THEEE was much diligent searching of the advertising columns of the
daily papers for several weeks after this. Advertisements, in fact,
became the staple literature, and Dolly's zeal in the perusal of them
was only to be equalled by her readiness to snatch at the opportunities
they presented. No weather was too grewsome for her to confront, and no
representation too unpromising for her to be allured by. In the morning
she was at Bayswater calling upon the chilling mother of six (four
of them boys) whose moral nature needed judicious attention, and who
required to be taught the rudiments of French, German, and Latin; in the
afternoon she was at the general post-office applying to Q. Y. Z., who
had the education of two interesting orphans to negotiate for, and who
was naturally desirous of doing it as economically as possible; and at
night she was at home, writing modest, business-like epistles to every
letter in the alphabet in every conceivable or inconceivable part of the
country.
“If I had only been born 'a stout youth,' or 'a likely young man,' or
'a respectable middle-aged person,' I should have been 'wanted' a dozen
times a day,” she would remark; “but as it is, I suppose I I must wait
until something 'presents itself,' as the Rev. Marmaduke puts it.”
And in defiance of various discouraging and dispiriting influences, she
waited with a tolerable degree of tranquillity until, in the course of
time, her patience was rewarded. Sitting by the fire one morning with
Tod and a newspaper, her eye was caught by an advertisement which,
though it did not hold out any extra inducements, still attracted her
attention, so she read it aloud to Aimée and 'Toinette.
“Wanted, a young person to act as companion to an elderly lady. Apply at
the printers.”
“There, Aimée,” she commented, “there is another. I suppose I might
call myself 'a young person,' Don't you think I had better 'apply at the
printer's'?”
“They don't mention terms,” said Aimée.
“You would have to leave home,” said 'Toinette.
Dolly folded up the paper and tossed it on to the table with a half
sigh. She had thought of that the moment she read the paragraph, and
then, very naturally, she had thought of Griffith. It would not be
feasible to include him in her arrangements, even if she made any.
Elderly ladies who engage “young persons” as companions were not in
the habit of taking kindly to miscellaneous young men, consequently the
prospect was not a very bright one.
There would only be letter-writing left to them, and letters seemed such
cold comfort contrasted with every-day meetings. She remembered, too,
a certain six months she had spent with her Bilberry charges in
Switzerland, when Griffith had nearly been driven frantic by her absence
and his restless dissatisfaction, and when their letters had only seemed
new aids to troublous though unintentional games at cross-purposes.
There might be just the same thing to undergo again, but, then, how
was it to be avoided? It was impossible to remain idle just at this
juncture.
“So it cannot be helped,” she said, aloud. “I must take it if I can
get it, and I must stay in it until I can find something more pleasant,
though I cannot help wishing that matters did not look so unpromising.
Tod, you will have to go down, Aunt Dolly is going to put on her hat and
present herself at the printer's in the character of a young person in
search of an elderly lady.”
Delays were dangerous, she had been taught by experience, so she ran
up-stairs at once for her out-door attire, and came down in a few
minutes, drawing on her gloves and looking a trifle ruefully at them.
“They are getting discouragingly white at the seams,” she said, “and it
seems almost impossible to keep them sewed up. I shall have to borrow
Aimée's muff. What a blessing it is that the weather is so cold!”
At the bottom of the staircase she met Mollie.
“Phemie is in the parlor, Dolly,” she announced, “and she wants to see
you. I don't believe Lady Augusta knows she is here, either, she looks
so dreadfully fluttered.”
And when she entered the room, surely enough Phemie jumped up with a
nervous bound from a chair immediately behind the door, and, dropping
her muff and umbrella and two or three other small articles, caught her
in a tremulous embrace, and at once proceeded to bedew her with tears.
“Oh, Dolly!” she lamented, pathetically; “I have come to say good-by;
and, oh! what shall I do without you?”
“Good-by!” said Dolly. “Why, Phemie?”
“Switzerland!” sobbed Phemie. “The--the select seminary at Geneva,
Dolly, where th-that professor of m-music with the lumpy face was.”
