WAVE OR FLAME.
And you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'Tis a figure, a symbol, say
A thing's sign.
—R. Browning.
How sweet they are, those long sunset evenings on the river! the stream, flowing by swift and rippling, reflects the sky—sometimes, in the still gleams and depths of dying light, it would seem as if the sky itself reflected the waters. The distant woods stand out in bronzed shadow; low sunset fires burn into dusk beyond the fringe of trees; sudden sweet glooms fall upon the boats as they glide in and out by dim creeks and ridges. Perhaps some barge travels past through the twilight, drawn by horses tramping along the towing-path, and dragging against the sky. As the boats float shorewards, peaceful sights and sounds are all about, borne upon the flowing water.
'I am so sorry it is over,' said Dolly, tying on her straw hat.
The sun was setting, a little star was shining overhead, the last bird had flown home to its nest. Robert pushed them right through a bed of rustling reeds on their way to the landing-place. It was crowded with dancing boats; many people were standing along the shore; the gables of the 'Red Lion' had been all aglow for a few minutes past. They could hear the laugh of a boating-party scrambling to land. Here and there heads were peeping from the bridge, from the landing-places and windows; some twinkled with the last sunset gleams, others with lights already burning. Dolly had been silent for the last half-hour, scarcely listening to its desultory talk. They had exchanged broadsides with George and John Morgan in the other boat; but by degrees that vigorously-manned craft had outrun them, rounded a corner, and left them floating mid-stream. Robert was in no hurry, and Frank was absent, and sometimes almost forgot to row. Looking up now and then, he saw Dolly's sweet face beaming beneath her loose straw hat, with Hampton Court and all its prim terraces for a background.
'You are not doing your share of the work, Raban, by any means,' said Robert, labouring and not over-pleased.
'Oh, let us float,' murmured Mrs. Palmer. She was leaning over the side of the boat, weighing it heavily down, and dabbling one fat white hand in the water; with the other she was clasping Dolly's stiff young fingers. 'Truant children!' she said, 'you don't know your own happiness. How well I remember one evening just like this, Dolly, when your papa and I were floating down the Hooghly; and, now that I think of it, my Admiral Palmer was with us—he was captain then. How little we either of us thought in those days. The Palmers are so close one needs a lifetime to understand their ways. I should like to show you a letter, Mr. Raban, that I received only this morning from my sister-in-law, Joanna—was that a fish or a little bit of stick? Sweet calm! Robert, I am thankful you have never been entangled by one of those ugly girls at Smokethwaite. I know Joanna and her——'
'There was never any thought, I assure you,' interrupted Robert, not displeased, and unable to refrain from disclaiming the accusation. 'My aunt has always been most kind; she would never have wished to influence my inclinations—she is very much tried just now, parting from Jonah, who joins his regiment immediately. They are coming up to London with him next Saturday.'
'Ah! I know what it is to part from one's child,' said Philippa, tapping Dolly's fingers. 'I am glad to hear Joanna shows any feeling. My Dolly, if it were not to Robert, who is so thoughtful, should I be able to bear the thought of parting from you? Take care—pray take care. You are running into this gentleman's boat. Push off—push off. Ah! ah! thank you, Mr. Raban. Look, there is John Morgan. I wish he were here to steer us.'
'Don't be frightened, dear,' said Dolly, still holding her mother's hand, as the little rocking-boat made towards the steps, where John Morgan was standing welcoming them all with as much heartiness as if they were returning from some distant journey, and had not met for years. Some people reserve themselves for great occasions, instead of spending their sympathies lavishly along the way. Good old John certainly never spared either sympathy or the expression of his hearty good-will. I don't know that the people, who sometimes smiled at his honest exuberances, found that he was less reliable when greater need arose, because he had been kind day after day about nothing at all. He saved Mrs. Palmer from a ducking on this occasion, as she precipitately flung herself out of the boat on to his toes. Frank Raban also jumped on shore. Robert said he would take the Sarah Anne back to her home in the boat-house.
