CIRCUMSTANCE.
The largest minds, still earthward bent, are small,
Who, knowing much, are ignorant of all.
--Hamilton Aide.
For some days before the picnic Mrs. Palmer and Julie had been absorbed
in the preparation of two beautiful garments that were to be worn at
Mrs. Middleton's dinner, and at a ball at Bucklersbury House, for which
Mrs. Palmer was expecting an invitation. Lady Sarah had written at her
request to ask for one. Meanwhile the dresses had been growing under
Julie's art; throwing out fresh flounces and trimmings, and ribbons,
hour by hour, until they had finally come to perfection, and were now
lying side by side on the bed in the spare room, ready to be tried on
for the last time.
'Must it be _now_, mamma?' said Dolly. 'Breakfast is just ready, and
Aunt Sarah will be waiting.'
'Julie, go downstairs and beg Lady Sarah not to wait,' said Mrs. Palmer,
with great decision.
Julie came back, saying that Miss Rhoda was with Lady Sarah below, and
asking for Miss Dolly.
'Presently,' said Mrs. Palmer. 'Very pretty, indeed, Julie!' Then she
suddenly exclaimed, 'You cannot imagine what it is, Dolly, to be linked
to one so utterly uncongenial, you who are so fortunate in our dear
Robert's perfect sympathy and knowledge of London life. He quite agrees
with me in my wish that you should be introduced. Admiral Palmer hates
society, except to preach at it--such a pity, is it not! I assure you,
strange as it may seem, I quite dread his return.'
Dolly stood bolt upright, scarcely conscious of the dress or the pins,
or her mother's monologue. She was still thinking over the great
determination she had come to. George had not come back, but Dolly had
made up her mind to tell Lady Sarah everything. She was not afraid; it
was a relief to have the matter settled. She would say no word to injure
him. It was she who had been to blame throughout. Her reflections were
oddly intermingled with snips and pricks other than those of her
conscience. Once, as Julie ran a pin into her arm, she thought how
strange it was that Mr. Raban should have guessed everything all along.
Dolly longed and feared to have her explanation over.
'Have you nearly done? Let me go down, Julie,' said Dolly, becoming
impatient at last.
But Julie still wanted to do something to the set of the sleeve.
And while Julie was pinning poor Dolly down, the clock struck nine, and
the time was over, and Dolly's opportunity was lost for ever. It has
happened to us all. When she opened the dining-room door at last she
knew in one instant that it was too late.
The room seemed full of people. Lady Sarah was there, Mrs. Morgan
bristling by the window; Rhoda was there, kneeling at Lady Sarah's knee,
in some agitation: her bonnet had fallen off, her hair was all curling
and rough. She started up as Dolly came in, and ran to meet her.
'Oh! Dolly,' she said, 'come, come,' and she seized both her hands. 'I
have told Lady Sarah everything; she knows all. Oh! why did we not
confide in her long ago?' and Rhoda burst into tears. 'Oh, I feel how
wrong we have been,' she sobbed.
'Rhoda has told me everything, Dolly,' said Lady Sarah, in a cold
voice--'everything that those whom I trusted implicitly saw fit to
conceal from me.'
Was it Aunt Sarah who had spoken in that cold harsh-sounding tone?
'Rhoda has acted by my advice, and with my full approval,' said Mrs.
Morgan, stepping forward. 'She is not one to look back once her hand is
to the plough. When I had seen George's letter--it was lying on the
table--I said at once that no time should be lost in acquainting your
aunt, Dolly. It is inconceivable to me that you have not done so before.
We started immediately after our eight-o'clock breakfast, and all is now
clearly understood, I trust, Lady Sarah; Rhoda's frankness will be a
lesson to Dolly.'
Poor Dolly! she was stiff, silent, overwhelmed. She looked appealingly
at her aunt, but Lady Sarah looked away. What could she say? how was it
that she was there a culprit while Rhoda stood weeping and forgiven?
Rhoda who had enforced the silence, Rhoda now taking merit for her tardy
frankness! while George was gone; and Dolly in disgrace.
'Indeed, Aunt Sarah, I would have told you everything,' cried the girl,
very much agitated, 'only Rhoda herself made me promise----'
'Dolly! you never promised,' cried Rhoda. 'But we were all wrong,' she
burst out with fresh penitence; 'only Lady Sarah knows all, and we shall
be happier now,' she said, wiping her eyes.
