She noticed that her brother earned Perdita’s prettiest dealings. With his high-bred comeliness, and the early growth to maturity in which he followed herself, he unknowing wielded spells over the woman coming with her young needs from a world of women; and Dolores looked into the future, and saw herself bound by further bonds to the friend she loved. When he left the village for a holiday, some days before Perdita’s visit ended, her quickening instinct was alive to the change in her friend, and the purpose in the guardedly sparing words she spoke of him. It was not in her nature to know content, that the love of either should be wholly her own; and she grew to think of the two with tender looking forward.
But this was too frail a tenderness for this troubled time. For herself the presence of Perdita had made darkness and hidden strife. The sacrifice of her choice, lived day by day and silently, was hard to the brink of bending her will. The parting, faced with the knowledge of the sphere of the other’s life, all but ended in failing of heart; in its conflict with the passions, from which it was a further conflict to withhold the shame of jealousy. With Dolores it was going sadly, when she forgot her brother’s life and her friend’s, and bowed beneath the living of her own.
But her experience was, as always, bent by the lighter experience of others. As she stood on the station, with her courage faltering, and her face old for her years, she was accosted by Elsa Blackwood; whose return from a visit had been timed for the reception of her luggage by the parsonage trap; and who joined her in such bright youth, that it would have been strange hearing to a watcher, that the days which had seen the lives of the two were the same. Elsa was in the lightest of her moods. She yielded her possessions, without the soberness of injunction, to the lad who was gardener and groom at the parsonage; and tripped by Dolores with a flow of prattling, which spared her the effort of words. As they neared the place of their parting, her chatter suddenly ceased.
“Why, there is my mother coming to meet us!” she said, in a voice with a studied lightness.
“Elsa, what is this?” said Mrs Blackwood, as she came into hearing. “This letter came for you from your friends this morning. I noticed the postmark, and knowing you were supposed still to be with them, opened it. It was written yesterday; and they were under the impression that you were on your journey home.”
“You have no right to open my letters, mother,” said Elsa. “Surely I am old enough to have a private correspondence.”
“You are clearly not old enough to have any liberty at all,” said her mother. “Where have you been to-day and yesterday? Your father insists on a full account.”
“Oh, mother, am I never to have any friends of my own choice? Am I to be a child under you and father, till all my youth is past?” said Elsa, with tears in her voice. “What shall I have to look back on, when I am as old as you are? You have had your own youth. Why should you grudge me mine?”
“Elsa, do not be foolish,” said Mrs Blackwood. “If you have been with those friends your father does not approve, say so, and we will forgive you this once, and help you to do better in future. It would be a dreadful thing to have such a burden on your conscience. There is a guidance we cannot understand in these things.”
“Oh, well, mother, if you have guessed it, it is no good to say any more,” said Elsa. “Here is the gate to the churchyard, where Dolores leaves us. Let us say good-bye at once, and spare her a family confession and pardon.”
Dolores was used to Elsa’s wildness; and gave her thoughts, as she bent her steps to the parsonage, to preparing an account of the scene for her father, who was always indulgent and amused over the mischief of his wife’s comely niece.
But as she entered her father’s study, whence a hum of voices sounded, thoughts of Elsa were banished. Mrs Hutton stood by the fireplace, looking flushed and nervous, her dress betraying some elaboration of its daily simple fitness; and by the window two portly, sable figures seemed to block out the light with their ample sombreness. They were the figures of the Rev. Cleveland Hutton and the Very Rev. James Hutton. The latter’s greeting came deliberate and deep.
“Well, Dolores, it is a great pleasure to meet you. It must be two years since I visited your father, and found you at home. What a likeness!——She looks more the student than ever, Cleveland.”
“She has done very well at college,” said Mr Hutton. “I am told I ought to be proud of her.”
“And you are not, I suppose?” said the Dean, with rather laboured pleasantry. “Well, you must leave the being proud to me. I am sure I am very ready to be proud of my niece.”
The Very Rev. James showed little change for the years. He was yet in the prime of his pomposity and portliness, his fondness for kindly patronage, and his contentment with himself and his ecclesiastical condition. Experience had dealt with him gently. His hair was less grey than the Rev. Cleveland’s, and his figure straighter for all its greater cumbrousness. His personality was simple and inclined to transparence. Many had said that a minute of his company sufficed for the knowledge that he was married and childless.
It was only of late that this state had struck the Very Rev. James, in its aspect of difference from that of his brother. It was not that he had given no reflection to the comparison of himself and the Rev. Cleveland. It was a matter which had had some attraction for his thought; but it had seemed to him fairly summed up in their professional relation, or, more vaguely, in the position that he was himself the greater man. The new line of his fraternal considering had a climax which afforded him surprise and a degree of amiable excitement.
“You do not owe my visit to chance, or even merely to brotherly feeling for your father,” he said to Dolores, repeating a speech he had made to Mrs Hutton; and improving the effect of its ending by subjecting one of his eyes to a wink in the direction of his brother. “My coming has a purpose. Your father will perhaps explain it.”
