Old Kensington Part 16

AN AUTUMN MORNING.

Fain would I but I dare not; I dare and yet I may not; I may although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.

You laugh because you like not; I jest whenas I joy not You pierce although you strike not; I strike and yet annoy not.

--The Shepherd's Description of Love.

The Palace clock takes up the echo of the Old Church steeple, the sun-dial is pointing with its hooked nose to the Roman figures on its copper face--eleven o'clock says the Palace clock. People go crossing and re-crossing the distant vistas of Kensington Gardens; the children are fluttering and scampering all over the brown turf, with its autumnal crop of sandwich-papers and orange-peel; governesses and their pupils are walking briskly up and down the flower-walk that skirts Hyde Park.

There is a tempting glitter of horsemanship in the distance, and the little girls glance wistfully towards it, but the governesses for the most part keep their young charges to the iron railings and the varied selection of little wooden boards, with Latin names, that are sprouting all along the tangled flower-beds; the gravel paths are shaken over with fallen leaves, old, brown, purple--so they lie twinkling as the sun shines upon them.

One or two people are drinking at the little well among the trees where the children are at play.

'Hoy! hugh! houp!' cries little Betty, jumping high into the air, and setting off, followed by a crew of small fluttering rags. What a crisp noise the dead leaves make as the children wade and splash and tumble through the heaps that the gardeners have swept together. The old place echoes with their jolly little voices. The children come, like the leaves themselves, and disport year after year in the sunshine, and the ducks in the round pond feed upon the crumbs which succeeding generations bring from their tables. There are some of us who still know the ducks of twenty years apart. Where is the gallant grey (goose) that once used to chase unhappy children flying agonized before him? Where is the little duck with the bright sparkling yellow eyes and the orange beak? Quick-witted, eager, unabashed, it used to carry off the spoils of the great grey goose itself, too busy careering upon the green and driving all before it, to notice the disappearance of its crusts, although the foolish floundering white ducks, placidly impatient in the pond, would lift up their canary noses and quack notes of warning. One would still be glad to know where human nature finishes and where ducks begin.

Overhead the sky lies in faint blue vaults crossed by misty autumnal streamers; the rooks sweep cawing and circling among the tree-tops; a bell is going quick and tinkling: it comes from the little chapel of the Palace hard by. The old royal bricks and windows look red and purple in the autumn sunlight, against gold and blue vapours, and with canopies of azure and grey.

All the people are coming and going their different ways this October morning. A slim girl, in black silk, is hurrying along from the wide door leading from the Palace Green. She stops for an instant to look at the shadow on the old sun-dial, and then hurries on again; and as she goes the brazen hour comes striking and sounding from across the house-roofs of the old suburb. A little boy, playing under a tree, throws a chestnut at the girl as she hurries by. It falls to the ground, slipping along the folds of her black silk dress. At the same moment two young men, who have met by chance, are parting at the end of one of the long avenues. The girl, seeing them, stops short and turns back deliberately and walks as far as the old sun-dial before she retraces her steps.

How oddly all our comings and goings, and purposes and cross-purposes combine, fulfil, frustrate each other. It is like a wonderful symphony, of which every note is a human life. The chapel bell had just finished ringing, as Rhoda (for it is Rhoda) turned in through the narrow door leading to the garden, and John Morgan, with Dolly beside him, came quickly across the worn green s.p.a.ce in front of the barracks.

'I'm glad I caught you up,' panted good old John, tumbling and flying after Dolly. 'So this is your birthday, and you are coming to church! I promised to take the duty for Mr. Thompson this morning. I have had two funerals on, and I couldn't get home before. We shall just do it. I'm afraid I'm going too quick for you?'

'Not at all,' said Dolly. I always go quick. I was running after Rhoda.

She started to go, and then Aunt Sarah sent me after her. Do you know,'

Dolly said, 'George, too, has become so very--I don't know what to call it----? He asked me to go to church more often that day he came up.'

'Well,' said John, looking at her kindly, and yet a little troubled, 'for myself, I find there's nothing like it; but then I'm paid for it, you know: it is in my day's work. I hope George is keeping to his?'

