AN AFTERNOON AT PENFOLD'S.
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day,
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou, and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
To this day Dolly remembers the light of a certain afternoon in May when
all was hot and silent and sleepy in the school-room at Church House.
The boards cracked, the dust-moats floated; down below, the garden burnt
with that first summer glow of heat that makes a new world out of such
old, well-worn materials as twigs, clouds, birds, and the human beings
all round us. The little girls had been at work, and practised, and
multiplied, and divided again; they had recollected various facts
connected with the reign of Richard the Second. Mademoiselle had
suppressed many a yawn, Dolly was droning over her sum--six and five
made thirteen--over and over again. 'That I should have been, that thou
shouldst have been, that he shouldst have been,' drawled poor little
Rhoda. Then a great fly hums by, as the door opens, and Lady
Sarah appears with a zigzag of sunlight shooting in from the
passage--a ray of hope. Lady Sarah has her bonnet on, and a sort of
put-away-your-lessons-children face.
Is there any happiness like that escape on a summer's day from the dull
struggle with vacuity, brown paper-covered books, dates, ink-blots,
cramps, and crotchets, into the open air of birds, sounds, flowers,
liberty everywhere? As the children come out into the garden with Lady
Sarah, two butterflies are flitting along the terrace. The Spanish
jessamine has flowered in the night, and spreads its branches out
fragrant with its golden drops. Lady Sarah gathers a sprig and opens her
parasol. She is carrying a book and a shawl, and is actually smiling.
The pigeons go whirring up and down from their pigeon-cote high up in
the air. Four o'clock comes sounding across the ivy-wall, the notes
strike mellow and distinct above the hum of human insects out and about.
Half Lady Sarah's district is sunning itself on the door-steps, children
are squatting in the middle of the road. The benches are full in
Kensington Gardens, so are the steamers on the river. To these people
walking in their garden there comes the creaking sound of a large
wheelbarrow, and at the turn of the path they discover Mr. Penfold
superintending a boy and a load of gravel. Mr. Penfold is a cheerful
little man, with gloomy views of human nature. According to Penfold's
account there were those (whoever they might be) who was always a
plotting against you. They was hup to everything, and there was no
saying what they was not at the bottom of. But Penfold could be heven
with them, and he kep' hisself to hisself, and named no names. Dolly
felt grateful to these unknown beings when she heard Mr. Penfold telling
Lady Sarah they had said as how that Miss Dorothea 'ad been makin'
hinquiry respectin' of some puppies. He did not know as how she wished
it generally know'd, but he might mention as he 'ad two nice pups down
at his place, and Miss Dorothea was welcome to take her choice.
It is a dream Dolly can scarcely trust herself to contemplate. Lady
Sarah does not say no, but she looks at her watch, telling Dolly to run
back to the house, and see if the post is come in, and continues
graciously, 'I am much obliged to you, Penfold; I have no doubt Miss
Dorothea will be glad to have one of your puppies. What is your daughter
doing? Is she at home?'
'Yes, my lady,' says Penfold, mysteriously pointing over his shoulder
with his thumb. 'They would have 'ad us send the gurl away, but she is a
good gurl, though she takes her own way, and there are those as puts her
hup to it.'
'We all like our own way, without anybody's suggestions,' said Lady
Sarah, smiling. Then Dolly comes flying from the house, and tumbles over
a broom-stick, so that she has to stop to pick up her handful of
letters.
'Thank you, my dear: now if you like we will go and see the puppies,'
says Aunt Sarah. 'No Indian letter' (in a disappointed voice). 'I wish
your mother would----. Run on, Dolly.'
