Part 48 (2/2)

There was a P.S.

You may as well get that memorandum back from Tapeall if you can.

Dolly was not used to expect very much from her mother. Mrs. Fane was relieved to find that she was not hurt by Mrs. Palmer's departure; but this seemed to her, perhaps, saddest of all, and telling the saddest story. Her mother had sent Dolly baskets of flowers, Mrs. Morgan called constantly with prescriptions of the greatest value. Mrs. Fane had more faith in her own beef-tea than in other people's prescriptions. She used to come in to see her patient several times a day. Sometimes she was on her way to the hospital in her long cloak and veiled bonnet. She would tell Dolly many stories of the poor people in their own homes. At certain hours of the day there would be voices and a trampling of feet on the stairs outside.

'It is some more of them nurses,' said Marker, peeping out cautiously.

'White caps and ap.r.o.ns--that's what this inst.i.tootion seems to be kep'

for.'

Marker had an objection to inst.i.tootions. 'Let people keep themselves to theirselves,' she used to say. She could not bear to have Dolly ill in this strange house, with its silence and stiff orderly ways. She would gladly have carried her home if she could, but it was better for Dolly to be away from all the sad scenes of the last few months. Here she was resting with her grief--it seemed to lie still for a while. So the hours pa.s.sed. She would listen with a vague curiosity to the murmur of voices, to the tramp of the feet outside; bells struck from the steeples round about, high in the air and melodiously ringing; Big Ben would come swelling over the house-tops: the river brought the sound to Dolly's open window.

Clouds are in the sky, a great heavy bank is rising westward. Yellow lights fall fitfully upon the water, upon the barges floating past, the steamers, the boats; the great spanning bridge and the distant towers are confused and softened by a silver autumnal haze; a few yellow leaves drop from the creeper round the window; the water flows cool and dim; the far distant sound of the wheels drones on continually. Dolly looks at it all. It does not seem to concern her, as she sits there sadly and wearily. Who does not know these hours, tranquil but sad beyond words, when the pain not only of one's own grief, but of the sorrow of life itself, seems to enter into the soul. It was a pain new to Dolly, and it frightened her. Some one coming in saw Dolly's terrified look, and came and sat down beside her. It was Mrs. Fane, with her kind face, who took her hand, and seemed to know it all as she talked to her of her own life, talked to her of those whom she had loved and who were gone. Each word she spoke had a meaning, for she had lived her words and wept them out one by one.

She had seen it all go by. Love and friends.h.i.+p had pa.s.sed her along the way; some had hurried on before, some had lagged behind, or strayed away from her grasp, and then late in life had come happiness, and to her warm heart tenderest dreams of motherhood, and then the final cry of parting love and of utter anguish and desolation, and that too had pa.s.sed away. 'But the love is mine still,' she said, 'and love is life.'

To each one of us comes the thought of those who live most again, when we hear of a generous deed, of a truthful word spoken; of those who hated evil and loved the truth, for the truth was in them and common to all; of those whose eyes were wise to see the angels in the field at work among the devils.... The blessing is ours of their love for great and n.o.ble things. We may not all be gifted with the divinest fires of their n.o.bler insight and wider imagination, but we may learn to live as they did, and to seek a deeper grasp of life, a more generous sympathy.

Overwhelmed we may be with self-tortures, and wants, and remorses, swayed by many winds, sometimes utterly indifferent from very weariness, but we may still return thanks for the steadfast power of the n.o.ble dead. It reigns unmoved through the raving of the storm; it speaks of a bond beyond death and beyond life. Something of all this Mrs. Fane taught Dolly by words in this miserable hour of loneliness, but still more by her simple daily actions.... The girl, hearing her friend speak, seemed no longer alone. She took Mrs. Fane's hand and looked at her, and asked whether she might not come and live there some day, and try to help her with her sick people.

'Did I ever tell you that, long ago, Colonel Fane told me I was to come?' said Dolly, smiling.

