“SOMETHING,” announced Phil, painting away industriously at his
picture,--“something is up with Grif. Can any of you explain what it
is?”
Mollie, resting her elbows on the window-ledge, turned her head over
her shoulder; 'Toinette, tying Tod's sleeves with red ribbon, looked
up; Aimée went on with her sewing, the two little straight lines making
themselves visible on her forehead between her eyebrows. The fact of
something being “up” with any one of their circle was enough to create a
wondering interest.
“There is no denying,” Phil proceeded, “that he is changed somehow or
other. He is not the same fellow that he was a few months ago,--before
Dolly went away.”
“It is Dolly he is bothering about,” said Mollie, concisely.
Then Aimée was roused.
“I wish they were married,” she said. “I wish they were married
and--safe!”
“Safe!” put in Mrs. Phil. “That is a queer thing to say. They are not in
any danger, let us devoutly hope.”
The two wrinkles deepened, and the wise one sighed.
“I hope not,” she answered, bending her small, round, anxious face over
her sewing, and attacking it vigorously.
“They never struck me, you know,” returned Mrs. Phil, “as being a
particularly dangerous couple, though now I think of it I do remember
that it has once or twice occurred to me that Griffith has been rather
stupid lately.”
“It has occurred to me,” remarked Phil, dryly, “that he has taken a most
unaccountable dislike to Gowan.”
Mollie turned round to her window again.
“Not to put it too strongly,” continued the head of the family, “he
hates him like the deuce.”
And he was not far wrong in making the assertion. The time had been
coming for some time when the course of this unimposing story of true
love was no longer to run smooth, and in these days Griffith was in a
dangerous frame of mind. Now and then he heard of Gowan dropping in to
spend a few hours at Brabazon Lodge, and now and then he heard of his
good fortune in having found in Miss MacDowlas a positive champion. He
was even a favorite with her, just as he was a favorite with many other
people. Griffith did not visit Brabazon Lodge himself, he had given
that up long ago, indeed had only once paid his respects to his relative
since her arrival in London. That one visit, short and ceremonious as it
was, had been enough for him. Like many estimable ladies, Miss MacDowlas
had prejudices of her own which were hard to remove, and appearances had
been against her nephew.
“If he is living a respectable life, and so engaged in a respectable
profession, my dear,” commented Dolly's proprietress, in one of her
after conversations on the subject, “why does he look shabby and out at
elbows? It is my opinion that he is a very disreputable young man.”
“She thinks,” wrote Dolly to the victim, “that you waste your substance
in riotous living.” And it was such an exquisite satire on the true
state of affairs, that even Griffith forgot his woes for the moment, and
laughed when he read the letter.
Dolly herself was not prone to complain of Miss MacDowlas. She was not
so bad as she looked, after all. She was obstinate and rigid enough
on some points, but she had her fairer side, and Dolly found it. In a
fashion of her own Miss MacDowlas was rather fond of her companion.
A girl who was shrewd, industrious, and often amusing, was not to be
despised in her opinion; so she showed her fair young handmaiden a
certain amount of respect. She had engaged companions before, who
being entertaining were not trustworthy, or being trustworthy were
insufferably dull. She could trust Dolly with the most onerous of her
domestic or social charges, she found, and there was no fear of her
small change disappearing or her visitors being bored. So the position
of that “young person” became an assured and decently comfortable one.
But, day by day, Griffith was drifting nearer and nearer the old shoals
of difficulty. He rasped himself with miserable imaginings, and was
often unjust even toward Dolly. Hers was the brighter side of the
matter, he told himself.
She was sure to find friends,--she always did, these people would make
a sort of favorite of her, and she would be pleased because she was
so popular among them. He could not bear the thought of her ephemeral
happiness over trifles sometimes. He even fell so low as that at
his worst moments, though to his credit, be it spoken, he was always
thoroughly ashamed of himself afterward. There were times, too, when
he half resented her little jokes at their poverty, and answered them
bitterly when he wrote his replies to her letters. His chief consolation
he found in Aimée, and the sage of the family found her hands fuller
than ever. Quiet little body as she was, she was far-sighted enough to
see danger in the distance, and surely she did her best to alter its
course.
“If you are not cooler,” she would say, “you will work yourself into
such a fever of unhappiness, that you will be doing something you will
regret.”
“That is what I am afraid of,” he would sometimes burst forth; “but you
must admit, Aimée, that it is a pretty hard case.”