'Happy in right-doing,' interrupted Mrs. Morgan.
'Have we done wrong, Aunt Sarah? Forgive us,' said Dolly, with a
touching ring in her voice.
Lady Sarah did not answer. She was used to her nephew's misdeeds, but
that Dolly--her own Dolly--should have been the one to plot against her
cut the poor lady to the heart. She could not speak. 'And Dolly knew it
all the time,' she had said to Rhoda a minute before Dolly came in.
'Yes, she knew it,' said Rhoda. 'She wished it, and feared----' Here
Rhoda blushed very red. 'George told me she feared that you might not
approve and do for him as you might otherwise have done. Oh! Lady Sarah,
what injustice we have done you!'
'Perhaps Dolly would wish to see the letter,' said Mrs. Morgan, offering
her a paper; there was no mistaking the cramped writing. There was no
date nor beginning to the note:--
I have been awake all night thinking over what has happened. It
is not your fault that you do not know what love is, nor what a
treasure I have wasted upon you. I have given you my best, and
to you it is worthless. You can't realise such love as mine.
You will not even understand the words that I am writing to
you: but it is not your fault, any more than it is mine, that I
cannot help loving you. Oh, Rhoda, you don't care so much for
my whole life's salvation as I do for one moment's peace of
mind for you. I see it now--I understand all now. Forgive me if
I am hurting you, for the sake of all you have made me suffer.
I feel as if I could no longer bear my life here. I must go,
and yet I must see you once more. You need not be afraid that I
should say anything to frighten or distress you. Your terror of
me has pained me far more than you have any conception of, God
bless you. I had rather your hands smote me than that another
blessed.
'It is most deplorable that a young man of George's ability should write
such nonsense,' said Mrs. Morgan.
Poor Dolly flushed up and began to tremble. Her heart ached for her poor
George's trouble.
'It is not nonsense,' she said, passionately; 'people call what they
cannot feel themselves nonsense. Aunt Sarah, you understand, though they
don't. You must see how unhappy he is. How can Rhoda turn against him
now? How can she after all that has passed? What harm has he done? It
was not wicked to love her more than she loved him.'
'Do you see no cruelty in all this long deception?' said Lady Sarah,
with two red spots burning in her cheeks. 'You must both have had some
motive for your silence. Have I ever shown myself cold or unfeeling to
you?' and the flushed face was turned away from her.
'It was not for herself, Lady Sarah,' said Mrs. Morgan, wishing to see
justice done. 'No doubt she did not wish to injure George's prospects.'
Dolly was silent. She had some dim feeling of what was in Lady Sarah's
mind; but it was a thought she put aside--it seemed unworthy of them
both. She was ashamed to put words to it.
If Dolly and her aunt had only been alone all might have been well, and
the girl might have made Lady Sarah understand how true she had been to
her and loyal at heart, although silent from circumstances. Dolly looked
up with wistful speaking eyes, and Lady Sarah almost understood their
mute entreaty.
The words of love are all but spoken when some one else speaks other
words; the hands long to grasp each other, and other fingers force them
asunder. Alas! Rhoda stood weeping between them, and Mrs. Palmer now
appeared in an elegant morning wrapper.
'My dearest child, Madame Frisette is come and is waiting,' said Dolly's
mamma, sinking into a chair. 'She is a delightful person, but utterly
reckless for trimmings. How do you do, Mrs. Morgan; why do you not
persuade Lady Sarah to let Madame Frisette take her pattern, and----?'
But, as usual, Lady Sarah, freezing under Mrs. Palmer's sunny influence,
got up and left the room.
* * * * *
Rhoda, tearful and forgiven, remained for some time giving her version
of things to Mrs. Palmer. She had come to speak to Lady Sarah by her
aunt's advice. Aunt Morgan had opened George's letter as it lay upon the
breakfast-table, and had been as much surprised as Rhoda herself by its
contents. They had come to talk things over with Lady Sarah, to tell her
of all that had been making Rhoda so unhappy of late.
