WAYS AND MEANS.
As they entered the house, Dolly went downstairs and Mr. Shubrick up;
she trembling and in a maze, he with a glad, free step, and a
particularly bright face. Mrs. Copley was with her husband, as Dolly
had opined.
"Here's one of them," cried Mr. Copley as Sandie entered. "Where have
you been all this while? If you think I'll do to be left alone yet,
you're mistaken. Where have you been?"
"In what I believe is the park of Brierley--over there under the oaks."
"And where is Dolly, Mr. Shubrick?" Dolly's mother asked.
"I have just brought her home. She is downstairs."
"I sent her to take care of her father," said Mrs. Copley in a
dissatisfied tone.
"She informed me that Mr. Copley did not want her, and preferred me,"
said Mr. Shubrick.
"But you did not come?" said Mrs. Copley suspiciously.
He stood looking at her half a minute, with a slight smile upon his
face, the frank, pleasant smile which belonged to him; then he turned,
took a glass from the table and came to Mr. Copley's side to give him a
draught which was due. Next he lifted his patient by the shoulders a
little, to arrange the pillows behind him, and as he laid him back upon
them he said quietly--"Will you give your daughter to me, Mr. Copley?"
Mr. Copley looked, or stared rather, grumly enough at the speaker.
"That means, you have got her already!"
"Not without your consent."
"I thought as much! Does Dolly want to marry you?"
"I do not know," said Sandie with a smile; "but I believe I may say
that she will marry nobody else."
"Ay, there it is. I have other views for my daughter."
"And I thought you were engaged to Miss Thayer?" put in Mrs. Copley.
"True; I was; but that was a boyish mistake. We have all other views.
Miss Thayer is to marry your friend, Mr. St. Leger."
"Christina!" cried Mrs. Copley. "Didn't I know Mrs. Thayer would do
that, if she could! And now she has done it. And Christina has thrown
you over?"
"Not at all," said Sandie, again with a smile. "And you have not to
blame Mrs. Thayer, so far as I know. Miss Thayer and I are very good
friends, but we were never intended to marry each other. We have found
that out, and acted accordingly."
"And she has got him!" Mrs. Copley repeated. "I told Dolly she would
like to do that. Put their two fortunes together, and they will have
enough," said poor Mrs. Copley. "That comes of our going to Sorrento!"
"Look here, young man," said Mr. Copley. "If I give you Dolly, as you
say, after she has given herself,--the witch!--what are you and she
going to live on?"
"We have something to live on," said the young man with quiet
independence.
"Not much, I'll be sworn!"
"Not perhaps what you would call much. A lieutenant in the navy is not
likely to have more than a very moderate fortune."
"Fortune! What do you call a fortune?"
"Enough to live on."
"Are you ever going to be a captain?"
"I cannot say. But there is some prospect of it."
"Things might be worse, then," grumbled Mr. Copley. "Anyhow, you have
tied my tongue, my fine fellow. I can't say a word against you. But
look here;--if you don't want a wife that will rule you, I advise you
not to marry my Dolly. She's a witch for having her own way. 'My
Dolly'!" Mr. Copley half groaned. "I suppose now she's your Dolly. I
don't want to give her to any man, that's the truth."
"And I thought all this nursing had been so disinterested!" said Mrs.
Copley dolefully.
Sandie's answer to this was conclusive, of the subject and the
conversation both. He went up to Mrs. Copley, took her hand, and bent
down and kissed her. Just at that moment they were called to supper;
and Mrs. Copley, completely conquered, went down with all her
reproaches smothered in the bud. Yet I confess her face showed a
conflict of feelings as she entered the kitchen. It was cloudy with
disappointment, and at the same time her eyes were wet with tears of
some sweeter feeling. Dolly, standing behind the supper-table, looked
from the one to the other as the two came in.
"It is all settled, Dolly," said Mr. Shubrick.
And I think he would have taken his betrothal kiss, then and there, had
not Dolly's glance been so shy and shrinking that she flashed at him.
She was standing quietly and upright; there was no awkwardness in her
demeanour; it was the look of her eyes that laid bans upon Sandie. He
restrained himself; paid her no particular attention during supper;
talked a great deal, but on entirely indifferent subjects; and if he
played the lover to anybody, certainly it was to Mrs. Copley.