“Yes,” confessed the young oracle, “I will admit that, but being
unreasonable won't make it any easier.”
And then the fine little lines would show themselves, and she would set
herself industriously to the task of administering comfort and practical
advice, and she never failed to cheer him a little, however temporarily.
And she did not fail Dolly, either. Sage axioms and praiseworthy counsel
reached Brabazon Lodge in divers small envelopes, addressed to Miss
Crewe, and invariably beginning, “My dearest Dolly;” and more than once
difficulty had been averted, and Dolly's heart warmed again toward her
lover, when she had been half inclined to rebel and exhibit some slight
sharpness of temper. Only a few days after the conversation with which
the present chapter opens occurred, one of these modestly powerful
missives was forwarded, and that evening Griffith met with an agreeable
surprise. Chance had taken him into the vicinity of Miss MacDowlas's
establishment, and as he walked down the deserted road in a somewhat
gloomy frame of mind, he became conscious suddenly of the sound of
small, light feet, running rapidly down the footpath behind him.
“Griffith!” cried a clear, softly pitched voice, “Griffith, wait for
me.”
And, turning, he saw in the dusk of the winter day a little figure
almost flying toward him, and in a few seconds more Dolly was standing
by him, laughing and panting, and holding to his arm with both hands.
“I thought I should never catch you,” she said. “You never walked so
fast in your life, I believe, you stupid old fellow. I could n't call
out loud, though it is a quiet place, and so I had to begin to run.
Goodness! what _would_ Lady Augusta have said if she had seen me flying
after you!”
And then, stopping all at once, she looked up at him with a wicked
little air of saucy daring.
“Don't you want to kiss me?” she said. “You may, if you will endeavor to
effect it with despatch before somebody comes.”
She was obliged to resign herself to her fate then. For nearly two
minutes she found herself rendered almost invisible, and neither of them
spoke. Then half released, she lifted her face to look at him, and
there were tears on her eyelashes, and in her voice, too, though she was
trying very hard to smile.
“Poor old fellow,” she half whispered. “Has it seemed long since you
kissed me last?”
He caught her to his breast again in his old, impetuous fashion.
“Long!” he groaned. “It has seemed so long that there have been times
when it has almost driven me mad. O Dolly! Dolly!”
She let him crush her in his arms and kiss her again, and she nestled
against his shoulder for a minute, and, putting her warm little gloved
hand up to his face, gave it a tiny, loving squeeze. But of course that
could not last long. Miss Macdowlas's companion might be kissed in the
dusk two or three times, but, genteelly sequestered as was the road
leading to Brabazon Lodge, some stray footman or housemaid might appear
on the scene, from some of the neighboring establishments, at any
moment, so she was obliged to draw herself away at last.
“There!” she said, “you must let me take your arm and walk on now, and
you must tell me all about things. I have a few minutes to spare, and I
have _so_ wanted you,” heaving a weary little sigh, and holding his arm
very tightly indeed.
“Dolly,” he asked, abruptly, “are you sure of that?”
The other small hand clasped itself across his sleeve in an instant.
“Sure?” she answered. “Sure that I have wanted you? I have been nearly
_dying_ for you!” with some affectionate extravagance.
“Are you sure,” he put it to her, “quite sure that you have not
sometimes forgotten me for an hour or so?”
“No,” she answered, indignantly, “not for a single second;” which was a
wide assertion.
“Not,” he prompted her, somewhat bitterly, “when the MacDowlas gives
dinner-parties, and you find yourself a prominent feature, 'young
person,' as you are? Not when you wear the white merino, and 'heavy
swells' admire you openly?”
“No,” shaking her head in stout denial of the imputation. “Never.
I think about you from morning until night; and the fact is,” in a
charming burst of candor, “I actually wake in the night and think about
you. There! are you satisfied now?”
It would have been impossible to remain altogether unconsoled and
unmoved under such circumstances, but he could not help trying her
again.
“Dolly,” he said, “does Gowan never make you forget me?”
Then she saw what he meant, and flushed up to her forehead, drawing her
hand away and speaking hotly.
“Oh!” she said, “it is _that_, is it?”
“Yes,” he answered her, “it is that.”
Then they stopped in their walk, and each looked at the other,--Griffith
at Dolly, with a pale face and much of desperate, passionate appeal in
his eyes; Dolly at Griffith, with her small head thrown back in sudden
defiance.
