Part 28 (2/2)

The two were walking along the Sunday street on their way to St. Paul's.

Family groups and prayer-books were about: market-carts, packed with smiles and ribbons, were driving out in a long train towards the river.

Bells far and near were ringing fitfully. There is no mistaking the day as it comes round, bringing with it a little ease into the strain of life, a thought of peace and home-meeting and rest, and the echo of a psalm outside in the City streets, as well as within its churches.

Robert called a hansom, and they drove rapidly along the road towards town. The drifting clouds and lights across the parks and streets made them look changed from their usual aspect. As they left the suburbs and drove on towards the City, Henley laughed at Dorothea's enthusiasm for the wet streets, of which the muddy stones were reflecting the lights of a torn and stormy sky. St. Clement's spire rose sharp against a cloud, the river rolled, fresh blown by soft winds, towards the east, while the lights fell upon the crowding house-tops and spires. Dolly thought of her moonlight drive with her mother. Now, everything was alight and awake again; she alone was dreaming, perhaps. As they went up a steep crowded hill the horse's feet slipped at every step. 'Don't be afraid, Dora,' said Robert, protectingly. Then they were driving up a straiter and wider street, flooded with this same strange light, and they suddenly saw a solemn sight; of domes and spires uprearing; of mist, of stormy sky. There rose the mighty curve, majestically flung against the dome of domes! The mists drifting among these mountains and pinnacles of stone only seemed to make them more stately.

'Robert, I never knew how beautiful it was,' said Dolly. 'How glad I am we came! Look at that great dome and the s.h.i.+ning sky. It is like--”see how high the heavens are in comparison with the earth!”'

'I forget the exact height,' said Robert. 'It is between three and four hundred feet. You see the ball up at the top--they say that twenty-four people----'

'I know all that, Robert,' said Dolly, impatiently. 'What does it matter?'

'I thought it might interest you,' said Robert, slightly huffed, 'since you appear to be so little acquainted with St. Paul's. It is very fine, of course; but I myself have the bad taste to prefer Gothic architecture; it is far more suitable to our church. There is something painfully--how shall I express it?--paganish about these capitals and pilasters.'

'But that is just what I mean,' said Dolly, looking him full in the face. 'Think of the beautiful old thoughts of the Pagans helping to pile up a Cathedral here now. Don't you think,' she said, hesitating, and blus.h.i.+ng at her own boldness, 'that it is like a voice from a long way off coming and harmonising now with ours? Robert, imagine building a curve that will make some one happy thousands of years afterwards....'

'I am glad it makes _you_ happy, my dear Dorothea. I tell you I have the bad taste not to admire St. Paul's,' Robert repeated; 'but here is the rain, we had better make haste.'

They had come to an opening in the iron railings by this time, and Robert led the way--a stately figure--climbing the long flight of weather-worn steps that go circling to the peristyle. Dolly followed slowly: as she ascended, the lights seemed to uprise, the columns to stand out more boldly.

'Come in,' Robert said, lifting up the heavy leather curtain.

Dolly gave one look at the city at her feet, flas.h.i.+ng with the many lights and shadows of the impending storm, and then she followed him into the great Cathedral.

They were late. The evening service was already begun, and a voice was chanting and ringing from column to column. 'Rejoice in the Lord alway,'

it sang, 'and again I say, again I say unto you, rejoice! rejoice!' A number of people were standing round a grating, listening to the voice, but an old verger, pleased with the looks of the two young people, beckoned to them and showed them up a narrow stair into a little oaken gallery, whence they could look down upon the echoing voice and the great crowd of people listening to it; many lights were burning, for it was already dark within the building. Here a light fell, there the shadow threw some curve into sudden relief; the rolling mist that hung beyond the distant aisles and over the heads seemed like a veil, and added to the mystery. The music, the fire, the arches overhead, made Dolly's heart throb. The Cathedral itself seemed like a great holy heart beating in the midst of the city. Once, when Dolly was a child in the green ditch, her heart had overflowed with happiness and grat.i.tude; here she was a woman, and the future had not failed her--here were love and faith to make her life complete--all the vibration of fire and music, and the flow of harmonious lines, to express what was beyond words.

