Shubrick himself, being thus relieved from duty, quitted the house and strolled down to the bridge and over it into the park; and Dolly slowly went upstairs to her father's room. It was true, she had been there lately less than usual; but there had been a reason for that. Her conscience was not charged with any neglect.
Mr. Copley seemed sleepily inclined; and after a word or two exchanged with him Dolly began to go round the room, looking to see if anything needed her ordering hand. Truly she found nothing. Coming to the window, she paused a moment in idle wistfulness to see how the summer sunshine lay upon the oaks of the park. And standing there, she saw Mr.
Shubrick, slowly going over the bridge. She turned away and went on with her progress round the room.
"What are you about there, Dolly?" Mr. Copley called to her.
"Just seeing if anything wants my attention, father."
"Nothing does, I can tell you. The room is all right, and everything in it. I've been kept in order, since I have had a naval officer to attend upon me."
"Don't I keep things in order, father?"
"If you do, your mother don't. She thinks that anywhere is a place, and that one place is as good as another."
"Mother seems to think I have neglected you lately. Have you missed me?"
"Missed you! no. I have had care and company. Where did you pick up that young man, Dolly?"
"I, father? I didn't pick him up."
"How came he here, then? What brought him?"
"I don't know," said Dolly. "Would you like to have me read to you?"
"No, child. Shubrick reads to me and talks to me. He's capital company, though he's one of your blue sort."
"Father! He is not blue, nor am I. Do you think I am blue?"
"Sky blue," said her father. "He's navy blue. That's the difference."
"I do not understand the difference," said Dolly, half laughing.
"Never mind. What have you done with Mr. Shubrick?"
"I?" said Dolly, aghast.
"Yes. Where is he?"
"Oh!--I believe, mother sent him into the park."
"Sent him into the park? What for?"
"I do not mean that she sent him," said Dolly, correcting herself in some embarrassment; "I mean, that she sent me up here, and he went into the park."
"I wish he'd come back, then. I want him to finish reading to me that capital article on English and European politics."
"Can I finish it?"
"No, child. You don't understand anything about the subject. Shubrick does. I like to discuss things with him; he's got a clear head of his own; he's a capital talker. When is he going?"
"Going where, father?"
"Going away. He can't stay here for ever, reading politics and putting my room in order. How long is he going to stay?"
"I do not know."
"Well--when he goes I shall go! I shall not be able to hold out here. I shall go back to London. I can't live where there is not a man to speak to some time in the twenty-four hours. Besides, I can do nothing here.
I might as well be a cabbage, and a cabbage without a head to it."
"Are we cabbages?" asked Dolly at this. "Mother and I?"
"Cabbage roses, my dear; cabbage roses. Nothing worse than that."
"But even cabbage roses, father, want somebody to take care of them."
"I'll take care of you. But I can do it best in London."
"Then you do not want me to read to you father?" Dolly said after a pause.
"No, my dear, no, my dear. If you could find that fellow Shubrick--I should like him."
And Mr. Copley closed his eyes as if to sleep, finding nothing worthy to occupy his waking faculties. Dolly sat by the window, looking out and meditating. Yes, Mr. Shubrick would be going away, probably soon; his furlough could not last always. Meanwhile, she had given him no answer to his questions and propositions. It was rather hard upon him, Dolly felt; and she had a sort of yearning sympathy towards her suitor.
