Some business reasons occasioned the housekeeper to make the journey in a little covered carriage belonging to the house, instead of taking the public post-coach. It was all the pleasanter for Dolly, being entirely private and quiet; though the time consumed was longer. They were then in the end of summer; the weather was delicious and warm; the country rich in flowers and grain fields and ripening fruit. Dolly at first was full of delight, the change and the novelty were so welcome, and the country through which they drove was so exceeding lovely. Nevertheless, as the day went by there began to creep over her a strange feeling of loneliness; a feeling of being out on the journey of life all by herself and left to her own skill and resources. It was not the journey to London; for _that_ she was well accompanied and provided; it was the real undertaking upon which she had set out, the goal of which was not London but--her father. To find her father not only, but to keep him; to prevent his being lost to himself, lost to her mother, to life, and to her. Could she? Or was she embarked on an enterprise beyond her strength? A weak girl; what was she, to do so much! It grew and pressed upon her, this feeling of being alone and busy with a work too great for her; till gradually the lovely country through which she was passing ceased to be lovely; it might have been a wilderness, for all its cheer or promise to her. Dolly had talked at first, in simple, gleeful, girlish pleasure; little by little her words grew fewer, her eye lost its glad life; until she sat back, withdrawn into herself, and spoke no more unless spoken to.
The housekeeper noticed the change, saw and read the abstracted, thoughtful look that had taken place of the gay, interested delight of the morning. She perceived that Dolly had serious work on hand, of some sort; and she longed to help her. For the fair, sweet, womanly thoughtfulness was as lofty and lovely in its way, as the childlike simplicity of enjoyment before had been bewitching. She was glad when the day's ride came to an end.
The stoppage was made at a little wayside inn; a low building of grey stone, overgrown with ivy and climbing roses, with a neatly kept bit of grass in front. Here Dolly's interest and delight awoke again. This was something unlike all she had ever seen. Simple and plain enough the inn was; stone flooring and wooden furniture of heavy and ancient pattern made it that; but at the same time it was substantial, comfortable, neat as wax, and with a certain air of well-to-do thrift which was very pleasant. Mrs. Jersey was known here and warmly received. The travellers were shown into a cosy little room, brown wainscoted, and with a great jar of flowers in the chimney; and here the cloth was immediately laid for their dinner, or supper. For the supper itself they had to wait a little; and after putting off her bonnet and refreshing herself in an inner room, Dolly sat down by one of the small windows. The day was declining. Slant sunbeams shot across a wide plain and threw long shadows from the trees. The trees, especially those overhanging the inn, were old and large and fine; the lights and shadows were moveless, calm, peaceful; one or two neighbouring fields were stocked with beautiful cattle; and a flock of geese went waddling along over the green. It was removed from all the scenes of Dolly's experience; as unlike them as her being there alone was unlike the rest of her life; in the strangeness there was this time an element of relief.
"How beautiful the world is, Mrs. Jersey!" she remarked.
"You find it so here?" answered her friend.
"Why, yes, I do. Don't you?"
"I suppose I am spoiled, Miss Dolly, by being accustomed to Brierley."
"Oh, this is not Brierley! but I am not comparing them. This is very pretty, Mrs. Jersey! Why, Mrs. Jersey, you don't despise a daisy because it isn't a rose!"
"No," said her friend; "but I suppose I cannot see the daisy when the rose is by." She was looking at Dolly.
"Well," said Dolly, "the rose is not by; and I like this very much.
What a neat house! and what a pleasant sort of comfort there is about everything. I would not have missed this, Mrs. Jersey, for a good deal."
"I am glad, Miss Dolly. I was thinking you were not taking much good of your day's ride--the latter part."
Dolly was silent, looking out now somewhat soberly upon the smiling scene; then she jumped up and threw off her gravity, and came to the supper-table. It was spread with exquisite neatness, and appetising nicety. Dolly found herself hungry. If but her errand to London had been of a less serious and critical character, she could have greatly enjoyed the adventure and its picturesque circumstances. With the elastic strength of seventeen, however, she did enjoy it, even so.
"How good you are to me, Mrs. Jersey!" she said, after the table was cleared and the two were sitting in the falling twilight. The still peace outside and inside the house had found its way to Dolly's heart.
There was the brooding hush of the summer evening, marked, not broken, by sounds of insects or lowing of cattle, and the voices of farm servants attending to their work. It was yet bright outside, though the sun had long gone down; inside the house shades were gathering.
"I wish I could be good to you, Miss Dolly," was the housekeeper's answer.
