Old Kensington Part 40

'I cannot think what possessed Joanna to give that funeral-feast,' said Mrs. Palmer, as they were putting on their cloaks.

'Hush, mamma,' said Dolly, for Jonah was coming running and tumbling downstairs breathless from his mother's room.

'Look here, Dolly,' he said: 'mother wants you to come and see her to-morrow after I am gone, and don't let her worry too much, and would you please take this?' he said. 'Please do.'

This was a pretty little crystal watch that he had bought for her, and when Dolly hesitated and exclaimed, he added, entreatingly, 'It is my wedding present. I thought in case we never--I mean that I should like to give it to you myself,' he said.

'Oh! Jonah,' Dolly answered in a low voice, 'perhaps I may never want a wedding present.'

'Never mind, keep it,' said Jonah, staring at her hand, 'and I'll look up George the first thing. You know my father has written to his colonel. Keep a good heart, Dolly; we are all in the same boat.'

He stood watching the cab as it drove away under the stars.

Dolly was not thinking of Jonah any more. She was looking at all the pa.s.sers-by, still hoping to see Robert.

'He ought to have come, mamma, this last night?' she said.

'My dear, do you ever expect a man to think of anything but his own convenience?' said Mrs. Palmer, with great emphasis.

'Oh! mamma, why must one ever say good-by?' said Dolly, going on with her own thoughts.

'I believe, even now he might persuade you to run off with him,' said Mrs. Palmer, laughing....

It was over. He was gone. He had come and gone. Dolly had both dreaded and longed to be alone with Robert, but her mother had persistently stayed in the room. It was about four o'clock when he came, and Dolly left her aunt's bedside and came down to the summons, and stood for an instant at the drawing-room door. She could hear his voice within. She held the door-handle, as she stood dizzy and weary. She thought of the Henleys parting from their son, and envied them. Ah! how much easier to part where love is a certainty; and now this was the last time--and he was going, and she loved him, and she had sent him away, and he had never said one word of regret, nor promised once to come back.

She had offered to set him free; she had said she could not leave them all. At this moment, in her heart, Dolly felt as if she _could_ have left them; and as if Robert, in going and in ceasing to love her, was taking away all the light and the strength of her life. He seemed to be making into a certainty that which she had never believed until now, and proving to her by his deeds that his words were true, although she had refused to believe them. She had given him a heart out of her own tender heart, a soul out of her own loving imagination, and now where were her imaginations? Some dry blast seemed to her to be beating about the place, choking her parched throat and drying her tears. Her eyes were dull and heavy-lidded; her face looked pale and frightened as she opened the door and walked in. 'Dolly is so strong,' Mrs. Palmer was saying, 'she has courage for us all. I do not fear for her.'

'Perhaps it is best as it is,' Henley answered a little hurriedly. 'I shall go out solely with a view to making money, and come home all the sooner. It is certainly better not to disturb Lady Sarah with leave-takings.'

He looked up and saw Dolly coming across the room, and was shocked by the girl's pale face.

'My dearest Dora,' said Henley, going to meet her, 'how ill you look; you would never have been fit for the journey.'

'Perhaps not,' said Dolly. She was quite pa.s.sive, and let him hold her hand, but a cold shadow of bitterness seemed to have fallen upon her. It was a chilly August day. They had lit a small wood fire, and they now brought some coffee to warm Robert before he left. Robert was very much moved, for him.

He put down his coffee-cup untasted, and stood by the tall chimney looking down into the fire. Then he looked at his watch, and went up to his aunt and said good-by, and then he came and stood opposite Dolly, who was by the window, and looked her steadily in the face. She could not look up, though she felt his eyes upon her, and he kissed her. 'G.o.d bless you,' he said, deserting his post with a prayer, as people do sometimes, and without looking back once, he walked out of the room.

Robert left the room. Dolly stood quite still where he had left her; she heard the servants' voices outside in the hall, the carriage starting off, some one calling after it, but the wheels rolled on. She stood dully looking through the window at some birds that were flying across the sky. There were cloud heaps sailing, and dead leaves blowing along the terrace, the bitter parching wind was still blowing. It was not so much the parting as the manner of it. She had thought it so simple to love and to be loved; she had never believed that a word would change him. Was it her fault? Had she been cold, unkind? She was very young still, she longed for one word of sympathy. She turned to her mother with a sudden impulse.