"He is a good young man, I believe," said Mrs. Copley, making so much
of an admission as she and Dolly went upstairs.
"O mother," said Dolly, half laughing and half vexed, "you say that
just because he has been entertaining you!"
"Well," returned Mrs. Copley. "I like to be entertained. Don't you find
him entertaining?"
Mr. Shubrick kept up the same tactics for several days; behaving
himself in the house very much as he had done ever since he had come to
it. And out of the house, though he and Dolly took long walks and held
long talks together; he was very cool and undemonstrative. He would let
her get accustomed to him. And certainly in these conversations he was
entertaining. Walking, or sitting on the bank under some old beech or
oak tree, he had endless things to tell Dolly; things to which she
listened as eagerly as ever Desdemona did to Othello; stories out of
which, avoid personalities as he would, she could not but gain, step by
step, new knowledge of the story-teller. And hour by hour Dolly's
respect for him and appreciation of him grew. Little by little she
found how thorough his education was, and how fine his accomplishments.
Especially as a draughtsman. Easily and often, in telling her of some
place or of some naval engagement, Sandie would illustrate for her with
any drawing materials that came to hand; making spirited and masterly
sketches with a few strokes of his hand, it might be on paper, or on a
bit of bark, or on the ground even.
"Ah," said Dolly one day, watching him, "I cannot do that! I can do
something, but I cannot do that."
"What can you do?" inquired Sandie.
"I can copy. I can take down the lines of a face, or of a bridge, or a
house, when I see it before me; but I cannot put things on paper out of
my thoughts. Do you remember how you did this sort of thing for me the
very first time I saw you?--in the gun deck of the 'Achilles'?"
He smiled, finishing the sketch he was about.
"I remember. I remember what pleasure it gave me, too. At that time I
had a little sister, just your age, of whom I was exceedingly fond."
"At that time--you _had?_" Dolly repeated.
"Yes," he said soberly; "I have not anybody now, of near kin to me."
Dolly's hand with mute sympathy stole into his. It was the first action
of approach to him that she had made, unless that coming to him in the
park three or four days before might be reckoned in the bargain. He
tossed his drawing into her lap and warmly clasped the hand.
"It is time you began to talk to me, Dolly," he said. "I have talked a
great deal, but you have said next to nothing. You must have a great
many questions to ask me."
"I don't know," said Dolly.
"Why, you know nothing about me," he said with a laughing look of his
eyes. "You had better begin. You may ask me anything."
"But knowing a person and knowing _about_ him, are very different
things."
"Very. And if you have the one sort of knowledge, it seems to me you
must want to have the other. Unless, where both are alike
uninteresting; which I cannot suppose is my case."
"No," said Dolly, laughing a little, "but I suppose you will tell me
things by degrees, without my asking."
"What makes you suppose that?"
"It would be natural, wouldn't it?"
"_Would_ it be natural, without your showing any interest?"
"Ah, but now _you_ are supposing. Perhaps I should show interest."
Sandie laughed now heartily.
"I will try you," said he. "I will begin and tell you something without
questions asked. Dolly, I have a house."
"Have you?"
"You do not care to hear about it?"
"I am glad that you have a house," said Dolly demurely. Sandie was
lying on the turfy bank, in a convenient position for looking up into
her eyes; and she found it not precisely an easy position for her.
"You do not take it as a matter of personal concern?"
"It is a house a long way off," said Dolly. "Just now we are here.''
"How much longer do you expect to be here?"
"That I do not know at all. Mother and I have tried and tried to get
father to go home again,--and we cannot move him."
"I must try," said Mr. Shubrick.
"Oh, if you could!" said Dolly, clasping her hands unconsciously--"I
don't know what I would give. He seems to mind you more than anybody."
"What keeps him here? Business?"
"I suppose it is partly business," said Dolly slowly, not knowing quite
how to answer. And then darted into her heart with a pang of doubt and
pain, the question: was not Mr. Shubrick entitled to know what kept her
father in England, and the whole miserable truth of it? She had been so
occupied and so happy these last days, she had never fairly faced the
question before. It almost caught her breath away.
"Dolly, when we all go back to America, the house I speak of will not
be 'far off.'"
"No," said Dolly faintly.