A little impatience seized her at being shut up here in her father's room, where he did not want her, and kept from the walk in the park with Mr. Shubrick, who did want her. He wanted her very much, Dolly knew; he had been waiting patiently, and she had disappointed every effort he made to get speech of her and see her alone, just because she was shy of him and of herself. But it was hardly fair to him, after all, and it could not go on. He had a right to know what she would say to his proposition; and she was keeping him in uneasiness, (to put it mildly), Dolly knew quite well. And now, when could she see him? when would she have a chance to speak to him alone, and to hear all that she yet wanted to hear? but indeed Dolly now was thinking not so much of what she wanted as of what _he_ wanted; and her uneasiness grew. He might be obliged to go off suddenly; officers' orders are stubborn things; she might have no chance at all, for aught she knew, after this afternoon. She looked at her father; he had dozed off. She looked out of the window; the afternoon sun, sinking away in the west, was sending a flood of warm light upon and among the trees of the park. It must be wonderfully pretty there! It must be vastly pleasant there! And there, perhaps, Mr. Shubrick was sitting at this moment on the bank, wishing for her, and feeling impatiently that his free time was slipping away.
Dolly's heart stirred uneasily. She had been very shy of him; she was yet; but now she felt that he had a right to his answer. Something that took the guise of conscience opposed her shy reserve and fought with it. Mr. Shubrick had a _right_ to his answer; and she was not treating him well to let him go without it.
Dolly looked again at her father. Eyes closed, breathing indicative of gentle slumber. She looked again over at the sunlit park. It was delicious over there, among its sunny and shadowy glades. Perhaps Mr.
Shubrick had walked on, tempted by the beauty, and was now at a distance; perhaps he had not been tempted, and was still near, up there among the trees, wanting to see her.
Dolly turned away from the window and with a quick step went downstairs. She met nobody. Her straw flat was on the hall table; she took it up and went out; through the garden, down to the bridge, over the bridge, with a step not swift but steady. Mr. Shubrick had a right to his answer, and she was simply doing what was his due, and there might be no time to lose. She went a little more slowly when she found herself in the park; and she trembled a little as her eye searched the grassy openings. She was not quite so confident here. But she went on.
She had not gone very far before she saw him; under the same oak where they had sat together; lying on his elbow on the turf and reading.
Dolly started, but then advanced slowly, after that one minute's check and pause. He was reading; he did not see her, and he did not hear her light footstep coming up the bank; until her figure threw a shadow which reached him. Then he looked up and sprang up; and perhaps divining it, met Dolly's hesitation, for, taking her hands he placed her on the bank beside his open book; which book, Dolly saw, was his Bible. But her shyness had all come back. The impression made by the thought of a person, when you do not see him, is something quite different from the living and breathing flesh and blood personality.
Mr. Shubrick, on the other hand, was in a widely different mood; which Dolly knew, I suppose, though she could not see.
"This is unlooked-for happiness," said he, throwing himself down on the bank beside her. "What have you done with Mr. Copley?"
"Nothing. He did not want me. He asked me what I had done with Mr.
Shubrick? I think you have spoiled him." Dolly spoke without looking at her companion, be it understood, and her breath came a little short.
"And what are you going to do with Mr. Shubrick?" her companion said, not in the tone of a doubtful man, lying there on the bank and watching her.
But Dolly found no words. She could not say anything, well though she recognised Mr. Shubrick's right to have his answer. Her eyes were absolutely cast down; the colour on her cheek varied a little, yet not with the overwhelming flushes of the other day. Dolly was struggling with the sense of duty, the necessity for action, and yet she could not act. She had come to the scene of action, indeed, and there her bravery failed her; and she sat with those delicate lights coming and going on her cheek, and the brown eyes hidden behind the sweep of the lowered eyelashes; most like a shy child. Mr. Shubrick could have smiled, but he kept back the smile.
"You know," he said in calm, matter-of-fact tones, that met Dolly's sense of business, "my action must wait upon your decision. If you do not let me stay, I must go, and that at once. What do you want me to do?"
"I do not want you to go," Dolly breathed softly.
Silently Mr. Shubrick held out his hand. As silently, though frankly, Dolly put hers into it. Still she did not look at him. And he recognised what sort of a creature he was dealing with, and had sense and delicacy and tact and manliness enough not to startle her by any demonstration whatever. He only held the little hand, still and fast, for a space, during which neither of them said anything; then, however, he bent his head over the hand and kissed it.