KENSINGTON PALACE CHAPEL.
An' I hallus comed to's choorch afoar moy Sally wur deaed,
An' eerd un a bummin' awaaey loike a buzzard clock ower my yeaed,
An' I niver knaw'd whot a meaen'd, but I thowt a ad summut to saaey,
An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaaey.
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
passage-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
Saturday, 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 passionately, 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 passed before her, she seemed to hear the chaunt of the
multitude, 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 passages 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
attitudinising, 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 passage into the Palace courtyard, with
its dim rows of windows, its sentinel, its brasses shining, the old
doorways standing at prim intervals with knobs 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 passage.
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 passage 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 grass. 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
brimming over with little children, who for many years past have sat
swinging their legs upon the seat.
As Dolly passed 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 passing by--those silent crowds that flit through
our lives! He came up to Dolly.
'You will be tender to her, won't you, and help her, for my sake, and
you will be our friend, Dolly? We had not meant to tell you yet; but you
wish us joy, won't you, dear?'
'Tender to her? Help her? What help could she want?' thought Dolly,
looking at Rhoda, who stood silent still, but who made a little dumb
movement of entreaty. 'Was it George who was asking her to befriend him?
Was it George, who had mistrusted her all this long time, and kept her
in ignorance...?'
'Why don't you answer? Why do you look like that? Do you wonder that I
or that anybody else should love her?' he went on eagerly.
'What do you want me to do?' Dolly asked. 'I cannot understand it.'
Her voice sounded hard and constrained: she was hurt and bewildered.
George was bitterly disappointed. Her coldness shocked him. Could it be
possible that Rhoda was right and Dolly hard and unfeeling?
Poor Dolly! A bitter wave of feeling seemed suddenly to rise from her
heart and choke her as she stood there. So! there was an understanding
between them? Did he come to see Rhoda in secret, while she was counting
the days till they should meet? Was it only by chance that she was to
learn their engagement? They had been stopping up the way; as they moved
a little aside to let the people pass, Rhoda timidly laid one hand on
Dolly's arm,--'Won't you forgive me? won't you keep our secret?' she
said.
'Why should there be any secret?' cried Dolly, haughtily. 'How could I
keep one from Aunt Sarah? I am not used to such manoeuvrings.'
Rhoda began to cry. George, exasperated by Dolly's manner, burst out
with 'Tell her, then! Tell them all--tell them everything! Tell them of
my debts! Part us!' he said. 'You will make your profit by it, no doubt,
and Rhoda, poor child, will be sacrificed.' He felt he was wrong, but
this made him only the more bitter. He turned away from Dolly, and
pulled Rhoda's hand through his arm.
'I will take care of you, darling,' he said.
'George! George!' from poor Dolly, sick and chilled.
'Dolly!' cried another voice from without the gate. It was John
Morgan's. He had missed her, and was retracing his steps to find her.
Poor weak-minded Dolly! now brought to the trial and found wanting: how
could she withstand those she loved? All her life long it was so with
her. As George turned away from her, her heart went after him.
'Oh, George! don't look at me so. My profit! You have made it impossible
for me to speak,' she faltered, as she moved away to meet the curate and
Frank Raban.
'What is the matter? are you ill?' said John Morgan, meeting Dorothea in
the doorway. 'Why did you wait behind?'
'Mikey detained me. I am quite well, thank you,' said Dolly, slowly,
with a changed face.
Raban gave her a curious look. He had seen some one disappear into the
summer-house, and he thought he recognised the stumpy figure.
John Morgan noticed nothing; he walked on, talking of the serious aspect
things were taking in the East--of Doctor Thompson's gout--of the
church-rates. Frank Raban looked at Dolly once or twice, and slackened
his steps to hers. They left her at the corner of her lane.