Old Kensington Part 35

'I had opened the door, Uncle John,' said Rhoda. Her heart beat a little. Would George go away? She thought she heard footsteps striking down the street. Then she felt more easy. She told herself once more that it was far better to have no scenes nor explanations, and she sat down quietly to her evening's task in a corner of her uncle's study. She was making some pinafores for the little Costellos, and she tranquilly st.i.tched and tucked and hemmed. John Morgan liked to see her busy at her womanly work, her little lamp duly trimmed, and her busy fingers working for others more thriftless.

And outside in the moonlight George walked away in a new fury. What indignity had he subjected himself to? He gave a bitter sort of laugh.

He had not expected much, but this was worse than anything he had expected. Reproaches, coldness, indifference, all these he was prepared for. He knew in his heart of hearts that Rhoda did not care for him; and what further wrong could she do him than this injury that people inflict every day upon each other? She had added scorn to her indifference; and again George laughed to himself, thinking of this wooden door Rhoda had clapped upon his pa.s.sion, and her summary way of thrusting him out.

At one time, instead of banging the door, she used to open it wide. She used to listen to him, with her wonderful dark eyes fixed on his face.

Now, what had happened? He was the same man, she was the same woman, and nothing was the same. George mechanically walked on towards his own home--if Church House could be so called. He went across the square, and by a narrow back street, and he tried the garden gate, and found it open, and went in, with some vague idea of finding Dolly, and calling her to the bench beside the pond, and of telling her of all his trouble.

That slam of the door kept sounding in his ears, a sort of knell to his love.

But George was in no vein of luck that night. The garden was deserted and mysterious, heavy with sweet scents in the darkness. He went down the dark path and came back again, and there was a rustle among the trees; and as he walked across the lawn towards the lighted window of the oak room, he heard two voices clear in the silence, floating up from some kitchen below. He knew Sam's croak; he did not recognise the other voice.

'Mademoiselle is gone to dance. I like to dance too,' it said. 'Will you come to a ball and dance with me, Mr. Sam?'

Then followed old Sam's chuckle. 'I'll dance with you, Mademoiselle,' he said.

George thought it sounded as if some evil spirit of the night were mocking his trouble. And so Dolly was dancing while he was roaming about in his misery. Even Dolly had forgotten his pain. Even Rhoda had turned him out. Who cared what happened to him now?

He went to the window of the oak room and looked in. Lady Sarah was sitting there alone, shading her eyes from the light. There were papers all round about her. The lamp was burning behind her, and the light was reflected in the narrow gla.s.s above her tall chimney-piece.

He saw her put out her hand and slowly take a paper that was lying on the table, and tear it down the middle. Poor Aunt Sarah! she looked very old and worn and sad. How ill he had repaid her kindness! She should be spared all further anxiety and trouble for him. Then he put out his two hands with a wild farewell motion. He had not meant her to see him, but the window was ajar and flew open, and then he walked in; and Lady Sarah, looking up, saw George standing before her. He was scarcely himself all this time: if he had found Dolly all might have ended differently.

'George?' said Lady Sarah, frightened by his wild looks, 'what has happened, my dear?'

'I have come to say good-by to you,' he wildly cried. 'Aunt Sarah, you will never have any more trouble with me. You have been a thousand thousand times too good to me!' And he flung his two arms round her neck and kissed her, and almost before she could speak he was gone....

A few minutes later Marker heard a fall, and came running upstairs. She found Lady Sarah lying half-conscious on the ground.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE SLOW SAD HOURS.

And thou wert sad, yet I was not with thee; And thou wert sick, and yet I was not there.

--Byron.

Dolly and her mother had left the Middletons' when John Morgan drove up in a hansom, with a message from his mother to bring them back at once.

The servant told him that they were only just gone, and he drove off in pursuit. Bucklersbury House was blazing in the darkness, with its many windows open and alight, and its crowds pouring in and its music striking up. Morgan sprang out of his cab and hurried across the court, and under the horses' noses, and pushed among the footmen to the great front door where the inscribing angels of the _Morning Post_ were stationed. The servants would have sent him back, but he told his errand in a few hasty words, and was allowed to walk into the hall. He saw a great marble staircase all alight, and people going up; and, by some good fortune, one of the very first persons he distinguished was Dolly, who had only just come, and who was following her mother and Robert.

She, too, caught sight of the familiar face in the hall below, and stopped short.

'Mamma,' she said, 'there is John Morgan making signs. Something has happened.'

Mrs. Palmer did not choose to hear. She was going in; she was at the gates of Paradise: she was not going to be kept back by John Morgan.

There came a cheerful clang of music from above.

Dolly hesitated; the curate beckoned to her eagerly. 'Mamma, I must go back to him,' said Dolly, and before her mother could remonstrate she had stopped short and slid behind a diplomat, a lord with a blue ribbon, an aged countess; in two minutes she was at the foot of the staircase, Robert meanwhile serenely proceeding ahead, and imagining that his ladies were following.