"Look here," said he, taking one of her hands. "It is a house I hope
you will like. _I_ like it, though it has no pretension whatever. It is
an old house; and the ground belonging to it has been in the possession
of my family for a hundred years; the house itself is not quite so old.
But the trees about it are. The old house stands shut up and empty. I
told you, I have no one very near of kin left to me; so even when I am
at home I do not go there. I have never lived there since my mother
left it."
Dolly was silent.
"Now, how soon do you think I may have the house opened and put in
order for living in?"
There came up a lovely rose colour in the cheeks he was looking at;
however Dolly answered with praiseworthy steadiness----
"That is a matter for you to consider."
"Is it?"
"Certainly."
"But you know it would be no use to open it, until somebody is ready to
live there."
"No," said Dolly. "Of course--I suppose not."
"So you see, after all, I have to come to you with questions, seeing
you will ask me none."
"Oh," said Dolly, "I will ask you questions, if you will let me. I
would rather ask than answer."
"Very well," said he, laughing. "I give place to you. Ask what you
like."
Then followed silence. The young officer lay easily on the bank at her
feet, holding Dolly's hand; sometimes bringing his eyes to bear upon
her face, sometimes letting them rove elsewhere; amused, but waiting.
"I shall have to begin again," said he.
"No, don't," said Dolly. "Mr. Shubrick, where is your house?"
"About fifty miles from Boston, in one of the prettiest New England
villages on the coast."
"And how much ground is there round it?"
"About a hundred acres."
"Doesn't it spoil a house to be shut up so?"
"It is not good for it. But there is nobody belonging to me that I
would like to see in it; and I could never rent the old place. I am
very fond of it, Dolly. It is full of associations to me."
It swept through Dolly, how she would like to put it in order and keep
it open for him; and again she was silent, till admonished by a
laughing, "Go on."
But Dolly did not know what further to say, and was still silent.
"There is one question you have not asked me," Mr. Shubrick said,
"which would be a very pertinent one just now. You have never asked me
how long _I_ was going to stay in England."
"No," said Dolly, starting. "How soon must you--how long can you stay?"
"My leave expires in two weeks."
"Two weeks! And can you not get it extended?"
"I don't know. Perhaps, for a little. But, Dolly, there is a prospect
of the 'Red Chief' being ordered home; and there is a further
possibility that I may have to take her home; for Captain Busby is very
much out of health and wants to stay the winter over in Naples."
"You may have to take her home. Will that give you the ship, do you
mean?"
"No," said he, smiling; "ships are not had at such an easy rate as
that. But, Dolly, you perceive that there are several questions we must
ask and answer; and the sooner the better."
"Then," said Dolly a little hurriedly,--she was afraid of the questions
that might be coming,--"if you go away in two or three weeks, when
shall I see you again?"
There was more of an admission made in these words than Dolly herself
knew; and it was made with a tender, shy grace of tone and manner which
touched the young officer with more than one feeling. He bent down to
kiss Dolly's hand before he said anything.
"That is one of the questions," he said. "Let me tell you what I have
thought about it. The 'Red Chief' has been a long time out; she needs
overhauling. She will probably be sent home soon, and I am like to be
in charge of her. I may expect to get a long furlough when I go home;
and--I want to spend every minute of it with you. I do not want to lose
a day, Dolly. Do you understand? I want you to be all ready for me, so
that we can be married the very day I get to you."
"You mean, in America?" said Dolly, with a great flush.
"I mean, in America, of course. I want to take you straight away from
your old home to your new one. I will have the house put in
readiness"----
"When do you think you will be there?" Dolly broke in.
"By Christmas, perhaps."
"But I am here," said Dolly.
"So am I here, just at present," said he, smiling. "But you can go over
in one ship while I am going over in another, and be there as soon as
I, or before."
"I don't know," said Dolly. "I can't tell about father. I don't know
when he will be persuaded to leave England."
She looked doubtful and troubled now. Possible difficulties and
hindrances began to loom up before her, never looked at until then.
What if her father would not go? What if he persisted in staying by the
companions who were his comrades in temptation? Could she go away and
leave him to them? and leave her mother to him? Here offered itself
another sort of self-sacrifice, to which nothing could be objected
except its ruinous effect upon her own future. Nay, not _her_ own
future alone; but what of that? "Fais que dois advienne que pourra." It
all swept through Dolly's head with the speed, and something of the
gloom, of a whirlwind.
