Old Kensington Part 17

Meanwhile Dolly, who has been looking for Rhoda in vain, stands alone in the pew, listening to the opening exhortation, and, at the same time, wondering alongside of it, as she used to do when she and Rhoda were little girls at Paris long ago. Her thoughts run somewhat in this fashion:--'Inner life,' thinks Dolly. 'What is inner life? George says he knows. John Morgan makes it all into the day's work and being tired.

Aunt Sarah says it is repentance. Robert won't even listen to me when I speak of it. Have I got it? What am I?' Dolly wonders if she is sailing straight off to heaven at that moment in the big cushioned pew, or if the ground will open and swallow it up one day, like the tents of Korah and Abiram. This is what she is at that instant--so she thinks at least: Some whitewashed walls, a light through a big window; John Morgan's voice echoing in an odd melancholy way, and her own two hands lying on the cushion before her. Nothing more: she can go no farther at that minute towards 'the eternal fact upon which man may front the destinies and the immensities.'

So Dolly, at the outset of life, at the beginning of the longest five years of her life, stands in the strangers' great pew in Kensington Palace Chapel--a young Pharisee, perhaps, but an honest one, speculating upon the future, making broad her phylacteries; and with these, strange flashes of self-realisation that came to puzzle her all her life long--standing opposite the great prayer-books, with all the faded golden stamps of lions and unicorns. It was to please her brother George that Dolly had come to church this Saint's Day. What wouldn't she have done to please him? Through all his curious excursions of feeling he expected her always to follow, and Dolly tried to follow as she was expected.

'For our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of life,' the reader ran on. Dolly was ready enough to be grateful for all these mercies, only she thought that out of doors, in the gardens, she would have felt as grateful as she did now; and she again wondered why it was better to tender thanks in a mahogany box with red stuffings, out of a book, instead of out of her heart, in the open air. 'Can this be because I have no inner life?' thought Dolly, with her vacant eyes fixed on the clergyman. A bird's shadow flitted across the sun-gleam on the floor.

Dolly looked up and saw the branch of the tree through the great window, and the blue depths shining, dazzling, and dominant. Then the girl pushed her hand across her eyes, and tried to forget other thoughts as she stood reading out of the big brown prayer-book. Dolly's gloves had fallen over the side of the pew, and were lying in the oak-matted pa.s.sage-place, at the feet of a little country cookmaid from one of the kitchens of the Palace, who alternately stared down at the grey gloves and up at the young lady. The little cook, whose mistress was away, had wandered in to the sound of the bell, and sat there with her rosy cheeks, like some russet apple that had fallen by chance into a faded reliquary belonging to a sumptuous shrine. Was it because it was Sat.u.r.day, Dolly wondered, that she could not bring her heart to the altar?--that the little chapel did not seem to her much more than an allegory? Are royal chapels only echoes and allegories? Do people go there to pray real prayers, to long pa.s.sionately, with beating hearts?

Have dried-up tears ever fallen upon the big pages of the old books with their curling _t_'s and florid _s_'s? Books in whose pages King George the Third still rules over a shadowy realm, Queen Charlotte heads the Royal Family!

Dolly had started away from her vague excursions when the Epistle ended.

'Of the tribe of Zabulon twelve thousand, of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand....' It seemed to Dolly but a part of the state and the ceremony that oppressed her. As the armies pa.s.sed before her, she seemed to hear the chaunt of the mult.i.tude, to follow the endless processions of the elect filing past with the seals on their triumphant brows, the white robes and palms in their extended hands!

But listen, what is this? John Morgan thundered out the long lists of the tribes; but his voice softened as he came to the well-loved gospel of the day:--'Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom: blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers....'

'Are these the real tribes upon earth for whom the blessing is kept? Am I of the tribe of the merciful, of the peacemakers?' Dolly asked herself again. 'How can I make peace?--there is no one angry,' thought the girl; 'and I'm sure no one has ever done me any harm to be forgiven, except--except Mr. Raban, when he spoke to Aunt Sarah so cruelly about George. Ought I to forgive that?' thought the sister, and yet she wished she had not spoken so unkindly....

