A Complete Story. By the Author of "Lady Jane's Companion."
"I tell you he does not dream of Dolly. How can you imagine anything so absurd?"
That was how the family tyrant addressed her mother, and poor Mrs. Rhodes was, as ever, annihilated. It was a vain thing to try and brave Georgiana. There she stood in the window, majestic, the eldest daughter, her straight hair stiffly ridged with hot irons, her face pale, and her lips determined, altogether handsome, but very hard. Behind her one had a glimpse of a forlorn little figure wandering in the grass. The sight of that lonely figure, and a dim idea of its unhappiness, made the poor lady pluck up spirit to murmur still—
"I—I—I thought that Freddy——"
"Impossible!" said Georgiana; her voice vibrated with a little more than disdain. "Why, what could he see in a stupid little goose like that? It would be cheaper to buy a sixpenny doll and set it up in his house; then at least he could always change it. But if he wants a wife——"
In the garden Dolly was walking rather sadly among the trees, and her white skirts brushed against the grass like a sigh. She was a little slip of a thing with Irish eyes, great and grey, always brimming with either a laugh or tears; and she had the dearest eager face in the world. It was a troubled face now, for she could not understand why life had been made bitter to her just lately. Perhaps it was because of some unwitting sin, perhaps because the family tyrant felt, like her, the approaching parting with their old playfellow. Georgiana had a peculiar way of showing when she was vexed.
The Rev. Frederick Cockburn had not always been six feet high and a parson. And for the greater part of their lives they had only been parted by a garden wall. Even when he was at college he was continually running down, and they had never made a plan without him; he belonged to the girls like a brother. Later he had had to admonish them as a curate, but he had been their old comrade still. Of course, he was lucky to get a living offered to him so young, and it was only right that he should accept it, but still it was a blow.
Freddy had run in so often to talk it over (the girls knew all about his house and his parish, down to the woman who played the harmonium and dragged the chants) that they had forgotten it was so far away. Now they had suddenly to remember.
Dolly was under the weeping ash, where she and Freddy had hidden when they were little. Georgiana had had the biggest bite of the apple, and then she had deserted and said, "I'll tell!" How she would miss him! Always he had been her champion, defending her when Georgiana was angry and pulled her hair. And although these days were past she wanted him more than ever. It had hurt her lately that he should have been monopolised by Georgiana and that she had been thrust back and made a third. He was a young housekeeper, and the eldest daughter could talk of carpets and curtains and butcher's bills. To Dolly life was a weary nightmare of Freddy serious in a chair, and Georgiana giving him good advice. Vainly she tried to keep her lip steady, leaning her head in among the leaves.
Half a mile away a black object was sitting on a fence whistling impatiently, inwardly furious with Georgiana.
"If she would only come out of the gate!" he said, hitting wildly at all the buttercups in his reach. "If she'd only give me a chance. But she's just pinned to Dolly, and I never can get a minute."
His whistle grew more lugubrious.
"And I'm off to-morrow!"
Never in the ancient days, when he used to stand in front of his younger playmate and defy Georgiana, had he felt her to be such a tyrant. He longed to stand up to her and shake his fist at her as of old. An instant he stood on the highest rail of the fence to reconnoitre beyond the trees, and then sat down again in despair.
"I know she thinks I'm not good enough for Dolly," he said; "we always were enemies, but she might let me ask her. It's Dolly's business."
Then he jumped down in a hurry that would have been undignified in any vicar less young and eager. Among the trees he had caught sight of the unaccompanied white flutter of Dolly's dress.
At the familiar whistle she started, reddening and glancing fearfully towards the house.
The tyrant's ears were sharp, but for once it appeared that she had not heard it, and Dolly rushed down the tree-hidden path to the gate. Her head was just under the green branches and they caught at her hair as she hurried, the prettiest picture in all the garden, with a quaint little forward stagger.
"Oh, Freddy!" she said.
He was leaning over the gate, which was fastened with a complicated arrangement of twisted string, meant to hold it together and keep it shut. There was something earnest and business-like in his manner; he hardly smiled at her greeting, and it hurt her. His face was so desperately solemn.
