The End of a Coil

CHAPTER XV

THE CONSUL'S OFFICE

Before Dolly had reached home she was joined by Mr. St. Leger. He was still in the park.

"Have you been for a walk?" said he in astonished fashion.

"I suppose that would be a natural conclusion," said Dolly. She spoke easily; it rejoiced her to find how easily she could now meet Mr. St. Leger. Yet the game was not all played out, either.

"Why didn't you let me know, that I might go with you?" he went on.

"That was not in my purpose," rejoined Dolly lightly.

"That is very unkind, Dolly."

"Truth is never unkind."

"Yes, indeed, it may be; it is now."

"Would you like falsehood better?"

"You need not be false."

"I must be either false or true, must I not? Which would you rather have, Mr. St. Leger?"

"It would be no good, my choosing," said he, with a half laugh; "for you would never give me anything but absolute truth, I know. I believe that is one of your attractions, Dolly. All other girls put on something, and a fellow never can tell what he is served to, the dish is spiced so cleverly. But you are like a piece of game, with no flavour but your own; and that is wild enough, and rare enough too."

"Mr. St. Leger," said Dolly gravely, "you ought to study rhetoric.''

"Have. Why?"

"I am afraid that last speech was rather mixed up."

"Look here, – I wish you'd call me Lawrence. We know each other quite well enough."

"Is that the custom in your country?"

"It is going to be your country, as well. You need not speak in that fashion."

"I am thinking of leaving the country," Dolly went on unconcernedly. "Mother is longing to travel; and I am going to bring it about."

"I have tried Mr. Copley on that subject, I assure you."

"I shall try now, and do it."

"Think so? Then we will consult about plans and routes again this evening. Mrs. Copley likes that almost as well as the thing itself. For, Dolly, you cannot get along without me."

Which assertion Dolly left uncontroverted.

A few days after Lawrence had gone back to town was the time for Mrs. Jersey's journey. Dolly told her mother her plan; and after a deal of doubts and fears and arguings on Mrs. Copley's part, it was finally agreed to. It seemed the hopefullest thing to do; and Mrs. Copley could be left well enough with the servants for a few days. So, early one morning Mrs. Jersey called for her, and Dolly with a beating heart kissed her mother and went off.

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.

The cab stopped opposite the entrance of a narrow covered way between two walls of houses. Following this narrow passage, Mrs. Jersey and Dolly emerged into a little court, very small, on one side of which two or three steps led to the American Consul's offices. The first one they entered was full of people, waiting to see the Consul or parleyeing with one or another of the clerks. Dolly left Mrs. Jersey there to wait for her, and herself went on into the inner room, her father's special private office. In those days the office of American Consul was of far more importance and dignity than to-day; and this room was a tolerably comfortable one and respectably furnished.

Here, however, her father was not; and it immediately struck Dolly that he had not been there very lately. How she gathered this impression is less easy to tell, for she could hardly be said to see distinctly any one of the characters in which the fact was written. She did not know that dust lay thick on his writing-table, and that even the papers piled there were brown with it; she did not know that the windows were fastened down this warm day, nor that an arm-chair which usually stood there for the accommodation of visitors was gone, having been slipped into the outer office by an ease-loving clerk. It was a general air of forsakenness, visible in these and in yet slighter signs, which struck Dolly's sense. She stood a moment, bewildered, hoping against sense, as it were; then turned about. As she turned she was met by a young man who had followed her in from the outer office. Dolly faced him.

"Where is Mr. Copley?"

"He ain't here." The Yankee accents of home were unmistakeable.

"I see he is not here; but where is he?"

"Couldn't say, reelly. 'Spect he's to his place. We don't ginerally expect ladies at this time o' day, or I guess he'd ha' ben on hand." The clerk grinned at Dolly's beauty, the like of which to be sure was not often seen anywhere at that, or any other, time of day.

"When was Mr. Copley here, sir?"

"Couldn't say. 'Tain't very long, nother. Was you wantin' to see him on an a'pintment?"

"No. I am Miss Copley. Where can I find my father? Please tell me as quick as you can."

"Sartain – ef I knowed it. Now I wisht I did! Mr. Copley, he comes and he goes, and he don't tell me which way; and there it is, you see."

"Where is Mr. St. Leger?"

"Mr. Silliger? Don't know the gentleman. Likely Mr. Copley doos. But he ain't here to say. Mebbe it 'ud be a good plan to make a note of it. That's what Mr. Copley allays says; 'make a note of it.'"

"You do not know, sir, perhaps, whether Mr. Copley is in London?"

"He was in London – 'taint very long ago, for he was in this here office, and I see him; but that warn't yesterday, and it warn't the day before. Where he's betaken himself between whiles, ain't known to me. Shall I make a note, miss, against he comes?"

"No," said Dolly, turning away; "no need. And no use."

She rejoined Mrs. Jersey and they went back to the carriage.

"He is not there," she said excitedly; "and he has not been there for several days. We must go to his lodgings – all the way back almost!"