"Oh, you are! I do not know what in the world I should have done, if you had not let me go with you to London now."
"What can I do for you when we get there?"
"Oh, nothing! thank you."
"You know exactly where to go and what to do?"
"I shall take a cab and go--let me see,--yes, to father's rooms. If I do not find him there, I must go to his office."
"In the City?"
"Yes. Will that be very far from your house? Why, yes, of course; we shall be at the West End. Well, all the same, near or far, I must see my father."
"You must be so good as to let me go in the cab with you," said Mrs.
Jersey. "I cannot let you drive all about London alone by yourself."
"Oh, thank you!" said Dolly again, with an undoubted accent of relief.
"But"----
That sentence remained unfinished. Dolly meditated. So did the housekeeper. She was wise enough to see that all was not exactly clear and fair in her young friend's path; of what nature the trouble might be she could only surmise.
"What if Mr. Copley should not be in London?" she ventured.
"Oh, he must be. At least he was there a very few days ago. He never is away from London, except when he goes to visit somewhere."
"It is coming towards the time now when the gentlemen go down into the country to shoot."
"Father does not care for shooting. I mean to get him to go to Venice instead, with mother and me."
"Suppose you should fail in that plan, Miss Dolly? is your business done then?"
"No. Oh no!" said Dolly, for a moment covering her face with her hands.
"O Mrs. Jersey! if I could not manage that, I do not know what I should do!" Dolly's voice had a premonition of despair. "But I guess I can do it," she added with a resumption of cheerfulness. And she talked on from that time merrily of other things.
When they arrived in London next day, it was already too late for Dolly to do anything. She was fain to let Mrs. Jersey lodge her and feast her and pet her to her heart's content. She was put in a pretty room in the great house; she was entertained royally, as far as the viands went; and in every imaginable way the housekeeper was carefully kind. Well for Dolly; who needed all the help of kindness and care. The whole long day she had been brooding on what she had to do, and trying to imagine how things would be. Without data, that is a specially wearisome occupation; inasmuch as one may imagine anything, and there is nothing to contradict the most extravagant speculations. Dolly's head and heart were tired by the time night came, and her nerves in an excited condition, to which Mrs. Jersey's ministrations and the interest of the place gave a welcome relief. Dolly tried to put off thought. But everything pressed upon her, now that she was so near seeing her father; and seventeen-years-old felt as if it had a great load on its young shoulders.
"Mrs. Jersey," she began, after supper, "you are quite sure that it is never right for a girl to sacrifice herself for the sake of benefiting her parents?"
"In the way of marrying a man she does not love? Miss Dolly, a Christian man would never have a young lady marry him on those terms."
"Suppose he is not a Christian man?"
"Then he may be selfish enough to do it. But in that case, Miss Dolly, a Christian woman can have nothing to say to him."
"Why not? She might bring _him_ to be Christian, you know."
"That isn't the Lord's way, Miss Dolly."
"What is His way, then?"
"You will find it in the sixth chapter of 2nd Corinthians. 'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.'"
"But that means"----
"It _says_--Miss Dolly; it _says_,--do not be yoked up with one who is not following the Lord; neither in marriage, nor in business. Two oxen in a yoke, Miss Dolly, have to pull the same way; and if they don't want to, the weakest must go with the strongest."
"But might not the Christian one be the strongest?"
"His disobeyeing the Lord's command just shows he isn't that."
Dolly let the subject drop. She took a little cushion and sat down by her friend's side and laid her head in her lap; and they sat so a while, Mrs. Jersey looking fondly down upon the very lovely bright head on her knees, and marvelling sorrowfully at the fathers and mothers who prepare trouble for such tender and delicate creatures as their young daughters.
The next morning she admired her charge under a new view of her. Dolly appeared at breakfast with a calm, measured manner, which, if it were in part the effect of great pressure upon her spirits, had at the same time the grace of a very finished breeding. Mrs. Jersey looked and admired, and wondered too. How had the little American got this air?
She could not put it on herself; but she had seen her mistresses in the great world wear it; a certain unconscious, disengaged dignity which sat marvellously well upon the gracious softness and young beauty of this little girl.
The breakfast was rather silent. The drive, which they entered upon immediately after, was almost wholly so. Mrs. Jersey, true to her promise, let her own affairs wait, and accompanied her young friend.
Dolly had changed her plan, and went now first to Mr. Copley's office in the city. It was the hour when he should be there, and to go to his lodging would have taken them out of the way. So they drove the long miles from Grosvenor Square to the American Consul's office. Dolly's mood was eager and hopeful now; yet with too much pressure to allow of her talking.