"Do you want Georgiana?" she said, bravely, "to—to talk about—furniture?"
He looked at her reproachfully across the gate.
"Dolly," he said, "how can you be so unkind? I've been haunting the place for hours, watching to catch you alone. I've no chance if I go to the house, and—and I can't stand housekeeping and chairs and tables——"
At the emphatic climax they had to laugh. He was struggling mechanically with the string, and Dolly was making believe to help him.
"You used always to jump it," she said. Their hands touched as they fumbled at it, and she felt a new and disturbing thrill. "Hadn't you better do that, if you have not become too grand?"
"Don't," said Freddy. Ah, their fingers had been too near; he caught hers and held them tight. "They are all chaffing me about being a Vicar and having a house and all that. Asking if I've got anybody to put into it. But what's the good if you can't get the girl you want?"
"Oh!" said Dolly, looking startled and shrinking as far as the imprisoned hand would allow. He held it fast.
"Dolly," he said, "we've always been chums, you and I. Let me tell you, and then you must tell me honestly if you think—if I've got any chance——"
He was interrupted.
"Is that you, Freddy? What a blessing! I wanted to tell you what you must do about the study."
It was with a kind of terror that he saw Georgiana charging down upon them remorselessly through the trees. Dolly had wrung her hand away and vanished with a little sound like a gasp, and he, on the wrong side of the gate, was almost speechless with wrath and temper.
"If a man can't furnish his own study as he likes——" he stammered darkly, turning on his heel. Georgiana was like a fate.
"What was Freddy saying?"
A rather sad little face was visible among the leaves of the weeping ash.
He saw Georgiana charging down upon them.
"I—I don't know, Georgiana. He was just beginning—I think he has fallen in love again."
The elder girl glanced at her young sister with a gleam of suspicion, but Dolly had spoken in all good faith. And, indeed, in the dim past Freddy had once or twice been smitten and had confided his troubles to the kind ears of Dolly. They had been slight affairs and, although unhappy, always less tragic than laughable.
"He did not say who it was?"
"No," answered Dolly, "because you interrupted. I—I—I'm trying to guess."
Georgiana turned her back on the wistful grey Irish eyes.
"Can't you?" she said, and walked away, utterly hard-hearted.
* * * * * *
That evening there was a formidable leave-taking. To Freddy Cockburn it was a nightmare.
As he sat in the drawing-room being talked to by Georgiana and Mrs. Rhodes (Dolly was very silent) he grew desperate. The last precious minutes were ticking loudly, now and then marked by a warning whirr, as the grandfather's clock reproached him.
He listened to them, but all the while he was wandering backwards hand in hand with Dolly—Dolly who now sat so distantly in the window.
With a start his mind came back impatiently to the present.
"Good-bye, my dear boy. We shall hear how you get on. Your mother will write and tell us——"
"You must let me know how you manage about the stairs," said Georgiana.
They accompanied him to the door, lingering affectionately to watch him go, and behind them the great brown clock was ticking the last, last minutes reproachfully. He shook hands and waited, desperately bold.
"Will you come to the gate with me, Dolly?"
There was a slight pause at that abrupt invitation. He saw Dolly involuntarily start forward and then hesitate, with a faint red wonderment in her cheek. He waited, gazing back eagerly at his fate in the balance.
"Yes, Dolly—come along!" said Georgiana.
II.
The Vicar of Little Easter was in his study. He had not been writing sermons, but pens were lying about the table, and there were other signs of an intellectual struggle.
The old lady looked up keenly.—p. 222.
"I can't do it," he said at last, crumpling up many fragments of blotted paper, each the unlucky beginning of a letter. Then he thrust his hands through his hair, giving it a despairing rumple.
"It's no good," he said. "I can't put it in a letter, and it does look a cowardly way of—asking. Like chalking up a thing and running round the corner. If I were a girl and a fellow wrote to me instead of coming and standing to his guns, I should call it—cheek."
"Dear Dolly——"
He tore the last attempt furiously across.
"She would think it was a joke and show it all round the family for them to laugh at it too," he lamented; "if Georgiana did not kidnap it first. I don't think she would stick at that, and I'm afraid she regularly hates me. Queer!"