“Dear me!” Dolly ejaculated. “You don't mean to say you are going there,
Phemie?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Euphemia. “Next week, too. And, oh dear, Dolly!”
trying to recover her handkerchief, “if it had been anywhere else
I could have borne it, but that,” resignedly, “was the reason mamma
settled on it. She found out how I _loathed_ the very thought of it,
and then she decided immediately. And don't you remember those mournful
girls, Dolly, who used to walk out like a funeral procession, and how
we used to make fun--at least, how you used to make fun of the lady
principal's best bonnet?”
It will be observed by this that Miss Dorothea Crewe's intercourse with
her pupils had not been as strictly in accordance with her position as
instructress as it had been friendly. She had even gone so far as to set
decorum at defiance, by being at once entertaining and jocular, though
to her credit it must be said that she had worked hard enough for
her modest salary, and had not neglected even the most trivial of her
numerous duties.
She began to console poor Euphemia to the best of her ability, but
Euphemia refused to be comforted.
“I shall have to take lessons from that lumpy professor, Dolly,” she
said. “And you know how I used to hate him when he _would_ make love to
you. And that was mamma's fault, too, because she would patronize him
and call him 'a worthy person.' He was the only man who admired you I
ever knew her to encourage, and she would n't have encouraged him if he
had n't been so detestable.”
It was very evident that the eldest Miss Bilberry was in a highly
rebellious and desperate state of mind. Dolly's daily visits,
educational though they were, had been the brightest gleams of sunlight
in her sternly regulated existence. No one had ever dared to joke in the
Bilberry mansion but Dolly, and no one but Dolly, had ever made the clan
gatherings bearable to Euphemia; and now that Dolly was cut off
from them all, and there were to be no more jokes and no more small
adventures, life seemed a desert indeed. And then with the calamitous
prospect of Switzerland and the lumpy professor before her, Phemie was
crushed indeed.
“Mamma doesn't know I came,” she confessed, tearfully, at last; “but
I could n't help it, Dolly, I could n't go away without asking you to
write to me and to let me write to you. You will write to me, won't
you?”
Dolly promised at once, feeling a trifle affected herself. She had
always been fond of Phemie, and inclined to sympathize with her, and now
she exerted herself to her utmost to cheer her. She persuaded her to
sit down, and after picking up the muff and umbrella and parcels, took
a seat by her, and managed to induce her to dry her tears and enter into
particulars.
“It will never do for Lady Augusta to see that you have been crying,”
she said. “Dry your eyes, and tell me all about it, and--wait a minute,
I have a box of chocolates here, and I know you like chocolates.”
It was a childish consolation, perhaps, but Dolly knew what she
was doing and whom she was dealing with, and this comforting with
confections was not without its kindly girlish tact. Chocolates were one
of Phemie's numerous school-girl weaknesses, and a weakness so rarely
indulged in that she perceptibly brightened when her friend produced the
gay-colored, much-gilded box. And thus stimulated, she poured forth her
sorrows with more coherence and calmness. She was to go to Switzerland,
that was settled, and the others were to be placed in various other
highly select educational establishments. They were becoming too old
now, Lady Augusta had decided, to remain under Dolly's care.
“And then,” added Euphemia, half timidly, “you won't be vexed if I tell
you, will you?”
“Certainly not,” answered Dolly, who knew very well what was coming,
though poor Phemie evidently thought she was going to impart an
extremely novel and unexpected piece of intelligence. “What is it,
Phemie?”
“Well, somehow or other, I don't believe mamma exactly likes you,
Dolly.”
Now, considering circumstances, this innocent speech amounted to a rich
sort of thing to say, but Dolly did not laugh; she might caricature Lady
Augusta for the benefit of her own select circle of friends, but she
never made jokes about her before Phemie, however sorely she might be
tempted. So, now she helped herself to a chocolate with perfect sobriety
of demeanor.
“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “I have thought so myself, Phemie.” And
then, as soon as possible, changed the subject.
At length Phemie rose to go. As Lady Augusta was under the impression
that she was merely taking the dismal daily constitutional, which was
one of her unavoidable penances, it would not do to stay too long.
“So I _must_ go,” lamented Phemie; “but, Dolly, if you would n't mind, I
should _so_ like to see the baby. I have never seen him since the day we
called with mamma,--and I am so fond of babies, and he was so pretty.”
Dolly laughed, in spite of herself. She remembered the visit so well,
and Lady Augusta's loftily resigned air of discovering, in the passively
degenerate new arrival, the culminating point of the family depravity.