So Dolly runs on with Rhoda, thinking of puppies, and Lady Sarah follows
thinking of her Indian letter, which is lying under the laurel-tree
where Dolly dropped it, and where Penfold presently spies it out and
picks it up, unconscious of its contents. After examining the seal and
some serious thought, he determines to follow the trio. They have been
advancing in the shadow of the hedges, through the gaps of which they
can see people at work in the sunshiny cabbage-fields. Then they come to
Earl's Court, and its quaint old row of houses, with their lattices
stuffed with spring-flowers, and so to the pond by the road-side (how
cool and deep it looked as they passed by), and then by the wicket-gate
they wander into Penfold's orchard, of which some of the trees are still
in flower, and where Lady Sarah is soon established on the stump of a
tree. Her magazine pages flutter as the warm, sweet winds come blowing
from across the fields--the shadows travel on so quietly that you cannot
tell when they go or whither. There is no sound but a little calf
bleating somewhere. Rhoda is picking daisies in the shade, Dolly is
chirping to herself by the hedge that separates the orchard from the
Penfolds' garden. There is a ditch along one part of the hedge, with a
tangle of grass and dock-leaves and mallows; a bird flies out of the
hedge, close by Dolly's nose, and goes thrilling and chirping up into
the sky, where the stars are at night; the daisies and buttercups look
so big, the grass is so long and so green; there are two purple flowers
with long stalks close at hand, but Dolly does not pick them; her little
heart seems to shake like the bird's song, it is all so pretty; the
dandelions are like lamps burning. She tries to think she is a bird, and
that she lives in the beautiful hedges.
From behind the hawthorn hedge some voices come that Dolly should
certainly know....
'You'll believe me another time,' cries some one, with a sort of sniff,
and speaking in tones so familiar that Dolly, without an instant's
hesitation, sets off running to the wicket-gate, which had been left
open, and through which she now sees, as she expects, George with his
curly head and his cricketing cap standing in the Penfolds' garden, and
with him her cousin Robert, looking very tall as he leans against a
paling, and talks to Mrs. Penfold. There is also another person whom
Dolly recognises as Mr. Raban, and she thinks of the 'hox,' as she gazes
with respect at the pale young man with his watch-chain and horseshoe
pin. He has a straw hat and white shoes and a big knobstick in his hand,
and nodding to Robert, he strides off towards the cottage. Dolly watches
him as he walks in under the porch: no doubt he is going to drink curds
and whey, she thinks.
'Why, Dolly! are _you_ here?' says Robert, coming towards her.
'Missy is often here,' says Mrs. Penfold, looking not over-pleased. 'Is
Mrs. Marker with you, my dear?'
Dolly would have answered, but from the farther end of the garden behind
Mrs. Penfold, two horrible apparitions advance, rusty black, with many
red bobs and tassels dangling, and deliberate steps and horrible crinkly
eyes. Old Betty would call them Bubbly Jocks; Dolly has no name for
them, but shrinks away behind her big cousin.
'Here are Dolly's bogies,' says George, who is giving himself airs on
the strength of his companionship and his short cut. 'Now then, Dolly,
they are going to bite like ghosts.'
'Don't,' cried Dolly.
'Are you afraid of turkeys, Dolly! Little girls of eight years old
shouldn't be afraid of anything,' said Rhoda, busy with her flowers.
Alas! Rhoda's philosophy is not always justified by subsequent
experience. It is secondhand, and quoted from Mrs. Morgan.
'We are going to see the puppies,' says Dolly, recovering her courage as
the turkey-cocks go by. 'Won't you come, Robert?'
'Puppies!' said Robert. 'Are you fond of puppies, Dolly? My Aunt Henley
says she prefers them to her own children.'
'So should I,' says Dolly, opening her eyes.
Presently Robert and Dolly come back, with two little fuzzy heads wildly
squeaking from Dolly's lap, and old Bunch, the mother of the twins,
following, half-agonised, half-radiant. They set the little staggering
bundles down upon the ground, and Dolly squats in admiration while
Robert goes off upon his business, and Mrs. Penfold hurries back into
the house as Mr. Penfold appears crossing the lane.
Mr. Penfold was gone: Dolly was still watching with all-absorbed eyes,
when George started up. 'I say, Dolly! look there at Aunt Sarah.'
Aunt Sarah! What had come to her, and how strange she looked walking
through the orchard with a curious rapid step, and coming towards the
open wicket-gate through which the children could see her. Her bonnet
was falling off her face, her hair was pushed back, she came very quick,
straight on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, with her
fixed eyes and pale cheeks. Penfold seemed hurrying after her; he
followed Lady Sarah into the garden, and then out again into the road.
