Dolores

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  A favourable time for a glimpse of the brother and sister is a midsummer evening of the year, whose autumn saw things as they are shown with the Hutton family. It was the day of Dolores’ final coming from school; and the trap which formed the provision of its kind at the parsonage had been driven to meet her by her brother; the father’s tutored domestic instinct precluding any form of personal eagerness on his daughter’s return to his roof. She was to pass the summer at the parsonage, and enter in the autumn a college for women. She seconded her stepmother’s view that her future support should not be expected of her father, and was to be fitted for the teaching to which she looked forward with her brother. We may watch her, as she walks up the country road—a tall, rather gaunt-looking woman—for the nameless suggestions of girlhood had lingered but a little while with Dolores,—angular and large of limb; with a plainness of dress that almost spoke of heedlessness, and a carriage not without dignity in its easy energy of motion. Her face is turned to her brother’s, lit up with humour and life; a face with a healthful sallowness of skin, exaggerated aquiline features, and grey eyes innocent of beauty of lash or colour, looking under nervous eyebrows, and a forehead already showing its furrows. She was fresh from the modern public school, where as student and student - teacher she had grown from the early maturity of the girl of thirteen to tolerant womanhood. It had been a helpful sphere for her early needs—rich in fellowship, in nurture for the charity which mellowed her nature’s primary sternness. It was not without cost that she put away what it gave, as childish things, and crossed its bound with her face held to the future.

  With her face held thus, she greeted her brother with the humorous affection of their long comradeship; uttered no word of the day as lived by herself; and lent her ear to his tale of the home routine; showing his father’s and stepmother’s lots as they were to themselves, and summoning an eagerness for his boyish hopes which should prove that there was one who cared for them greatly. For Dolores in her dealings with others suppressed any pain that was her own; and had only cheer for the creatures she saw as having no need of further saddening. Her brother found that she filled the wants of his life; and in giving his troubles of the present and hopes for the future to her keeping, hardly knew that her present and future were things of which he heard little; or that her life held its own crushed sorrows, and duties that were hard and binding.

  “I told father I had made up my mind to teach,” he said, as they paused in the hedge-bound road for the trap to pass; “but he does not try to understand the meaning the decision has for me. He remarked that he supposed it was a passable choice, as I had no desire for the Church, and no aptitude for law or medicine. It seems the thing to talk about teaching as a work for feeble youths, who have no chance of another livelihood.”

  “Yes, I believe it does,” said Dolores, with a sound of laughter in her full-toned, rather impressive voice; “and I daresay, as many do it, father has put it fitly—the best thing for people with no aptitude for the Church or law or medicine. But you choose it as it is in itself.”

  “It is a comfort to hear a sane remark,” said Bertram. “The talk that goes on at home, Dolores! It is invariably bounded by the doings and misdoings of the parish, or of Uncle James—misdoings in the latter case. And the mater is for ever put out about some little trifling thing that cannot possibly matter. We never have a day of peace.”

  “Her married life has hardly been all she expected, I am afraid,” said Dolores. “She is fretted by little things, that cannot be avoided any more than they can seem to be worth worrying about. How are the children, Bertram?”

  “Oh—well, I suppose,” said Bertram. “Evelyn is fretful as usual; and Sophy waits on her as usual; and we have begun to call the baby Cleveland. The mater says it is time he was called by his name. I believe it is a source of satisfaction to her that it is he and not I who is named after father.

  “Poor baby Cleveland!” said Dolores. “I am sure we need not grudge him his name, especially as it was given him after you had had the chance of it. Look, Bertram, here is the very person for us embryo teachers to meet. We cannot fail to be wiser five minutes hence.”

  “And wiser still ten minutes hence,” muttered Bertram, as the gate of the cornfield clicked; and Dr Cassell—greyer, stouter, and ruddier, but otherwise unaltered for the further years of dispensing medical, scriptural, and general matter—stepped into the highroad.

  “How do you do, Miss Dolores? So your last session at school has come to an end. I must congratulate you upon your latest success.”

  “Dolores, I had forgotten your scholarship,” said Bertram.

  “Ah, we don’t keep pleasant things in our minds so long as unpleasant,” said Dr Cassell. “And this is a very pleasant thing, I hear, Miss Dolores. Your college course—or the larger part of it—provided for! You are to be congratulated.”

  “She is indeed,” said Bertram. “The scholarship carries a lot besides its money value. We are all very proud of her.”

  “It is nothing to be proud of, unless hard work is a cause for pride,” said Dolores. “It is simply the necessary means to a necessary end.”

  “It may be as well not to feel proud of it as a success,” said Dr Cassell, making a gesture with his hand. “There is never likely—as far as I have had opportunities of judging; and I think my opportunities have been as extensive as those of most—to be too much humility in the world. But satisfaction in the gaining of knowledge is a different feeling.” The doctor came to a pause; and Dolores and Bertram allowed their eyes to meet as they followed his example. “A young man once observed to a great preacher, that God had no need of human knowledge. ‘Sir,’ was the reply, ‘He has still less need of human ignorance.’” The doctor walked on, seeing the vanity of attempting to enhance the given effect; but after a few steps paused again.

