about the subject. Shubrick does. I like to discuss things with him; he's got a clear head of his own; he's a capital talker. When is he going?"
"Going where, father?"
"Going away. He can't stay here for ever, reading politics and putting my room in order. How long is he going to stay?"
"I do not know."
"Well—when he goes I shall go! I shall not be able to hold out here. I shall go back to London. I can't live where there is not a man to speak to some time in the twenty-four hours. Besides, I can do nothing here. I might as well be a cabbage, and a cabbage without a head to it."
"Are we cabbages?" asked Dolly at this. "Mother and I?"
"Cabbage roses, my dear; cabbage roses. Nothing worse than that."
"But even cabbage roses, father, want somebody to take care of them."
"I'll take care of you. But I can do it best in London."
"Then you do not want me to read to you father?" Dolly said after a pause.
"No, my dear, no, my dear. If you could find that fellow Shubrick—I should like him."
And Mr. Copley closed his eyes as if to sleep, finding nothing worthy to occupy his waking faculties. Dolly sat by the window, looking out and meditating. Yes, Mr. Shubrick would be going away, probably soon; his furlough could not last always. Meanwhile, she had given him no answer to his questions and propositions. It was rather hard upon him, Dolly felt; and she had a sort of yearning sympathy towards her suitor. A little impatience seized her at being shut up here in her father's room, where he did not want her, and kept from the walk in the park with Mr. Shubrick, who did want her. He wanted her very much, Dolly knew; he had been waiting patiently, and she had disappointed every effort he made to get speech of her and see her alone, just because she was shy of him and of herself. But it was hardly fair to him, after all, and it could not go on. He had a right to know what she would say to his proposition; and she was keeping him in uneasiness, (to put it mildly), Dolly knew quite well. And now, when could she see him? when would she have a chance to speak to him alone, and to hear all that she yet wanted to hear? but indeed Dolly now was thinking not so much of what she wanted as of whathewanted; and her uneasiness grew. He might be obliged to go off suddenly; officers' orders are stubborn things; she might have no chance at all, for aught she knew, after this afternoon. She looked at her father; he had dozed off. She looked out of the window; the afternoon sun, sinking away in the west, was sending a flood of warm light upon and among the trees of the park. It must be wonderfully pretty there! It must be vastly pleasant there! And there, perhaps, Mr. Shubrick was sitting at this moment on the bank, wishing for her, and feeling impatiently that his free time was slipping away. Dolly's heart stirred uneasily. She had been very shy of him; she was yet; but now she felt that he had a right to his answer. Something that took the guise of conscience opposed her shy reserve and fought with it. Mr. Shubrick had arightto his answer; and she was not treating him well to let him go without it.
Dolly looked again at her father. Eyes closed, breathing indicative of gentle slumber. She looked again over at the sunlit park. It was delicious over there, among its sunny and shadowy glades. Perhaps Mr. Shubrick had walked on, tempted by the beauty, and was now at a distance; perhaps he had not been tempted, and was still near, up there among the trees, wanting to see her.
Dolly turned away from the window and with a quick step went downstairs. She met nobody. Her straw flat was on the hall table; she took it up and went out; through the garden, down to the bridge, over the bridge, with a step not swift but steady. Mr. Shubrick had a right to his answer, and she was simply doing what was his due, and there might be no time to lose. She went a little more slowly when she found herself in the park; and she trembled a little as her eye searched the grassy openings. She was not quite so confident here. But she went on.
She had not gone very far before she saw him; under the same oak where they had sat together; lying on his elbow on the turf and reading. Dolly started, but then advanced slowly, after that one minute's check and pause. He was reading; he did not see her, and he did not hear her light footstep coming up the bank; until her figure threw a shadow which reached him. Then he looked up and sprang up; and perhaps divining it, met Dolly's hesitation, for, taking her hands he placed her on the bank beside his open book; which book, Dolly saw, was his Bible. But her shyness had all come back. The impression made by the thought of a person, when you do not see him, is something quite different from the living and breathing flesh and blood personality. Mr. Shubrick, on the other hand, was in a widely different mood; which Dolly knew, I suppose, though she could not see.
"This is unlooked-for happiness," said he, throwing himself down on the bank beside her. "What have you done with Mr. Copley?"
"Nothing. He did not want me. He asked me what I had done with Mr. Shubrick? I think you have spoiled him." Dolly spoke without looking at her companion, be it understood, and her breath came a little short.
"And what are you going to do with Mr. Shubrick?" her companion said, not in the tone of a doubtful man, lying there on the bank and watching her.
