'Please don't,' said Dolly, pained; then she added, 'I have been so unhappy, that I must not ever pretend to feel what I am not feeling.
Perhaps you may think it strange, I am happy, not unhappy, to-day. You are all so kind; everything is so kind. I hope they too will have a great deal of happiness in their lives. Is not Jonah calling us?' Jonah was waiting for them at the gate of the house, and waving a long, shadowy arm, that seemed to reach across the road.
'Happiness,' said Frank, lingering, and bitter still, and looking round.
'This is the sort of thing people mean, I suppose; green pastures and still waters, and if one can be satisfied with grass, so much the better for oneself; one may enjoy all the things one didn't particularly want--and watch another man win the prize; another perhaps who doesn't even----' Frank stopped short--what was he saying? he might be giving pain, and he hated himself and his ill humour, jarring and jangling in the peaceful serenity.
But Dolly finished the sentence calmly enough. 'Who doesn't care for it; perhaps the prize isn't worth having,' she said very slowly. She did not think of herself until she had spoken; then suddenly her heart began to beat, and she blushed crimson; for her eyes met his, and his looks spoke plainly enough--so plainly, that Dolly's grey orbs fell beneath that fixed dreamy gaze. It seemed to look through her heart. Could he read all that she was thinking? Ah! he might read her heart, for she was only thinking as she stood there of all her friend's long fidelity and steady friendship. What had she ever done to deserve it all? And her heart seemed to answer her thought with a strange silent rapture. Now she might own to herself the blessing of his unfailing friendship; it was no longer a wrong to any human being. Even if she were never anything more to him, she might openly and gratefully accept his help and his interest; acknowledge the blessing, the new life it had brought her. She had struggled so long to keep the feeling hidden away, it was an unspeakable relief to have nothing more to conceal from herself nor from others--nothing more. She knew at last that she loved him, and she was not ashamed. What a journey she had travelled since they had stood by the spring that autumn day, not a year ago; what terrible countries she had visited, and had it come to this once more? Might she love now in happiness as well as in sorrow? Was she not happy standing in this golden hollow, with the person whom she loved best in all the world? No other human being was in sight, nothing but the old shady village, floating into overflowing green, the sleepy haycocks, the empty barn, the heaping ivy on the wall, the sunlight slanting upon the silence. She did not mean to speak, but Frank, in this utter silence, heard her secret thought at last. 'Don't you know?' said Dorothea. 'Oh! Frank, don't you know?' Did she speak the words or look them? He could scarcely tell, only with unutterable tenderness and rapture in his heart he knew that she was his, that life is kind, that true hearts do come together, that one moment of such happiness and completeness lights up a whole night's wild chaos, and reveals the sweetness of a dawning world.
Jonah, who had gone on with Mrs. Fane, came to the door to call them again, but they did not see him, and he went back into the house, where Mrs. Fane and John Morgan were hard at work upon an inventory.
'Here, let me help you,' said Jonah; 'I'm not too clumsy to count teacups.' Little Charlotte made herself very useful by carrying a plate from one chair to another. She finally let it drop, and would have cried when it broke, if the good-natured young captain had not immediately given her the ink to hold. This mark of confidence filled her with pride, and dried her tears. 'Sall I 'old it up very high?' she said.
'Can you draw a ziant? I can, wiss your pen.'
It took them nearly an hour to get through their task, and by this time the tea was ready in the library, the old-fashioned urn hissing and steaming, and Jonah and John Morgan were preparing to set out on their journey home. Frank went with them, and then when he was gone Dolly told her friend her story, and the two sat talking until late into the starlight.
Two days afterwards an announcement appeared in _The Times_, and the world learnt that Robert Henley and Miss Rhoda Parnell had been married at the British Embassy at Paris by special licence by the Bishop of Oronoco. The next news was that of Dolly's marriage to Frank Raban.
Pebblesthwaite was very much excited. Lady Henley's indignation was boundless at first, but was happily diverted by the news of her favourite daughter Norah's engagement to Mr. Jack Redmayne.
James Brand's blue eyes twinkled a kindly sympathy, when the letter came announcing Frank's happiness. He came up to be present at the wedding.
It was in the little city church with its smoke-stained windows. John Morgan's voice failed as he read the opening words and looked down at the bent heads of the two who had met at last hand-in-hand. 'In perfect, love and peace,' he said; and, as he said it, he felt that the words were no vain prayers.
He had no fear for them, nor had they fear for each other. Some one standing in the drizzle of the street outside saw them drive off with calm and happy faces. It was Robert Henley, who was passing through London with his wife. Philippa, who saw him, kissed her hand and would have stopped him, but he walked on without looking back. He had been to Mr. Tapeall's that morning, after a painful explanation with Rhoda--Rhoda, who was moodily sitting at the window of her room in the noisy hotel, and going over the wretched details of that morning's talk.