“Your uncle has made a most generous suggestion,” said the Rev. Cleveland, turning to his daughter with an air of elation at once nervous and laborious. “He has offered to bear the expense of a college course for Bertram. As I have told him, we know it to be the wish of your brother’s life. I am most glad and grateful.”
“Oh, so am I,” said Dolores. “It is the thing of all others that Bertram would have chosen; and I have so wished it for him.”
“Ah, James, you see what your offer means,” said the Rev. Cleveland, adjusting his tone between the morose and pathetic. “My children are good children to me. My daughter knew that I could not afford what she wished so deeply for her brother; and I have heard no word of it. My lot has been hard in many ways, but in my children I am blessed.” Mr Hutton felt an attitude of mingled pity and complacence to himself suitable to intercourse with his brother.
The Very Rev. James looked uncertain whether to be gratified by the happy direction of his bounty, or ruffled at the presence of pleasures in his brother’s portion, which were lacking to his own; and Mrs Hutton’s suggestion was opportune, that they should “walk round the garden and find the children; “who had been given hasty, covert directions to make change for the better in their apparel, and place themselves there at general avail.
The presence of the dean was oppressive in the parsonage, by the time that his nephew returned to learn his altered relation to him.
Bertram had not made known the hour of his coming; and he entered his father’s study, where voices summoned him, without word with parents or sisters. Dolores saw that his mood was the temper of strained buoyancy, which had wearied her perplexity. The dean did not choose on this occasion to leave his liberality in his brother’s treatment. He dealt with it himself, with an elaborate precision befitting its greatness, and an air of indulgence towards any impropriety, which should result in his nephew’s deportment from the shock of grasping his fortune.
Bertram’s wordless quest of beseeming response met such smiles and exchange of looks as it merited; but his answer, when it came, brought his hearers to dumb bewilderment.
> “Oh, I do not know, sir. I had quite given up thoughts of going to college. I am old for it now. I—I am very grateful to you, sir; but I cannot—must not think of accepting your generosity.”
“Why, you are upset by the news, Bertram,” said Mrs Hutton, earning a grateful glance from her husband. “He has wished it so long, James, that he is quite startled by its being made possible.”
“Ah, ah, I expected as much,” said the dean, as Bertram hastened from the room.
Dolores followed her brother; but he repulsed her advance, and turned to her words an unheeding ear. For the next hours he wandered alone in the garden and lanes, avoiding speech, and turning on his heel at the sight of his uncle or his father. Dolores was deeply bewildered, but he gave her no chance of words; and the next day greater perplexity came. It was known in a troubled and almost guilt-stricken household, that he had met his uncle’s offer with becomingly grateful, but absolute refusal, on the ground of scruples of conscience, which it was not in his power to reveal.
The next days dragged by heavily. A burden of constraint seemed to lie on the parsonage. Mr Hutton showed an uncommitting moroseness; not referring to the conduct of his son, and avoiding all but conventional dealings with his brother. The Very Rev. James was an embarrassing union of courteous guestship and lofty forbearance with unthankful folly. Mrs Hutton was nervous and constrained; and Bertram forgot his spirits, and sank into unbroken depression, repulsing effort to learn his position almost with anger. The person to break the oppressiveness was the Very Rev. James. He suddenly laid aside his discomfiting bearing, and began to show Mrs Hutton courtly attentiveness, and to display great interest in her children. She responded in accordance with maternal diplomacy, treating him as an indubitable source of superior counselling; and it was known that he held to his desire to benefit his brother’s family, and was to undertake the education of his youngest boy and girls. On his leaving the parsonage, his partings carried a new geniality, which was accorded to Bertram with the rest; and the Rev. Cleveland was supplanted as escort to the station by Evelyn and Sophia.
Dolores looked into the future, questioned her duty, and saw it clear. Much in her home showed it clearer. Her father, as though he regarded the late perplexities as giving him a right to mould his habits afresh, fell back into open seeking of her fellowship; and, although while his wife was engrossed in arranging for her children, the course was safe, she felt its covered danger. Mrs Hutton’s dealings with herself put an end to anything that remained of choice. She excused her children from study for their time at home, and did all to be done for them wholly herself; neither seeking Dolores’ aid nor accepting it when offered; so that Dolores’ time was her own from dawn to dusk. Her purpose was not of the things to which Dolores was easily blind. She knew she was being shown her presence in her father’s home as no more needed. She saw her case, simply and without rebellion, as it was; spent one dark hour, looking at the little good to her kin that had cost all to herself; and set her face forward with her old faith in the just. Full happiness in her father’s lot was not a thing that must be sought. She must seek for him peace in his loneliness, the content which—albeit in blindness—he had chosen, made untroubled. She would not act without his sanction and counsel; and she told him her purpose, in words that were few but bore their meaning. As she ended, he spoke in a new tone.
“My daughter,” he said, “you are a good woman. Your mother lives on in you. I will say nothing. You know better than I. Your way will be opened for you.”