He stared forlornly at the heap of papers, and then all at once an idea struck him and he jumped up.
"Hurrah!"
With sudden energy he flung out of his study and crossed the hall. His mother was sitting in her room—the only place that was quite in order—stitching rings on curtains. She was going to stay and put him to rights before returning home and leaving him in his glory.
"What is the matter, Freddy?" she said.
"I was thinking," said the Vicar soberly, "that you've a lot to do. Couldn't you ask one of the girls over while you are here to help?"
"If you think the place is ready for visitors," said Mrs. Cockburn, smiling. The girls were, of course, Freddy's old companions.
"Well, you might ask Dolly; I'm sure she wouldn't mind."
The old lady looked up keenly, but his manner was very careless.
"Why not Georgiana?" she inquired. "Eldest first."
"I don't think she could be spared just now," said the Vicar, hiding his alarm, "and—and I'd like the place to be tidy before she came."
So Mrs. Cockburn wrote and invited Dolly.
The answer came very quickly: Dolly could not leave home just now.
While his mother was reading out the many sufficient reasons, Freddy stared hopelessly across at the fatal letter. His face expressed utter dejection until about halfway through. At the last clause it lighted up with an inspiration. He leaned over the table.
"Then, mother, of course, you'll ask Georgiana?"
His mother glanced at him oddly.
"Do you want her?"
"Want her?" cried the Vicar. "Rather!"
There was no mistaking the eagerness in his voice. It betrayed itself in the very stammer with which he proceeded.
"I didn't know she would come, but if Dolly's to manage the school treat this year, and if Dolly's to take the club, they won't want Georgiana. Tell her we can't possibly get the house put to rights without her. Say whatever you think will bring her. Only make her come."
He got up and fetched his writing things from the study. Mrs. Cockburn had to write the invitation then and there, almost to his dictation.
"Tell her she must come!" he cried impetuously, rushing away to look for a stamp, and then riding in with the letter himself to catch the early post. Mrs. Cockburn looked after him amused, but just a little bit disappointed.
"It's Georgiana then, after all," she said.
* * * * * *
Three days later Georgiana was installed at Little Easter.
She arrived with rather too many clothes for a person who was to help in getting a house in order, but that did not prevent her from buckling to. Mrs. Cockburn, a kind old lady with a twinkle of humour to comfort her in her trials, was taken aback by her visitor's authoritative grasp at the reins; but Freddy, having suffered more nearly from her tyrannical ways, thought he had never known her so gracious. In fact, he repented himself of the hard things he had been thinking—of all but a certain determination.
"I don't believe she hates me really," he thought. "It was only that she didn't want me to marry Dolly."
He made that reflection whilst shaving with care the morning after her arrival. On coming down to breakfast he found her at her post. She had already whisked away half the litter that was hampering the breakfast-room, and was making the tea. As he came in she nodded.
"Good morning, Freddy. Your mother is breakfasting in her room. What a wilderness your house is at present! The first thing after breakfast will be to have a man in and put down the carpets."
"But they are down," stammered the Vicar, who had laboured hard all the past week.
"All crooked," said Georgiana.
She poured out his tea and sat down opposite, with an air of calm superiority and possession (which the Vicar was too agitated to remark). Having long since made up her mind as to what she wanted, she was not unduly elated at the present turn of affairs. Freddy was always fickle, and it had taken very little pains to keep him apart from Dolly while that fancy lasted. It was not her part to consider Dolly—Dolly, years younger, and pretty, and always liked.
Something like exultation glittered in Georgiana's eyes. She had a glimpse of Dolly at home and smiled; her triumph was pitiless.
"Oh, by-the-bye," she said. "Your idea of furnishing the drawing-room is too ridiculous. It ought to be smart and shiny—a company room. You don't want old pictures and comfortable chairs!"
"Don't I?" said the Vicar with a half-smile, thinking whose whims he had tried to suit in the furnishing.
"No," said Georgiana. Her tone was lordly. "I'll tell you what I will do. You shall drive me into the town, and I will help you to choose what you really want."
"Do——," began the Vicar, and then stopped hastily, reddening. She looked at him witheringly, unaware that the word suppressed had been simply "Dolly."