It was true that she had sold Church House, tempted by the builder's liberal offer, and wanting money to clear the many extravagances of her Paris life; it was true that she had concealed the lawyer's letter from Robert in which she learnt that her title to the property was about to be disputed. She had hurried on their wedding, she had won the prize for which her foolish soul had longed; it was not love so much as the pride of life and of gratified vanity. These things had dazzled her, for these things this foolish little creature had sacrificed her all. Dolly might have been happy in time, even married to Robert, but for Rhoda what chance was there? Would her French kid gloves put out their primrose fingers to help her in her lonely hours? would her smart bonnets crown her home with peace and the content of a loving spirit? She lived long enough to find out something of the truth, and to come to Dolly one day to help her in her sorest need. This was long after, when Dolly had long been living at Ravensrick, when her children were playing round about her, and the sunshine of her later life had warmed and brightened the sadness of her youth. What more shall I say of my heroine? That sweet and generous soul, ripening by degrees, slow and credulous, not embittered by the petty pains of life, faithful and tender and vibrating to many tones, is no uncommon type. Her name is one that I gave her long ago, but her real names are many, and are those of the friends whom we love.
Church House was never rebuilt. At Dolly's wish a row of model lodgings, with iron balconies, patent boilers, ventilators, and clothes hanging out to dry on every floor, have been erected on the site of the place where Lady Sarah lived, and so the kind woman's dreams and helpful schemes have come true.
'We could not put back the old house,' said Dolly, 'and we thought this would be the next best thing to do.' The rooms are let at a somewhat cheaper rate than the crowded lodging-houses round about. People, as a rule, dislike the periodical whitewashing, and are fond of stuffing up the ventilators, but otherwise they are very well satisfied.
Dolly did not receive many wedding presents. Some time after her marriage, Rhoda sent Dolly a diamond cross; it was that one that Frank Raban had given her many years before. She was abroad at the time, and for many years neither Rhoda nor Dolly met again. Mrs. Palmer used to write home accounts of Rhoda's beauty and fashion from Ems, and other watering-places where she used to spend her summers.
The Admiral, who was still abroad, made it an especial point, so Philippa declared, that she should spend her summers on the Continent.
One day Mrs. Raban was turning out some papers in a drawer in her husband's writing-table, when she came upon a packet that she thought must belong to herself. They were written in a familiar writing that she knew at once, for it was Henley's. They were not addressed, and Dolly could not at first imagine how these letters had come there, nor when she had received them. As she looked she was still more bewildered. They were letters not unlike some that she had received, and yet they had entirely passed from her mind; presently turning over a page she read, not her own name on the address, but that of Emma Penfold, and a sentence--'It is best for your welfare that we should not meet again,'
wrote Henley. 'I am not a marrying man myself; circumstances render it impossible. May you be as happy in your new life. You will have an excellent husband, and one who....'
'What have you got there?' said Frank, who had come in.
'Oh, Frank, don't ask me,' said Dolly, hastily going to the fire that was burning in the grate and flinging the packet into the flames; then she ran up to him, and clung hold of his arm for a minute. She could not speak.
Frank looked at the burning packet--at the open drawers--and then he understood it all. 'I thought I had burnt those letters long ago,' he said; and stooping he took his wife's hand in his and kissed it.
As I write the snow lies thick upon the ground outside, upon the branches of the trees, upon the lawns. Here, within, the fire leaps brightly in its iron cage; the children cluster round the chair by the chimney corner, where the mother sits reading their beloved fairy tales.
The hearth was empty once--the home was desolate; but time after time, day by day, we see the phoenix of home and of love springing from the dead ashes; hopes are fulfilled that seemed too sweet to dream of; love kindles and warms chilled hearts to life. Take courage, say the happy to those in sorrow and trouble; are there not many mansions even here?
seasons in their course; harvests in their season, thanks be to the merciful ordinance that metes out sorrow and peace, and longing and fulfilment, and rest after the storm.
Take courage, say the happy--the message of the sorrowful is harder to understand. The echoes come from afar, and reach beyond our ken. As the cry passes beyond us into the awful unknown, we feel that this is, perhaps, the voice in life that reaches beyond life itself. Not of harvests to come, not of peaceful home hearths do they speak in their sorrow. Their fires are out, their hearths are in ashes, but see, it was the sunlight that extinguished the flame.
THE WORKS OF MISS THACKERAY
1. OLD KENSINGTON.
2. THE VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF.
3. FIVE OLD FRIENDS AND A YOUNG PRINCE.
4. TO ESTHER; and other Sketches.
5. BLUEBEARD'S KEYS; and other Stories 6. THE STORY OF ELIZABETH; TWO HOURS; FROM AN ISLAND.
7. TOILERS AND SPINSTERS; and other Essays.
8. MISS ANGEL; FULHAM LAWN.
9. MISS WILLIAMSON'S DIVAGATIONS.
10. MRS. DYMOND.