'Oh! Robert, what have we done to be so happy?' she whispered, when the service was over and they were coming away in the crowd. 'It almost frightens me,' the girl said.

Robert did not hear her at first; he was looking over the people's heads, for the clouds had come down, and the rain was falling heavily.

'Frighten you,' said Robert presently, opening his umbrella; 'take my arm, Dolly; what is there to frighten you? I don't suppose we are any happier than other people under the same circ.u.mstances. Come this way; let us get out of the crowd.'

Robert led the girl down a narrow lane closed by an iron gate. It looked dark and indistinct, although the west still shone with changing lights.

Dolly stood up under a doorway, while the young man walked away down the wet flags to look for a cab to take them home. The rain fell upon the pavement, upon the stone steps where Dolly was standing, and with fresh cheeks blooming in the mist, and eyes still alight with the radiance and beauty of the psalm she had been singing in her heart. 'I don't suppose we are any happier than other people.' She wished Robert had not said that, it seemed cold, ungrateful almost. The psalm in her ears began to die away to the dull patter of the rain as it fell. What was it that came to Dolly as she stood in the twilight of the doorway--a sudden chill coming she knew not from whence--some one light put out on the altar?

Dolly, strung to some high quivering pitch, felt a sudden terror. It was nothing; a doubt of a doubt--a fear of a terror--fearing what--doubting whom?

'The service was very well performed,' said Robert, coming up. 'I have got you a cab.' He helped her in, and then, as he seated himself beside her, began again: 'We shall not have many more opportunities of attending the Cathedral service before we start.'

Dolly was very silent; Robert talked on. He wondered at her seeming want of interest, and yet he had only talked to her about her plans and things that she must have cared to hear. 'I shall know definitely about our start to-morrow, or the day after,' he said, as the cab drew up at the door of Church House. Poor Dolly! She let him go into the drawing-room alone, and ran up to her own little nest upstairs. The thought of the possible nearness of her departure had suddenly overwhelmed her. When it was still far off she had never thought about it. Now she sat down on the low window-sill, leant her head against the shutter, and watched the last light die out above the ivy wall. The garden shadows thickened; the night gathered slowly; Dolly's heart beat sadly, oh! how sadly. What hopeless feeling was this that kept coming over her again and again? coming she knew not from what recesses of the empty room, from behind the fleeting clouds, from the secret chambers of her traitorous heart? The voice did not cease persecuting. 'So much of you that lives now,' it said, 'will die when you merge your life into Robert's. So much love will be more than he will want. He takes but a part of what you have to give.' The voice was so distinct that she wondered whether Marker, who came in to put away her things, would hear it. Did she love Robert? Of course she loved him. There was his ring upon her finger. She could hear his voice sounding from the hall below.... Were they not going off alone together to a lonely life, across a tempestuous sea? For a moment she stood lost, and forgetting that her feet were still upon the home-hearth and that the far-off sea was still beating upon distant sh.o.r.es. Then she started up impatiently, she would not listen any more. With a push to the door she shut her doubts up in the cupboard where she was used to hang her cloak, and then she came slowly down the wooden stairs to the oak-room below.

Dolly found a candle alight, a good deal of darkness, some conversation, a sofa drawn out with her mamma reposing upon it, Robert writing at a table to Mrs. Palmer's dictation.

'My child,' said Mrs. Palmer, 'come here. You have been to St. Paul's. I have been alone the whole afternoon. Your Aunt Sarah never comes near me. I am now getting this dear fellow to write and order a room for us at Kingston. I told you of my little plan. He is making all the arrangements. It is to be a little _festa_ on my husband's birthday; shall we say Tuesday, if fine, Robert? The Admiral will hear of it, and understand that we do not forget him. People say I have no resentment in my nature. It is as well, perhaps, that I should leave untasted a few of the bitter dregs of my hard lot,' continued Mrs. Palmer, cheerfully.

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