'Oh, mamma!' she said, piteously.

'I cannot think how you can have been so hard-hearted, Dolly,' said her mother. '_I_ could not have let him go alone. How long the time will seem, poor fellow! Yes, you have been very tyrannical, Dolly.'

Was this all the comfort Mrs. Palmer had to give?

Something seemed choking in Dolly's throat; was it her hard heart that was weighing so heavily?

'Oh! mamma, what could I do?' she said. 'I told him he was free: he knows that I love him, but indeed he is free.'

Mrs. Palmer uttered an impatient exclamation. She had been wandering up and down the room. She stopped short.

'Free! what do you mean. You have never said one word to me. What _have_ you been about? Do you mean that he may never come back to you?'

But Dolly scarcely heard her mother's words. The door had opened and some one came in. Never come back? This was Robert himself who was standing there. He had come to say one more farewell. He went straight up to her and he caught her in his arms. 'There was just time,' he said.

'Good-by once more, dearest Dora!' It was but a moment; it was one of those moments that last for a lifetime. Dolly lived upon it for many a day to come. He loved her, she thought to herself, or he would never have come back to her, and if he loved her the parting had lost its sting.

CHAPTER XLI.

I BRING YOU THREE LETTERS--I PRAY YOU READ ONE.

Nay, if you read this line, Remember not the hand that writ it.

The partings were over. Dolly lived upon that last farewell for many a day to come. Such moments are states, and not mere measures of life.

Everything else was sad enough. Lady Sarah still lingered. Poor little Lady Henley in her home in Dean's Yard was yellow and silent, and fierce in her anxiety. What was it to her that Sebastopol was to fall before the victorious armies if the price she had to pay was the life of her son? She kept up as best she could, but the strain told upon her health and her temper. Sir Thomas kept meekly out of the way. The servants trembled and gave warning; the daughters could not give warning. Woe betide Norah if she were late for breakfast. Ill-fated Bell used to make _mal-apropos_ speeches, which were so sternly vented upon her that she used to go off in tears to her father. Sir Thomas himself was in an anxious, unsettled state, coming and going from his desk, poring over maps and papers, and the first of those awful broadsheets of fated names overcame him completely. He burnt the paper, and would not let it go upstairs; but how keep out the lurid gleam of Victory that was spreading over the country? Her flaming sword hung over all their heads by one single thread, it was the life of one man against the whole campaign for many of them. Hoa.r.s.e voices would come shouting and shrieking in the streets; there was but one thought in everybody's mind. All day long it seemed in the air, and a nightmare in the darkness. Poor Sir Thomas had no heart to go out, and used to sit gloomily in a little back study, with a wire blind, and four pairs of boots, and _The Times_ and a blotted cheque-book; he determined at last to take his wife home to Yorks.h.i.+re again. There at least some silence was to be found among the moors and the rocky ridges, and some seeming of peace.

But for a long time Lady Henley refused to go. She was nearer Jonah in London, she said. The post came in one day sooner. It must have brought news to many an anxious home. What letters they are, those letters written twenty years ago, with numbed fingers, in dark tents, on chill battle-fields, in hospital wards. All these correspondents are well and in good heart, according to their own accounts. They don't suffer much from their wounds; they don't mind the cold; they think of the dear people at home, and write to them after a weary night's watch, or a fierce encounter, in the gentlest words of loving remembrance. The dying man sends his love and a recommendation for some soldier's children or widow at home; the strong man is ready to meet his fate, and is full of compa.s.sion for suffering. 'I am writing on poor ----'s sabretache. I am keeping it for his brother at home,' says one. Another has been to see his sick friend, and sends cheering accounts of his state. Then, too, we may read, if we choose, the hearty, ill-spelt correspondence of the common soldiers, all instinct with the same generous and simple spirit.

