"We haven't got our letters yet," said Mrs. Copley. "I can't see why they don't come."
"So the Green vaults must wait. What else shall we do?"
"Oh," said Dolly, "might we not go to the gallery again?"
"Another day?" cried her mother. "Why, you have been there two whole mornings, child. Ain't that enough?"
"Mother, I could go two months, I think."
"Then you'd catch your death," said Mrs. Copley. "That inner room is very chill now. For my part, I do not want to see another picture again in days and days. My head swims with looking at them. I don't see what you find in the old things."
Dolly could not have told. She sighed, and it was agreed that they would drive about the city and its environs next day; Lawrence assuring them that it was one of the pleasantest towns in Germany. But the next morning early came the letters from Mr. Copley; one to his wife and one to Dolly.
Dolly read them both and pondered them; and was unsatisfied. They were rather cheerful letters; at the same time Mr. Copley informed his wife and daughter that he could not join them in Dresden; nor at any rate before they got to Venice. So much was final; but what puzzled and annoyed Dolly yet more than this delay was the amount of money he remitted to her. To her, for Mrs. Copley, as an invalid, it was agreed, should not be burdened with business. So the draft came in the letter to Dolly; and it was not half large enough. Dolly kept the draft, gave the letter to her mother to read, and sat in a mazed kind of state, trying to bring her wits to a focus upon this condition of affairs.
What was her father thinking of? It is one thing to be short of funds at home, in one's own country and in one's own house; it is bad enough even there; what is it when one is in a strange land and dependent upon the shelter of other people's houses, for which an equivalent must be paid in money? and when one is obliged to travel from one place to another, and every mile of the way demands another equivalent in money?
Mr. Copley had sent a little, but Dolly knew it would by no means take them to Venice. What did he intend? or what did he expect her to do?
Apply to Lawrence? Never! No, not under any pressure or combination that could be brought to bear. He would demand an equivalent too; or worse, think that it was guaranteed, if she made such an application.
How could Mr. Copley place his child in such a predicament? And then Dolly's head went down in her hands, for the probable answer crushed her. He never would, he never could, but for yielding to unworthy indulgences; becoming entangled in low pleasures; taken possession of by the influence of unprincipled men. Her father!--Dolly felt as if her heart would break or her head burst with its burden of pain,--"Oh, a father never should let his child feel ashamed for him!" was the secret cry down in the depths of her heart. Dolly would not speak it out ever, even to herself, but it was there, all the same; and it tortured her, with a nameless, exquisite torture, under which she mentally writhed, without being able to get the least relief. Every surge of the old love and reverence broke on those sharp rocks of pain more hopelessly. "O father!--O father!" she cried silently, with a pitiful vain appeal which could never be heard.
And then the practical question came back, taking away her breath. What was she to do? If they did not stay too long in Dresden they would have enough money to pay their lodging-bill and go, she calculated, half the way to Venice. What then? And if Mr. Copley met them in Venice, according to promise, who would assure her that he would then come provided with the necessary funds? and what if he failed to come?
Dolly started up, feeling that she could not sit any longer thinking about it; her nerves were getting into a hard knot. She would not think; she busied herself in making her mother and herself ready for their morning's excursion. And Lawrence came with a carriage; and they set off. It was a lovely day, and certainly the drive was all it had promised; and Dolly barred off thought, and _would_ look and enjoy and talk and make others enjoy; so the first part of the day passed very well. Dolly would make no arrangements for the afternoon, and Mrs.
Copley was able for no more that day.
But when the early dinner was over, Dolly asked Rupert to walk with her. Rupert was always ready, and gave a delighted assent.
"Are you going out again? and to leave me all alone?" said Mrs. Copley.
"You will be lying down, mother dear; you will not want me; and I have business on hand, that I must attend to."
"I don't see what business," said Mrs. Copley fretfully; "and you can't do anything here, in a strange place. You'd better get Mr. St. Leger to do it for you."
"He cannot do my work," said Dolly lightly.
"But you had better wait and take him along, Dolly. He knows where to go."
"So do I, mother. I want Rupert this time, and not Mr. St. Leger. You sleep till I come back."
Dolly had said she meant business, but at first going out things did not look like it. She went slowly and silently along the streets, not attending much to what she was passing, Rupert thought; till they arrived at an open spot from which the view of the river, with the bridge and parts of the town, could be enjoyed; and there Dolly sat down on a step, and still without speaking to Rupert, bent forward leaning on her knees, and seemed to give herself up to studying the beautiful scene. She saw it; the river, the picturesque bridge, the wavy, vine-clad hills, the unfamiliar buildings of the city, the villas scattered about on the banks of the Elbe; she saw it all under a clear heaven and a sunny light which dressed everything in hues of loveliness; and her face was fixed the while in lines of grave thought and gave back no reflection of the beauty. It had beauty enough of its own, Rupert thought; who, I must say, paid little heed to the landscape and watched his companion instead. The steady, intent, sweet eyes, how much grave womanliness was in them; how delicate the colour was on the cheek, and how tender were the curves of the lips; while the wilful, clustering curly hair gave an almost childish setting to the features whose expression was so very un-childish. For it was exceedingly grave.