'You shall come whenever you like,' said Mrs. Fane, smiling, 'but you will have other things to do, my dear, and you must ask your cousin's leave.'

'Robert! I don't think he would approve,' said Dolly, looking at a letter which had come from him only that morning. 'There are many things, I fear...' She stopped short and blushed painfully as one of the nurses came to the door. Only that day Dolly had done something of which she feared he might disapprove. She had written to Mr. Tapeall, in reply to a letter from him, and asked him to lose no time in acting upon George's will. She had a feverish longing that what he had wished should be done without delay.

There is a big van at the door of the house in Old Street: great packing-cases have been hoisted in; a few disconsolate chairs and tables are standing on the pavement; the one looking-gla.s.s of the establishment comes out sideways, and stuffed with straw; the creepers hang for sole curtains to the windows; George's plants are growing already into tangle in the garden; John's study is no longer crammed with reports,--the very flavour of his tobacco-smoke in it is gone, and the wind comes blowing freshly through the open window. Ca.s.sie and Zoe are away in the country on a visit; the boys are away; Rhoda and Mrs. Morgan are going back to join John in the City. The expense of the double household is more than the family purse can conveniently meet. The gifts the rector has to bestow are not those of gold or of silver.

They have been working hard all the morning, packing, directing: Rhoda showing great cleverness and apt.i.tude, for she was always good at an emergency; and now, tired out, with dusty hands and soiled ap.r.o.n, she is resting on the one chair which remained in the drawing-room, while Mrs.

Morgan, downstairs, is giving some last directions. Rhoda is glad to go; to leave the old tiresome house; and yet, as she told Dolly, it is but the old grind over again, which is to recommence, and she hates it more and more. Vague schemes cross her mind--vague and indirect regrets. Is she sorry for George? Yes, Rhoda is as sorry as it is in her nature to be. She put on a black dress when she heard he was dead; but again and again the thought came to her how different things might have been. If she had only known all, thought Rhoda, navely, how differently she would have acted. As they sat in the empty room, where they used to make music once, she thought it all over. How dull they had all been! She felt ill and aggrieved. There was Raban, who never came near her now. It was all a mistake from the beginning.... Then she began to think about her future. She had heard of a situation in Yorks.h.i.+re--Mrs. Boswarrick wanted a governess for her children. Should she offer herself? Was it near Ravensrick she wondered? This was not the moment for such reflections. One of the men came for the chair on which she was sitting.

Rhoda then went into the garden, and looked about for the last time, walking once more round the old gravel-walk. George's strawberry-plants had spread all over the bed; the verbena was green and sprouting; the vine-wall was draped with falling sprays and tendrils. She pulled a great bunch down and came away, tearing the leaves one by one from the stem. Yes, she would write to Mrs. Boswarrick, she thought.

Old Betty was standing at the garden door. 'T' missus was putten her bonnet an', she said; 't' cab was at door; and t' poastman wanted to knaw whar' to send t' letters: he had brought one,'--and Betty held out a thick envelope, addressed to Miss Parnell.

It was a long letter, and written in a stiff round hand, on very thick paper. Rhoda understood not one word of it at first; then she looked again more closely.

'As she stood there reading it, absorbed, with flushed cheeks, with a beating heart, Mrs. Morgan called her hastily. 'Come, child,' she said, 'we shall have to give the cabman another sixpence for waiting!' but Rhoda read on, and Mrs. Morgan came up, vexed and impatient, and tapped her on the shoulder.

'Don't,' said Rhoda, impatiently, reading still, and she moved away a step.

'Are you going to keep me all day, Rhoda?' said Mrs. Morgan, indignant and surprised.

'Aunt Morgan,' said Rhoda, looking up at last, 'something has happened.'

Her eyes were glittering, her lips were set tight, her cheeks were burning bright. 'It is all mine, they say.'

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