'Then I suppose Dolly will have to go too,' said Mrs. Palmer, archly; and Dolly, with a blush and a smile, settled herself once more comfortably on the low cushioned seat. She looked after her mother trailing up the slope, leaning on the curate's arm, and waving farewells until they passed by the garden-gate of the inn. Frank Raban was slowly following them. Then Dolly and Robert were alone, and out on the river again. The lightened boat swayed on the water. The air seemed to freshen, the ripples flowed in from a distance, the banks slid by. Robert smiled as he bent over the sculls. How often Dolly remembered the last golden hour that came to her that day before the lights had died away out of her sky, before the waters had risen, before her boat was wrecked, and Robert far away out of the reach of her voice!
There were many other people coming back to the boat-house. The men were busy, the landing was crowded, and the Sarah Anne had to wait her turn. Robert disliked waiting extremely. He also disliked the looks of open admiration which two canoes were casting at the Sarah Anne.
'There are some big stones by the shore, Dolly,' said Robert. 'Do you think you could manage to land?'
'Of course I can,' said active Dolly; 'and then you can tie the boat to that green stake just beyond them.' As she stood up to spring on shore, she looked round once more. Did some instinct tell her that this was the end of it all, and the last of the happy hours? She jumped with steady feet on to the wet stone, and stood balancing herself for a moment. The water rippled to her feet as she stood, with both hands outstretched, and her white dress fluttering, and all the light of youth and happiness in her radiant face. And then with another spring she was on land.
'Well done!' said one of the canoes. Robert turned round with a fierce look.
When he rejoined Dolly, he found her looking about in some distress.
'My ring, my pretty ring, Robert,' she said, 'I have dropped it.' It was a ring he had given her the day before. Dolly had at last consented to wear one, but this was large for her finger.
'You careless girl,' said Robert; 'here are your gloves and your handkerchief. Do you know what that ring cost?'
'Oh, don't tell me,' said Dolly; 'something dreadful, I know.' And she stood penitently watching Robert scrambling back into the boat, and overthrowing and thumping the cushions. And yet, as she stood there, it came into her mind how many treasures were hers just then, and that of them all a ring was that which she could best bear to lose.
One of the canoes had come close into shore by this time, and the young man, who was paddling with his two spades, called out, saying, 'Are you looking for anything? Is it for this?' and carefully putting his hand into the water he pulled out something shining. The ring had dropped off Dolly's finger as she jumped, and was lying on a stone that was half in and half out of the water, and near to the big one upon which she had been standing.
'How very fortunate!' exclaimed Henley from the boat.
Miss Vanborough was pleased to get back her pretty trinket, and thanked the young man with a very becoming blush.
'It is a very handsome coral,' Robert said; 'it would have been a great pity to lose it. We must have it made smaller, Dora. It must not come off again.'
Dolly was turning it round thoughtfully and looking at the Medusa head carved and set in gold.
'Robert,' she said once more, 'does happiness never frighten you?'
'Never,' said Henley, smiling, as she looked up earnestly into his face.
The old town at Kingston, with its many corners and gables, has something of the look of a foreign city heaped upon the river-side. The garden of the old inn runs down with terraces to the water. A side-door leads to the boat-houses. By daylight this garden is somewhat mouldy; but spiders' webs do not obtrude on summer evenings, and the Londoners who have come out of town for a breath of fresh air, stroll along the terraces, and watch the stream as it flows, unconscious of their serenity. They come here of summer evenings, and sit out in the little arbours, or walk along the terraces and watch the boats drift with the stream. If they look to the opposite banks they may see the cattle rearing their horned heads upon the sunset, and the distant chestnut groves and galleries of Hampton Court at the bend of the river.
Near the corner of one of these terraces, a little green weather-cocked summer-house stands boldly facing the regattas in their season, and beyond it again are a steep bank and some steps to a second terrace, from whence there is the side-door leading to the boats.
On this particular evening Frank Raban came quietly zigzagging along these terraces, perhaps with some vague hope of meeting Dorothea on her return.
