SWEET, POOR DOLLY.
“Trender,” said Duke, unexpectedly after a silence the next morning,
as we loitered over breakfast, “pay attention to one thing. I don’t
ask you for a fragment of your past history and don’t want to hear
anything about it. You’ll say, as yet you haven’t offered me your
confidence, and quite right, too, on the top of our short
acquaintance. But don’t ever offer it to me, you understand? Our
friendship starts from sunrise, morning by morning, and lasts the day.
I don’t mean it shall be the less true for that; I have a theory,
that’s all.”
“What is it, Straw?”
“Sufficient for the day, it’s called. Providence has elected to give
us, not one existence, but so many or few, each linked to the next by
an insensibility and intercalated as a whole between appropriate
limits.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Wait a bit. Each of these existences has its birth and death, and
should be judged apart from the others; each is pronounced upon in
succession by one’s familiar spirit and its minutes pigeon-holed and
docketed above there. When the chain of evidence, for or against, is
complete, up these links are gathered in a heap and weighed in both
sides of the balance.”
“It sounds more plausible than it is, I think,” said I, with frank
discourtesy. “The acts of one day may influence those of the next--or
interminably.”
“That’s your lookout; but they needn’t necessarily. With each new
birth comes a new capacity for looking at things in their right
proportions.”
“How far do you push your theory?”
“As far as you like. I’d have, all the world over, a daily revival of
systems.”
“Government--law?”
“Certainly. Of everything.”
“Then justice, injustice, vindictiveness, must all revive, too.”
“No. They’re recalled; they don’t revive.”
“But must a criminal, for instance, be allowed to escape because they
have failed to catch him the day he did the deed?”
“That’s exactly it. It makes no difference. He couldn’t atone here for
an act committed by him during another existence. But that particular
minute goes pretty red into its pigeon-hole, you may be sure.”
“Oh, it’s wild nonsense,” I laughed. “You can’t possibly be
consistent.”
“Can’t I? Look here, you are my friend yesterday, and to-day, and
always, I hope. I judge you daily on your merits, yet, for all I know,
you may have committed murder in one of your past existences?”
The blood went back upon my heart. Then a great longing awoke in me to
tell all to this self-reliant soul and gain comfort of my sorrow. But
where was the good in the broad face of his theory?
“Well,” I said, with a sigh, “I’ve done things at least I bitterly
repent of.”
“That’s the conventional way of looking at it. Repentance in this
won’t avail a former existence. Past days of mine have had their
troubles, no doubt, but this day I have before me unclouded and to do
what I like with.”
“Well, what shall we do with it?” said I. “I hand it over to you to
make it a happiness for me. I dare say we shall find plenty of sorrows
between sunrise and evening to give it a melancholy charm.”
“Rubbish!” cried my friend. “Cant, cant, cant, ever to suppose that
sorrow is necessary to happiness! We mortals, I tell you, have an
infinite capacity for delight; given health, spiritual and bodily, we
could dance in the sunbeams for eternity and never reach a surfeit of
pleasure.”
“Duke,” said I--“may I call you Duke?”
“Of course.”
“It puzzles me where you got--I don’t mean offense--only I can’t help
wondering----”
“How I came to have original thoughts and a grammatical manner of
speech? Look here----” he held up his stained fingers--“aren’t these
the hands of a man of letters?”
“And a man of action,” I said, with a laugh. “But----”
“It’s no use, Renny. I can’t look further back than this morning.”
“You can recall, you know. You don’t deny each existence that
capacity?”
“Perhaps I could; but to what advantage? To shovel up a whole
graveyard of sleeping remembrances to find the seed of one dead nettle
that thrusts its head through? No, thank you. Besides, if it comes to
that, I might put the same question to you.”
“Oh, I can easily answer it. I get all my way of speaking from my
father first, and, secondly, because I love books.”
He looked at me oddly.
“You’re a modest chicken,” he said. “But I should like to meet your
father.”
I could not echo his wish.
“Still,” he went on, “I will tell you, there was a little inexperience
of mankind in your wonder. I think--I don’t refer to myself, of
course--that no man in the world is more interesting to talk with than
the skilled mechanic who has an individuality and a power of
expressing it in words. He is necessarily a man of cultivation, and an
‘h’ more or less in his vocabulary is purely an accident of his
surroundings.”
At this moment Mr. Cringle tapped at the door and walked into the
room.
“I hope I see you ro-bust, gentlemen? And how do you like this village
of ours, Mr. Trender?”