“It is much to be regretted,” she had said, disapprovingly; “but it is
exactly what I foresaw from the first, and you will have to make the
best of it.”
And then, on Dolly's modestly suggesting that they intended to do so,
and were not altogether borne down to the earth by the heavy nature of
their calamity, she had openly shuddered.
But Phemie had quite clung to the small bundle of lawn and flannel, and
though she had never seen Tod since, she had by no means forgotten him.
“He will be quite a big boy when I come back,” she added. “And I should
so like to see him once again while he is a baby.”
“Oh, you shall see him,” said Dolly. “Tod is the one individual in this
house who always feels himself prepared to receive visitors. He is n't
fastidious about his personal appearance. If you will come into the next
room, I dare say we shall find him.”
And they did find him. Being desirous of employing, to the greatest
advantage, the time spent in his retirement within the bosom of his
family, he was concentrating his energies upon the mastication of the
toe of his slipper, upon which task he was bestowing the strictest and
most undivided attention, as he sat in the centre of the hearth-rug.
“He has got another tooth, Aunt Dolly,” announced 'Toinette,
triumphantly, as soon as the greetings were over. “Show Aunt Dolly his
tooth.” And, being laid upon his back on the maternal knee, in the most
uncomfortable and objectionable of positions, the tooth was exhibited,
as a matter calling forth public rejoicings.
Phemie knelt on the carpet before him, the humblest of his devotees.
“He is prettier than ever,” she said. “Do you think he would come to me,
Mrs. Crewe?”
And, though the object of her admiration at once asserted his
prerogatives by openly rejecting her overtures with scorn, she rejoiced
over him as ecstatically as if he had shown himself the most amiable of
infant prodigies, which he most emphatically had not, probably having
been rendered irascible by the rash and inconsiderately displayed
interest in his dental developments. Whatever more exacting people might
have thought, Phemie was quite satisfied.
“I wish I was in your place, Dolly,” she said, as she was going away.
“You seem so happy together here, somehow or other. Oh, dear! You don't
know how dreadful our house seems by contrast. If things _would_ break
or upset, or look a little untidy,--or if mamma's caps and dresses just
would n't look so solid and heavy--”
“Ah!” laughed Dolly, “you have n't seen our worst side, Phemie,--the
shabby side, which means worn shoes and old dresses and bills. We don't
get our whistle for nothing in Vagabondia, though, to be sure,”--and
I won't say a memory of the shabby coat-sleeve did not suggest the
amendment,--“I don't think we pay too dearly for it; and I believe there
is not one of us who would not rather pay for it than live without it.”
And when she gave the girl her farewell kiss, it was a very warm one,
with a touch of pity in it. It was impossible for her to help feeling
sympathy for any one who was without the Griffith element in existence.
After this she went out herself to apply at the printer's, and was sent
from there to Brabazon Lodge, which was a suburban establishment, in a
chilly aristocratic quarter. An imposing edifice, Brabazon Lodge, built
of stone, and most uncompromisingly devoid of superfluous ornament.
No mock minarets or unstable towers at Brabazon Lodge,--a substantial
mansion in a substantial garden behind substantial iron gates, and so
solid in its appointments that it was quite a task for Dolly to raise
the substantial lion's head which formed the front-door knocker.
“Wanted, a young person,” she was saying to herself, meekly, when her
summons was answered by a man-servant, and she barely escaped announcing
herself as “the young person, sir.”
Once inside the house, she was not kept waiting. She was ushered into a
well-appointed side-room, where a bright fire burned in the grate. The
man retired to make known her arrival to his mistress, and Dolly settled
herself in a chair by the hearth.
“I wonder how many 'young persons' have been sent away sorrowing this
morning,” she said, “and I wonder how Griffith will like the idea of my
filling the position of companion to an elderly lady, or any other order
of lady, for the matter of that? Poor old fellow!” and she gave vent to
an unmistakable sigh.
But the appearance of the elderly lady put an end to her regrets. The
door opened and she entered, and Dolly rose to receive her. The next
instant, however, she gave a little start. She had seen the elderly lady
before, and confronting her now recognized her at once,--Miss Berenice
MacDowlas. And that Miss MacDowlas recognized her also was quite
evident, for she advanced with the air of one who was not at all at a
loss.
