His hand did not move to receive the note.
"I have been keeping it for this time," he answered. "And now, I do not want to keep it any longer, Miss Dolly, unless--unless I may have you too."
Dolly looked at him now with a face of startled inquiry and uneasiness.
Whether she were more startled or incredulous of what she heard, it would be impossible to say. The expression in her eyes grew to be almost terror. But Mr. Shubrick smiled a little as he met them.
"I kept the note, for I always knew, from that time, that I should marry that little girl, if ever I could find her,--and if she would let me."
Dolly's face was fairly blanched. "But--you belong to somebody else,"
she said.
"No," said he,--"I beg your pardon. I belong to nobody in the world, but myself. And you."
"Christina told me"----
"She told you true," said Mr. Shubrick quite composedly. "There was a connection subsisting between us, which, while it lasted, bound us to each other. It happened, as such things happen; years ago we were thrown into each other's company, in the country, when I was home on leave. My home was near hers; we saw a great deal of each other; and fancied that we liked each other more than the fact was, or rather in a different way. So we were engaged; on my part it was one of those boyish engagements which boys frequently form before they know their own minds, or what they want. On the other side you can see how it was from the circumstances of the case. Christina did not care enough about me to want to be married; she always put it off; and I was not deeply enough concerned to find the delay very hard to bear. And then, when I saw you in Rome that Christmas time, I knew immediately that if ever in the world I married anybody, it would be the lady that wore that chain."
"But Christina?" said Dolly, still with a face of terrified trouble.
Was then Mr. Shubrick a traitor, false to his engagements, deserting a person to whom, whether willingly or not, he was every way bound? He did not look like a man conscious of dishonourable dealing, of any sort; and he answered in a voice that was both calm and unconcerned.
"Christina and I are good friends, but not engaged friends any more.
Will you read that?"
He handed Dolly another letter as he spoke, and Dolly, bewildered, opened it.
"Ischl, _May_ 6, 18--.
"DEAR SANDIE,--"You are quite ridiculous to want me to write this letter, for anybody that knows you, knows that whatever you say is the truth, absolutely unmixed and unvarnished. Your word is enough for any statement of facts, without mine to help it. However, since you will have it so, here I am writing.
"But really it is very awkward. What do you wish me to say, and how shall I say it? You want a testimony, I suppose. Well, then, this is to certify, that you and I are the best friends in the world, and mean to remain so, in spite of the fact that we once meant to be more than friends, and have found out that we made a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith declare you free,--that is what you want me to say, is it not?--free with all the honours, and with the full preservation of my regards and high consideration. Indeed, I do not believe I ever shall hold anybody else in _quite_ such high consideration; but perhaps that very fact made me unfit to be anything but your friend. I am afraid you are too good for me, in stern earnest; but I have a notion that will be no disadvantage to you in certain other sweet eyes that I know; the goodness, I mean, not anything else.
"We are here, at this loveliest of lovely places; but we have got enough of it, and are going to spend some weeks in the Tyrol. I suppose I know where to imagine _you_, at least part of the summer. And you will know where to imagine me next winter, when I tell you that in the fall the probability is that I shall become Mrs. St. Leger. You may tell Dolly. Didn't I remark to her once that she and I had better effect an exchange? Funny, wasn't it? However, for the present I am, as I have long been, your very sincere friend, CHRISTINA THAYER."
Dolly read the letter and stared at it, and finally returned it without raising her eyes. And then she sat looking straight before her, while her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St.
Leger had talked to her on this very same subject, she had been able to answer him with scarcely a rise of colour in her cheeks; with a calm and cool exercise of her reasoning powers, which left her fully mistress of the situation and of herself. She had not been disturbed then, she had not been excited. What was the matter now? For Dolly was overtaken by an invincible fit of shyness, such as never had visited her in all her life. I do not think now she knew that she was blushing; according to her custom, she was not self-conscious; what she was conscious of, intensely, was Mr. Shubrick's presence, and an overwhelming sense of his identity with the midshipman of the "Achilles." What _that_ had to do with Dolly's shyness, it might be hard to tell; but her sweet face flushed till brow and neck caught the tinge, and the eyelids fell over the eyes, and Dolly for the moment was mistress of nothing. Mr. Shubrick looking at her, and seeing those lovely flushes and her absolute gravity and silence, was in doubt what it might mean. He thought that perhaps nobody had ever spoken to her on such a subject before; yet Dolly was no silly girl, to be overcome by the mere strangeness of his words. Did her silence and gravity augur ill for him? or well? And then, without being in the least a coxcomb, it occurred to him that her excessive blushing told on the hopeful side of the account. He waited. He saw she was as shy as a just caught bird; was she caught? He would not make so much as a movement to startle her further. He waited, with something at his heart which made it easier every moment for him to wait. But in the nature of the case, waiting has its limits.
"What are you going to do about it?" he inquired at length, in a very gentle manner. "Give me my note back again, with the conditions?"
