"I am much afraid so, my lady."
"Would it do any good, Jersey, if I went there?"
"It would be a great kindness, my lady. I think it might do good."
The final result of all which was a visit. It was now full summer; the season had come into its full bloom and luxuriance. Roses were opening their sweet buds all around Brierley Cottage; the honeysuckles made the porch into an arbour; the garden was something of a wilderness, but a wilderness of lovely, old-fashioned things. One warm afternoon, Dolly with a shears in her hand had gone out into the garden to cut off the full-blown roses, which to-morrow would shed their leaves; doing a little trimming by the way, both of rose-bushes and other things; the wildering of the garden had been so great. And very busy she was, and enjoying it; "cutting in" here, and "cutting out" there, flinging the refuse shoots and twigs carelessly from her into the walk to be gathered up afterwards. She was so busy she never heard the roll of carriage wheels, never heard them stop, nor the gate open; knew nothing, in fact, but the work she was busy with, till a slight sound on the gravel near by made her look round. Then she saw at one glance the lady standing there in laces and feathers, the carriage waiting outside the gate, and the servants in attendance around it. Dolly shook herself free of the roses and stepped forward, knowing very well who it must be. A little fresh colour had been brought into her cheeks by her exercise and the interest in her work; a little extra flush came now, with the surprise of this apparition. She was as lovely as one of her own rose-branches, and the wind had blown her hair about, which was always wayward, we know, giving perhaps to the great lady the impression of equal want of training. But she was very lovely, and the visitor could not take her eyes off her.
"You are Miss--Copley?" she said. "I have heard Mrs. Jersey speak of you."
"Mrs. Jersey is a very kind friend to me," said Dolly. "Will Lady Brierley walk in?"
Mrs. Jersey is her friend, thought the lady as she followed Dolly into the cottage. Probably she is just of that level, and my coming is thrown away. However, she went in. The little cottage sitting-room was again something of a puzzle to her; it was not rich, but neither did it look like anything Mrs. Jersey would have contrived for her own accommodation. Flowers filled the chimney and stood in vases or baskets; books lay on one table, on the other drawing materials; and simple as everything was, there was nevertheless in everything the evidence, negative as well as positive, that the tastes at home there were refined and delicate and cultivated. It is difficult to tell just how the impression comes upon a stranger, but it came upon Lady Brierley before she had taken her seat. Dolly too, the more she looked at her, puzzled her. She had set down her basket of roses and thrown off her garden hat, and now opened the blinds which shaded the room too much, and took a chair near her visitor. The girl's manner, the lady saw, was extremely composed; she did not seem at all fluttered at the honour done her, and offered her attentions with a manner of simple courtesy which was graceful enough but perfectly cool. So cool, that it rather excited Lady Brierley's curiosity, who was accustomed to be a person of great importance wherever she went. Her eye took in swiftly the neatness of the room, its plainness, and yet its expression of life and mental activity; the work and workbasket on the chair, the bunch of ferns and amaranthus in one vase, the roses in another, the violets on the table, the physiognomy of the books, which were not from the next circulating library, the drawing materials; and then came back to the figure seated before her, with the tossed, beautiful hair and the very delicate, spirited face; and it crossed Lady Brierley's mind, if she had a daughter like that!--with the advantages and bringing up she could have given her, what would she not have been! And the next thought was, she was glad that her son was in Russia. Dolly had opened the window and sat quietly down. She knew her mother would not wish to be called. Once, months ago, Dolly had a little hoped for this visit, and thought it might bring her a pleasant friend, or social acquaintance at least; now that so long time had passed since Lady Brierley's return, with no sign of kindness from the great house, she had given up any such expectation; and so cared nothing about the visit. Dolly's mind was stayed elsewhere; she did not need Lady Brierley; and it was in part the beautiful, disengaged grace of her manner which drew the lady's curiosity.
"I did not know Brierley Cottage was such a pretty place," she began.
"It is quite comfortable," said Dolly. "Now in summer, when the flowers are out, I think it is very pretty."
"You are fond of flowers. I found you pruning your rose-bushes, were you not?"
"Yes," said Dolly. "The old man who used to attend to it has left me in the lurch since we went away. If I did not trim them, they would go untrimmed. They do go untrimmed, as it is."
"Is there no skill required?"
