"Betting--and cards--it's all the same. He never used to do it. Can you help, Mr. St. Leger?"
Dolly's face was a sort of a marvel. It was so childlike, it was so womanly; it was so innocent, and it was so forceful. Lawrence looked, and would have liked to do the impossible; but what could he? It was specially at his own father's card-table, he knew, that Mr. Copley had lost money; it was wholly in his father's society that he had been initiated into the fascination of wagers--and of something else. Could he go against his own father? and how could he? and himself a player, though a very cautious one, how should he influence another man not to play?
"Miss Copley--I am younger than your father"---- Lawrence began.
"I know. But you might speak where I cannot. Or you might do something."
"Mr. Copley only does what my father does, and what everybody does."
"If you were to tell your father,--could not _he_ perhaps stop it?--bring my father off the notion?" Dolly had reached the very core of the subject now and touched what she wanted to touch; for she had a certain assurance in her own mind that her father's intercourse with the banker and his circle of friends had led to all this trouble.
Lawrence pondered, looked serious; and finally promised that he would "see what he could do." He would have urged his own question then; but to Dolly's great relief Mr. Copley found by this time that he had had enough of his own company; and called to them. However she could not escape entirely.
"I have answered your question, Miss Copley," Lawrence said as they were going down the slope towards the yet unseen caller. "Hallo! yes, we're coming.--Now am I not to have the promised answer to mine?"
"How did you put it? the question?" said Dolly, standing still and facing her difficulties.
"You know. _I_ don't know how I put it," St. Leger said with a half laugh. "But I meant, Dolly, that you are more to me than everything and everybody in the world; and I wanted to know what I am to you?"
"Not _that_, Mr. St. Leger." Dolly was quiet, and did not shun his eyes; and though she did grow rosy, there were some suspicious dimples in her fair little face; very unencouraging, but absolutely irresistible at the same time.
"What then?" said the young man. "Of course, I could not be to you what you are to me, Dolly. Naturally. But I can take care of your father and mother, and I will; and I will put you in a place as good as Brierley Park. I am my father's only son, and his heir, and I can do pretty much what I like to do. But I care for nothing if you will not share it with me."
"I am not going to leave my father and mother at present," said Dolly, shaking her head.
"No, not at present," said he eagerly, catching at her words. "Not at present. But you do not love anybody else, Dolly?"
"Certainly not!"
"Then you will let me hope? You will let me hold myself your best friend, after them?"
"I believe you are that," said Dolly, giving him her hand;--"except my old Methodist acquaintance, Mrs. Jersey." Which addition was a little like a dash of cold water; but Lawrence was tolerably contented after all; and pondered seriously what he could do in the matter of Mr.
Copley's gaming tendencies. Dolly was right; but it is awkward to preach against what you practise yourself.
CHAPTER XIV.
DIFFICULTIES.
Dolly on her part had not much comfort in the review of this afternoon.
"It was no good," she said to herself; "I am afraid it has encouraged Lawrence St. Leger in nonsense. I did not mean that, but I am afraid he took it for encouragement. So much for going walking Sunday. I'll never do it again."
Lawrence had taken leave very cheerfully; that was certain. As much could not be said for his principal. Dolly had privately asked her father to send her down the money for the servants' wages; and Mr.
Copley had given an offhand promise; but Dolly saw that same want of the usual ready ease in his manner, and was not surprised when days passed and the money did not come. The question recurred, what was she to do? She wrote to remind her father; and she took a fixed resolve that she would buy no more, of anything, that she could not on the spot pay for. This, however, was not a resolve immediately taken; it ensued when after several weeks the women again pressed for their money, and again in vain. Dolly started back then from the precipice she saw she might be nearing, and determined to owe no more debts. She wrote to her father once more, begging for a supply. And a supply came; but so meagre that Dolly could but partially pay her two servants and keep a little in hand to go to market with. Mr. Copley had not come down to Brierley in the meanwhile. Lawrence had.
Her unaccustomed burden of care Dolly had kept to herself; therefore it startled her when one day her mother began upon the subject.
"What's this about Margaret's wages, Dolly?"
"She asked me for some money the other day," Dolly answered as easily as she could.
"You didn't give it to her?"
"I have given her part; I had not the whole."
"Haven't you _any?_"
"Yes, mother, but not enough to give Margaret all she wants."
"Let her have what you've got, and write your father to send you some.
I never like to keep servants waiting. What's theirs, isn't yours; and besides, they never serve you so well, and you're in their power."
"Mother, I want to keep a little in the house, for every day calls, till I get some more."
"Your father will send it immediately. Why he don't come himself, I don't see. _I_'m not gaining, all alone in this wilderness, with nothing but the trees of Brierley Park to look at. I can't think what your father is dreaming about!"
Dolly was silent, and hoped the subject had blown over. Yet it could not blow over for ever, she reflected. What was she to do? Then her mother startled her again.
"Dolly have you told your father that you want money?"
Dolly hesitated; had to say yes.
"And he did not give it to you?"
"Yes, mother; he sent me some."
"When?"
"It was--it must have been three weeks ago."
"How much?"
"Not enough to pay all that is due to Margaret."
Mrs. Copley laid down her face in her hands. A terrible pain went through Dolly's heart; but what could she say. It seemed as if pain pricked her like a shower of arrows, first on this side and then on that. She thought her mother _had_ gained somewhat in the past weeks; how would it, or could it, be now? Presently Mrs. Copley lifted up her head with a further question.
"Is Sarah paid?"
"No, mother; not yet," said poor Dolly.
"Has Peter been paid anything?"
"Not by us. We do not pay Peter at all," replied Dolly, feeling as if the words were stabbing her.
"Who does?" said her mother quickly.
"Mr. St. Leger sent him here. He is their servant really, and they take care of him."
"I don't see how your father can content himself with that," said Mrs.