'Oh, I hope so,' said Dolly, looking a little wistful.

'H'm,' says John, doubtfully; 'here we are. Go round to the left, where you see those people.' And he darts away and leaves her.

The clock began striking eleven slowly from the archway of the old Palace; some dozen people are a.s.sembled together in the little Palace chapel, and begin repeating the responses in measured tones. It is a quiet little place. The world rolls beyond it on its many chariot-wheels to busier haunts, along the great high-roads. As for the flesh and the devil, can they be those who are a.s.sembled here? They a.s.semble to the sound of the bell, advancing feebly, for the most part skirting the sunny wall, past the sentry at his post, and along the outer courtyard of the Palace, where the windows are green and red with geranium-pots, where there is a tranquil glimmer of autumnal sunshine and a crowing of c.o.c.ks. Then the little congregation turns in at a side-door of the Palace, and so through a vestibule, comes into the chapel, of which the bell has been tinkling for some week-day service: it stops short, and the service begins quite suddenly as a door opens in the wall, and a preacher, in a white surplice, comes out and begins in a deep voice almost before the last vibration of the bell has died away. As for the congregation, there is not much to note. There are some bent white heads, there is some placid middle-age, a little youth to brighten to the sunshine. The great square window admits a silenced light; there are high old-fashioned pews on either side of the place, and opposite the communion-table, high up over the heads of the congregation, a great square-curtained pew, with the royal arms and a curtained gallery. It was like Dugald Dalgetty's hiding-place, one member of the congregation thought. She used to wonder if he was not concealed behind the heavy curtains. This reader of the _Legend of Montrose_ is standing alone in a big pew, with one elbow on the cushioned ledge, and her head resting on her hand. She has a soft brown scroll of hair, with a gleam of sunlight in it. She has soft oval cheeks that flush up easily, grey eyes, and black knotted eyebrows, and a curious soft mouth, close fixed now, but it trembles at a word or a breath. She had come to meet her friend. But Rhoda, who is not very far off, goes flitting down the broad walk leading to the great summer-house. It used to stand there until a year or two ago, when the present generation carried it bodily away--a melancholy, stately, grandiose old pile, filling one with no little respect for the people who raised so stately a mausoleum to rest in for a moment. There was some one who had been resting there many moments on this particular morning: a st.u.r.dy young man, leaning back against the wall and smoking a cigar. He jumped up eagerly when he saw the girl at last, and, flinging his cigar away, came forward to meet her as she hurried from under the shade of the trees in which she had been keeping.

'At last, you unpunctual girl,' he cried, meeting her and pulling her hand through his arm. 'Do you know how many cigars I have smoked while you have been keeping me waiting?'

She did not answer, but looked up at him with a long slow look.

'Dear George, I couldn't get away before; and when I came just now there was some one talking to you. Your aunt came, and Dolly, and they stayed, oh, such a time. I was so cross, and I kept thinking of my poor George waiting for me here.'

She could see George smiling and mollified as she spoke, and went on more gaily.

'At last, I slipped away; but I am afraid Dolly must have thought it so strange.'

'Dolly!' said George Vanborough, impatiently (for, of course, it was George, who had come up to town again with another return-ticket); 'she had better take care and not keep you from me again. Come and sit down,'

said he. 'I have a thousand things to say to you....'

'Oh George! it must only be for a moment,' said Rhoda hesitating; 'if anybody were to----'

'Nonsense!' cried George, already agitated by the meeting, and exasperated by his long waiting; 'you are always thinking of what people will say; you have no feeling for a poor wretch who has been counting the minutes till he could see you again--who is going to the devil without you. Rhoda! I cannot stand this much longer--this waiting and starving on the crumbs that you vouchsafe to scatter from your table.

What the deuce does it matter if they _don't_ approve? Why won't you marry me this minute, and have done with it? There goes a parson with an umbrella. Shall I run after him and get him to splice us off-hand?'

