The End of a Coil

"Going back the way we came?" she cried.

"Only for a little distance – a few stages," explained Lawrence; "after that it will be all new."

Dolly did not much care, nor know enough to correct him if he was going wrong; she gave herself up to hopeful enjoyment of the constantly varying new scenes and sights. Mrs. Copley, on the contrary, seemed able to enjoy nothing beyond the shortening of the distance between her and Venice. If she had known how much longer than was necessary Lawrence had made it!

So it happened that they were going one day down a pleasant road which led along a river valley, when an exclamation from Dolly roused her mother out of a half nap. "What is it?" she asked.

"Mother, such a beautiful, beautiful old church! Look – see how it sits up there grandly on the rock."

"Very inconvenient, I should think," said Mrs. Copley, giving a glance out of the carriage window. "I shouldn't think people would like to mount up there often."

"I believe," said Lawrence, also looking out now, "that must be a famous old church – isn't this Limburg? – yes. It is the cathedral at Limburg; a very fine specimen of its style, Miss Dolly, they say."

"What is the style? it's beautiful! Gothic?"

"No, – aw – not exactly. I'm not learned myself, really, in such matters. I hardly know a good thing when I see it – never studied antiquities, you know; but this is said, I know, to be a very good thing."

"How old? It does not look antiquated."

"Oh, it has been repaired and restored. But it is not Gothic, so it dates further back; what they call the Transition style."

"It is very noble," said Dolly. "Is it as good inside as outside?"

"Don't know, I declare; I suppose so. We might go in and see; let the horses feed and Mrs. Copley take a rest."

This proposition was received with such joy by Dolly that it was at once acted upon. The party sought out an inn, bespoke some luncheon, and arranged for Mrs. Copley's repose. But chancing to hear from Lawrence that the treasures of art and value in the church repositories were both rich and rare, she gave up the promised nap and joined the party who went to the dome. After the Dresden Green vaults, she said, she supposed nothing new could be found; but she would go and see. So they went all together. If Lawrence had guessed to what this chance visit would lead! But that is precisely what people can never know.

Dolly was in a condition of growing delight, which every step increased. Before the great front of the cathedral she stood still and looked up, while Rupert and Mrs. Copley turned their backs and gazed out upon the wide country view. Lawrence, as usual when he could, attended upon Dolly.

"I did not know you were so fond of this kind of thing," he remarked, seeing a little enviously her bright, interested eyes.

"It lifts me almost off my feet!" said Dolly. "My soul don't seem big enough to take it all in. How grand, how grand! – Whose statues are those?"

"On each side?" said Lawrence, who had been collecting information. "That on the one hand is Heinrich von Isenburg, the founder; and the other is the architect, but nobody knows his name. It is lost. St. George is on the top there."

"Well," said Dolly, "he is just as well off as if it hadn't been lost!"

"Who? the architect? How do you make that out? He loses all the glory."

"How does he lose it? Do you think," said Dolly, smiling, "he would care, in the other world, to know that you and I liked his work?"

"The other world!" said St. Leger.

"You believe in it, don't you?"

"Yes, certainly; but you speak as if" —

"As if I believed in it!" said Dolly merrily. "You speak as if you didn't."

"I do, I assure you; but what is fame then?"

"Nothing at all," said Dolly. – "Just nothing at all; if you mean people's admiration or applause given when we have gone beyond reach of it."

"Beyond reach of it!" said Lawrence, echoing her words again. "Miss Dolly, do you think it is no use to have one's name honoured by all the world for ages after we have lived?"

"Very good for the world," said Dolly, with a spice of amusement visible again.

"And nothing to the man?"

"What should it be to the man?" said Dolly, seriously enough now. "Mr. St. Leger, when a man has got beyond this world with its little cares and interests, there will be just one question for him, – whether he has done what God put him here to do; and there will be just one word of praise that he will care about, – the 'Well done!' – if he may have it, – from those lips."

Dolly began quietly, but her colour flushed and her lip trembled as she went on, and her eye sparkled through a sudden veil of tears. Lawrence was silenced by admiration, and almost forgot what they were talking about.

"But don't you think," he began again, as Dolly moved towards the church door, "that the one thing – I mean, the praise here, – will be a sort of guaranty for the praise there?"

"No," said Dolly. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God – often, often." She pushed open the door and went in. Only a little way in; there she stood still, arrested by all the glory and the beauty that met her eye. The nobleness of form, the wealth of colour, the multiplied richness of both, almost bewildered her at first entering. Pillars, arches, vaultings, niches, galleries, arcades – a wilderness of harmonised form; and every panel and fair space filled with painting. She could not see details yet; she was lost in the greatness of the whole.

"Whom has Mrs. Copley picked up?" asked Lawrence in an undertone. After all, if the architect's posthumous fame had depended on him, it would not have been worth much effort. Mrs. Copley, it may be mentioned, had passed on while Dolly and St. Leger had stood talking outside; and now she was seen in the distance the centre of a group of lively talkers; at least there was one lady who was free to exercise her gifts in that way. Lawrence and Dolly slowly advanced, even Dolly's attention taken for a moment from the church by this extraordinary combination. Yes, Mrs. Copley had found acquaintances. The talker was a lady of about her own age; a gentleman stood near, a little behind was a younger lady, while Rupert balanced the group on the other side.

"There's something uncommon over yonder," whispered Lawrence. "Do you see that blond girl? not blond neither, for her hair isn't; but what an exquisite colour! – and magnificent figure. Do you know her?"

"No," said Dolly, – "I think not. Yet I do. Who can it be? I do not know the one talking to mother."

"And this is she?" the elder lady was saying as Dolly now came up, looking at her with a smiling face. "It's quite delightful to meet friends in the midst of a wilderness so; like the print of a man's foot on the sands in a desert; for really, in the midst of strange people one feels cast away. She's handsomer than you were, Mrs. Copley. My dear, do you know your old schoolfellow?"

"Christina Thayer!" exclaimed Dolly, as the other young lady came forward; and there was a joyful recognition on both sides.

"Who is your friend?" Mrs. Thayer next went on. "Won't you introduce him? – St. Leger? Don't I know your father? Ernest Singleton St. Leger? – Yes! Why, he was a great beau of mine once, a good while ago, you know," she added, nodding. "You might not think it, but he was. Oh, I know him very well; I know him like a book. You must be my friend. Christina, this is Mr. St. Leger; my old friend's son. – Mr. Thayer."

Mr. Thayer was nothing remarkable. But Christina had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood, and developed into a magnificent beauty. Her skin showed the richest, clear, creamy white tints, upon which in her cheeks and lips the carmine lay like rose leaves. Her hair was light brown and abundant, features regular, eyes sweet; she was one of those fair, full, stately, placid Saxon types of beauty, which are not very common in America and remarkable anywhere. Her figure was roundly and finely developed, rather stately and slow moving; which characteristic harmonised with all the rest of her. The two girls were as unlike each other as possible. It amused and half fascinated Lawrence to watch the contrast. It seemed to be noon of a summer day in the soul of Christina, a still breadth of light without shadow; there was a murmur of content in her voice when she spoke, and a ripple of content in her laugh when she laughed. But the light quivered on Dolly's lip, and gleamed and sparkled in her brown eyes, and light and shadow could flit over her face with quick change; they did so now.

Meanwhile people had forgotten the old cathedral. Christina seemed unaffectedly glad at the meeting with her friend of the school days.

"I'm so delighted," she said, drawing Dolly a little apart. "Where are you? where do you come from, I mean? How come you to be here?"

"We come from Dresden; we are on our way" —

"You are living in London, aren't you? I heard that. It's too good to meet you so! for Europe is full of people, no doubt, but there are very few that I care for. Oh, tell me where you are going?"

"Venice first."

"And further south? you are going on into Italy?"

"Yes, I think so."

"That's delightful. Oh, there's nothing like Italy! It is not your wedding journey, Dolly?" – with a glance at the very handsome young man who was standing in waiting a few paces off.

"What are you thinking of!" cried Dolly. "Christina, we are travelling for mother's health."

"Oh, well, I didn't suppose it; but it might be, you know; it will be, before you know it. It isn't mine, either; though it only wants two things of it. Oh, I want to tell you all about myself, Dolly, and I want to show you somebody; I have got somebody to show, you see. You will come and make us a visit, will you not? Oh, you must! I must have you."

"You said it wanted only two things of being your wedding journey? What things?"

"The presence of the gentleman, and the performance of the ceremony." And as Christina said it, a delicate peach-blossom bloom ripened in her cheeks; you could hardly say that she blushed. "Oh, the gentleman is somewhere, though he is not here," she went on, with that ripple of laughter; "and the ceremony is somewhere in the distance, too. I want you to see him, Dolly. I am proud of him. I think everything in the world of him."

"I suppose I may know his name?"

"Christina," cried Mrs. Thayer, "where are you? My dear, we cannot stand here and talk all the afternoon; our friends have got to see the church. Isn't it a delicious old place? Just go round and examine things; I could stay here for ever. Every little place where there is room for it is filled with the quaintest, queerest, charmingest paintings. Where there is room for it, there is a group; and where there is not a group, there is an apostle or a saint; and where there is not room for that, there is something else, which this unintelligible old guide will explain to you. And think – for years and years it has held the richest collection – oh, just wait and see! it is better than the church itself. My dear, the riches of its treasures are incalculable. Fancy, a mitre, a bishop's mitre, you know, so heavy with precious stones that the good man cannot bear it on his head but a few minutes; over three thousand pearls and precious stones in it; and the work, oh, the work of it is wonderful! just in the finest Renaissance" —

"We have just come from the Green vaults at Dresden," put in Mrs. Copley. "I suppose that goes ahead of everything else."

"Oh, my dear, I don't know; I don't see how anything can be superior to the show here. Is Mr. St. Leger fond of art?"

"Fonder of nature," Mr. St. Leger confesses with a bow.

"Nature, – well, come to see us at Naples. We have got a villa not far from there – you'll all come and stay with us. Oh, we cannot let you off; it is such a thing to meet with one's own people from home. You will certainly want to see us, and we shall want to see you. Venice, oh yes, after you have seen Venice, and then we shall be at home again; we just set off on this journey to use up the time until the 'Red Chief' could come to Naples. We are going back soon, and we'll be all ready to welcome you. And Mr. St. Leger, of course. Mr. St. Leger, I could tell you a great deal about your father. He and I flirted dreadfully once; and, you know, if flirting is properly carried on, one always has a little sneaking kindness for the people one has flirted with."

"No more than that?" said St. Leger with a polite smile.

"Why, what would you have? after one has grown old, you know. You would not have me in love with him! Here is my husband and my daughter. Don't you have a kindness for the people you flirt with?"

"I must not say anything against flirting, in the present company" – Lawrence began.

"No, of course you mustn't. We all flirt, at a certain age. How are young people to get acquainted with one another and find out what they would like? You never buy cheese without tasting it, you know, not in England. Just as well call things by their right names. I don't think anybody ought to deny flirting; it's nature; we must do it. Christina flirts, I know, in the most innocent way, with everybody; not as I did; she has her own style; and your daughter does it too, Mrs. Copley. I can see it in her eyes. Ah me, I wish I was young again! And what a place to flirt in such an old church is!"

"O mamma!" came from Christina.

"Very queer taste, I should say," remarked Mrs. Copley.

"It isn't taste; it is combination of circumstances," Mrs. Thayer, smiling, went on. "You see if I don't say true. My dear, such a place as this is full of romance, full! Just think of the people that have been married here; why, the first church was built here in 814; imagine that!"

"Enough to keep one from flirting for ever," said Dolly, on whom the lady's eye fell as she ended her sentence.

"Just go in and see those jewels and hear the stories," said Mrs. Thayer, nodding at her. "That old woman will tell you stories enough, if you can understand her; Christina had to translate for me; but, my dear, there's a story there fit to break your heart; about a blood jasper. It is carved; Mr. Thayer says the carving is very fine, and I suppose it is; but all I thought of was the story. My dear, the stone is all spotted with dark stains, and they are said to be the stains of heart's blood. Oh, it is as tragical as can be. You see, the carver, or stone-cutter, – the young man who did the work, – loved his master's daughter – it's a very romantic story – and she" —

"Flirted?" suggested St. Leger.

"Well, I am afraid she did; but it is the old course of things; her father thought she might look higher, you know, and she did; married the richest nobleman in Verona; and the young man had been promised her if he did his work well, and the work is magnificently done; but he was cheated; and he drove a sharp little knife into his heart. Christina, what was the old master's name?"

"I forget, mamma."

"You ought not to forget; you will want to tell the story. Of course I have forgotten; I did not understand it at the time, and I never remember anything besides; but he was very famous, and everybody wanted the things he did, and he could not execute all the commissions he got; and this young man was his best favourite pupil."

"How came the stains upon the stone?" asked Lawrence. "Did it bleed for sympathy?"

"I don't know; I have forgotten. Oh yes! the stone was in his hand, you know."

"And it was sympathy?" said Lawrence quite gravely, though Dolly could not keep her lips in order.

"No, it was the blood. Go in and you'll see it, and all the rest. And there – Where are you going? to Venice? We are going on to Cologne and then back to Rome. We shall meet in Rome? You will stay in Venice for a few weeks, and then be in Rome about Christmas; and then we will make arrangements for a visit from you all. Oh yes, we must have you all."

Lawrence accompanied the lady to the door, and Christina following with Dolly earnestly begged for the meeting in Rome, and that Dolly would spend Christmas with her. "I have so much to tell you," she said; "and my – the gentleman I spoke of – will meet us in Rome; and he will spend Christmas with us; and I want you to see him. I admire Mr. St. Leger, very much!" she added in a confidential whisper.

"Mr. St. Leger is nothing to me," said Dolly steadily, looking in her friend's face. "He is father's secretary, and is taking care of us till my father can come."

"Oh, well, if he is not anything to you now, perhaps – you never know what will be," said Christina. "He is very handsome! Don't you like him? I long to know how you will like – Mr. Rayner."

"Who is he?" said Dolly, by way of saying something.

"Didn't I tell yon? He is first officer on board the 'Red Chief,' one of our finest vessels of war; it is in the Mediterranean now; and we expect him to come to us at Christmas. Manage to be at Rome then, do, dear; and afterwards you must all come and make us a visit at our villa, near Naples, and we'll show you everything."

"Christina," said Mrs. Thayer, when she and her daughter and her husband were safe in the privacy of their carriage, "that is a son of the rich English banker, St. Leger; they are very rich. We must be polite to him."

"You are polite to everybody, mamma."

"But you must be polite to him."

"I'll try, mamma – if you wish it."

"I wish it, of course. You never know how useful such an acquaintance may be to you. Is he engaged to that girl?"

"I think not, mamma. She says not."

"That don't prove anything, though."

"Yes, it does, with her. Dolly Copley was always downright – not like the rest."

"Every girl thinks it is fair to fib about her lovers. However, I thought he looked at you, Christina, not exactly as if he were a bound man."

"He is too late," said the girl carelessly. "I am a bound woman."

"Well, be civil to him," said her mother. "You never know what people may do."

"I don't care, mamma. Mr. St. Leger's doings are of no importance to me."

Mrs. Thayer was silent now; and her husband remarked that Mr. St. Leger could not do better than pick up that pretty, wise-eyed little girl.

"Wise-eyed! she is that, isn't she?" cried Christina. "She always was. She is grown up wonderfully pretty."

"She is no more to be compared to you, than – well, never mind," said Mrs. Thayer. "I hope we shall see more of them at Christmas. Talk of eyes, – Mr. St. Leger's eyes are beautiful. Did you notice them?"

Dolly on her side had seen the party descend the rocks, looking after them with an odd feeling or mixture of feelings. The meeting with her school friend had brought up sudden contrasts never so sharply presented to her before. The gay carelessness of those old times, the warm shelter of her Aunt Hal's home, the absolute trust in her father and mother, – where was all that now? Dolly saw Christina's placid features and secure gaiety, saw her surrounded and sheltered by her parents' arms, strong to guard and defend her; and she seemed to herself lonely. It fell to her to guard and defend her mother; and her father? what was he about? – There swept over her an exceeding bitter cry of desolateness, unuttered, but as it were the cry of her whole soul; with again that sting of pain which seemed unendurable, how can a father let his child be ashamed of him! She turned away that St. Leger might not see her face; she felt it was terribly grave; and betook herself now to the examination of the church.

And the still beauty and loftiness of the place wrought upon her by and by with a strange effect. Wandering along among pillars and galleries and arcades, where saints and apostles and martyrs looked down upon her as out of past ages, she seemed to be surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." They looked down upon her with grave, high sympathy, or they looked up with grave, high love and trust; they testified to work done and dangers met, and suffering borne, for Christ, – and to the glory awaiting them, and to which they then looked forward, and which now they had been enjoying – how long? What mattered the little troubled human day, so that heaven's long sunshine set in at the end of it? And that sun "shall no more go down." Dolly roved on and on, going from one to another sometimes lovely sometimes stern old image; and gradually she forgot the nineteenth century, and dropped back into the past, and so came to take a distant and impartial view of herself and her own life; getting a better standard by which to measure the one and regulate the other. She too could live and work for Christ. What though the work were different and less noteworthy; what matter, so that she were doing what He gave her to do? Not to make a noise in the world, either by preaching or dying; not to bear persecution; just to live true and shine, to comfort and cheer her mother, to reclaim and save her father, to trust and be glad! Yes, less than that latter would not do full honour to her Master or His truth; and so much as that He would surely help her to attain. Dolly wandered about the cathedral, and mused, and prayed, and grew quiet and strong, she thought; while her mother was viewing the church treasures with Mr. St. Leger, Dolly excused herself, preferring the church.

"Dolly, Dolly," said Mrs. Copley when at last she came away, "you don't know what you have lost."

"It is not so much as I have gained, mother."

"I'm glad we have seen it, Mr. St. Leger; and I'm glad we have done with it! I don't want to see any more sights till we get to Venice. Where are the Thayers going, Dolly?"

"To Cologne, mother, and to Nice and Mentone, they said."

"I wish they were coming to Venice. How fat Christina has grown!"

"O mother! She is a regular beauty – she could not do with less flesh; she ought not to lose an ounce of it. She is not fat. She is perfect. Is she not, Mr. St. Leger?"

Lawrence assented that Miss Thayer had the symmetry of a beautiful statue.

"Too fat," said Mrs. Copley. "If she is a statue now, what will she be by and by? I don't like that sort of beauties. Her face wants life."

"It does not want sweetness," said Lawrence. "It is a very attractive face."

"I am glad we stopped here, if it was only for the meeting them," said Mrs. Copley. "But I can't see how you could miss all those diamonds and gold and silver things, Dolly. They were just wonderful."

"All the Green vaults did not give me the pleasure this old church did, mother."