But Dolly found no words. She could not say anything, well though she recognised Mr. Shubrick's right to have his answer. Her eyes were absolutely cast down; the colour on her cheek varied a little, yet not with the overwhelming flushes of the other day. Dolly was struggling with the sense of duty, the necessity for action, and yet she could not act. She had come to the scene of action, indeed, and there her bravery failed her; and she sat with those delicate lights coming and going on her cheek, and the brown eyes hidden behind the sweep of the lowered eyelashes; most like a shy child. Mr. Shubrick could have smiled, but he kept back the smile.
"You know," he said in calm, matter-of-fact tones, that met Dolly's sense of business, "my action must wait upon your decision. If you do not let me stay, I must go, and that at once. What do you want me to do?"
"I do not want you to go," Dolly breathed softly.
Silently Mr. Shubrick held out his hand. As silently, though frankly, Dolly put hers into it. Still she did not look at him. And he recognised what sort of a creature he was dealing with, and had sense and delicacy and tact and manliness enough not to startle her by any demonstration whatever. He only held the little hand, still and fast, for a space, during which neither of them said anything; then, however, he bent his head over the hand and kissed it.
"My fingers are not accustomed to such treatment," said Dolly, half laughing, and trying hard to strike into an ordinary tone of conversation, though she left him the hand. "I do not think they ever were kissed before."
"They have got to learn!" said her companion.
Dolly was silent again. It was with a great joy at her heart that she felt her hand so clasped and held, and knew that Mr. Shubrick had got his answer and the thing was done; but she did not show it, unless to a nice observer. And a nice observer was by her side. Yet he kept silence too for a while. It was one of those full, blessed silences that are the very reverse of a blank or a void; when the heart's big treasure is too much to be immediately unpacked, and words when they come are quite likely enough not to touch it and to go to something comparatively indifferent. However, words did not just that on the present occasion.
"Dolly, I am in a sort of amazement at my own happiness," Mr. Shubrick said.
Dolly could have answered, so was she! but she did not. She only dimpled a little, and flushed.
"I have been waiting for you all these years," he went on; "and now I have got you!"
Dolly's dimples came out a little more. "I thought you did not wait," she remarked.
Mr. Shubrick laughed. "My heart waited," he said. "I made a boy's mistake; and I might have paid a man's penalty for it. But I had always known that you and no other would be my wife, if I could find you. That is, if I could persuade you; and somehow I never allowed myself to doubt of that. I did not take such a chance into consideration."
"But I was such a little child," said Dolly.
"Ay," said he; "that was it. You weresucha little child."
"But you must have been a very extraordinary midshipman, it seems to me."
"By the same rule you must have been a very extraordinary little girl."
They both laughed at that.
"I suppose we were both extraordinary," said Dolly; "but, really, Mr. Shubrick, you know very little about me!"
His answer to that was to kiss again the hand he held.
"What do you know of me?"
"I think I know a great deal about you," said Dolly softly.
"You have a great deal to learn. Wouldn't you like to begin by hearing how Miss Thayer and I came to an understanding?"
"Oh, yes, yes! if you please," said Dolly, extremely glad to get upon a more abstract subject of conversation.
"I owe that to myself, perhaps," Mr. Shubrick went on; "and I certainly owe it to you. I told you how I got into my engagement with her. It was a boyish fancy; but all the same, I was bound by it; and I should have been legally bound before now, only that Christina always put off that whenever I proposed it. I found too that the putting it off did not make me miserable. Dolly, the case is going to be different this time!"
"You mean," said Dolly doubtfully, "itisgoing to make you miserable?"
"No! I mean, you are not going to put me off."
"Oh, but!"——said Dolly flushing, and stopped.
"I have settled that point in my own mind," he said, smiling; "it is as well you should know it at once.—So time went by, until I went to spend that Christmas Day in Rome. After that day I knew nearly all that I know now. Of course it followed, that I could not accept the invitation to Sorrento, when you were expected to be there. I could not venture to see you again while I was bound in honour to another woman. I stayed on board ship, those hot summer days, when all the officers that could went ashore. I stayed and worked at my problem—what I was to do."
He paused and Dolly said nothing. She was listening intently, and entirely forgetting that the sunlight was coming very slant and would soon be gone, and that home and supper were waiting for her managing hand. Dolly's eyes were fixed upon another hand, which held hers, and her ears were strained to catch every word. She rarely dared glance at Mr. Shubrick's face.
"I wonder what counsel you would have given me?" he went on,—"if I could have asked it of you as an indifferent person,—which you were."
"I don't know," said Dolly. "I know what people think"——
"Yes, I knew what people think, too; and it a little embarrassed my considerations. However, Dolly, I made up my mind at last to this;—that to marry Christina would be acting a lie; that I could not do that; and that if I could, a lie to be acted all my life long would be too heavy for me. Negatively, I made up my mind. Positively, I did not know exactly how I should work it. But I must see Christina. And as soon as affairs on board ship permitted, I got a furlough of a few days and went to Sorrento. I got there one lovely afternoon, about three weeks after you had gone. Sea and sky and the world generally were flooded with light and colour, so as I have never seen them anywhere else, it seems to me. You know how it is."