  “You are richer—in the possession of brains and knowledge—than in the possession of anything else—with the exception of the true religion—on earth. A certain great musician—I think it was Beethoven—had a—somewhat worldly—brother; who one day sent him a card inscribed with the words, ‘Johann von Beethoven’—I am sure now that the musician was Beethoven—‘landowner.’ In reply, the great man sent his own card, bearing as a retort the inscription, ‘Ludwig von Beethoven, brain owner.’ Dr Cassell laughed, but made no movement forward, and after a minute resumed. “Talking of musicians,” he said, “that is a strange story of how Mozart spent his last days in composing the Requiem he believed to be his own. You both know it, I suppose?”

  “Yes,” said Bertram, detecting the note of wistfulness, and perceiving that Dolores was disposed to indulgence. “There is a book about the musicians at home, and we are all well up in them.”

  “Ah! I see,” said Dr Cassell, as he shook hands and turned on his way.

  “Dolores, your scholarship has become such a standing cause for rejoicing that I did not think of speaking about it,” said Bertram. “Father is very proud of you in his heart—though, of course, he is not allowed to show it. Studying and teaching at the same time, and competing with people who are only studying, means more than any one thinks who is not initiated.”

  “Oh, no, dear, it has not meant much,” said Dolores, smiling at the face beside her—a younger copy of her own, with a softening which left its claim to comeliness. “Nobody is quite without gifts, and mine have gone in one direction. Besides, I was working for my own sake. I am going to college for my own future, and I should not feel justified in going without lightening the expense for father.”

  “I do not see why you should be expected to qualify to teach at all,” said Bertram. “Neither of the little girls is to do anything of the sort. I don’t think the mater comes out well in this matter. For it is all her doing at the bottom, of course.”

  “Oh, I look forward to teaching,” said Dolores. “I take the same view of it as you do. And I am not studying against the grain.”

  “If you were, you would be not the less expe
cted to do it,” said Bertram. “It is not right that the mater should lead father to make differences between his children. You cannot but see that yourself, Dolores, with your stern views of justice.”

  “Oh, we must not look at things only with justice,” said Dolores. “It must be hard for a woman who—like other women—wishes to be first with her husband, and to see his interest centred on her children, to have two children who are strangers in her home; preventing her eldest child from being his first, and taking the precedence of the older ones. I think it is natural she should want to be rid of the eldest, almost more so if she is a daughter, and may seem to compete with herself.”

  “Well, that is putting things from the stepmother’s view with a vengeance,” said Bertram. “How about the stepchildren? If father had not married again, think how different your life would have been. You would have been everything to him. You must know that you are still his favourite child in his heart. But the more you are away, the less it will be so, Dolores. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a maxim which applies entirely to father.”

  Dolores was silent, walking at a quickened pace. Her lot held its own pain; which was not less sharp that she uttered no word of it. When she spoke, her voice had its usual vigorous tones.

  “It does not do to think of what might have been. We must admit that father has found happiness in his second marriage, and it is that we have to think of. It was his own life he was concerned with when he married again. It was no right of mine to be everything to him. We have always had from him a father’s affection and a father’s duty. More than that we have no reason to expect.”

  “If I have always had a father’s affection,” said Bertram, “I should not say that affection was a strong point with fathers.”

  Dolores was silent; and no more was said till they walked up the garden of the parsonage.

  “Well, Dolores,” said Mrs Hutton, coming into the porch; “I am glad to see you at home again. You must be tired after your long journey. Children, came and say ‘how do you do’ to Dolores.”

  The two little sisters—Sophia, a noble-looking girl of eight, and Evelyn, a fragile little damsel two years younger—obeyed with an eagerness which brought a chill into Mrs Hutton’s mellow tones.

  “Come, there is no need to be boisterous. Do not be rough, Sophy. Bertram, there is no occasion to stand in the middle of the hall, leaving no passage for any one. Your father is in his study, Dolores, if you would like to see him.”

  “Well, my daughter,” said the Reverend Cleveland, stepping from this sanctuary in response to the sounds that reached him, and speaking with a touch of emotion in his tones, “so you have left your school-days behind you. Well, it is a chapter of your life past; so things go by one by one till everything is behind. But I think you may look back on them as a chapter well lived”

  “Come, Cleveland, let some of us move out of the hall,” said Mrs Hutton. “I daresay Dolores would prefer some tea after her journey to listening to such a mixture of metaphors. Who ever heard of any one’s school-days being a chapter—and a chapter well lived, too? Come, children, run into the dining-room.”

  Poor Mr Hutton, checked in the rather morose philosophising natural to him as a vehicle of fatherly greeting, bestowed upon his daughter a conventional paternal embrace, and followed his family in silence.