When the end came there was a rustle. The old ladies got up off their knees, the curtains stirred in the big Dugald Dalgetty pew: Dolly was to meet John Morgan in the outer room, but the old clerk gave her a message to say that Mr. Morgan had gone to the chaplain's, and would meet her in the clock court of the Palace.

'There was a gentleman asking for him just a minute by,' said the old clerk.

So Dolly, instead of filing off with the rest of the congregation, went sweeping along the dark vaulted pa.s.sages with the sunlight at either end--a grey maiden floating in the shade.

Dolly's dress was demure enough: for though she liked bright colours, by some odd scruples she denied herself the tints she liked. If she sometimes wore a rose or a blue ribbon, it was Lady Sarah who bought them, and who had learnt of late to like roses and blue ribbons by proxy. Otherwise, she let Dolly come, go, dress as she liked best; and so the girl bought herself cheap grey gowns and economical brown petticoats: luckily she could not paint her pretty cheeks brown, nor her bright hair grey. Sometimes Rhoda had proposed that they should dress in black with frill caps and crosses, but this Aunt Sarah peremptorily refused to permit. Lady Sarah was a clever woman, with a horror of att.i.tudinising, and some want of artistic feeling. The poor people whom she visited, Rhoda herself, soon discovered the futility of any of the little performances they sometimes attempted for Lady Sarah's benefit.

Dolly stepped out from the dark pa.s.sage into the Palace courtyard, with its dim rows of windows, its sentinel, its bra.s.ses shining, the old doorways standing at prim intervals with k.n.o.bs and iron bells, which may be pulled to-day, but which seem to echo a hundred years ago, as they ring across the Dutch court. The little cookmaid was peeping out of her kitchen-door, and gave a kind little smile. Some one else was waiting, pacing up and down that quiet place, where footsteps can be heard echoing in the stillness. But as Dolly advanced, she discovered that it was not John Morgan, as she imagined. The gentleman, who had reached the end of his walk, now turned, came towards her, looking absently to the right and the left. It was the very last person in the whole world she had expected or wished to see. It was Frank Raban, with his pale face, who stopped short when he saw her. They had not met since that day when he had talked so strangely.

If Dolly looked as if she was a little sorry to see Mr. Raban, Mr. Raban also looked as if he had rather not have met Dolly. He gave a glance round, but there was no way by which he could avoid her, unless he was prepared, like harlequin in the pantomime, to take a summersault and disappear through one of the many windows. There was no help for it.

They both came forward.

'How do you do, Miss Vanborough?' said Raban, gravely, holding out his hand, and thinking of the last time they had met.

'How do you do?' said Dolly, coldly, just giving him her fingers. Then melting a little, as people do who have been over-stiff--'Have you seen George lately? how is he?' said Dolly, more forgivingly.

Raban looked surprised. 'He is quite well ... Don't you--has he not----'

he interrupted himself, and then he went on, looking a little confused: 'I am only in town for an hour or two. I have been calling at John Morgan's, and they sent me here to find him. Shall I find Lady Sarah at home this afternoon?'

Dolly flushed up. In a moment all her coldness was gone. Something in his manner made her suspect that all was not well. 'It is something more about George?' she said, frightened, and she fixed her two circling eyes upon the man. Why was he for ever coming--evil messenger of ill tidings?

She guessed it, she felt it, she seemed to have some second sight as regards Raban. She almost hated him. A minute ago she had thought she could forgive him.

Dolly's cheeks flushed in vain, her eyes flashed harmless lightning.

'Yes, it is about your brother,' said the young man, looking away. 'I have at last been able to make that arrangement to help him, as Lady Sarah wished. It has taken me some time and some trouble;' and without another word he turned and walked away towards the pa.s.sage.

I think this was the first time Dolly had ever been snubbed in all her life, except by George, and that did not count.

A furtive, quick, yet hesitating footstep flutters after Frank. 'Mr.

Raban,' says Miss Vanborough.

He stopped.

'I did not mean to pain you,' blushing up (she was very indignant still, and half-inclined to cry. But she was in the wrong, and bent upon apology). 'I beg your pardon,' she said, in a lofty, condoning, half-ashamed, half-indignant sort of way; and she held out her hand.