“I am making you angry and rousing you, Dolly,” he said; “but I cannot
help it. There is scarcely a week passes in which I do not hear that
he--that fellow--has managed to see you in one way or another. He can
always see you,” savagely. “_I_ don't see you once a month.”
“Ah!” said Dolly, with cruel deliberation, “_this_ is what Aimée meant
when she told me to be careful, and think twice before I did things. I
see now.”
I have never yet painted Dolly Crewe as being a young person of angelic
temperament. I have owned that she flirted and had a temper in spite of
her Vagabondian good spirits, good-nature, and popularity; so my
readers will not be surprised at her resenting rather sharply what she
considered as being her lover's lack of faith.
“I think,” she proceeded, opening her eyes wide and addressing him with
her grandest air,--“I think I will walk the rest of my way alone, if you
please.”
It was very absurd and very tragical in a small way, of course, and
assuredly she ought to have known better, and perhaps she did know
better, but just now she was very fierce and very sharply disappointed.
She positively turned away as if to leave him, but he caught hold of her
arm and held her.
“Dolly,” he cried, huskily, “you are not going away in that fashion. We
never parted so in our lives.”
She half relented,--not quite, but nearly, so very nearly that she
did not try very hard to get away. It was Griffith, after all, who was
trying her patience--if Gowan or any other man on earth had dared to
imply a doubt in her, she would have routed him magnificently--in two
minutes; but Griffith--ah, well, Griffith was different.
“Whose fault is it?” she asked, breaking down ignominiously. “Who is
to blame? I never ask you if other people make you forget me. I wanted
to--to see you so much that I--I ran madly after you for a quarter of a
mile, at the risk of being looked upon as a lunatic by any one who might
have chanced to see me. But you don't care for that. I had better have
bowed to you and passed on if we had met. Let me go!”
“No,” said Griffith, “you shall not go. God knows if I could keep you,
you should never leave my arms again.”
“You would tire of me in a week, if I belonged to you in real earnest,”
she said, not trying to get away at all now, however.
“Tire of you!” he exclaimed, in a shaken voice. “Of _you!_” And all at
once he drew her round so that the light of the nearest lamp could fall
on her face. “Look here!” he whispered, sharply; “Dolly, I swear to you,
that if there lives a man on earth base and heartless enough to rob me
of you, I will kill him as sure as I breathe the breath of life!”
She had seen him impassioned enough often before, but she had never seen
him in as wild a mood as he was when he uttered these words. She was so
frightened that she broke into a little cry, and put her hand up to his
lips.
“Griffith!” she said, “Grif!--dear old fellow. You don't know what you
are saying. Oh! don't--don't!”
Her horror brought him to his senses again; but he had terrified her
so that she was trembling all over, and clung to him nervously when he
tried to console her.
“It is n't like _you_ to speak in such a way,” she faltered, in the
midst of her tears. “Oh, how dreadfully wrong things must be getting, to
make you so cruel!”
It took so long a time to reassure and restore her to her calmness, that
he repented his rashness a dozen times. But he managed to comfort her at
length, though to the last she was tearful and dejected, and her voice
was broken with soft, sorrowful little catchings of the breath.
“Don't let us talk about Ralph Gowan,” she pleaded, when he
had persuaded her to walk on with him again. “Let us talk about
ourselves,--we are always safe when we talk about ourselves,” with an
innocent, mournful smile.
And so they talked about themselves. He would have talked of anything
on earth to please her then. Talking of themselves, of course, implied
talking nonsense,--affectionate, sympathetic nonsense, but still
nonsense; and so, for a while, they strolled on together, and were as
tenderly foolish and disconnected as two people could possibly be.
But, in spite of her resolution to avoid the subject, Dolly could not
help drifting back to Ralph Gowan. “Griffith,” she said, plaintively,
“you are very jealous of him.”
“I know that,” he answered.
“But don't you _know_,” in desperate appeal, “that there is n't the
slightest need for you to be jealous of anybody?”
“I know,” he returned, dejectedly, “that I am a very wretched fellow
sometimes.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Dolly.
“I know,” he went on, “that seven years is a long probation, and that
the prospect of another seven, or another two, for the matter of that,
would drive me mad. I know I am growing envious and distrustful; I
know that there are times when I hate that fellow so savagely that I am
ashamed of myself. Dolly, what has he ever done that he should saunter
on the sunny side, clad in purple and fine linen all his life? The money
he throws away in a year would furnish the house at Putney.”