She hardly seemed to know which way she went.
What had happened? Why didn't she answer when Dolly called her? As she
passed so swiftly, the children thought that something must have
happened; they did not know what. George set off running after her;
Dolly waited for a minute.
'Why did she look so funny?' said Rhoda, coming up.
'I don't know,' said Dolly, almost crying.
'She had a black-edged letter in her hand,' said Rhoda, 'that Mr.
Penfold brought. When people think they are going to die they write and
tell you on black paper.'
Then Mrs. Penfold came running out of the cottage with a shriek, and the
children running too, saw the gardener catch Aunt Sarah in his arms, as
she staggered and put out her hands. When they came up, she lay back in
his arms scarce conscious, and he called to them to bring some water
from the pond. No wonder Dolly remembered that day, and Aunt Sarah lying
long and straight upon the grass by the road-side. The letter had fallen
from her hand, they threw water upon her face; it wetted her muslin
dress, and her pale cheeks; a workman crossing from the field, stood and
looked on awhile; and so did the little children from the carpenter's
shed up the road, gazing with wondering eyes at the pale lady beginning
to move again at last and to speak so languidly.
The labourer helped to carry her into the cottage as she revived. George
had already run home for Marker. Dolly and Rhoda, who were shut out by
Mrs. Penfold, wandered disconsolately about the garden and into the
orchard again, where Aunt Sarah's parasol was lying under the tree, and
her book thrown face downwards: presently the little girls came
straggling back with it to the garden-house once more.
The parlour door was shut close when they reached it, the kitchen door
was open. What was that shrill shivering cry? Who could it be? Perhaps
it was some animal, thought Dolly.
In the kitchen some unheeded pot was cooking and boiling over; the
afternoon sun was all hot upon the road outside, and Bunch and the
puppies had lain down to sleep in a little heap on the step of the
house.
Long, long after, Dolly remembered that day, everything as it happened:
Marker's voice inside the room; young Mr. Raban passing by the end of
the lane talking to Emma Penfold. (Mrs. Penfold had unlocked the
back-door, and let them out.) After a time the shrill sobs ceased; then
a clock struck, and the boiling pot in the kitchen fell over with a
great crash, and Rhoda ran to see, and at that moment the parlour door
opened, and Lady Sarah came out, very pale still and very strange,
leaning, just as if she was old, upon Marker and Mr. Penfold. But she
started away and seemed to find a sudden strength, and caught Dolly up
in her arms. 'My darling, my darling,' she said, 'you have only me
now--only me. Heaven help you, my poor, poor children.' And once more
she burst into the shrill sighing sobs. It was Aunt Sarah who had been
crying all the time for her brother who was dead.
This was the first echo of a mourning outcry that reached the children.
They were told that the day was never to come now of which they had
spoken so often; their father would never come home--they were orphans.
George was to have a tall hat with crape upon it. Marker went into town
to buy Dolly stuff for a new black frock. Aunt Sarah did not smile when
she spoke to them, and told them that their mamma would soon be home
now. Dolly could not understand it all very well. Their father had been
but a remembrance; she did not remember him less because Lady Sarah's
eyes were red and the letters were edged with black. Dolly didn't cry
the first day, though Rhoda did; but in the night when she woke up with
a little start and a moan from a dream in which she thought it was her
papa who was lying by the pond, Aunt Sarah herself came and bent over
her crib.
But next morning the daisies did not look less pretty, nor did the puppy
cease to jump, nor, if the truth be told, did Dolly herself; nor would
kind Stanham Vanborough have wished it....
Robert came into the garden and found the children with a skipping-rope,
and was greatly shocked, and told them they should not skip about.
'I was not skipping,' said Rhoda. 'I was turning the rope for Dolly.'
Dolly ran off, blushing. Had she done wrong? She had not thought so. I
cannot say what dim unrealised feelings were in her little heart;
longings never to be realised, love never to be fulfilled. She went up
into her nursery, and hid there in a corner until Rhoda came to find her
and to tell her dinner was ready.