Frank Raban did not refuse the outstretched hand; he took it in his, and held it tight for an instant, with a grip of which he was scarcely aware, and then he dropped it. 'You don't know,' he said, with some emotion,--'I hope you will never know, what it is to have done another great wrong. I cannot forget what you said to me that last evening we met; but you must learn more charity, and believe that even those who have failed once may mean to do right another time.'

How little she guessed that, as he spoke, he was thinking what a madness had been his; wondering what infatuation had made him, even for one instant, dream they could ever be anything to one another.

As the two made it up, after a fashion, a bell tinkled through the court, a door opened, and John Morgan came running down some worn steps, twirling his umbrella like a mill.

'Here I am, Dolly. Why, Raban!' he shouts, 'where do you come from? Dr.

Thompson is better--he kept me discussing the church-rates. I couldn't get away. You see, where the proportion of Dissenters----Will you have an arm?'

'No, thank you,' said Dolly.

'----where the proportion is one-fiftieth of the population----'

The curate, always enthusiastic, seized Raban's arm, and plunged with him into the very depths of Dr. Thompson's argument. Dolly lingered behind for a minute, and came after them, along the pa.s.sage again and out by a different way into an old avenue which leads from the Palace stables, and by a garden enclosed in high brick walls. It used to be Lady Henley's garden, and Dolly sometimes walked there. Now she only skirted the wall. The sun was casting long shadows, the mists were gone, a sort of sweet balmy ripeness was in the air, as they came out upon the green. The windows of the old guard-house were twinkling; some soldiers were lounging on the gra.s.s. Some members of the congregation were opening the wicket-gates of one of the old houses that stood round about in those days, modest dependencies of the Palace, quaint-roofed, with slanting bricks and tiles, and narrow panes, from whence autumnal avenues could be descried.

There is a side-door leading from Palace Green to Kensington Gardens.

Within the door stands an old stone summer-house, which is generally br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with little children, who for many years past have sat swinging their legs upon the seat.

As Dolly pa.s.sed the gate she heard a shout, and out of the summer-house darted a little ragged procession, with tatters flying--Mikey and his sister, who had spied their victim, and now pursued her with triumphant cries.

'Tsus!--hi, Mikey!--Miss Vamper!' (so they called her).

'Give us a 'napeny,' says Mikey. 'Father's got no work, mother was buried on Toosdy! We's so 'ungry.'

'Why, Betty,' said Dolly, stopping short, and greatly shocked, 'is this true?'

'Ess,' says little Betty, grinning, and running back through the wicket.

'What did you have for dinner yesterday?' says Dolly, incredulous, and pursuing Betty towards the summer-house.

'Please, Miss, mother give us some bread-and-drippin',' says Mikey, with a caper. 'I mean father did. We's so....'

'You mean that you have been telling me a wicked story,' interrupted Dolly. 'I am _very_ angry, Mikey. I _never_ forgive deception. I shall give you no apples--nothing. I....' She stopped short; her voice suddenly faltered. She stood quite still watching two people, who came advancing down the avenue that led to the little door, arm-in-arm, and so absorbed in each other, that for a minute they did not see that she was standing in the way. It was a chance. If it had not happened then, it would have happened at some other time and place.

Rhoda had waited until the service was over, and in so doing she had come upon the last person whom she wished to see just then. There stood Dolly by the summer-house, with a pale face, confronting her, with the little ragged crew about her knees. Mikey, looking up, thought that for once 'Miss Vamper' was in the tantrums.

Rhoda started back instinctively, meeting two blank wondering eyes, and would have pulled George away, but it was too late.

'Nonsense,' said George; and he came forward, and then they all were quite silent for a minute, George a little in advance, Rhoda lingering still.

'What does this mean?' said Dolly, coldly, speaking at last.

'What does it mean!' George burst out. 'Don't you see us? don't you guess? It is good news, isn't it?--Dolly, she loves me. Have you not guessed it all along--ever since--months ago?'

He was half-distracted, half-excited, half-laughing. His eyes were dim with moisture. Any one might see him. What did he care for the ragged children, the people pa.s.sing by--those silent crowds that flit through our lives! He came up to Dolly.