Dolly did nothing of the kind. She held the note, it is true, and looked at it, but without making any movement to restore it to its owner. So decided an action did not seem at the moment possible to her.
She looked at the little note, with the prettiest sort of embarrassment, and presently rose to her feet. "I am sure it is time to have supper," she said, "and they cannot do anything at home till I come."
Mr. Shubrick rose too and followed Dolly, who set off unceremoniously down the bank towards the bridge. He followed her, half smiling, and wholly impatient. Yet though a stride or two would have brought him alongside of her, he would not make them. He kept behind, and allowed her to trip on before him, which she did with a light, hasty foot, until they neared the little gate of the courtyard belonging to the house. Then he stepped forward and held the gate open for her to enter, not saying a word. Dolly passed him with the loveliest shy down-casting of her eyelids, and went on straight into the house. He saw the bird was fluttering yet, but he thought he was sure of her.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
UNDER THE SAME OAK.
Dolly threw off her hat and went down to the kitchen premises. Mr.
Shubrick repaired to the sick-room and relieved Mrs. Copley. That lady, descending to the lower part of the house, found Dolly very busy with the supper-table, and apparently much flushed with the hot weather.
"Your father's getting well!" she said with a sigh.
"That's good news, I am sure, mother."
"Yes,--it's good news," Mrs. Copley repeated doubtfully; "but it seems as if everything good in this world had a bad side to it."
Dolly stood still. "What's the matter?" she said.
"Oh, he's so uneasy. As restless end fidgetty as a fish out of water.
He is contented with nothing except when Mr. Shubrick is near him; he behaves quietly then, at least, however he feels. I believe it takes a man to manage a man. Though I never saw a man before that could manage your father. _He_ laughs at it, and says it is the habit of giving orders."
"Who laughs at it?"
"Mr. Shubrick, to be sure. You don't suppose your father owns to minding orders? But he does mind, for all that. What will become of us when that young man goes away?"
"Why, mother?"
"My patience, Dolly! what have you done to heat yourself so! Your face is all flushed. Do keep away from the fire, or you'll certainly spoil your complexion. You're all flushed up, child."
"But father,--what about father?"
"Oh, he's just getting ready to take his own head, as soon as Mr.
Shubrick slips the bridle off. He's talking of going up to town already; and he will go, I know, as soon as he _can_ go; and then, Dolly, then--I don't know what will become of us!"
Mrs. Copley put her hands over her face, and the last words were spoken with such an accent of forlorn despair, that Dolly saw her mother must have found out or divined much that she had tried to keep from her. She hesitated with her answer. Somehow, the despair and the forlornness had gone out of Dolly's heart.
"I hope--I think--there will be some help, mother."
"Where is it to come from?" said Mrs. Copley sharply. "We are as alone as we can be. We might as well be on a desert island. Now you have sent off Mr. St. Leger--oh, how obstinate children are! and how little they know what is for their good!"
This subject was threadbare. Dolly let it drop. It may be said she did that with every subject that was started that evening. Mr. Shubrick at supper made brave efforts to keep the talk a going; but it would not go. Dolly said nothing; and Mrs. Copley in the best of times was never much help in a conversation. Just now she had rather a preoccupied manner; and I am by no means certain that, with the superhuman keenness of intuition possessed by mothers, she had not begun to discern a subtle danger in the air. The pressure of one fear being removed, there was leisure for any other to come up. However, Mr. Shubrick concerned himself only about Dolly's silence, and watched her to find out what it meant. She attended to all her duties, even to taking care of him, which to be sure was one of her duties; but she never looked at him.
The same veil of shy grace which had fallen upon her in the wood, was around her still, and tantalised him.
Nor did he get another chance to speak to her alone through the next two days that passed; carefully as he sought for it. Dolly was not to be found or met with, unless sitting at the table behind her tea-urn and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it.
She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity.
She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as he did narrowly and constantly, he could perceive now and then a slight break in the gravity of her looks, which made his heart bound with a great thrill. It was not so much a smile as a light upon her lips; a play of them; which he persuaded himself was not unhappy. The loveliness of the whole manifestation of Dolly during those two days, went a good way towards keeping him quiet; but naturally it worked two ways. And human patience has limits.
The second day, Mr. Shubrick's had given out. He came in from his walk to the village, bringing Mrs. Copley something she had commissioned him to get from thence; and found both ladies sitting at a late dinner. And not the young officer's eyes alone marked the sudden flush which rose in Dolly's cheeks when he appeared, and the lowered eyelids as he stood opposite her.
"We began to review the park, the other day," he said, eyeing her steadily. "Can we have another walk in it this afternoon, Miss Dolly?
The first was so pleasant."
"I shouldn't think you'd go pleasuring just now, Dolly, when your father wants you," said Mrs. Copley. "You have seen hardly anything of him lately. I should think you would go and sit with him this afternoon. I know he would like it."
Whether this arrangement was agreeable to the present parties concerned, or either of them, did not appear. Of course the most decorous acquiescence was all that came to light. A little later, Mr.