"I don't know anything about his movements," she repeated anxiously.
"Only, mother and I cannot get him away."
"In that case, I will come to England for you."
"Oh no!" said Dolly, shaking her head; "_that_ would not do. I could
not leave him and mother here."
"Why not?"
Dolly was silent. She could not tell him why not.
"Would it be more difficult here, than to leave them in America?" Mr.
Shubrick asked, the smile upon his lips checked by the very troubled
expression of Dolly's face.
"It would not be 'difficult' here; it would be _impossible_."
"May I ask, why more impossible, or difficult, than in America?"
Dolly was silent. What could she say?
"Suppose Mr. Copley should prefer to stay in England permanently?"
"Yes," said Dolly in a sort of whisper.
"What then?"
"I do not know," she answered faintly.
"In America it would be different?"
"Yes."
"Do you know, my little Dolly, you are speaking what it is very
difficult for me to understand?"
"Of course," said Dolly. "You cannot understand it."
"Are you not going to give me the grace of an explanation?"
"I cannot."
"Then I shall go to Mr. Copley for it."
"Oh no!" said Dolly, starting, and laying both her hands upon one of
the young officer's, as if in pleading or in hindering. "Oh no, Mr.
Shubrick! Please, _please_, do not speak to mother or father about
this! Please say nothing about it!"
He kissed and clasped the hands, making, however, no promise. For a
moment he paused, seeing that Dolly was very deeply disturbed.
"Do you think father and mother both could not be tempted to go home
for your sake?" he then asked.
"Oh, mother, yes; but father--I don't know about father."
"I shall try my powers of persuasion," said Mr. Shubrick lightly.
Dolly made no answer and was evidently in so much troubled confusion of
thought that she was not ready, even if he were, to take up again the
consideration of plans and prospects, or to enter into any other more
indifferent subject of conversation. After a trial or two, seeing this,
Mr. Shubrick proposed to get a book and read to her; which he had once
or twice done to their great mutual pleasure. And as Dolly eagerly
welcomed the proposal, he left her there on the bank and went down to
the cottage, which was not very far off, to fetch the book. As soon as
he was out of sight, Dolly laid her face in her hands.
It was all rushing upon her now, what she had scarce looked at before
in the pre-occupation and happiness of the last days. It was a
confusion of difficult questions. Would her father leave the companions
and habits to which he had grown so fast, and go back to America for
her sake--that is, for the sake of seeing her promptly married? Dolly
doubted it much. It was quite possible that her father would regard
that consideration as the reverse of an inducement. It was quite
possible that no unselfish inducement would have any power at all with
him. Then he would stay in England. And so long as he was in England,
in the clutches of the temptation that had got so much power, Dolly
could not leave him; and if she could leave him, it would be impossible
to forsake her mother, whose only stay and comfort on earth she was. In
that case, what was she to say to Mr. Shubrick? How could he
understand, that for Dolly to leave father and mother was any way
different or more difficult than Christina's or any other girl's doing
the same thing? He could not understand, unless she told him all; and
how was it possible for her to do that? How could she tell her lover
her father's shame? And if she simply refused to marry him and refused
to give any reason, what was he to think then? Shame and fear and
longing took such possession of Dolly that she was thrown into great
perturbation. She left her seat on the bank and walked up and down
under the great trees. A good burst of tears was near, but she would
not give way to that; Sandie would see it. He would be back presently.
And he would be putting his question again; and whatever in the world
should she say to him? For the hundredth time the bitter apostrophe to
her father rose in Dolly's heart. How _could_ he have let her be
ashamed of him? And then another thought darted into her head. Had not
Mr. Shubrick a right to know all about it? Dolly was almost distracted
with her confusion of difficulties.
She would not cry, which as she told herself would help nothing. She
stood by a great oak branch which, leaving the parent trunk a few feet
higher up, swept in lordly fashion, in a delicious curve, down towards
the turf, with again a spring upward at its extremity. Dolly stood
where it came lowest, and had rested her two arms upon it, looking out
vaguely into the green wilderness beyond. She thought she was safe;
that was not the side towards the cottage, from which quarter Mr.
