THE HOUSE.
Dolly did not tell all her experiences of that afternoon. She told only so much as might serve to quiet and amuse her mother; for Mrs. Copley took all occasions of trouble that came in her way, and invented a few more. Mrs. Jersey had sent along in the dog-cart a basket of strawberries for the sick lady; so Dolly hoped her mother's impressions of this day at least would be favourable.
"Did you ever see such magnificent berries, mother? black and red?"
"Why haven't we berries in our garden?" Mrs. Copley returned.
"Mother, you know the garden has not been kept up; nobody has been living here lately."
"Then why did not your father get some other house, where the garden _had_ been kept up, and we could have our own fruit and vegetables? I think, to be in the country and not have one's own garden and fresh things, is forlorn."
"There is one thing, mother; there are plenty of markets in this country."
"And plenty of high prices for everything in them. Yes, if you have no end to your purse, you can buy things, certainly. But to look at what is around us here, one would think your father didn't mean us to have much of anything!"
"Mother, he means you to have all you want. We thought you just wanted country air."
"And nothing to eat?"
"We are not starving _yet_," said Dolly, smiling, and arranging the strawberries.
"These are a gift. A gift I shouldn't think your father would like to take, or have us take, which comes to the same thing. We used to have enough for ourselves and our neighbours too, once, when we were at home, in America. We are nobody here."
"We are just ourselves, mother; what we always were. It does not make much difference what people think of us."
"Not much difference," cried Mrs. Copley, "about what people think of you! And then, what is to become of you, I should like to know? Nobody seeing you, and no chance for anything! I wonder if your father means you never to be married?"
"You do not want me married, mother; and not to an Englishman, anyhow."
"Why not? And how are you going to marry anybody else, out here? Can you tell me? But, O Dolly! I am tormented to death!"
"Don't, dear mother. That is what makes you ill. What is the matter?
What troubles you?"
Mrs. Copley did not answer at once.
"You are as sweet as a honeysuckle," she said. "And to think that nobody should see you!"
Dolly's dimples came out here strong.
"Are you tormented to death about that?"
Another pause came, and Mrs. Copley finally left the table with the air of one who is thinking what she will not speak. She went to the honeysuckle porch and sat down, resting her head in her hand and surveying the landscape. Twilight was falling over it now, soft and dewy.
"I don't see a sign of anything human, anywhere," she remarked. "Is it because it is so dark?"
"No, mother; there are no houses in sight."
"Nor from the back windows?"
"No, mother."
"Where is the village you talk about?"
"Half a mile away; the woods and rising ground of Brierley Park hide it from us."
"And in this wilderness your father expects me to get well!"
"Why, I think it is charming!" Dolly cried. "My drive home to-night was perfectly lovely, mother."
"I didn't have it."
"No, of course; but the country is exceedingly pretty."
"I can't make your father out."
Dolly was hushed here. She was at a loss likewise on this point.
"He acts just as if he had lost his money."
Dolly did not know what to say. She had had the same impression. To her inexperience, this did not seem the first of evils; but she guessed it would wear another face to her mother.
"And if he _has_," Mrs. Copley went on, "I am sure I wish we were at home. England is no sort of a place for poor folks."
"Why should you think he has, mother?"
"I _don't_ think he has," Mrs. Copley flamed out. "But if he hasn't, I think he has lost his wits."
"That would be worse," said Dolly, smiling, though she felt anything but merry.
"I don't know about that. Nobody'll ask about your wits, if you've got money; and if you _haven't_, Dolly, nobody'll care what else you have."
"Mother, I think it is good to have one's treasure where one cannot lose it."
"I thought I had that when I married your father," said Mrs. Copley, beginning to cry. This was a very strange thing to Dolly and very terrible. Her mother's nerves, if irritable, had always been wont to show themselves of the soundest. Dolly saw it was not all nerves; that she was troubled by some unspoken cause of anxiety; and she herself underwent nameless pangs of fear at this corroboration of her own doubts, while she was soothing and caressing and arguing her mother into confidence again. The success was only partial, and both of them carried careful hearts to bed.
A day or two more passed without any variation in the state of things; except that old Peters the gardener made his appearance, and began to reduce the wilderness outside to some order. Dolly spent a good deal of time in the garden with him; tying up rose trees, taking counsel, even pulling up weeds and setting plants. That was outside refreshment; within, things were unchanged. Mr. Copley wrote that he would run down Saturday, or, if he could not, he would send Lawrence. "Why shouldn't he come himself?" said Mrs. Copley; and, Why should he send Lawrence?
thought Dolly. She liked it better without him. She was pleasing herself in her garden; finding little ways of activity that delighted her in and out of the house; getting wonted; and she did not care for the constraint of anybody's presence who must be treated as company.
One thing she determined upon, however; Lawrence should not make the next visit with her at Brierley House; and to prevent it, she would go at once by herself.
She went that afternoon, and by an easier way of approach to the place.
Mrs. Jersey was very glad to see her, and as soon as Dolly was rested a little, entered upon the fulfilment of her promise to show the house.
Accordingly she took her visitor round to the principal entrance, in another side of the building from the one Dolly had first seen. Here, before she would go in, she stood to admire and wonder at the rich and noble effect; the beauty of turrets, oriels, mouldings, and arched windows, the wide and lofty pile which stretched away on two sides in such lordly lines. Mrs. Jersey told her who was the first builder; who had made this and that extension and addition; and then they went in.
And the first impression here was a contrast.
The place was a great hall of grand proportions. There was nothing splendid here to be seen; neither furniture nor workmanship called for admiration, unless by their simplicity. There were some old paintings on the walls; there were some fine stags' horns, very large and very old; there were some heavy oaken settles and big chairs, on which the family arms were painted; the arms of the first builder; and there were also, what looked very odd to Dolly, a number of leather fire buckets, painted in like manner. Yet simple as the room was, it had a great charm for her. It was lofty, calm, imposing, superb. She was not ready soon to quit it; and Mrs. Jersey, of course, was willing to indulge her.
"It is so unlike anything at home!" Dolly exclaimed.