"Does that help?" said he, glancing at the book in Dolly's lap.
"_This?_" said Dolly. "What other help in the world is there?"
"Friends?" suggested Rupert.
"Yes, you were a great help last night," Dolly said slowly. "But there come times--and things--when friends cannot do anything."
"And then--what does the book do?"
"The book?" Dolly repeated again. "O Rupert! it tells of the Friend that can do everything!" Her eyes flushed with tears and she clasped her hands as she spoke.
"What?" said Rupert; for her action was eloquent, and he was curious; and besides he liked to make her talk.
Dolly looked at him and saw that the question was serious. She opened her book.
"Listen. 'Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'"
"That makes pretty close work of it. Can you get hold of that rope? and how much strain will it bear?"
"I believe it will bear anything," said Dolly slowly and thoughtfully; "if one takes hold with both hands. I guess the trouble with me is, that I only take hold with one."
"What do you do with the other hand?"
"Stretch it out towards something else, I suppose. For, see here, Rupert;--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.'--I am just ashamed of myself!" said Dolly, breaking down and bursting into tears.
"What for?" said Rupert.
"Because I do not trust so."
"I should think it would be very difficult."
"It ought not to be difficult to trust a friend whose truth you know.
There! that has done me good," said the girl, sitting up and brushing away the tears. "Rupert, if there is anything you want to see or to do here in Venice, be about it; for I think we shall go off to Rome at once."
She told the same thing to St. Leger when he came in; and having got rid of both the young men set herself anew to consider how she should speak to her father. And consideration helped nothing; she could not tell; she had to leave it to the moment to decide.
It was late in the morning, later than the usual hour for the dejeuner a la fourchette, which Mr. Copley liked. He did not want anything to-day, his wife said; and she and Dolly and Rupert had finished their meal. Dolly contrived then that her mother should go out under Rupert's convoy, to visit the curiosity shop again, (nothing else would have tempted her), and to make one or two little purchases for which Dolly gave Rupert the means. When they were fairly off, she went to her father's room; he was up and dressed, she knew. She went with a very faint heart, not knowing in the least what she would do or say, but feeling that something must be said and done, both.
Mr. Copley was sitting listlessly in a chair by the window; miserable enough, Dolly could see by the gloomy blank of his face; looking out, and caring for nothing that he saw. His features showed traces of the evening before, in red eyes and pale cheeks; and yet worse, in the spiritless, abased expression, which was more than Dolly could bear.
She had come in very quietly, but when she saw this she made one spring to his side and sank down on the floor before him, hiding her face on his knee. Mr. Copley's trembling hand presently lifted her up into his arms, and Dolly sat on his knee and buried her face in his breast.
Neither of them was ready to speak; neither did speak for some time. It was Mr. Copley who began.
"Well, Dolly,--I suppose you will say to me that I have broken my word?"
"O father!"--it came in a sort of despair from Dolly's heart,--"what shall we do?"
Mr. Copley had certainly no answer ready to this question; and his next words were a departure.
"How came you to be at that place last night?"
"I was afraid you were there"----
"How did you dare come poking about through all those crooked ways, and at that time of night?"
"Father," Dolly said, without lifting her head, "that was nothing. I dared nothing, compared with what you dared!"
"I? You are mistaken, child. I did not run the slightest risk. In fact, I was only doing what everybody else does. You make much of nothing, in your inexperience."
"Father," said Dolly, with a great effort, "you promised me. And when a man cannot keep his promise"----
She had meant to be perfectly quiet; she had begun very calmly; but at that word, suddenly, her calmness failed her. It was too much; and with a sort of wailing cry, which in its forlornness reached and wrung even Mr. Copley's nerves, she broke into a terrible passion of weeping.
Terrible! young hearts ought never to know such an agony; and never, never should such an agony be known for the shame or even the weakness of a father. The hand appointed to shield, the love which ought to shelter,--when the blow comes from _that_ quarter, it finds the heart bare and defenceless indeed, and comes so much the harder in that it comes from so near. No other more distant can give such a stroke. And to the young heart, unaccustomed to sorrow, new to life, not knowing how many its burdens and how heavy; not knowing on the other hand the equalising, tempering effects of time; the first great pain comes crushing. The shoulders are not adjusted to the burden, and they feel as if they must break. Dolly's sobs were so convulsive and racking that her father was startled and shocked. What had he done? Alas, the man never knows what he has done; he cannot understand how women die, before their time, that death of the heart which is out of the range of masculine nature.
"Dolly!--Dolly!" Mr. Copley cried, "what is the matter? Don't, Dolly, if you love me. My child, what have I done? Don't you know _everybody_ takes a little wine? Are you wiser than all the world?"
"You promised, father!" Dolly managed to say.
"Perhaps I promised too much. You see, Dolly,--_don't_ cry so!--a man must do as the rest of the world do. It isn't possible to live a separate life, as you would have me. It would make me ridiculous. It would not do. There's no harm in a little wine, child."
"Father, you promised!" Dolly repeated, clinging to him. She was not shrinking away; her arms of love were wrapped round his neck as tenderly as even in old childish days; they had power over Mr. Copley, power which he could not quite resist nor break away from. He returned their pressure, he even kissed her, feeling, I am happy to say, a little ashamed of himself.
"You don't want me to be ridiculous, Dolly?" he repeated, not knowing what to say.
What should she answer to that? No, she did not want him to be ridiculous; and as he spoke she recalled the staggering, impotent figure of last night, in its unmanly feebleness and senseless idiocy. A sense of the difficulty of her task and the vanity of her representations came over Dolly; it gave her new food for tears, but the present effect was to make her stop them. I suppose despair does not weep. Dolly was not despairing, either.
"What shall we do, father?" she asked, ignoring all his remarks and suggestions.
"Do, Dolly? About what?"
"Don't you think we will not stay any longer in Venice?"
"For all I care! Where, then?"
"To Rome, father?"
"I thought you were to be in Rome at Christmas?"
"It is not so very long till Christmas."
"Is your mother agreed?"
"She will be, if you say so."
"If it pleases you, Dolly--I don't care."
"And, father, dear father! won't you keep your promise to me? What is to become of us, father?"
Some bitter tears flowed again as she said this quietly; but Mr. Copley knew they were flowing, and he had an intuitive sense that they were bitter. They embarrassed him.