“Oh, Dolly,” said Bell, half pleased to be of so much importance, half sorry to convey bad news; “they are not coming at all! They have gone off to Oxford, papa, mamma, and Alice; there is something the matter with Paul.”
Poor little Dolly never could tell how she bore this blow. Suddenly the whole scene became dim before her, swimming in two big tears which flooded her eyes. She had indeed said to herself that she would not “build upon” the coming of Paul; but Alice at least she had a right to build upon.
“My dear child, what is the matter?” cried Lady Westland, whose eyes were as keen as needles.
Dolly, though she was still blind with the sudden moisture, recovered her wits more quickly than she recovered her eyesight.
“I think I shall cry,” she said. “I can’t help it. Alice is not coming; and Alice was all my hope. There is no one such a help as she is. I don’t know what I shall do without her.”
It was a kind of comfort to Dolly to think that Ada Westland would be wounded by an estimate which showed how little her services were thought of; and this, perhaps, though not at all a right feeling for a good little clergywoman, helped her to recover herself, as it was so necessary she should do.
The children were assembling in the paddock, all in their best clothes, with the schoolmistress and the Sunday-school teachers, and a few favoured villagers. There was the tea to make for them, the games to organise, to keep everything going; and all the garden walks were occupied by idle people who were doing nothing to help, and from whom no help could be expected. Her old maid, who had been her nurse, and who was Dolly’s chief support in the household, and old George the old man-servant, who managed the male department at the rectory, were both required to hand tea, and attend upon these fine people, who did all they could to detain Dolly herself, stopping her as she hurried down to the field of action, to tell her that it was a pretty scene. Dolly was far too good a girl, and too thoroughly trained to the duties of her position to dwell at that moment upon her disappointment. But whenever she paused for a moment, whenever the din of the voices and teacups experienced a lull, it came back to her. Poor little Dolly! She had everything on her shoulders.
There was a line of chairs arranged under the lime-trees on the lawn for the great people of the parish—the Trevors and the Westlands—apart from the crowd of smaller people who came and went. Among these few local magnates the rector meandered, and it was to them that old George’s services were specially dedicated. They had the best of the tea, which Dolly grudged greatly, and the best position, and the best attendance; and considered themselves to be doing a duty which they owed to the parish in thus countenancing the school-feast. They considered that they were doing their duty; but at the same time, in the absence of anything better, they liked it as Bell and Marie did, because, such as it was, it was a party, though only a school-feast. Old Admiral Trevor was seated in the sunniest spot—for warmth, as his daughters explained, was everything to him. He sat there, cooking in the heat of the August afternoon with poor Miss Trevor close by, divided between the necessity of being close to him and the love of the grateful shade behind. The old admiral talked a great deal, mumbling between his toothless gums with the greatest energy, and very indignant when he was asked a second time what he had said. Miss Trevor, though she was deaf and used an ear-trumpet, always heard her father, and was very quick and clever in interpreting him, so as to save what she called “unpleasantness.” Beside the Trevors were the Westlands—the whole four of them—father, mother, son, and daughter. They were new people, and therefore deeply impressed with the necessity of “countenancing” the parish in which they had bought a house and park, and which they tried to patronise as if it belonged to them. They were very rising people, very rich, and fond of finding themselves in good company, even at a school-feast; for naturally such people get on much better in town, where there are all sorts of visitors, than in the country where everybody knows all about their pedigree and belongings. Dolly’s only real help was Miss Matilda Trevor, the second daughter of the admiral, a plain, good woman, but so shortsighted that she had to put her nose into everything before she could see it. Some of the smaller lights of Markham, Mrs. Booth, and her niece, from Rosebank, and young Mrs. Rossiter, the doctor’s wife, might have been of a little use; but their heads were turned by the offer the rector inadvertently made of the chairs reserved for the Markhams on the lawn. When they had such a chance of distinction, of making their “position” quite apparent, and showing their equality with the county people, who could wonder that these ladies threw over the children, and Dolly, though not without many compunctions? Poor ladies! they did not make very much of it; they talked to each other which they could do any day, and now and then got a word from Miss Trevor, who poked out her trumpet for the answer, frightening Mrs. Rossiter out of her wits.
This, however, accomplished Dolly’s discomfiture, leaving her altogether to herself. It was a pretty scene, as everybody said. The people who were walking about the garden dropped off as the afternoon went on, but the great people sat it out; though they paused to say it was a pretty scene, they were busy with their own talk, and had nothing else to do that was of any importance. The admiral had got into an argument with Lord Westland about the new ironclads—if argument that could be called which consisted of vituperation on the part of the old sailor and amiable remonstrances from the new lord.
“Ships,” the bigoted old seaman cried, the foam flying from his lips, “I doncall’em ships.” He ran his words into each other, which made him very difficult to understand. “Shtinking old tin-kettles, old potshanpans, that’s what I call ’em. Set a seaman afloatin’em shlike puttin’emdownamine. I don’ callit afloat.”