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.