"Oh yes," said Dolly, her face wrinkling all up with fun; "but I have enough for that. I have learned so much. And pruning is very pretty work. This is not just the time for it."
"How can it be pretty? I do not understand."
"No, I suppose not," said Dolly. "But I think it is pretty to cut out the dead wood which is unsightly, and cut away the old wood which can be spared, leaving the best shoots for blossoming the next year. And then the trimming in of overgrown bushes, so as to have neat, compact, graceful shrubs, instead of wild, awkward-growing things--it is constant pleasure, for every touch tells; and the rose-bushes, I believe seem almost like intelligent creatures to me."
"But you would not deal with intelligent creatures so?"
"The Lord does," said Dolly quietly.
"What do you mean?" said the lady sharply. "I do not understand your meaning."
"I did not mean that all people were rose-bushes," said Dolly, with again an exquisite gleam of amusement in her face.
"But will you not be so good as to explain? What _can_ you mean, by your former remark?"
"It is not a very deep meaning," said Dolly with a little sigh. "You know, Lady Brierley, the Bible likens the Lord's people, Christians, to plants in the Lord's garden; and the Lord is the husbandman; and where He sees that a plant is growing too rank and wild, He prunes it--cuts it in--that it may be thriftier and healthier and do its work better."
"That's a dreadful idea! Where did you get it?"
"Christ said so," Dolly answered, looking now in the face of her questioner. "Is it a dreadful idea? It does not seem so to me. He is the husbandman. And I would not like to be a useless branch."
"You have been on the Continent lately?" Lady Brierley quitted the former subject.
"Yes; last year."
"You went to my old lodging-house at Sorrento, I think I heard from Mrs. Jersey. Did you find it comfortable?"
"Oh, delightful!" said Dolly with a breath which told much. "Nothing could be nicer, or lovelier."
"Then you enjoyed life in Italy?"
"Very much. But indeed I enjoyed it everywhere."
"What gave you so much pleasure? I envy you. Now I go all over Europe, and find nothing particular to hold me anywhere. And I see by the way you speak that it was not so with you."
"No," said Dolly, half smiling. "Europe was like a great, real fairyland to me. I feel as if I had been travelling in fairyland."
"Do indulge me and tell me how that was? The novelty, perhaps."
"Novelty is pleasant enough," said Dolly, "but I do not think it was the novelty. Rome was more fascinating the last week than it was the first."
"Ah, Rome! there one never gets to the end of the novelties."
"It was not that," said Dolly shaking her head. "I grew absolutely fond of the gladiator; and Raphael's Michael conquering the dragon was much more beautiful to me the last time I saw it than ever it was before; and so of a thousand other things. They seemed to grow into my heart.
So at Venice. The palace of the doges--I did not appreciate it at first. It was only by degrees that I learned to appreciate it."
"Your taste for art has been uncommonly cultivated!"
"No" said Dolly. "I do not know anything about art. Till this journey I had never seen much."
"There is a little to see at Brierley," said the lady of the house. "I should like to show it to you."
"I should like dearly to see it again," said Dolly. "Your ladyship is very kind. Mrs. Jersey did show me the house once, when we first came here; and I was delighted with some of the pictures, and the old carvings. It was all so unlike anything at home."
"At home?" said Lady Brierley enquiringly.
"I mean, in America."
"Novelty again," said the lady, smiling, for she could not help liking Dolly.
"No," said Dolly, "not that. It was far more than that. It was the real beauty,--and then, it was the tokens of a family which had had power enough to write its history all along. There was the power, and the history; and such a strange breath of other days. There is nothing like that in America.''
"Then we shall keep you in England?" said Lady Brierley still with a pleased smile.
"I do not know," said Dolly; but her face clouded over and lost the brightness which had been in it a moment before.
"I see you would rather return," said her visitor. "Perhaps you have not been long enough here to feel at home with us?"
"I have been here for several years," said Dolly. "Ever since I was fifteen years old."
"That is long enough to make friends."
"I have not made friends," said Dolly. "My mother's health has kept her at home--and I have stayed with her."
"But, my dear, you are just at an age when it is natural to want friends and to enjoy them. In later life one learns to be sufficient to one's self; but not at eighteen. I am afraid Brierley must be sadly lonely to you."