"Never mind," said the housekeeper. "We have the day before us."

"It is almost twelve," said Dolly, looking at her watch. "Before we get there it will be one. I am a great deal of trouble to you, I fear, Mrs. Jersey; more than I meant to be."

"My dear, it's no trouble. I am happy to be of any use to you. What sort of a chain is that you wear, Miss Dolly?"

"Curious, isn't it?" said Dolly. "It was given me long ago. It is woven of threads of a ship cable."

"It is a beautiful chain," said her friend, examining it admiringly. "But that is very clever, Miss Dolly! I should never fancy it was a piece of cable. Is there an anchor anywhere?"

"No," said Dolly, laughing. "Though I am not sure," she added thoughtfully. "My memory goes back along this chain a great way; – back to the time when I was a little girl, quite little, and very happy at school and with a dear aunt, whom I lived with then. And back there at the end of the chain are all those pleasant images; and one most beautiful day, when we went to visit a ship; a great man-of-war. A most beautiful day!" Dolly repeated with the accent of loving recollection.

"And you brought back a piece of cable from the ship, and braided this?"

"No. Oh no! I did not do it; I could not. It was done for me."

"By a friend's fingers?"

"Yes, I suppose you may say so," said Dolly; "though it is a friend I have never seen since then. I suppose I never shall. But I always wear the chain. Oh, how long that seems ago! – Is childhood the happiest time of a person's life, Mrs. Jersey?"

"Maybe I might say yes. Miss Dolly; but if I did, I should mean not what you mean. I should mean the little-child life that one can have when one is old. When the heart says, 'Not my will, but Thine' – when it says, 'Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.' You know, the Master said, 'Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"

"I don't believe I am just as much of a child, then, as I used to be," remarked Dolly.

"Get back to it, my dear, as fast as you can."

"But when one isn't a child, things are so different. It is easy to trust and give up for a child's things; but when one is a woman" —

"It is just the same, dear Miss Dolly! Our great affairs, they are but child's matters to the Lord's eyes. The difference is in ourselves – when our hearts get proud, and our self-will gets up."

"I wish I could be like a child now," said Dolly from the depths of her heart. "I feel as if I were carrying the whole family on my shoulders, and as if I must do it."

"You cannot, my dear! Your shoulders will break. 'Casting your care upon Him,' the Bible says – 'for He careth for you.'"

"One does not see Him" – said Dolly, with her eyes very full.

"Faith can see," the housekeeper returned; and then there was a long silence; while the carriage rattled along over the streets, and threaded its way through the throng of business, or bread-seekers or pleasure-seekers. So many people! Dolly wondered if every one of them carried his secret burden of care, as she was doing; and if they were, she wondered how the world lived on and bore the multitudinous strain. Oh, to be a child, in the full, blessed sense of the term!

CHAPTER XVI

A FIGHT

The cab stopped, and Dolly's heart gave a great thump against her ribs. What was she afraid of?

Mrs. Jersey said she would wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a stupid one seemingly.

"Is Mr. Copley at home?"

"I dunno."

"Will you find out, please?"

"Jemima, who's that?" called a voice of authority from behind the scenes.

"Somebody arter the gentleman, ma'am. I dunno, is he in his room?"

The owner of the voice came forward; a portly, respectable landlady. She surveyed Dolly, glanced at the cab, became very civil, invited Dolly in, and sent the maid upstairs to make inquiries, declaring she did not know herself whether the gentleman were out or in. Dolly would not sit down. The girl brought down word that Mr. Copley was not out of his bedroom yet.

"I went in the parlour, ma'am, and knocked, ma'am; and I might as well ha' axed my broom, ma'am."

"I'll go up," said Dolly hastily; and waiting for no answer, she brushed past landlady and maid and ran up the stairs. Then paused.

"Which rooms? on the first floor?"

The woman of the house came bustling after her up the stairs and opened the door of a sitting-room. It was very comfortably furnished.

"You couldn't go wrong, ma'am," she said civilly, "I 'ave no one in my rooms at this present, except Mr. Copley. I suppose you are his daughter, ma'am?"

"His daughter," Dolly repeated, standing still and facing the landlady, and keeping down all outward expression of the excitement which was consuming her. She knew she kept it down; she faced the woman steadily and calmly, and the landlady was more and more humbly civil. "Mr. Copley is not ill?" Dolly went on.

"Oh, dear, no, ma'am! not to call h'ill. Mr. Copley is in enjoyment of very good 'ealth; as I 'ave occasion to know, ma'am, who cooks his meals for him. I can allers tell by that. When a gentleman or a lady 'as good taste for their victuals, I think it's no 'arm if they sleeps a little long in the morning; it's a trifle onconvenient to the 'ouse, it may be, when things is standing roun', but it's good for theirselves, no doubt, and satisfyin' and they'll be ready for their breakfast when they comes h'out. And shall I wake Mr. Copley for you, ma'am? It's time for him, to be sure."