CINDERS.
'Mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed!
Dolly went to afternoon church the day George was expected. When she
came home she heard that her brother was upstairs, and she hurried along
the passage with a quick-beating heart, and knocked at his door. It was
dark in the passage, and Dolly stood listening--a frightened, grey-eyed,
pent-up indignation, in a black dress, with her bonnet in her hand.
There was a dense cloud of smoke and tobacco in the room when Dolly
turned the lock at last, and she could only cough and blink her eyes. As
the fumes cleared away, she saw that George was sitting by the low
wooden fire-place. He had been burning papers. How eagerly the flames
leaped and travelled on, in bright blue and golden tongues, while the
papers fell away black and crackling and changing to cinder. Dolly
looked very pale and unlike herself. George turned with a bright haggard
sort of smile.
'Is that you, Dolly?' he said. 'Come in; the illumination is over. You
don't mind the smell of tobacco. I have been burning a box of cigars
that Robert gave me. He knows no more about cigars than you do.'
'Oh, George,' cried Dolly. 'Is this all you have to say, after making us
so unhappy----?'
'What do you want me to say?' said George, shrugging his shoulders.
'I want you to say that you have told her everything, and that there are
no more concealments,' Dolly cried, getting angry. 'When Aunt Sarah
asked me about you last I felt as if it was written in my face that I
was lying.'
He was going to answer roughly, but he looked up at Dolly's pale
agitated face, and was sorry for her. He spoke both kindly and crossly.
'Don't make such a talk, Dolly, and a fuss. We have had it out--John
Morgan--council of state--she has been--she has been--'--his voice
faltered a little bit--'a great deal kinder than I deserve or had any
reason to expect, judging by _you_, Dolly. It's not _your_ business to
scold, you know.'
'And she knows all,' said Dolly, eagerly and brightening.
'She knows all about my debts,' said George, expressively. 'She is going
to let me try once more for the next scholarship. She shan't be
disappointed this time. However, the past is past, and can't be helped.
I've been burning a whole drawer full of it....' And he struck his foot
into the smouldering heap.
People think that what is destroyed is over, forgetting that what has
been is never over, and that it is in vain you burn and scatter the
cinders of many a past hope and failure, and of a debt to pay, a promise
broken. Debts, promises, failures are there still. There were the poems
George had tried to write, the account-books he had not filled up, the
lists of books he had not read, a dozen mementoes of good intentions
broken.
'And did you not tell Aunt Sarah about Rhoda?' repeated Dolly,
disappointed. 'Oh, George, what does Rhoda mean when she says you are no
longer engaged? What does it all mean?'
'It means, it means,' said George, impatiently, 'that I am an idiot, but
I am not a sneak; and if a woman trusts me, I can keep her counsel, so
long as you don't betray me, Dolly. Only there are some things one can't
do, not even for the woman one loves.' Then he looked up suddenly, and
seeing Dolly's pained face, he went on: 'Dolly, I think you would cut
off your head if I were to ask you for it: Rhoda won't snip off one
little lock of hair. Poor dear, she is frightened at every shadow. She
has given me back this,' he said, opening his hand, which he had kept
closed before, and showing Dolly a little pearl locket lying in his
palm. Then he went on in a low voice, looking into the fire, 'I love her
enough, God knows, and I would tell the whole world, if she would let
me. But she says no--always, no; and I can trust her, Dolly, for she is
nearer heaven than I am. It is her will to be silent,' he said, gently;
'angels vanish if we would look into their faces too closely. She would
like me to have a tranquil spirit, such as her own; she thinks me a
thousand times better than I am,' said George, 'and if I did as she
wishes, I could be happy enough, but not contented.' Dolly wondered of
what he was thinking, as he went on pacing up and down the room. 'I
cannot tell lies to myself, not even for her sake. I cannot take this
living as she wishes. If I may not believe in God my own way, I should
blaspheme and deny Him, while I confessed Him in some one else's words.
You asked me one day if I had an inner life, Dolly,' George said, coming
back to the oak chimney-piece again. 'Inner life is only one's self and
the responsibility of this one life to the Truth. Sometimes I think that
before I loved Rhoda I was not all myself, and though the truth was the
same it did not concern me in the same degree, and I meant to do this or
that as it might be most advisable. Now, through loving her, Dolly, I
seem to have come to something beyond us both, and what is advisable
don't seem to matter any more. Can you understand this?'
'Yes, George,' said Dolly, looking at him earnestly--his sallow face had
flushed up, his closed eyes had opened out. Dolly suddenly flung her
arms round his neck and kissed him. She felt proud of her brother as she
listened to him. She had come to blame, she remained to bless him. Ah,
if every one knew him as well as she did. She was happier than she had
been for many a day, and ready to believe that George could not be
wrong. She could not even say no that evening after dinner, when George
proposed that they should go over to the Morgans'.