  “The news of your scholarship gave me the greatest pleasure, my daughter,” he presently said, with the formal precision which marked his dealings with Dolores. “Its proof of perseverence and ability is as gratifying as its substantial aid. I am glad to be assured of your fitness for the work you have chosen. Convinced of your power to succeed, I could wish you nothing better.” Mr Hutton had a way of making public defence of his sanction of his daughter’s earning her bread.

  Mrs Hutton gave a quick glance at her husband, and opened her lips; but closed them again, and busied herself with the wants of her children.

  “Dolores is the cleverest person in the house, isn’t she?” said Sophia, fixing her eyes gravely on Dolores’ face, as if appreciation were a serious matter.

  “She has had the most advantages,” said Mrs Hutton.

  “We met Dr Cassell on our way from the station,” said Dolores, “and heard two entirely fresh anecdotes. His memory is bottomless.”

  “Did he congratulate you on your scholarship?” said the Reverend Cleveland, who, as a university gentleman of clerical calling, took a somewhat exaggerated view of the moment of matters academic.

  “Yes, it was he who reminded me of it,” said Bertram. “But he does not follow that sort of thing. His ideas of education are very queer. However, he assured her she was richer in the possession of knowledge than of anything else on earth.”

  “Well, well, he might be further wrong there, my daughter,” said Mr Hutton.

  “My dear Cleveland,” said Mrs Hutton, “we all know that Dolores is your daughter. You need not remind us of it again.”

  Mr Hutton did not glance at his wife, or give any sign of hearing her words. He fell into silence.

  “Father always calls Dolores that, doesn’t he?” said Sophia, who was subject to the tendency of early days to cast every other remark in the form of a question.

  “No, no, of course not; only sometimes,” said Mrs Hutton. “All fathers call their daughters that sometimes—after they are grown up.”

  “Has this scholarship been gained by a pupil at your school before, Dolores?” said Mr Hutton.

  “Oh, pray do not let us talk about the same thing for the whole of tea-time,” said Mrs Hutton. “I am sure we are all very glad that Dolores has made the most of her advantages, and so gained other advantages for herself. But we need not confine our conversation to it entirely. It is such a very dull subject for the children.”

  Dolores coloured and made no response to her father.

  “Has the scholarship been gained by a pupil from your school before, my daughter?” said the Reverend Cleveland, repeating his question as though he supposed she had not heard it.

  Mrs Hutton, whose instinct seldom failed her where her husband was concerned, appeared to be absorbed in presiding at the urn, while Dolores made a brief reply; and the Reverend Cleveland broached another subject, as though no inkling of the jar had reached him.

  “By the way, my dear, I met your sister and brother-in-law this morning; and we are to spend the evening with them on Wednesday. Cassell is to be there, and Mrs Merton-Vane, and the new Wesleyan minister; so we shall be quite a party. A queer enough party in all conscience; but one cannot pick and choose one’s company in a village. I thought it best to accept. That was right, I suppose?”

  “Yes; Carrie would be vexed if we refused. She always wants to show us off to the Wesleyan ministers. Dissenters are proud of being related to church-people, just as the Americans are the nation who set most value on a title,” said Mrs Hutton, who was no longer hampered by her native sectarianism.

  There was a general laugh; and for the next few minutes Mrs Hutton was sprightly and talkative.

  “I suppose that Bertram and I must go on foot and leave the trap to you ladies, so that you can keep your furbelows in order?” said the Reverend Cleveland, with a laboured effort to maintain the geniality of his daughter’s homecoming.

  Bertram smiled and agreed, but Mrs Hutton was silent. The knowledge that Bertram and Dolores were included in her sister’s hospitality killed any pleasure in her thoughts of it. Her husband confined his formality with his eldest daughter to his own home; and she saw the evening resolve itself into hours of humiliation under her sister’s eyes.

  “I cannot think,” she observed to her husband when they were alone later, “why Carrie cannot ever ask us to her house without Dolores and Bertram. They are no imaginable relation of hers.”

  The Reverend Cleveland was silent. Silence was neither taxing nor self-committing. He often availed himself of it.

  “It is such a very peculiar thing,” continued Mrs Hutton, not soothed by this unreadiness
of response. “It seems as if my path is to be continually dogged by my stepchildren. Any one would think that it was you and not I who was related to Caroline.”

  Mr Hutton rose and moved towards the door. He was not a man of recreant spirit any more than he was a man of words; but there were matters where his powers of endurance were minimised.

  “Well, well, I expect she means it for the best,” he said. “I daresay they think that, as you have the stepchildren, it would not help your position to refuse to recognise them’

  Chapter III.

  “Well, Vicar!” said Mr Blackwood, with genial emphasis, as he welcomed Mr Hutton into his drawing-room. “I am glad to see you one of our party again. Well, Bertram, you are growing a fine, strapping young fellow. I declare you will soon have left your father behind you. I declare that he will, Vicar—I declare that he will.”

  Mr Hutton shook hands with his host, gave a covered glance at the Wesleyan minister, observed to Dr Cassell that the evening was dry, and fell into silence; feeling that the initiative due from an ordained Churchman in Dissenting company was at an end.