Rhoda looked seriously alarmed. 'George, don't talk like this,' she said, putting her slim hand on his. 'You would never speak to me again if I consented to anything so dishonourable; Lady Sarah would never give you her living; she would never forg----'

'My aunt be hanged!' cried George, more and more excited. 'If she were ever so angry she could not divide us if we were married. I am not at all sure that I shall take her living. I only want to earn enough bread and b.u.t.ter for you, Rhoda. _Now_, I believe she might starve you into surrender. Rhoda, take me or leave me, but don't let us go on like this.

A woman's idea of honour, I confess, pa.s.ses my comprehension,' said he, somewhat bitterly.

'Can't you understand my not wanting to deceive them all?' Rhoda said.

'Deceive them all?' said George. 'What are we doing now? I don't like it. I don't understand it. I am ashamed to look Dolly in the face when she talks to me about you. Rhoda, be a reasonable, good, kind little Rhoda.' And the young fellow wrung the little hand he held in his, and thumped the two hands both down together upon the seat.

He hurt her, but the girl did not wince. She again raised her dark eyes and looked fixedly into his face. When she looked like that she knew very well that George, for one--poor tamed monster that he was--could never defy her.

'Dearest George, you know that if I could, I would marry you this moment,' she said. 'But how can I ruin your whole future:--you, who are so sensitive and ill able to bear things? How could we tell Lady Sarah just now, when--when you have been so incautious and unfortunate----?'

'When I owe three hundred pounds!' cried George, at the pitch of his voice: 'and I must get it from my aunt one way or another--that is the plain English, Rhoda. Don't be afraid; nothing you say will hurt my feelings. If only,' he added, in a sweet changing voice--'if only you love me a little, and will help a poor prodigal out of the mire----But no: you virtuous people pa.s.s on with your high-minded scruples, and leave us to our deserts,' he cried, with a sudden change of manner; and he started up and began walking up and down hastily in front of the summer-house.

The girl watched him for an instant--a hasty, stumpy figure going up and down, and up and down again.

'George! George!' faltered Rhoda, frightened--and her tears brimmed over unaffectedly--'haven't you any trust in my love? won't you believe me when I tell you, I--I----you _know_ I would give my life for you if I could!'

George Vanborough's own blue eyes were twinkling. 'Forgive me, darling,'

he said, utterly melting in one instant, and speaking in that sweet voice peculiar to him. It seemed to come from his very heart. He sank down by her again. 'You are an angel--there, Rhoda--a thousand thousand miles away from me, though we are sitting side by side; but when you are unhappy, then I am punished for all my transgressions,' said George, in his gentle voice. 'Now I will tell you what we will do: we will tell Dolly all about it, and she will help us.'

'Oh! not Dolly,' said Rhoda, imploring; 'George! everybody loves her, and she doesn't know what it means to be unhappy and anxious. Let us wait a little longer, George: we are happy now together, are we not? You must pa.s.s your examination, and take your degree, and it will be easier to tell them then. Come.'

'Come where?' said George.

'There are so many people here,' said Rhoda, 'you mustn't write to me again to meet you. You had much better come and see me at the house.'

'I will come and see you there, too,' said George. 'I met Raban just now. He will be telling them I am in town; he says my aunt wants to see me on business. Confound him!'

'Was that Mr. Raban?' said Rhoda, opening her eyes. 'Oh! I hope he will not tell them.' She led him across the gra.s.s, into a quiet place, deep among the trees, where they were safe enough; for where so many come and go, two figures, sitting on a felled trunk, on the slope of a leafy hollow, are scarcely noticed. The chestnuts fell now and then plash into the leaves and gra.s.ses, the breezes stirred the crisp leaves, the brown sunset of autumn glow tinted and swept to gold the changing world: there were still birds and blue overhead, a sea of gold all round them. George was happy. He forgot his debts, his dreams, the deaths and doubts and failures of life--everything except two dark eyes, a soft harmony of voice and look beside him.

'You are like Mendelssohn's _Songs without Words_, Rhoda,' said George.

Rhoda didn't answer.

'George, what o'clock is it?' she said.

CHAPTER XIX.

KENSINGTON PALACE CHAPEL.

An' I hallus comed to's choorch afoar moy Sally wur dead, An' eerd un a b.u.mmin' awaay loike a buzzard clock ower my yead, An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd, but I thowt a ad summut to saay, An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaay.