“Oh! from his habit of drinking beer. I am so glad; I have often told him that he took too much.”
“Really, Miss Fane?” said Angela, in accents of serious concern. “I had no idea of it! What a shocking thing! I am indeed thankful that I have been instrumental in helping him to reform.”
Dolly’s lips twitched, but she instantly followed Angela’s lead. “Of course it was not yet very serious, and he did not often—well—exceed. But I assure you I am most grateful for all you have done; you have a wonderful influence over him—truly wonderful!”
“Then I shall hope to see him at Swanborough; and perhaps you will come, too? You need not feel embarrassed; there will be plenty of girls of your own age to keep you in countenance,” said Angela, pleasantly.
“Thank you so much,” said Dolly, as she opened the front door.
She stood on the step to speed the parting guests. When the last flicker of Angela’s white parasol had vanished, she remarked to herself: “Certainly Bernard has a better right to trust his own judgment than any one I know!”
Both she and Bernard went to Swanborough for the meeting. They drove; and, after putting up the horse, had the satisfaction of encountering Miss Laurenson and her brother outside the station. Bernard went straight to Angela’s side, and Dolly found herself walking with Mr. Laurenson. Lal was no talker; and as the uncivilized Dolly had not yet learned to speak when she did not want to, they walked on in silence.
Swanborough was a town of twenty thousand people, mostly wicked. Standing on a tidal river, it harboured the vessels of all nations and the peculiar vices of each; there were, besides, barracks in the town, which brought their special dangers. High wages and a high standard of living prevailed: the head of one family would be calling for green peas in April, while the head of another, discharged from the same position, perhaps for drunkenness, would send his children, filthy, barefoot, and famishing, into the street to beg. That popular vice, drunkenness, flourished like a green bay-tree. A public-house blossomed at every street’s corner, and its devotees lounged in its shade with their hands in their holey pockets. Passing one such palace as a youth pushed open the door, Dolly had a view of the crowded bar, and breathed in a puff of hot vapour wherein the scents of tobacco and gin and old clothes contended for the mastery.
“There are too many of those places!” she exclaimed, averting her offended face.
“There are,” Lal answered her, rather bitterly.