Shubrick would come; she would hear his steps in time before she turned
round. But Mr. Shubrick had seen her standing there, and innocently
made a little bend from the straight path so as to come up on one side
and catch a stolen view of her sweet face. Coming so, he saw much more
than he expected, and much more than Dolly would have let him see. The
next moment he had taken the girl in his arms.
Dolly started and would have freed herself, but she found she could not
do it without making more effort than she was willing to use. She stood
still, fluttering, trembling, and at the same time not a little abashed.
"What is troubling you, Dolly?"
Dolly dared not look and could not speak. Silence made an admission,
she knew; nevertheless, she could find no words to say.
"Don't you love me well enough to tell me?"
"Oh, it isn't that," cried Dolly; "it's _because_"----
Here Dolly's revelations came to an end, and yet she had revealed a
good deal. A dark glow came into the young officer's eyes. Truly, she
had before never told him so much as that she loved him. But his next
words were spoken in the same tone with the foregoing. It was very
affectionate, and withal there was a certain accent of authority in it.
I think it awed Dolly a little. She had known really very little of
authority, as exercised towards herself. This was something very unlike
her father's careless acquiescence, or his careless opposition; very
unlike the careless way in which he would sometimes throw his arm round
her, affectionate though that was. The affection here was different,
Dolly felt with an odd sort of astonishment; and the care, and the
asserted right of ownership. It gave the girl a thrill of joy; at the
same time it had upon her a kind of subduing effect. So came his next
question, gently as it was put, and it was put very gently.
"Do you not think I have a right to know?"
"Perhaps," she stammered. "Oh, I don't know but you ought to know,--but
how can I tell you! Oh, I don't know how I can tell you!"
Dolly trembled in her doubt and distress; she fought down tears. Both
hands went up to cover her face.
"Is it a trouble in which I can help?"
"I don't know."
"If I am to help, you must tell me something more, Dolly."
"Yes, but I cannot. Oh, if you knew, you would know that I cannot. I
think perhaps you ought to know,--but I cannot tell you! I don't see
how I can tell you!"
"Then do not try to tell me, until we are married," said he soothingly.
"It will be easier then."
"But I think you ought to know before," said Dolly, and he felt how she
trembled in his arms. "If you don't know, you will not be able to
understand"----
"What?" for Dolly paused.
"What I do. You will not understand it."
"What are you going to do?" said Mr. Shubrick, smiling; she knew he was
smiling. "You are going home to be ready to meet me; and the day I
come, we are going to be married. Then you can tell me what you like.
Hey?"
"But you don't know!" cried Dolly. "I can't tell when we shall go home.
I don't know whether father will quit England for all I can say. I
don't know whether he will ever quit it!"
"Then, as I remarked before, I will have the honour to come to England
and fetch you."
"Ah, but I could not go then."
"Why not?"
"I could not leave them alone here."
"Why not here as well as in America?"
"My father needs me here," said Dolly in a low voice and with
tears,--what sharp tears of bitterness!--coming into her eyes.
"Needs you! Do not I need you?" said Mr. Shubrick.
"No," said Dolly. "I am so glad you don't!" And her brown eyes gave one
flash of undoubted, albeit inexplicable, pride and rejoicing into his
face.
"How do you dare say that, Dolly?" he asked in growing curiosity and
mystification.
"You can stand alone," she said, her voice again drooping. Mr. Shubrick
was silent a moment, considering what this might mean. They had not
altered their relative positions during this little dialogue. Dolly's
face was again covered by her hands.
"I don't know if I can stand alone," said Sandie at last slowly; "but I
am not going to try."
"Perhaps you must," said Dolly sadly, lifting her face again. "If I can
get father to go home, I will; maybe you can do it if I cannot. But I
am not sure that anybody can do it. Mr. Shubrick, he did not use to be
like this; he was everything different; he was what you would have
liked; but now he has got in with some people here in whose company
he--oh, how can I tell you!" cried Dolly, bursting into tears; but then
she fought them back and struggled for voice and went on with sad
bravery. "I have told you so much, I must tell you the whole. He is not
just master of himself; temptation takes hold of him and he cannot
resist it. They lead him to play and--betting--and he loses money,--and
then comes wine." Dolly's voice fell. "I have been trying and trying to
get him back; sometimes I almost thought I had done it; but the
temptation gets hold of him again, and then everything goes. And so, I
cannot be sure," Dolly went on, as Mr. Shubrick remained silent, "what
he will do about going home. Once he would have done it for me; but I
do not know what he will do now. I cannot tell. And if there is a hope
for him, it is in me. I have not been able to do much, yet; but if I
cannot, no one can. Unless you, perhaps; but you cannot be with him.