There are some years of one's life when one is less alive than at others, as there are different degrees of strength and power to live in the course of the same existence. Frank was not in the despairing state in which we first knew him, but he was not yet as other people are, and in hours of depression such as this, he was used to feel lonely and apart. He was used to see other people happy, anxious, busy, hurrying after one another, and he would look on as now, with his hands in his pockets, not indifferent, but feeling as if Fate had put him down solitary and silent, into the world—a dumb note (so he used to think) in the great music. And yet he knew that the music was there—that mighty human vibration which exists independent of all the dumb notes, cracked instruments, rifted lutes, and broken lyres of which we hear so much, and he had but to open his ears to it.
Two voices, anything but dumb, were talking inside the little summer-house. Raban had scarcely noticed them as he came along, listening with the vaguest curiosity, as people do, to reproaches and emotions which do not concern them; but presently, as he approached the summer-house, a tone struck him familiarly, and at the same instant he saw a dark figure rush wildly from the little wooden house, and leap right over the side of the terrace on to the path below; and then Frank recognised the frantic action—it could only be George. A moment afterwards a woman—he knew her too—came out of the summer-house and stood for an instant panting against the doorway, leaning with her two hands against the lintel. She looked pale, troubled; her hair was pushed back from her white face; her eyes looked dark, beautiful. Never before had Raban seen Rhoda (for it was Rhoda) so moved. When she saw him a faint flush came into her cheeks. She came forward a few steps, then she stopped short again.
She was dragging her silk mantle, which had fallen off. One end was trailing after her along the gravel.
'Mr. Raban, is that you?' she said, in an agitated way. 'Why did you come? Is it—is it nearly time to go? Is Mrs. Palmer come back? Oh, please take me to her!' And then she suddenly burst into tears, and the long black silk mantle fell to the ground as she put out two fluttering hands.
Raban had flung his cigar over the terrace after George.
'What is it?' he said, anxiously. 'Can I help you in any way? What has happened?'
The young man spoke kindly, but in his usual matter-of-fact voice; and Rhoda, even in her distress, wondered at his coldness. No one before ever responded so calmly to whom she had appealed.
'Oh, you don't know,' she said; 'I can't tell you.' And the poor little hands went up again with a desperate gesture.
Raban was very much touched; but, as I have said, he had little power of showing his sympathy, and, foolish fellow, doing unto others as he would be done by; he only said, 'I have guessed something before now, Miss Parnell. I wish I could help you, with all my heart. Does not Miss Vanborough know of this? Cannot she advise...?'
Rhoda was in no mood to hear her friend's praises just then.
'Dolly, cried Rhoda, passionately, 'she would have every one sacrificed to George. I would love him if I could,' she said, piteously, 'but how can I? he frightens me and raves at me; how can I love him? Oh! Mr. Raban, tell me that it is not wrong to feel thus?' And once more the fluttering hands went up, and the dark wistful eyes gazed childishly, piteously into his face. Rhoda was looking to Frank for the help that should have come to her from her own heart; she dimly felt that she must win him over, that if he would he could help her.
Rhoda pitied herself sincerely, she sobbed out her history to Frank with many tears. 'How can I tell them all? she said; 'it will only make wretchedness, and now it is only I who am unhappy.'
Was it only Rhoda who was unhappy? George, flying along the garden half distracted, aching, repentant, might have told another story. She had sent him away. He would do nothing that she wished, she said, he would not accept the independence that Lady Sarah had offered him, Rhoda did not believe in his love, she only wanted him to go, to leave her. Yes, she meant it. And poor George had rushed away frantic and indignant. He did not care where he went. He had some vague idea that he would get a boat and row away for ever, but as he was hurrying headlong towards the boat-house he saw Dorothea and Robert coming arm-in-arm up the little path, and he turned and hurried back towards the inn. Dolly called to him, but he did not answer. Rhoda had sent him away, poor Dolly could not call him back. Robert shrugged his shoulders.
'Why do you do that?' said Dolly, annoyed; 'he looked quite ill.