Dolly did see the lovely landscape, and it made her feel alone and helpless. There was nothing wonted or familiar; she seemed to herself somehow cast away in the Saxon capital. And truly she was all alone.
Lawrence she could not apply to, her mother must not even be talked to; she knew nobody else. Her father had let her come on this journey, had sent her forth, and now left her unprovided even for the barest necessities. No doubt he meant that she should be beholden to Mr. St.
Leger, to whom he could return the money by and by. "Or not at all,"
thought Dolly bitterly, "if I would give him myself instead. O father, could you sell me!" Then came the thought of the entanglements and indulgences which had brought Mr. Copley to do other things so unlike himself; and Dolly's heart grew too full. She could not bear it; she had borne up and fought it out all the morning; now feeling and truth must have a minute for themselves; her head went down on her hands and she burst into quiet sobs.
Quiet, but deep. Rupert, looking on in dismayed alarm, saw that this outbreak of pain had some deep grounded cause; right or wrong, it came from Dolly's very heart, and her whole nature was trembling. He was filled with a great awe; and in this awe his sympathy was silent for a time; but he could not leave the girl to herself too long.
"Miss Dolly," he said in a pause of the sobs, "I thought you were such a Christian?"
Dolly started, lifted her quivering, tearful face, and looked straight at him. "Yes," she said,--"what then?"
"I always thought religious folks had something to comfort them."
"Don't think they haven't," said Dolly. But there she broke down again, and it was a storm of a rain shower that poured from her eyes this time. She struggled to get the better of it, and as soon as she could she sat up again, brushing the tears right and left with her hands and speaking in a voice still half choked.
"Don't think they haven't! If I had not _that_, my heart would just break and be done with it. But being a Christian does not keep one from suffering--sometimes." Her voice failed.
"What is the matter? No, I don't mean that you should tell me that; only--can't I do something?"
"No, thank you; nobody can. Yes, you are doing a great deal, Rupert; you are the greatest comfort to me. I depend upon you."
Rupert's eyes glistened. He was silent for sheer swelling of heart. He gulped down something--and went on presently.
"I was thinkin' of something my old mother used to say. I know I've heard her say it, lots o' times. I don't know what the trouble is, that's a fact--so maybe I hadn't oughter speak; but _she_ used to say that nothing could happen to Christians that would do 'em any real hurt."
"I know," said Dolly, wondering to herself how it could be true; "the Bible says so."--And then conscience rebuked her. "And it _is_ true,"
she said, lifting up her head; "everything is true that the Bible says, and that is true; and it says other things"----
"What?" said Rupert; more for her sake, I confess, than for his own.
"It says--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid upon Thee;' I was reading it this morning. You see I must be a very poor Christian, or I should not have doubted a minute. But even a Christian, and the best, must be sorry sometimes for things he cannot help," said Dolly.
"Then you were not troubled about yourself just now?" said Rupert.
"Yes, I was! I was indeed, in spite of all those words and a great many others. I believe I forgot them."
"I should think, if God gives people promises, He would like them to be trusted," said Rupert "That's what _we_ do."
Dolly looked at him again as if he had said something that struck her; and then she got up, and taking his arm, set off this time at a business pace. She knew, she said, where to find what she wanted; however, she had gone out of her way, and it cost her some trouble and time to get to the place. It was a store of artists' materials, among other things; and here Dolly made careful purchases of paper, colours, and camel's-hair pencils. Rupert was reassured as to a suspicion that had crossed him, that part of Dolly's trouble might have been caused by want of means; seeing that she was buying articles of amusement with a free hand. Then Dolly went straight home.
All the rest of that afternoon she sat drawing. The next two days, the weather was unfavourable for going out, and she sat at her work persistently, whenever she was not obliged to be reading to her mother or attending upon her. The day following the long-planned visit to the Green vaults was made. In the evening Lawrence came to see them.
"Well, Mrs. Copley; tired?"--he began.
"I don't know which part of me's most tired," said the lady; "my eyes, or my head, or my feet."
"Did it pay, after all?"
"Pay! I wouldn't have missed it for a year's length of life! It went ahead of all I ever thought of or dreamt of. It was most like Aladdin's lamp--or what he saw, I mean, when he went down into fairyland. I declare, it was just as good."
"Only that you could not put things in your pockets. What would you have brought, Mrs. Copley, if it had been safe and allowable? The famous egg?"
"Mercy, no, Mr. St. Leger! I shouldn't have a minute's peace of my life, for fear I should lose it again."
"That's about how they say the first owner felt. They tell of him, that a lady once coaxed him to let her have the egg in her hand; and she kept it in her hand; and the prince forgot; and she drove back to Dresden with it."
"Where was he, the prince?"
"At some hunting castle, I believe. It was night before he found out his loss; and then he booted and spurred in hot haste and rode to Dresden in the middle of the night to fetch the egg from the lady again."