In two words, John Morgan had told Dolly to get her shawl, that her aunt was ill, that she had been asking for her. Dolly flew back to the cloak-room: she saw her white shawl still lying on the table, and she seized it and ran back to John Morgan again, and then they had hurried through the court and among the carriages to the place where the hansom was waiting.

'And I was away from her!' said Dolly. That was nearly all she said. It was her first trouble--overwhelming, unendurable, bewildering, as first troubles are. When they drove up to Church House, the front looked black, and closed, and terrible somehow. Dolly's heart beat as she went in.

Everything seemed a little less terrible when she had run upstairs, and found her aunt lying in the familiar room, with a faint odour of camphor and chloroform, and Marker coming and going very quietly. Mrs. Morgan was there with her bonnet c.o.c.ked a little on one side; she came up and took Dolly's hand with real kindness, and said some words of encouragement, and led her to the bedside. As Dolly looked at Aunt Sarah's changed face, she gulped for the first time one of life's bitter draughts. They don't last long, those horrible moments; they pa.s.s on, but they leave a burning taste; it comes back again and again with the troubles of life.

Lady Sarah seemed to recognise Dolly when she first came in, then she relapsed again, and lay scarce conscious, placid, indifferently waiting the result of all this nursing and anxious care. The struggles of life and its bustling anxieties had pa.s.sed away from that quiet room, never more to return.

Dolly sat patiently by the bedside. She had not taken off her evening dress, she never moved, she scarcely breathed, for fear of disturbing her dear sick woman. If Frank Raban could have seen her then, he would not have called her cold! Those loving looks and tender ways might almost have poured new life into the worn-out existence that was ebbing away. The night sped on, as such nights do pa.s.s. She heard the sound of carriage-wheels coming home at last, and crept downstairs to meet the home-comers.

Dolly did not ask her mother what had delayed her when the two came in.

She met them with her pale face. She was still in her white dress, with the dying roses in her hair. Henley, who had meant to reproach her for deserting them without a word, felt ashamed for once before her. She seemed to belong to some other world, far away from that from which he had just come. She told her story very simply. The doctors said there had been one attack such as this once before, which her aunt had kept concealed from them all. They ordered absolute quiet. Marker was to be nurse, and one other person. 'Of course that must be me, mamma. I think Aunt Sarah would like me best,' she said, with a faint smile. 'Mrs.

Morgan! No, dear mamma, not Mrs. Morgan.' Then suddenly she burst into tears. 'Oh, mamma, I have never seen any one so ill,' she said; but the next minute she had overcome her emotion, and wiped her eyes.

'My dearest child, it is most distressing, and that you should have missed your ball, too' said Philippa. 'I said all along, if you remember, that she was looking a perfect wreck. You would not listen to me. Robert, turn that sofa out of the draught. I shall not go to bed.

Julie can come down here and keep me company after you go.'

'I must go,' said Robert; 'I have still some work to finish. Take care of yourself, Dora--remember you belong to me now. I hope there will be better news in the morning.'

From one room to the other, all the next day, Dolly went with her heavy heart--it seemed to drag at her as she moved, to dull her very anxiety.

It was only a pain, it did not rise to the dignity of an emotion. Mrs.

Palmer felt herself greatly neglected; she was taken ill in the afternoon and begged to see the doctor, who made light of her ailment; towards evening Mrs. Palmer was a great deal better. She came down into the drawing-room, and sent Eliza Twells over for John Morgan. Lady Sarah still lay stricken silent, but her pulse was better, the doctor said: she could move her arm a little: it had been lying helpless before.

Faithful Marker sat by her side, rubbing her cold hands.

'Aunt Sarah, do you know me?' whispered Dolly, bending over her.

Lady Sarah faintly smiled in answer.

'Tell George to come back,' she said slowly. 'Dolly, I did as you wished; are you satisfied?' She had gone back to the moment when she was taken ill.

'Dearest Aunt Sarah,' said Dolly, covering her hand with kisses. Then she ran down to tell her mother the good news. 'Aunt Sarah was rallying, was talking more like herself again. We only want George to make her well again. He must come. Where is he? Why does he not come?'

'Don't ask _me_ anything about George,' said Mrs. Palmer, putting up her hands.

This was the day after the ball, but no George came, although Dolly looked for him at every instant. John Morgan, of his own accord, sent a second message to him and another to Raban. In the course of the day an answer arrived from the tutor: '_G. left Cambridge yesterday. Your telegram to him lying unopened._'

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

IN AN EMPTY ROOM.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour.

--Shakspeare.

The next day Dolly, coming down into the garden, found Raban with her mother, and she went up eagerly to meet him, hoping for the news she was looking for. But news there was none, although her mother, arm-in-arm with Raban, had been for the last hour slowly pacing the gravel-walks, recapitulating all their anxieties and all the complaints they had against that tiresome boy.