“How do you do?” she remarked, succinctly, and gave Dolly her hand.
That young person took it modestly.
“I believe I have had the pleasure--” she was beginning, when Miss
MacDowlas interrupted her.
“You met me at the Bilberrys',” she said. “I remember seeing you very
well. You are Dorothea Crewe.”
Dolly bowed in her most insinuatingly graceful manner.
“Take a seat,” said Miss MacDowlas.
Dolly did so at once.
Miss MacDowlas looked at her with the air of an elderly lady who was not
displeased.
“I remember you very well,” she repeated. “You were governess there. Why
did you leave?”
Dolly did not know very definitely, and told her so.
The notice given her had been unexpected. Lady Augusta had said it was
because her pupils were old enough to be sent from home.
“Oh!” said Miss MacDowlas, and looked at her again from her hat to her
shoes.
“You are fond of reading?” she asked next
“Yes,” answered Dolly.
“You read French well?”
“Yes,” said Dolly. She knew she need not hesitate to say that, at least.
“You are good company and are fond of society?”
“I am fond of society,” said Dolly, “and I hope I am 'good company,'”
“You don't easily lose patience?”
“It depends upon circumstances,” said Dolly.
“You can play and sing?”
“I did both the night I met you,” returned the young person.
“So you did,” said Miss MacDowlas, and examined her again.
It was rather an odd interview, upon the whole, but it did not end
unfortunately. Miss MacDowlas wanted a companion who was quick-witted
and amusing, and, having seen that Dolly was both on the evening of the
Bilberry clan gathering, she had taken a fancy to her. So after a little
sharp questioning, she announced her decision. She would employ her to
fill the vacant situation at the same rate of salary she had enjoyed
in her position of governess to the youthful Bilberrys, and she would
employ her at once.
“I want somebody to amuse me,” she said, “and I think you can do it.
I am often an invalid, and my medical man says the society of a young
person will benefit me.”
So it was settled that the following week Dolly should take up her abode
at Brabazon Lodge and enter upon the fulfilment of her duties. She
was to read, play, sing, assist in the entertainment of visitors, and
otherwise make herself generally useful, and, above all, she was to be
amusing.
She left the house and proceeded homeward in a peculiar frame of mind.
She could have laughed, but she was compelled to admit to herself that
she could also have cried with equal readiness. She had met with an
adventure indeed. She was a young person at large no longer; henceforth
she was the property of the elderly dragon she had so often laughed at
with Griffith. And yet the dragon had not been so objectionable, after
all. She had been abrupt and unceremonious, but she had been better than
Lady Augusta, and she had not shown herself illiberal. But there would
be no more daily visits from Griffith, no more _téte-à-tétes_ in the
shabby parlor, no more sitting by the fire when the rest had left the
room, no more tender and inconsistently long farewells at the front
door. It was not pleasant to think about. She found herself catching her
breath quickly, with a sound like a little sob.
“He will miss it awfully,” she said to herself, holding her muff closely
with her small, cold hands, and shutting her eyes to work away a tear;
“but he won't miss it more than I shall. He might live without me
perhaps, but I could n't live without him. I wonder if ever two people
cared for each other as we do before? And I wonder if the time will ever
come--” And there she broke off again, and ended as she so often did.
“Poor old fellow!” she said. “Poor, dear, patient, faithful fellow! how
I love you!”
She hurried on briskly after this, but she was wondering all the
time what he would say when he found out that they were really to be
separated. He would rebel, she knew, and anathematize fate vehemently.
But she knew the rest of them would regard it as rather a rich joke that
chance should have thrown her into the hands of Miss MacDowlas. They had
all so often laughed at Griffith's descriptions of her and her letters,
given generally when he had been galled into a caustic mood by the
arrival of one of the latter.
Beaching Bloomsbury Place, Dolly found her lover there. He had dropped
in on his way to his lodgings, and was awaiting her in a fever of
expectation, having heard the news from Aimée.
“What is this Aimée has been telling me?” he cried, the moment she
entered the room. “You can't be in earnest, Doll! You can't leave home
altogether, you know.”
She tossed her muff on the table and sat down on one of the low chairs,
with her feet on the fender.
“I thought so until this morning,” she said, a trifle mournfully; “but
it can't be helped. The fact is, it is all settled now. I am an engaged
young person.”