“Oh, dear!” burst forth Dolly. “You _are_ going wrong. It is all because
I am not there to take care of you, too. Those are not the sentiments of
Vagabondia, Grif.”
“No,” dryly; “they are of the earth, earthy.”
Dolly shook her head dolefully.
“Yes,” she acquiesced; “and they are a bit shabby, too. You are going
down, Grif. You never used to be shabby. None of us were ever exactly
that, though we used to grumble sometimes. We used to grumble, not
because other people had things, but because we had n't them.”
“I am getting hardened, I suppose,” bitterly. “And it is hardly to be
wondered at.”
“Hardened!” She stopped him that moment, and stood before him, holding
his arm and looking up at him. “Hardened!” she repeated. “Grif, if you
say that again, I will never forgive you. What is the good of our love
for each other if it won't keep our hearts soft? When we get hardened we
shall love each other no longer. What have we told each other all these
years? Have n't we said that so long as we had one another we could bear
anything, and not envy other people? It was n't all talk and sentiment,
was it? It was n't on _my_ part, Grif. I meant it then, and I mean it
now, though I know there are many good, kind-hearted people in the world
who would not understand it, and would say I was talking unpractical
rubbish, if they heard me. Hardened! Grif, while you have me, and I have
you, and there is nothing on our two consciences? Why, it sounds,”--with
another most dubious shake of her small head,--“it sounds as if you
would n't care about the house at Putney!”
He was conquered, of course; before she had spoken a dozen words he
had been conquered; but this figure of his not caring for the house at
Putney broke him utterly. He did not look very hardened when he answered
her.
“Dolly,” he said, “you are an angel! I have told you so before, and it
may be a proof of the barrenness of my resources to tell you so again,
but it is true. God forgive me, my precious! I should like to see the
man whose heart could harden while such a woman loved him.”
It was a pretty sight to see her put her hands on his shoulders, and
stand on tiptoe to kiss him, in her honest, earnest way, without waiting
for him to ask her.
“Ah!” she said, “I knew it wasn't true,” and then, still letting her
hands rest on his shoulders, she burst forth in her tender, impulsive
way again. “Grif,” she said, “I don't think I am very wise, and I know
I am not very thoughtful. I do things often that it would be better
to leave undone,--I am fond of making the Philistines admire me, and I
sometimes tease you; but, dear old fellow, right deep down at the bottom
of my heart,” faltering slightly, “I do--_do_ want to be a good
woman; and there is never a night passes--though I never told you so
before--that I do not pray to God to let me help you and let you help me
to be tender and faithful and true.”
It was the old story,--love was king. Wisdom to the winds! Practicality
to the corners of the earth! Prudence, power, and grandeur, hide your
diminished heads! Here were two people who cared nothing for you, and
who flung you aside without a fear as they stood together under the
trees in the raw evening air,--one a penniless little hired entertainer
of elderly ladies, the other an equally impecunious bondsman in a dingy
office.
They were quite happy,--even happy when time warned them that they must
bid each other goodnight. They walked together to the gates of Barbazon
Lodge, and parted in a state of bliss.
“Good-night,” said Dolly. “Be good,--as somebody wise once said,--'Be
good, and you will be happy.'”
“Good-night,” answered Griffith; “but might n't he have put it the other
way, Dolly, 'Be happy, and you will be good--because you can't help
it'?”
He had his hand on _her_ shoulder, this time, and as she laughed she put
her face down so that her soft, warm cheek nestled against it.
“But he didn't put it that way,” she objected. “And we must take wisdom
as it comes. There! I must go now,” rather in a hurry. “Some one is
coming--see!”
“Confound it!” he observed, devoutly. “Who is it?”
“I don't know,” answered Dolly; “but you must let me go. Good-night,
again.”
He released her, and she ran in through the gate, and up the gravel
walk, and so he was left to turn away and pass the intruder with an
appearance of nonchalance. And pass him he did, though whether with
successful indifference or not, one can hardly say; but in passing him
he looked up, and in looking up he recognized Ralph Gowan.
“Going to see her,” he said, to himself, just as poor Mollie had said
the same thing, and just with the same heartburn. “The dev--But, no,” he
broke off sharply, “I won't begin again. It is as she says,--the blessed
little darling!--it is shabby to be down on him because he has the best
of it.” And he went on his way, not rejoicing, it is true, but still
trying to crush down a by no means unnatural feeling of rebellion.