The labourer helped to carry her into the cottage as she revived. George had already run home for Marker. Dolly and Rhoda, who were shut out by Mrs. Penfold, wandered disconsolately about the garden and into the orchard again, where Aunt Sarah's parasol was lying under the tree, and her book thrown face downwards: presently the little girls came straggling back with it to the garden-house once more.
The parlour door was shut close when they reached it, the kitchen door was open. What was that shrill shivering cry? Who could it be? Perhaps it was some animal, thought Dolly.
In the kitchen some unheeded pot was cooking and boiling over; the afternoon sun was all hot upon the road outside, and Bunch and the puppies had lain down to sleep in a little heap on the step of the house.
Long, long after, Dolly remembered that day, everything as it happened: Marker's voice inside the room; young Mr. Raban passing by the end of the lane talking to Emma Penfold. (Mrs. Penfold had unlocked the back-door, and let them out.) After a time the shrill sobs ceased; then a clock struck, and the boiling pot in the kitchen fell over with a great crash, and Rhoda ran to see, and at that moment the parlour door opened, and Lady Sarah came out, very pale still and very strange, leaning, just as if she was old, upon Marker and Mr. Penfold. But she started away and seemed to find a sudden strength, and caught Dolly up in her arms. 'My darling, my darling,' she said, 'you have only me now—only me. Heaven help you, my poor, poor children.' And once more she burst into the shrill sighing sobs. It was Aunt Sarah who had been crying all the time for her brother who was dead.
This was the first echo of a mourning outcry that reached the children. They were told that the day was never to come now of which they had spoken so often; their father would never come home—they were orphans. George was to have a tall hat with crape upon it. Marker went into town to buy Dolly stuff for a new black frock. Aunt Sarah did not smile when she spoke to them, and told them that their mamma would soon be home now. Dolly could not understand it all very well. Their father had been but a remembrance; she did not remember him less because Lady Sarah's eyes were red and the letters were edged with black. Dolly didn't cry the first day, though Rhoda did; but in the night when she woke up with a little start and a moan from a dream in which she thought it was her papa who was lying by the pond, Aunt Sarah herself came and bent over her crib.
But next morning the daisies did not look less pretty, nor did the puppy cease to jump, nor, if the truth be told, did Dolly herself; nor would kind Stanham Vanborough have wished it....
Robert came into the garden and found the children with a skipping-rope, and was greatly shocked, and told them they should not skip about.
'I was not skipping,' said Rhoda. 'I was turning the rope for Dolly.'
Dolly ran off, blushing. Had she done wrong? She had not thought so. I cannot say what dim unrealised feelings were in her little heart; longings never to be realised, love never to be fulfilled. She went up into her nursery, and hid there in a corner until Rhoda came to find her and to tell her dinner was ready.