“Settled!” exclaimed Griffith, indignantly. “Engaged! Dolly, I did n't
think you would have done it.”
“I could n't help doing it,” said Dolly, her spirits by no means rising
as she spoke. “How could I?”
But he would not be consoled by any such cold comfort. He had regarded
the possibility of her leaving the house altogether as something not
likely to be thought of. Very naturally, he was of the opinion that
Dolly was as absolute a necessity to every one else as she was to
himself. What _should_ he do without her? How could he exist? It was an
unreasoning insanity to talk about it. He was so roused by his subject
indeed, that, neither of them being absolutely angelic in temperament,
they wandered off into something very like a little quarrel about
it,--he, goaded to lover-like madness by the idea that she could live
without him; she, finding her low spirits culminate in a touch of anger
at his hotheaded, affectionate obstinacy.
“But it is not to be expected,” he broke out at last, without any
reason whatever,--“it is not to be expected that you can contend against
everything. You are tired of disappointment, and I don't blame you.
I should be a selfish dolt if I did. If Gowan had been in my place he
could have married you, and have given you a home of your own. I never
shall be able to do that. But,” with great weakness and evidence of
tribulation at the thought, “I didn't think you would be so cool about
it, Dolly.”
“Cool!” cried Dolly, waxing wroth and penitent both at once, as usual.
“Who is cool? Not I, that is certain. I shall miss you every hour of my
life, Griffith.” And the sad little shadow on her face was so real that
he was pacified at once.
“I am an unreasonable simpleton!” was his next remorseful outburst.
“You have said that before,” said Dolly, rather hard-heartedly; but in
spite of it she did not refuse to let him be as affectionate as he chose
when he knelt down by her chair, as he did the next minute.
“It would be a great deal better for me,” she half whispered, breaking
the suspicious silence that followed,--“it would be a great deal better
for _me_ if I did not care for you half so much;” and yet at the same
time she leaned a trifle more toward him in the most traitorous of
half-coaxing, half-reproachful ways.
“It would be the death of _me_,” said Griffith; and he at once plunged
into an eloquently persuasive dissertation upon the height and depth
and breadth and force of his love for her. He was prone to such
dissertations, and always ready with one to improve any occasion; and
I am compelled to admit that, far from checking him, Dolly rather liked
them, and was given to encourage and incite him to their delivery.
When this one was ended, he was quite in the frame of mind to listen
to reason, and let her enter into particulars concerning her morning's
efforts, which she did, at length, only adding a flavor of the
mysterious up to the introduction of Miss MacDowlas.
“What!” cried out Griffith, when she let out the secret. “Confound it!
No! Not Aunt MacDowlas in the flesh, Dolly? You are joking.”
“No,” answered Dolly, shaking her head at the amazed faces of the girls,
who had come in during the recital, and who had been guilty of the
impropriety of all exclaiming at once when the climax was reached. “I
am in earnest. I am engaged as companion to no less a person than Miss
Berenice MacDowlas.”
“Why, it is like something out of a three-volumed novel,” said Mollie.
“It is a good joke,” said 'Toinette.
“It is very awkward,” commented Aimée. “If she finds out you are engaged
to Griffith, she will think it so indiscreet of you both that she will
cut him off with a shilling.”
“Indiscreet!” echoed Dolly. “So we are indiscreet, my sage young
friend,--but indiscretion is like variety, it is the spice of life.”
And by this brisk speech she managed to sweep away the shadow which
had touched Griffith's face, at the unconscious hint at their lack of
wisdom.
“Don't say such a thing again,” she said to Aimée afterward, when
they were talking the matter over, as they always talked things over
together, “or he will fancy that you share his own belief that he has
something to reproach himself with. Better to be indiscreet than to love
one another less.”
“A great deal better,” commented the wise one of the family, oracularly.
She was not nineteen yet, this wise one, but she was a great comfort
and help to Dolly, and indeed to all of them. “And it is n't _my_ way
to blame you, either, Dolly, though things _do_ look so entangled. _I_
never advised you to give it up, you know.”
“Give it up,” cried Dolly, a soft, pathetic warmth and color rising to
her face and eyes. “Give it up! There would be too much of what has
past and what is to come to give up with it. Give it up! I wouldn't if I
could, and I could n't if I would.”