“It’s dirty after Winton,” said I.
“Ah,” he said, condescendingly; “the centers of such enormous forces
must naturally rise some dust. It’s a proud thing, sir, to contribit
one’s peck to the total. I feel it in my little corner here.”
“Why,” said I, “you surprise me, Mr. Cringle. I’m only an ignorant
country lad, of course; but it seems to me you are quite a remarkable
figure.”
He gave an extra twist to his mustache and sniggered comfortably.
“Well,” he said, “it is not for me to contradict you--eh, Mr. Straw?”
“Certainly not,” said Duke; “why, you are famous for your deeds.”
“Very good, Mr. Straw, and perhaps, as you kindly mean it in the
double sense. You mightn’t think it, but it wants some knowledge of
the law’s mazes to turn a rough draft into a hold-fast agreement or
indenture.”
“And you can do that?”
“I flatter myself, Mr. Trender, that it’ll want a microscoptic eye to
find flaws in my phraseology.”
He thrust back his head and expanded his chest.
“But I’m overlooking my errand,” said he. “The young lady, as has
called before, Mr. Straw, rung me down just now for a message to you.”
“Oh, what was it?”
“She wanted to know if you was game for a walk and she’d be waiting
under the market till half after nine.”
“Very well,” and Mr. Cringle took himself off.
“It’s Dolly Mellison,” said Duke to me. “We often go for a Sunday
tramp together.”
“Well, don’t stop for me, if you want to go.”
“We’ll both go--why not?”
“Oh, not for anything. Fancy my intruding myself on her.”
“I’ll answer she’ll not object,” said my companion, and again I was
half conscious of something unusual in his tone.
“But you might,” said I.
“Not a bit of it. Why should I? We’re not betrothed, you know.”
He answered with a laugh, and pointed, or seemed to point at his
twisted lower limbs. “You wouldn’t believe me, would you, if I told
you she expects you?” he added.
“Oh, very well,” said I, “if you put it in that way.”
We found Dolly standing under the piazza of Covent Garden market. She
made no movement toward us until we were close upon her, and then she
greeted us with a shy wriggle and a little blush. She was very
daintily dressed, with a fur tippet about her throat, and looked as
pretty as a young Hebe.
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t suppose you would come, too, Mr. Trender.”
“There!” I cried to Duke, with perfect good nature. “I told you I
should be in the way.”
“Nonsense!” he said. “Miss Mellison didn’t mean it like that, did you,
Dolly?”
“Didn’t I? You see how he answers for me, Mr. Trender?” And she turned
half from him with a rosy pout.
“Come!” I cried gayly. “I’ll risk it. I do not believe you’ve the
heart to be cruel, Miss Mellison.”
“Thank you for the surname, and also for telling me I’m heartless.”
“You can’t be that as long as mine goes a-begging,” I said,
impudently.
She peeped up at me roguishly from under her long lashes and shook her
head.
“Come,” said Duke, impatiently; “what are we going to do? Don’t let’s
stand chattering here all day.”
“I’ll tell you,” I cried in a sudden reckless flush of extravagance.
“Aren’t there pretty places on the Thames one can get to from here?”
“Oh, plenty,” said Duke, dryly, “if one goes by train.”
“Then let’s go and make a pleasant water party of it.”
He shook his head with a set of the lips.
“Those are rare treats,” he said. “Our sort can’t afford such jinks
except after a deal of saving.”
“I don’t want you to,” said I. “It’s my business and you’re to come as
my guests.”
“Oh, nonsense,” he said, sharply; “we can’t do that.”
“Please speak for yourself, Mr. Straw,” said Dolly. I had noticed her
eyes shine at the mere prospect. “If Mr. Trender is so kind as to
offer, and can afford it, I’m sure, I, for one, don’t intend to
disappoint him.”
“Can he afford it?” said Duke, doggedly.
“I shouldn’t propose it if I couldn’t,” said I, very much on the high
horse.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Dolly. “I wonder at you, Mr. Straw, for
being so insulting.”
“Very well,” said Duke, “I meant it for the best; but let’s be off.
I’m for a shallop in Arcady, with Pleasure in a pork-pie hat (it’s
very pretty, Dolly) at the helm.”
We went down to Richmond by train, and Duke--good fellow that he
was--made a merry company of us. If he felt any soreness over his
rebuff he hid it out of sight most effectually.
It was early in November--a beautiful, sparkling morning, and the
river bore a fairish sprinkling of pleasure craft on its silvery
stretches.
