Dorothy's Double. Volume 2 (of 3)

by G. A. Henty

'No; I don't know that it was that,' Dorothy said; 'but he seems to me to be changed a good deal in many respects; he was almost like an elder brother of mine then.'

'Yes, dear, but then, you see, when he came back he found that another had stepped into a much closer place than even an elder brother's, and he could hardly have assumed his former relationship. These brother and sisterhoods are very nice when the young lady is twelve and the boy eighteen or nineteen, but they are a little difficult to maintain when the boy is a man of six-and-twenty and the girl eighteen, and is engaged to somebody else who might, not unreasonably, object to the relationship. A boy and girl friendship is not to be picked up again after a lapse of six years just where it was dropped; it would be very ridiculous to suppose that it could be so. It seems to me that you have been expecting too much from him. For my part I think he has changed very little.'

'I did not expect anything of him, Mrs. Dean, one way or the other. I had often thought of him while he was away, because he was very kind to me in the old days. I used to write to him when he first went out, and he wrote to me. Of course that dropped. But when he came home, just at first, it seemed to me that he was exactly what I expected, though I found, in some respects, that he was changed. However, I don't know why we are talking about him. Captain Hampton has gone to America, I believe, and it is likely enough we may not see him again before he goes back to India.' Then she changed her tone. 'It is rather a sore subject to me, Mrs. Dean; it is the last of my illusions of childhood gone. I quite agree with you that it was very foolish of me to think that we could drop quite into our old relations, especially as things stood, but at least I expected something and was disappointed. He has been very kind and has taken an immense deal of trouble to assist my father to get to the bottom of some of the things that have been troubling us. I have not the least ground for complaint—on the contrary, I have every reason to be grateful to him; but, as I say, I have, all the same, been disappointed in some of my illusions, and I would rather not talk about it. What a change it is to be on this quiet lake and among these great silent hills after six months in London; there one always seemed to be in a bustle and fever, here one feels as if nothing that happened could matter.'

'The London season is pleasant enough,' Mrs. Dean said, 'and though this is all very charming and delightful for a change, and very restful, I fancy that before long we should get tired of this changeless calm of Nature and begin to long for, I won't say excitement, but the pleasure of society—of people you like. We only came up to town for three months, and I own that I enjoyed it heartily, there is so much to look at. I have no daughters to marry off, no personal interest in the comedy, so I look on and like it, and enjoy my home during the other nine months all the better for having been away. We do not often come abroad. I suppose now these railways are being made everywhere there will be a great deal more travelling about, but I don't think we should often come. You talk of the bustle of life in London, it is nothing to the bustle of travelling. As soon as one gets settled down at an hotel it is time to be going on. If I come out again next year I shall persuade my husband to take a little châlet high up on the hill there, where one can rest and take one's fill of the view of those mountains. I shall bring plenty of work with me, and my own maid; then I could sit in the shade and pretend to embroider and talk to her while William read his "Times" and amused himself in his own way, which lies chiefly in going about with a hammer and collecting geological specimens.'

This last was addressed partly to Mr. Dean, who just then came up with his friends.

'I fancy you would be tired of that sort of life long before I should, Sarah,' he said laughing. 'Women always seem to have an idea, Hawtrey, that one rock is as good as another, and that if a man goes out with a hammer it can make no difference to him whether he brings in twenty specimens from a radius of a hundred yards from a house or the same number collected during a fifty miles ramble. Personally I should not at all mind making my head quarters for six weeks or so on this lake, providing one did not go up too high. One wants to be within a quarter-of-an-hour's walk of a village, where one can hire a boat, to land where one likes, and make excursions among the hills. I should not want to do any snow-climbing, but there are plenty of problems one would be glad to go into, if one could investigate them, without that. It is really a treat to me, after Lincolnshire, to get into a country where you can go into geological problems without having to begin by digging.'

'I may frankly say that I know nothing about it,' Mr. Hawtrey replied. 'The only problem connected with digging that I have been interested in is how to get the heaviest crops possible out of the ground. Well, here we are at the head of the lake. It will be two hours before a steamer goes back. I propose lunch in the first place, and then we shall have time for a walk to Althorp, where we can examine the market-place where William Tell shot at the apple; that is to say, if—as now seems doubtful—William Tell ever had an existence at all.'

'I won't have it doubted, Mr. Hawtrey,' Mrs. Dean exclaimed. 'It would be the destruction of another of one's cherished heroes of childhood,' and she glanced with a little smile at Dorothy, who smiled back but shook her head decidedly.

A group of people were gathered on the wharf to see the steamer come in.

'Why, there are the Fortescues—father, mother, and daughters,' Mrs. Dean exclaimed, 'Captain Armstrong and Mr. Fitzwarren. One cannot get out of London.'