"Yes, I know Sorrento," said Dolly. But just then, an English bank under English oaks seemed as good to the girl as ever an Italian paradise. That, naturally, she did not show. "I know Sorrento," she said quietly.
"And you know the Thayers' villa. I found Christina and Mr. St. Leger sitting on the green near the house, under an orange tree—symbolical; and the air was sweet with a thousand other things. I felt it with a kind of oppression, for the mental prospect was by no means so delicious."
"No," said Dolly. "And sometimes that feeling of contrast makes one very keen to see all the lovely things outside of one."
"Doyouknow that?" said Mr. Shubrick.
"Yes. I know it"
"One can only know it by experience. What experience can you have had, my Dolly, to let you feel it?"
Dolly turned her eyes on him without speaking. She was thinking of Venice at midnight under the moon, and a sail, and a wine-shop. Tell him? No, indeed, never!
"You are not ready to let me know?" said he, smiling. "How long first must it be?"
"It isn't anything you need know," said Dolly, looking away. But with that the question flashed upon her, would he not have to know? had he not a right? "Please go on," she said hurriedly.
"I can go on now easier than I could then," he said with a half laugh. "I sat down with them, and purposely brought the conversation upon the theme of my trouble. It came quite naturally,aproposof a case of a broken engagement which was much talked of just then; and I started my question. Suppose one or the other of the parties had discovered that the engagement was a mistake? They gave it dead against me; all of them; Mrs. Thayer had come out by that time. They were unanimous in deciding that pledges made must be kept, at all hazards."
"I think that is the general view," said Dolly.
"It is not yours?"
"I never thought much about it. But I think people ought always and everywhere to be true.—That is nothing to kiss my hand for," Dolly added with the pretty flush which was coming and going so often this afternoon.
"You will let me judge of that."
"I didn't think you were that sort of person."
"What sort of person?"
"One of those that kiss hands."
"Shall I choose something else to kiss, next time?"
But Dolly looked so frightened that Mr. Shubrick, laughing, went back to his story.
"We were at Sorrento," he said. "You can suppose my state of mind. I thought at least I would take disapprobation piecemeal, and I asked Christina to go out on the bay with me. You have been on the bay of Sorrento about sun-setting?"
"Oh yes, many a time."
"I did not enjoy it at first. I hope you did. I think Christina did. It was the fairest evening imaginable; and my oar, every stroke I made, broke and shivered purple and golden waters. It was sailing over the rarest possible mosaic in which the pattern was constantly shifting. I studied it, while I was studying how to begin what I had to do. Then, after a while, when we were well out from shore, I lay on my oars, and asked Miss Thayer whether she were sure that her judgment was according to her words, in the matter we had been discussing at the house? She asked what I meant. I put it to her then, whether she would choose to marry a man who liked another woman better than he did herself?
"Christina's eyes opened a little, and she said 'Not if she knew it.'
"'Then you gave a wrong verdict up there,' I said.
"'But that was about what themanshould do,' she replied. 'If he has made a promise, he must fulfil it. Or the woman, if it is the woman.'
"'Would not that be doing a wrong to the other party?'
"'How a wrong?' said Christina. 'It would be keeping a promise. Every honourable person does that.'
"'What if it be a promise which the other side no longer wishes to have kept?'
"'You cannot tell that,' said Christina. 'You cannot know. Probably the other side does wish it kept.'
"I reminded her that she had just declaredshe, in the circumstances, would not wish it; but she said, somewhat illogically, 'that it made no difference.'
"I suggested an application of the golden rule."
"Yes," said Dolly; "I think that rule settles it. I should think no woman would let a man marry her who, she knew, liked somebody else better."
"And no man in his senses—nogoodman," said Sandie, "would have a woman for his wife whose heart belonged to another man; or, leaving third parties out of the question, whose heart did not belong tohim. I said something of this to Christina. She answered me with the consequences of scandal, disgrace, gossip, which she said attend the breaking off of an engagement. In short, she threw over all my arguments. I had to come to the point. I asked her if she would like to marryme, if she knew that I liked somebody else better?
"She opened her eyes at me. 'Do you, Sandie?' she said. And I told her yes.
"'Who?' she asked as quick as a flash. And I knew then thatherheart was safe," Mr. Shubrick added with a smile. "I told her frankly, that ever since Christmas Day, I had known that if I ever married anybody it would be the lady I then saw with her.