We were neither of us great oarsmen and at first made but poor way,
owing to a tendency Duke of the iron sinews showed to pulling me
completely round. But presently we got into a more presentable swing
and fore-reached even upon a skiff or two whose occupants had treated
us to some good-humored chaff upon our starting.
“Woa!” cried Duke. “This pulling is harder than pulling proofs, Renny.
Let’s stop by the bank and rest a bit.”
We ran the boat’s nose aground, fastened her painter to a stump and
settled down for a talk.
“Enjoying yourself, Dolly?” asked Duke, mopping his forehead.
“Yes, of course--thanks to Mr. Trender.”
“This is a fine variety on our walks, isn’t it?”
“Oh, they’re jolly enough when you’re in a good temper.”
“Am I not always?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you say things I don’t understand.”
“See there, Renny,” cried Duke. “If I express myself badly she calls
me cross.”
“It isn’t that,” said the girl. “I know I’m ignorant and you’re
clever, but you seem to read me and then say things out of yourself
that have nothing to do with me--just as if I was a book and you
a--what do they call it?--cricket or something.”
We both laughed aloud.
“Oh, Dolly,” said Duke, “what pretty imp taught you satire? Are you a
book to Mr. Trender?”
“Oh, no! He talks what I can understand.”
“Better and better! But take comfort, Renny; you’re downed in sweet
company.”
“Hush,” said Dolly; “it’s Sunday.”
She dabbled her slender hand in the water and drew it out quickly.
“Oh,” she cried, “it’s cold. I hope we shan’t be upset. Can you swim,
Mr. Trender?”
“Yes, like a duck.”
“That’s a comfort, if I fall in. Mr. Straw, here, can’t.”
“I’m built top-heavy,” said Duke, “but I’d try to save you, Dolly.”
The girl’s eyes shone with a momentary remorseful pity.
“I know you would,” she said, softly; “you aren’t one to think about
yourself, Duke. How I wish I could swim! I don’t believe there can be
anything in the world like getting that medal they give you for saving
people from drowning. Have you ever saved any one, Mr. Trender?”
Oh, gentle hand to deal so cruel a stroke! For a moment my smoldering
sense of guilt flamed up blood-red.
“No, no,” I said, with a forced laugh. “I’m not like Duke. I do think
of myself. I’m afraid.”
We lapsed into silence, out of which came Dolly’s voice presently,
murmuring a queer little doggerel song that seemed apt to her childish
nature:
“‘Who owns that house on yonder hill?’
Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.
‘It’s my father’s and mine,’
Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.
“‘Will you let me in?’
Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.
‘Oh, no; not a step,’
Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.
“‘Then I wish you deaf and dumb,’
Said the false black knight to the pretty little child on the road.
‘And I wish you the same, with a blister on your tongue!’
Said the pretty little child scarce seven years old.”
“Where on earth did you learn that?” said Duke, with a laugh, as Dolly
ceased, her eyes dreaming out upon the shining river.
“I don’t know. Mother used to sing it, I think, when I was a little
girl.”
“We must question her,” said I.
“Mother’s dead,” said Dolly.
I could have bitten out my tongue.
Duke again exerted himself to put matters on a comfortable footing.
“Dolly and I are both orphans,” said he; “babes in old Ripley’s wood.”
“And I am the remorseless ruffian,” I broke in.
“All right. You didn’t know, of course. Look at that girl on the bank,
with the crinoline; she might be riding a hobby-horse.”
“Ain’t she a beauty?” said Dolly, enviously. Her own subscribing to
the outrageous fashion then fortunately in its decay was limited to
her slender means and the necessities of her work.
“You don’t mean to say you admire her?” said I.
“Don’t I, Mr. Trender? Just as she’d admire me if I was dressed like
that.”
“Heaven forbid, Dolly. I won’t call you Dolly if you call me Mr.
Trender.”
“Won’t you, now? Upon my word, you’ve got the impudence of twenty.”
“Look here,” said Duke, “I’m for paddling on. I don’t know your views
as to dinner, Mr. Renalt, but mine are getting pretty vociferous.”
“My idea is to pull on till we sight a likely place, Mr. Duke Straw.”
We rowed up past Kingston, a cockney town we all fought shy of, and on
by grassy reaches as far as Hampton bridge, where we disembarked. Here
was a pleasant water-side inn, with a lawn sloping down to the
embankment, and, sitting in its long coffee-room, we made a hearty
dinner and a merry company. Dolly was flushed and happy as a young
naiad when we returned to our boat, and she rippled with laughter and
sweetness.