And you see, Mr. Shubrick, that even if I can be of no use to him, I
could not leave mother all alone. I could not. I am glad you know it
all now; but"----
Dolly could say nothing more. In sorrow and shame and agitation of
spirits, she broke down and sobbed.
Her lover was very still; but though he spoke not a word, Dolly was
feeling all the while the new guardianship she had come into; what
strong love and what resolute care it was; feeling it the more because
Mr. Shubrick was so quiet about it. It was new to Dolly; it was very
delicious; ah, and what if she were but learning that now, to do
without it for ever after! Her tears had more sources than one;
nevertheless, as soon as she could manage it, Dolly mastered her
feelings and checked down the expression of them; lifted her head and
wiped her eyes, as if she had done now with tears for the term of her
natural life. Even forced a smile, as she said--
"Please, Mr. Shubrick, let me go,--you must be tired of me."
Which Dolly, to be sure, had no reason to think, and had still less
reason a minute after; being obliged to learn, somewhat to her
astonishment, that there was also a difference in kisses as well as in
some other things. Dolly was exceedingly filled with confusion.
"I--didn't--give you leave!" she managed to say, abashed as she was.
"No," said Sandie, laughing. "And yet I think you did, Dolly. I am glad
to see your dimples again! Come here and sit down. I think I see the
way out of our difficulties."
"You have been quick in finding it," said Dolly, as he placed her on
the bank.
"Habit," said Sandie. "Sailors _must_ see their way and make their
decisions quickly, if at all. At least, that is oftentimes the case.
This is one of the cases."
"Can you depend on decisions formed so suddenly?"--Dolly was driven by
some unaccountable instinct of shyness to lead off from the subject in
hand, nearly as it concerned her. And besides, she was too flushed and
abashed to deal coolly with any subject.
"_Must_ depend on them," said Sandie, laughing a little at her pretty
confusion. "As I told you, there is often no other to be had. And a
sailor cannot afford to change his course; he must see to it that he is
right at first. Vacillation would be almost worse than anything."
"At that rate, sailors must get a very downright way with them."
"Perhaps. Are you afraid of it?"
"No," said Dolly demurely. "Are you a good sailor?"
Mr. Shubrick laughed out "Do you doubt it?"
"No, not at all," said Dolly, laughing a little herself. "Only you can
do so many things--drawing, and speaking so many languages,--I wanted
to know if you were good at that too."
"That is one of the necessities of my position, Dolly. A man who cannot
sail a ship had better not try to command her."
"I wish you would tell me one thing," said Dolly wistfully.
"I will tell you anything."
"I wish you would tell me how you got your promotion. When I saw you
first, you were a midshipman on board the 'Achilles.' Christina told me
you had distinguished yourself in the war. How was it?"
Mr. Shubrick gave her a glance of surprise at first, at this very
irrelevant propounding of questions; then a gleam came out of his blue
eyes, which were not in the least like Mr. St. Leger's blue eyes; but
he answered quite gravely.
"You have a right to know, if anybody in the world has; and yet I
cannot tell you, Dolly. I did nothing more than hundreds of others;
nothing but my duty. Only it happens, that if a man is always doing his
duty, now and then there comes a time that draws attention to him, and
brings what he does into prominence; and he gets advancement perhaps;
but it does not follow that he has done any more than hundreds of
others would have done."
"Are there so many men that are 'always doing their duty'?"
"I hope so. I believe so. In naval affairs."
"You have not told me what was the occasion that brought your doings
into prominence?"
He glanced at her with a flash in his eyes again.
"Is that pressing just now?"
"Isn't now a good time?" said Dolly, smiling.
"No, for my head is full of something else. I can't tell you how I came
to be promoted first. After I was raised to a lieutenancy, I got
special credit for disciplining the crew."
