When it was over, Dolores returned to Oxford with Soulsby and Sophia. In the evening she wandered alone in the graveyard, where there stood the tombstone which drew her to read its words: “In sorrowing remembrance of ‘Perdita,’ wife of Sigismund Claverhouse”; and below the simple inscription, “Also of Sigismund Claverhouse, husband of the above.” As she wandered, she was startled by a touch and voice at her elbow.
“Is it——? Yes it is. It is Dolores!”
“Felicia?” said Dolores, with surprise and welcome. “After all this time?”
“More in name than in nature, after seven years of nurturing the youthful mind for daily bread,” said the voice whose familiar qualities carried so much. “But in both at this moment. How pleasant to see you, Dolores I Why have you kept me so long without your address?”
“Because you have kept me for the same time without yours,” said Dolores, finding herself with the old, light, student manner. “On your conscience be the guilt; for you knew my father’s address, which would have found me always.”
“I knew it was some vicarage somewhere, but I forgot the rest. And I had some doubt whether ‘The Vicarage’ would reach you. I daresay ‘The Hovel’ would not have reached me. If it would have, why did you not write?”
“I did write,” said Dolores; “but the letter was returned. It seems that your family moved soon after I saw you last.”
“Oh yes; no doubt. As often as the rent of one house is too large to be paid, we move to another. It is the series of steps to ‘the House.’”
“How little you have changed!” said Dolores, looking down at the merry face, as a tender woman might look at a child.
“And you have changed more than a little?” said Felicia, her tone betraying for the first time that she had grown older. “You look as if you had had trouble, Dolores. What have you been doing these last years; and what made you give up your post at the college? To think of our meeting like this, at poor Perdita’s grave! I am teaching here, and came to look at it. But what of yourself? You are not married or a widow, I suppose?”
“I have been at home,” said Dolores. “I gave up the post, because my father needed me. No, I have not been married.”
“My father needs me too,” said Felicia. “But he needs my help with the rent more. He told me I was one of this world’s heroines; and I see I am not a heroine in any more interesting world. But I can tell you of some one who is going to be married. Miss Butler!”
“Is that so?” said Dolores. “She said nothing of it in her last letter. I hear from her two or three times a year.”
“It all came to pass very suddenly,” said Felicia. “I suppose no one who recognised such worth, would waste time in making his position secure. I had always looked on Miss Butler as wedded to the classics. I wonder who will succeed to her post. But don’t let us part as suddenly as we met. When can I see you again?”
“Will you come with me now?” said Dolores. “I am spending a time here with a married sister; and there is welcome for my friends.”
They turned from the tombstone side by side—these women whose ways had met, and parted, and met.
Chapter XXI.
“Miss Butler has not asked any of us to be her bridesmaids,” said Miss Greenlow. “Can it be regarded except as an omission?”
“No,” said Miss Cliff. “To grudge us such crumbs as are available for us of matrimonial privileges! It is a sad example of friendship.”
“Very sad,” said Miss Dorrington. “A great blow to one’s faith in things.”
“And to one’s hope and charity,” said Miss Cliff; “the former especially.”
“I undertake to act more tactfully, when I am in a similar position,” said Miss Greenlow.
“A universal vote of thanks to Miss Greenlow,” said Miss Cliff.
“Are you all going to leave my generosity isolated?” said Miss Greenlow, with her comical pathos.
“May I express myself of the same intentions?” said Miss Lemaître.
“Things seem strange without Miss Butler,” said Miss Adam. “There seems quite a gap in our company.”
“Very complimentary to Miss Hutton,” said Miss Lemaître.
“Oh, people are not interchangeable,” said Miss Cliff. “A different person in any place means loss and gain at the same time. We must feel the miss, as we feel the new advantages.”
“I miss Miss Butler as much as any one, I expect,” said Dolores. “I had never learned the value of her counsel, till I tried to fill her place.”
“I expect you do,” said Miss Cliff gently.
“Oh, one does not think of Miss Hutton as filling any one’s place,” said Miss Adam. “She was one of ourselves for so long, that it seems only natural to have her here.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Miss Cliff, with a note of apology.
“Miss Butler is the only member of the staff who has ever been married, is she not?” said Miss Adam.
“There was Miss Kingsford,” said Miss Cliff.
“Yes, yes. Poor child!” said Miss Dorrington.
“Did you ever see her in the year she was married, Miss Hutton?” said Miss Lemaître. “You were the only one who used to hear from her.”
“No,” said Dolores.
“She was happy, I suppose?” said Miss Cliff. “It seemed a strange thing; but one must not put faith in seeming. He was clearly content himself in that year; and certainly if any one ever sorrowed sincerely, he did.”
“More than she would have sorrowed, I suspect, had she been the widowed one,” said Miss Lemaître. “She could not really have been happy with him. Honestly, Miss Hutton, though I suspect you of a veneration for him, do you think any one could have?”
“I think some people could have,” said Dolores.
“Oh, you are connected with his great friend now, are you not, Miss Hutton?” said Miss Cliff. “I suppose you know more about him than ever. William Soulsby is a sort of cousin of mine; so you and I may imagine ourselves connected. I found I was ignorant of amazement, when I heard of his marriage. I thought he was incarnate bachelorhood. I cannot call up a picture of him making an offer of his hand, can you?”
“Certainly when I knew him first, I did not think of him as a likely person to marry,” said Dolores. “But it is the unlikely that happens. In this case it was very unlikely. He is more than thirty years older than my sister.”
“You are experienced in people’s manners of offering their hands, then, Miss Cliff?” said Miss Greenlow, in tones of polite comment.
“Ah! The cat is out of the bag,” said Miss Dorrington.
“No,” said Miss Cliff, with easy laughter. “I have no right to speak as one having authority.”
“Ah! That is all very well now,” said Miss Dorrington. “You certainly spoke in an unguarded moment with no uncertain sound.”
“How many of us have that right, I wonder,” said Miss Lemaître.
“I suspect Miss Adam,” said Miss Greenlow, shaking her head.
“Miss Adam, you are a marked character,” said Miss Cliff.
“Clearly we are right, Miss Lemaître,” said Miss Greenlow; as Miss Adam yielded without great unwillingness to the impulse to look conscious.
“Anyhow we are rude,” said Miss Dorrington genially.
“Oh; we can surely talk to young people, as old women may,” said Miss Cliff.
“If youth is the qualification, Miss Hutton is the fittest mark for our elderly interest,” said Miss Lemaître.
“Miss Hutton, can you meet our eyes?” said Miss Adam, not without suggestion that this was beyond herself.
“Oh, we will acquit Miss Hutton. She is the most sensible of us all,” said Miss Cliff.
THE END.
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Dolores Page 23