'I thought she and you, Mrs. Palmer, would have advised me and told me
what was right to do,' said the girl, with dark eyes brimming over. 'How
can I help it if he loves me? I know that he might have looked higher.'
'The boy is perfectly demented,' said Mrs. Palmer, 'to dream of
marrying. He has not a sixpence, my dear child--barely enough to pay his
cab-hire. He has been most ridiculous. How we shall ever persuade Lady
Sarah to pay his debts I cannot imagine! Dolly will not own to it, but
we all know that she does not like parting with her money. I do hope and
trust she has made her will, for she looks a perfect wreck.'
'Oh, mamma!' entreated poor Dolly.
Mrs. Palmer paid no heed, except to say crossly, 'I do wish you had
shown a little common sense. Dolly, you have utterly injured your
prospects. Robert will be greatly annoyed; he counts so much upon dear
Sarah's affection for you both. As for me, I have been disappointed far
too often to count upon anything. By the way, Dolly, I wish you would go
up and ask your aunt whether that invitation has come to Bucklersbury
House. Go, child; why do you look so vacant?'
Poor Dolly! One by one all those she trusted most seemed to be failing
and disappointing her. Hitherto Dolly had idealised them all. She shrank
to learn that love and faith must overcome evil with good, and that this
is their reward even in this life, and that to love those who love you
is not the whole of its experience.
Rhoda's letter, miserable as it was, had relieved Dolly from much of her
present anxiety about George. That hateful dark river no longer haunted
her. He was unhappy, but he was safe on shore. All the same, everything
seemed dull, and sad, and undefined that afternoon, and Robert coming
in, found her sitting in the oak-room window with her head resting on
her hand and her work lying in her lap. She had taken up some work, but
as she set the stitches, it seemed to her,--it was but a fancy--that
with each stitch George was going farther and farther away, and she
dropped her work at last into her lap, and reasoned herself into some
composure; only when her lover came in cheerfully and talking with the
utmost ease and fluency, her courage failed her suddenly.
'What is the matter; why do you look so unhappy?' said Robert.
'Nothing is the matter,' said Dolly, 'only most things seem going wrong,
Robert; and I have been wrong, and there is nothing to be done.'
'What is the use of making yourself miserable?' said Robert,
good-naturedly scolding her; 'you are a great deal too apt, Dolly, to
trouble yourself unnecessarily. You must forgive me for saying so. This
business between George and Rhoda is simply childish, and there is
nothing in it to distress you.'
'Do you think that nothing is unhappiness,' said Dolly, going on with
her own thought, 'unless it has a name and a definite shape?'
'I really don't know,' said Henley. 'It depends upon ... What is this
invitation, Dora? You don't mean to say the Duchess has not sent one
yet?' he said in a much more interested voice.
'There is only the card for Aunt Sarah. I am afraid mamma is vexed, and
it is settled that I am not to go.'
'Not to go?' Robert cried; 'my dear Dolly, of course you must go: it is
absolutely necessary you should be seen at one or two good houses, after
all the second-rate society you have been frequenting lately. Where is
your mother?'
When Mrs. Palmer came in, in her bonnet, languid and evidently out of
temper, and attended by Colonel Witherington, Robert immediately asked,
in a heightened tone of voice, whether it was true that Dolly was not to
be allowed to go to the ball.
Philippa replied in her gentlest accents that no girl should be seen
without her mother. If an invitation came for them both, everything was
ready; and, even at the last moment, she should be willing to take
Dorothea to Bucklersbury House.
'Too bad,' said the Colonel, sitting heavily down in Lady Sarah's chair.
'A conspiracy, depend upon it. They don't wish for too much
counter-attraction in a certain quarter.'
'One never knows what to think,' said Mrs. Palmer, thoughtfully; 'I have
left a card this afternoon, Robert, upon which I wrote a few words in
pencil, to explain my connection with Sarah. I wished to show that I at
least was not unacquainted with the usages of civilised society. Kindly
hand me that _Peerage_.'
'My dear Aunt Philippa,' cried Robert, walking up and down in a state of
the greatest perturbation, 'what induced you to do such a preposterous
thing? What will the Duchess think of us all?'
Mrs. Palmer, greatly offended, replied that she could not allow Robert
to speak to her in such disrespectful tones. The Duchess might think
what she chose; Dolly should not go without her.