"Disciplining?" said Dolly.
"Exercising them in gunnery practice."
"Oh!--I remember how you told me about that in the gun deck of the
'Achilles.'"
"This was on board another ship. Her guns were well served upon an
occasion that followed, and honourable mention was made of my services
as having led to that result. Now shall I go on?"
"If you have any more to tell."
"I am going no further on that tack. You must come about."
"I suppose," said Dolly quaintly, "I must if you must."
"We were getting too far to leeward. We must come up into the wind a
little more, Dolly, and face our difficulties. I think I have found the
way out of them. As I understand you, it is quite a matter of
uncertainty when, or if ever, Mr. Copley can be induced to leave
England."
"Quite uncertain. Even if he promised to-day that he would go next
week, I could not be sure but he would change his mind before the day
came."
"And so long as he and your mother are here, they need you. Do you see,
Dolly, what prospect that opens to us?"
"Yes."
"The only thing to do, is to give me a right to speak in the matter."
"You have a right to speak," said Dolly. "Only"----
"I have no right to speak with authority. You must give me the
authority."
"How?" said Dolly shyly.
"There is but one way. Don't you see, if I have the right to say where
you shall be, the rest all follows?"
"How can you?" said Dolly.
He took her hand gently. "You must marry me before I go," said he. "It
is the only way, Dolly. Don't be startled; you shall have all the time
you want to get accustomed to the thought. I am not going to hurry you.
The only difference is, that instead of being married the day I get to
you in America, we will have the ceremony performed here, the day I
leave you. Not till then, Dolly. But then, of course, you must go to
America to meet me; and if I know anything of Mr. and Mrs. Copley,
where you must be, they will choose to be also. I think I can get
another week or two of leave, so that it will not seem so very sudden."
Dolly had flushed and paled a little. She sat looking on the ground in
silence. Mr. Shubrick let her have a while to herself, and then asked
her what she thought of his plan?
"I don't know," said Dolly faintly. "I mean," she added,--"perhaps it
is the best way. I don't know but it is the only way. I don't believe
mother will like it."
"We will talk her over," said the young officer joyfully. "You said
_she_ wishes to go home?"
"Oh yes. And I think she will come over to our side, when she knows the
reasons."
Sandie bent down and reverently kissed the hand he held.
"Then"---- said Dolly, on whose cheek the flushes were coming and
going,--but she did not finish her sentence.
"Then, what?"
"I was thinking to ask, how soon or when you expect your ship to go
home?"
"I do not know certainly. Probably I shall be ordered home before
Christmas; but it may not be till January."
Dolly was silent again.
"If our plan is carried out, _you_ will go sooner, will you not?"
"Oh, immediately. As soon as possible."
"In that case you will be there before I shall. I told you, I have
nobody very nearly belonging to me; but there is a cousin--a sort of
cousin--living in the place; Mrs. Armitage; I will send her word to
open the house and get it in some sort of order for us."
Both were silent again for a space, and I think not only one was happy.
For Dolly knew the plan would work. But she was struggling besides with
a thought which she wanted, and did not want, to speak. It must come
out! or Dolly would not have been Dolly.
"Mr. Shubrick"---- she began.
"What?" said he eagerly; for Dolly's tone showed that there was a good
deal behind it.
"Would you--I was thinking"----
"About what?"
"The house. Would you--trust _me?_ I mean, of course, if we are there
before you?"
A flood of colour rushed over Dolly's face.
"Trust you?" he said with a bright light in his eyes. "What am I going
to do all my life? Trust you to put your own house in order? I cannot
think of anything I should like quite so well. What a delightful
thought, Dolly!"
"I should like it," said Dolly shyly.
"Then, instead of writing to Mrs. Armitage to open the house, I will
send her an order to deliver the key to Mrs. Shubrick."
He liked to watch how the colour flitted on her face, and the lines of
brow and lip varied; how she fluttered like a caught bird, and yet a
bird that did not want to fly away. Dolly was frank enough; there was
nothing affected, or often even conscious, about this shy play; it was
the purest nature in sweetest manifestation. Shyness was something
Dolly had never been guilty of with anybody but Mr. Shubrick; it was an
involuntary tribute she constantly paid to him.