'Go, my dears,' said Lady Sarah; and Dolly got up with a sort of sigh to
get her bonnet. Just as they were starting, her cousin Robert walked in
unexpectedly, and proposed to accompany them. He had come in with a
serious face, prepared to sympathise in their family troubles, and to
add a few words in season, if desired, for George's benefit. He found
the young man looking most provokingly cheerful and at home, Lady Sarah
smiling, and if Dolly was depressed she did not show it, for, in truth,
her heart was greatly lightened. The three walked off together.
'We shall not be back to tea,' said Robert, who always liked to settle
things beforehand. But on this occasion Mrs. Morgan's hospitable teapot
was empty for once. The whole party had gone off to a lecture and
dissolving views in the Town Hall. The only person left behind was Tom
Morgan, who was sitting in the study reading a novel, with his heels on
the chimney-piece, when they looked in.
'Good-night, Tom,' said Dolly, with more frankness than necessary; 'we
won't stay, since there is only you.'
'Good-evening,' said Robert, affably. And they came out into the street
again. He went on: 'I am sorry John Morgan was not at home. I want him
to fix some time for coming down to Cambridge. You must come with him,
Dolly. I think it might amuse you.'
'Oh, thank you,' says Dolly, delighted.
This prospect alone would have been enough to make her walk back
enjoyable, even if George had not been by her side; if it had not been
so lovely a night; if stars had not burnt sweet and clear overhead; if
soft winds had not been stirring. The place looked transformed, gables
and corners standing out in sudden lights. They could see the dim shade
of the old church, and a clear green planet flashing with lambent
streams beyond the square tower. Then they escaped from the crowd and
turned down by the quiet lane where Church House was standing gabled
against the great Orion. They found the door ajar when they reached the
ivy gate; the hall door, too, was wide open, and there seemed to be
boxes and some confusion.
'Oh, don't let us go in; come into the garden,' said Dolly, running to
the little iron garden-gate inside the outer wall. There was a strange
glimmer behind the gate against which the slim white figure was pushing.
The garden was dark, and rustling with a trembling in the branches. A
great moon had come up, and was hanging over London, serenely silvering
the house-tops and spires; its light was rippling down the straight
walks of which the gravel was glittering.
'Yes, come,' said George, and the three young people flitted along to
their usual haunt by the pond.
'What is that?' said Dolly, pointing in the darkness; 'didn't somebody
go by?' She was only a girl in her teens, and still afraid of unseen
things.
'A rat,' cried George, dashing forward.
'Oh, stop,' from Dolly.
'Don't be a goose,' said Robert; and as he spoke George met them,
flourishing an old garden shawl of Lady Sarah's, which had been
forgotten upon the bench. He flung it weirdly down upon the gravel walk.
'"Dead for a ducat, dead,"' said he. Then he started forward with a
strange moonlight gleam upon his face. '"This counsellor is now most
still, most secret, and most grave,"' he said, '"who was in life a
foolish prating knave."' His voice thrilled, he got more and more
excited.
Robert began to laugh: 'What is that you are acting?' he said.
'Acting?' cried George, opening his eyes; '"that skull had a tongue in
it and could sing once." "Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this
fashion i' the earth----?"'
'Do be quiet,' said Henley, impatiently. 'Is not some one calling?'
Some one was calling: lights were appearing and disappearing; the
drawing-room window was wide open, and their aunt stood on the terrace
making signs, and looking out for them.
'Look, there goes a falling star,' said George.
'Ah! who is that under the tree?' cried Dolly again, with a little
shriek. 'I knew I had seen some one move;' and as she spoke, a figure
emerging from the gloom came nearer and nearer to them, almost running
with two extended arms; a figure in long flowing garments, silver in the
moonlight, a woman advancing quicker and quicker.
'Children, children!' said a voice. 'It is I,--George--your mother!
Don't you know me--darlings? I have come. I was looking for you. Yes, it
is I, your mother, children.'
Dolly's heart stood still, and then began to throb, as the lady flung
her arms round Robert, who happened to be standing nearest.
'Is this George? I should have known him anywhere,' she cried.
Was this their mother? this beautiful, sweet, unseen woman, this
pathetic voice?
Dolly had seized George's hand in her agitation, and was crunching it in
hers. Robert had managed to extricate himself from the poor lady's
agitated clutch.
'Here is George. I am Robert Henley,' he said. 'But, my dear aunt,
why--why did you not write? I should have met you. I----'
It was all a strange confusion of moonlight, and bewilderment, and of
tears, presently, for Mrs. Palmer began to cry and then to laugh, and
finally went off into hysterics in her son's arms.