"'Dolly!' she cried. 'But you don't know her, Sandie.'"
Mr. Shubrick and Dolly both stopped to laugh.
"I am sure that was true. And I should think unanswerable," said Dolly.
"It was not true. Do you think it is true now?"
"Well, you know me a little better, but I should think, not much."
"Shows how little you can tell about it. By the same reasoning, I suppose you do not knowmemuch?"
"No," said Dolly. "Yes, I do! I know you a great deal, in some things. If I didn't"—— she flushed up.
"We both know enough to begin with; is that it? Do you remember, that evening, Christmas Eve, how you sat by the corner of the fireplace and kept quiet, while Miss Thayer talked?"
"Yes." Dolly remembered it very well.
"You wore a black dress, and no ornaments, and the firelight shone on a cameo ring on your hand, and on your face, and the curls of your hair, and every now and then caught this," said Mr. Shubrick, touching Dolly's chain. "Christina talked, and I studied you."
"One evening," said Dolly.
"One evening; but I was reading what was not written in an evening. However, I left Christina's objection unanswered—though I do not allow that it is unanswerable; and waited. She needed a little while to come to her breath."
"Poor Christina!" said Dolly.
"Not at all; it was poor Sandie, if anybody. I do not think Christina suffered, more than a little natural and very excusable mortification. She never loved me. I had guessed as much before, and I was relieved now to find that I had been certainly right. But she needed a little while to get her breath, nevertheless. She asked me if I was serious? then, why I did not tell her sooner? I replied that I had had a great fight to fight before I could make up my mind to tell her at all.
"And then, as I judge,shehad something of a fight to go through. She turned her face away from me, and sat silent. I did not interrupt her; and we floated so a good while on the coloured sea. I do not believe she knew what the colours were; but I did, I confess. I had got a weight off my mind. The bay of Sorrento was very lovely to me that evening. After a good while, Christina turned to me again, and I could see that she was all taut and right now. She began with a compliment to me."
"What was it?" Dolly asked.
"Said I was a brave fellow, I believe."
"I am sure I think that was true."
"Do you? It is harder to be false than true, Dolly."
"All the same, it takes bravery sometimes to be true."
"So Christina seemed to think. I believe I said nothing; and she went on, and added she thought I had done right, and she was much obliged to me."
"That was like Christina," said Dolly.
"'But you are bold,' she said again, 'to tell me!'
"I assured her I had not been bold at all, but very cowardly.
"'What do you expect people will say?'
"I told her I had been concerned only and solely with the question of how she herself would take my disclosure; what she would say, and how she would feel.
"She was silent again.
"'But, Sandie,' she began after a minute or two which were not yet pleasant minutes to either of us,—'I think it was very risky. It's all right, or it will be all right, I believe, soon,—but suppose I had been devotedly in love with you? Suppose it had broken my heart? Ithasn't—but suppose it had?'"
"Yes," said Dolly. "You could not know."
"I think I knew," said Mr. Shubrick. "But at any rate, Dolly, I should have done just the same. 'Fais que dois, advienne que pourra,' is a grand old motto, and always safe. I could not marry one woman while I loved another. The question of breaking hearts does not come in. I had no right to marry Christina, even to save her life, if that had been in danger. But happily it was not in danger. She did shed a few tears, but they were not the tears of a broken heart. I told her something like what I have been saying to you.
"'But Dolly!' she said. 'You do not know her, you do not evenknow her.' That thought seemed to weigh on her mind."
"What could you say to it?" said Dolly.
"I said nothing," Mr. Shubrick answered, smiling. "Then Christina went on to remark that Miss Copley did not know me; and that possibly I had been brave for nothing. I still made no answer; and she declared she saw it in my face, that I was determined it shouldnotbe for nothing. She wished me success, she added; but 'Dolly had her own way of looking at things.'"
Dolly could not help laughing.
"So that is my story," Mr. Shubrick concluded.
"And, oh, look at the light, look at the light!" said Dolly, jumping up. "Where will mother think I and supper are!"
"She thinks probably that you are in Mr. Copley's room."
"No, she knows I am not; for she is sure to be there herself."
"Then I will go straight to them, while you bring up arrears with supper."
"And Christina will marry Mr. St. Leger!" said Dolly, while she flushed high at this suggestion. "Yet I am not surprised."
"Is it a good match?"
"The world would say so."
"Iam not," said Sandie, "according to the same judgment. I am not rich, Dolly. By and by I will tell you all I have. But it is enough for us to live upon comfortably."
Nobody had ever seen Dolly so shy and blushing and timid as she was now, walking down the bank by Mr. Shubrick's side. It was a bit of the same lovely manifestation which he had been enjoying for a day or two with a little alloy. It was without alloy that he enjoyed it now.