The father said words of truth. Dolores’ way was opened for her, and for a space her days were light. She needed the accustomed tribute to her fitness to teach; and her appeal brought an answer with hidden meaning. The place she might have held in the days that were behind, had met support, and was open to her need. Then thoughts of her own life came; but they were second to those of her brother’s, till the others grew to purpose.
As she waited one evening in the churchyard, knowing that Bertram chose this path to the parsonage, she met Dr Cassell, on his way to her sisters in some childish ailment; and asked if he knew of her brother’s whereabouts.
“Ah, history repeats itself, does it not, Miss Dolores? There comes a time when the best sister is not enough,” said the doctor, with a wink and a gesture towards the road.
Dolores saw that comprehension was accepted, and asked no question; but waited with a sense of seeing a dawning on what had been dark.
When Bertram came up the churchyard, the dusk was gathering; and she started at the sight of the sombre figure breaking the shadows. The start was a help, and she spoke the words she had been schooling herself to utter.
“Bertram, I am going to ask you a question, and I want your answer to be true and full. So it is no longer your wish to go to Oxford, if the way should open?”
Bertram started and whitened.
“Yes,” he said in a shaky tone. “It is a small thing to wish so much, and feel so hopeless; but I do still wish it, Dolores—more than I can say in words.”
“But the reason you had for refusing to go—the reason you will not disclose—does not that remain? What meaning had your absolute refusal of my uncle’s offer? I would rather you should give up all, than do what is against your conscience.”
“What do you mean?” said Bertram. “It is not possible for me to go.”
“Yes, I think it is possible,” said Dolores, gently. “I am taking a post at my old college—I am going away from home; it will be better so, Bertram,—where the salary would enable me to give you some help; and father could do something now, with the children’s education settled. But if in some way it cannot be, we will not speak of it.”
“Dolores, I will tell you it all,” said Bertram. “I will tell you it all, and then you will know what you are doing; or I could not accept your sacrifice, much as I can accept from you. But do not speak to me while I am speaking. It began with my being so hopeless over being denied the chance to make a name as a scholar. My life seemed so narrow, and I saw no hope of its widening; and I was in despair, and made a grasp at all that was within my reach. I—I will not speak of my feeling for—for Elsa. You either know it, or you do not know it,—in either case we will not speak of it. The thing I have to tell you is—is that we are married. No; do not speak, Dolores. We met in that time when we were both away from home, by her leaving her friends before her people thought. We knew that our families would oppose, as my prospects were so poor; but we meant to disclose our marriage, and settle down at the grammar school-house, where I was to be master. Well, you understand my feelings when I returned, and was met by my uncle’s offer. My manner of meeting it is no longer a mystery. Of course, I saw my accepting it as impossible. But with the suggestion the old longing returned. It had lived so long with me; and Elsa was sorry for both our sakes, that I had given up the chance of fulfilling it. She saw the difference it would make to the lives of us both; and thought we might have kept our secret, and lived apart in our homes, as betrothed to each other, till my college years should be over. I was troubled and bewildered by her thinking I should have done differently; and I simply revealed nothing, and did nothing: and—well, that is all, Dolores. It is not less than enough, I daresay you will think.”
Bertram pressed his hands to his head, and leant against a tree, dropping his eyes to the ground.
“Then that is why you have been sometimes so excitable, and sometimes so depressed, ever since I came home?” said Dolores, too startled to think of anything but following her brother’s course.
“Yes,” said Bertram, in the tone of one simply giving a desired explanation. “I alternately worried over the passing of my youth without the chance I longed for, and yielded myself to thinking of Elsa, and our secret betrothal.”
For some moments Dolores was silent, the image of Perdita vivid in her mind.
“Well, and what now?” she said at last, in the same voice.
Bertram hesitated.
“If I could go to Oxfo
rd—you are generous, Dolores—it is the dream of my boyhood—I—I do not see why it would not be right.”
“You are married—” said Dolores.
“We have been through the marriage service,” said Bertram. “Not that that is not enough. We are married for life, of course; and I am grateful that it is so; but I cannot see that the living apart for a few years, especially as betrothed, is such a wrong thing that our prospects for life must be sacrificed. Anyhow, I do not think so, Dolores. It is my honest opinion that it is not so; and I think I have a right to decide. I am a man of three-and-twenty, and not young for my years. I have a right to act according to my honest opinions.”
Dolores was silent. The last argument was a strong one to her, and Bertram had known it in choosing it.
“I think the decision of the matter rests with me,” he repeated. “I do not see that you have a right to question my conscience. If you would offer me help if things were otherwise, I think you should offer it now.”
“Well—then be it so,” said Dolores slowly. “You are a grown man, as you say, Bertram. I may have no right to value your opinions more lightly than my own. So we will leave it so.”
“Dolores, I must ask one more thing of you,” said Bertram. “I have asked so much that I cannot hesitate. It will not count. We shall never speak of this—to others, or between ourselves. Not a word of it will pass my lips, and must not pass yours. I must have your promise. The matter concerns me solely. I have told it to you of my own will. It is a promise I have a right to exact.”
“Ah, you know me well, Bertram,” said Dolores, with a half-sad smile.
Bertram waited in silence.
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