There are also the proclamations of the generals. The French announce: 'The hour is come to fight, to conquer, to triumph over the demoralised columns of the enemy. The enterprise is great and worthy of their heroism. Providence appears to be on their side, as well as an immense armament of guns and forces, and the high valour of their English allies and the chosen forces of the Ottoman Empire. The n.o.ble confidence of the generals is to pa.s.s into the souls of the soldiers.' At the same time, as we read in the English correspondent's letter, Lord Raglan issues his memorandum, requesting Mr. Commissary-General Filder 'to take steps to insure that the troops shall all be provided with a ration of porter for the next few days.'

There is the record of it all in the old newspapers. Private Vance's letters are not given, for Dolly kept them for her own reading when they came at last. By the same mail came news from the two last departing travellers. Marker, who had brought in the letters one evening, waited in the doorway.

'George!' cried Dolly, tearing her first envelope open, and then half-laughing, half-crying, she read her letter out.

George seemed in good spirits. He wrote from Varna. A previous packet must have been lost, for he said he had written before. This was a cheerful and affectionate letter, quite matter-of-fact, and with no complaints or railings at fate.

'I daresay people think me a great fool,' he said, 'but, on the whole, I don't regret what I have done, except for any annoyance it may have caused you. If you and mamma would go to the Horse Guards and ask for a commission for me, perhaps two such pretty ladies might mollify the authorities. They say commissions are not difficult to get just now. I shall consult the colonel about it; I am to see him again in a day or two. I don't know why I did not speak to him just now when he sent for me.' Then he went on to say that his Bulbul scholars.h.i.+p had stood him in good service, and his little Turkish had been turned to account. He had already pa.s.sed as second-cla.s.s interpreter, and he had got hold of some books and was getting on. 'This is the reason why the Colonel sent for me yesterday morning. I am Private Vance, remember, only just out of the awkward squad. Our Colonel is a grand old man, with bright eagle eyes, and the heroic manner. He is like one of your favourite heroes. Do you remember Aunt Sarah's talking of David Fane, our father's old friend? When I found out who he was I felt very much inclined to tell him my real name. He said to me at once, "I see you are not exactly what you appear to be. If you will come to me in a day or two I shall be glad to talk to you about your prospects; in the meanwhile don't forget what a good influence one man of good education and feeling can exert in the ranks of a regiment." Old Fane himself is no bad specimen of a true knight; we all feel the better for knowing him. He walks with a long swift stride like a deer, tossing his head as he goes. I have never seen him in battle, but I can imagine him leading his men to victory, and I am glad of the chance which has given me such a leader. I wish there were more like him. Tell Raban, if you see him, that I am getting on very well, and that, far from being a black sheep here, no lambskin can compare with my pipe-clay.' Then came something erased.

'Dearest Dolly, you don't know what your goodness has been to me all this time. I hope Robert appreciates his good luck. This will reach you about the time of your wedding-day. I will send you a little Russian belt when I can find an opportunity. My love to them all, and be kind to Rhoda, for the sake of your most affectionate 'G. V.'

There was a P.S.

'I forgot to ask you when I last wrote whether you got the letter I wrote you at Cambridge, and if old Miller gave you my packet. I bought the form in the town as I walked down to the boats; it all seems a horrid dream as I think of it now, and I am very much ashamed of that whole business; and yet I should like to leave matters as they are, dear, and to feel that I have done my best for that poor little girl. My love to old John; tell him to write. There has been a good deal of sickness here, but the worst is over.'

The paper trembled in Dolly's hand as she dwelt upon every crooked line and twist of the dear handwriting that wrote 'George is safe.'

'I told you all along it was absurd to make such a disturbance about him. You see he was enjoying himself with his common a.s.sociates,' said Mrs. Palmer crossly. 'Strangely peculiar,' she added after a moment.

'Dolly, did it ever occur to you that the dear boy was a little----?'

and she tapped her fair forehead significantly.

'He was only unhappy, mamma, but you see he is getting better now,' said Dolly.

The next time Dolly saw Rhoda she ran up and kissed her, looking so kind that Rhoda was quite surprised and wondered what had happened to make Dolly so nice again.