"In the meantime——" she vouchsafed after a crushing pause. He looked up suddenly from his letters.
"I'm afraid you'll be dull, Georgiana," he said, rising. "It's awfully good of you to come, and perhaps you can find some amusement. You can do what you like, you know—so long as you don't touch my study, or trick it up like a heathen place in Japan. The fact is, I find I must leave you and mother for a day or two. Is that the dogcart? My train is at half-past ten."
Georgiana looked out of the window. There was the dogcart, and a beast of a brown horse pawing and snorting, to take him away to the country station. She turned round angrily, like a person who had been cheated.
"Why?" she asked.
"Dolly!" he cried in a voice of triumph.—p. 224.
Freddy had left the breakfast table, and was stacking his letters behind the clock. He answered her with a kind of chuckle—
"Important business."
Three minutes later, he was running down the stairs, got up for a journey. Mrs. Cockburn was just saying good-morning to the rather blank-looking visitor, and he kissed her hurriedly.
"I must go off at once," he said. "Georgiana will explain. And I say, mother"—in a tone of anxious hospitality—"don't let her go home, or anything, till I come back. I must catch the early train."
III.
Dolly was all alone.
There was no dragon guarding her, and she might wander unwatched about the garden, unvexed by the family tyrant's whim. However, she sat forlornly under the willow tree.
She was disappointed at not being allowed to go and visit Mrs. Cockburn, but, queerly enough, it had hurt her more to find her refusal met by that urgent invitation to Georgiana. It was a much warmer letter. Mrs. Cockburn had been told in inviting Georgiana to say whatever would bring her, and she had according written—"Freddy says she must come," twice.
They were ringing in Dolly's ears, these impetuously written words; but she had not any right to be angry—and hardly any right to be sad. Only, if that message had been in her letters, she would have defied them all.
The sun burnt down over all the garden, except under the sad green shade of the willow tree. Afterwards, it sank lower and lower behind the beeches until it was almost dusk. It was then that Dolly heard a familiar whistle.
She started up from the grass, and her wistful face was scarlet. It must be imagination.
Almost before she knew it she was hurrying up the path.
"Oh!" she gasped, finding herself at the gate, and ready to turn and fly as the strange whistler came in sight. Her heart beat too fast for her to hear any step. As if it could be him!
"Dolly!" he cried, in a voice of triumph.
"How did you get here?" she panted.
He vaulted the gate this time, and was immediately by her side.
"By train," he said coolly. "As soon as I'd got Georgiana safe I bolted."
Dolly paled slightly. Had he come to make an announcement?
"Will you come in to mother?" she said faintly; but Freddy barred the way.
"No," he said. "I won't."
She was almost frightened. He was so white and eager, and so emphatic.
"Dolly," he said, "I've got my chance at last. Georgiana thinks I'm not half good enough for you, and I'm sure it's true, but I don't care, she'd no right to fight as she did for her lofty plans. It's your business. And Dolly—Dolly—I love you so!"
* * * * * *
"I like the house," said Georgiana.
She spoke in a slightly patronising tone, and poor Mrs. Cockburn sighed.
"It is rather big," she said. "But if Freddy should marry and settle down——"
"It will not be too big," declared Georgiana. "I have been drawing up my ideas about the rooms. And I have toiled all the morning in the study." Mrs. Cockburn looked alarmed. Even in a possible daughter-in-law this was rather drastic.
"He will not like you to touch his study."
"I know. He charged me to let it alone," said Georgiana calmly; "but it is no good giving in to a man's absurd notions, and he had crammed it with such extraordinary things. I have made it look like another place."
Again Freddy's mother sighed. It was the familiar tone of the family tyrant. She sighed for Freddy.
The sigh was interrupted by his return. Unexpectedly as he had disappeared yesterday, he came back. They heard him cross the hall with a long, quick, eager step, and then he burst in upon them, a boy again.
"Well, where have you been?" asked his mother, smiling. He was so tired and dusty, and so excited.
The Vicar looked at her like a school-boy, half-proud, half-shy.
"I've been to the old place," he said, "to ask Dolly if she would have me. And she says 'Yes.'"
R. Ramsay.