Vagabondia

  CHAPTER VII. ~ IN WHICH A SPARK IS APPLIED.

  IT was several days before Bloomsbury Place settled down and becameitself again after Dolly’s departure. They all missed her as they wouldhave missed any one of their number who had chanced to leave them;but Griffith, coming in to make his daily visits, was naturally almostdisconsolate, and for a week or so refused to be comforted.

  He could not overcome his habit of dropping in on his way to and fromhis lodgings, which were near by; it was a habit of too long standing tobe overcome easily, and besides this, he was so far a part of the familycircle that his absence from it would have been regarded by its othermembers as something rather like a slight, so he was obliged to pay themthe delicate attention of presenting himself at least once a day. Andthus his wounds were kept open. To come into the parlor and find themall there but Dolly, to see her favorite chair occupied by Mollieor Aimée or ‘Toinette, to hear them talk about her and discuss herprospects,--well, there were times when he was quite crushed by it.

  “If there was any hope of a better day coming,” he said to Aimée, who,through being the family sage, was, of course, the family confidante,“if there was only something real to look forward to, but we are justwhere we were three years ago, and this sort of thing cannot go onforever. What right have I to hold her to her word when other men mightmake her happier?”

  Ainice, sitting on a stool at his feet and looking reflective, shook herhead.

  “That is not a right view to take,” she said, “and it is n’t fair toDolly. Dolly would be happier with you on a pound a week than she wouldbe with any one else on ten thousand a year. And you ought to know thatby this time, Griffith. It is n’t a question of happiness at all.”

  “I don’t mean--” he was beginning, but Aimée interrupted him. Her partof this love affair was to lay plans for the benefit of the lovers andto endeavor to settle their little difficulties in her own way.

  “I am very fond of Dolly,” she said.

  “Fond of her!” echoed Griffith. “So am I. Who isn’t?”

  “I am very fond of Dolly,” Aimée proceeded.

  “And _I_ know her as other people do not, perhaps. She does not show asmuch of her real self to outsiders as they think. I have often thoughther daring, open way deceived people when it made them fancy she wasso easy to read. She has romantic fancies of her own the world neversuspects her of,--if I did not know her as I do, she is the last personon earth I should suspect of cherishing such fancies. The fact is, youare a sort of romance to her, and her love for you is one of her dreams,and she clings to it as closely as she would cling to life. It is adream she has lived on so long that it has become part of herself, andit is my impression that if anything happened to break her belief in itshe would die,--yes, _die!_” with another emphatic shake of the prettyhead. “And Dolly is n’t the sort of girl to die for nothing.”

  Griffith raised his bowed head from his hands, his soft, dark, womanisheyes lighting up and his sallow young face flushing. “God blessher,--no!” he said. “Her life has not been free from thorns, even sofar, and she has not often cried out against them.”

  “No,” answered Aimée. “And when the roses come, no one will see as youwill how sweet she finds them. Your Dolly is n’t Lady Augusta’s Dolly,or Mollie’s, or Ralph Gowan’s, or even mine; she is the Dolly no one buther lover and her husband has ever seen or ever will see. _You_ can getat the spark in the opal.”

  Griffith was comforted, as he often found himself comforted, under theutterances of this wise one.

  His desperation was toned down, and he was readier to hope for the bestand to feel warm at heart and grateful,--grateful for Dolly and thetender thoughts that were bound up in his love for her. The tenderphantom Aimée’s words had conjured up, stirred within his bosom a thrillso loving and impassioned, that for the time the radiance seemed toemanate from the very darkest of his clouds of disappointment anddiscouragement. He was reminded that but for those very clouds thegirl’s truth and faith would never have shone out so brightly. But fortheir poverty and long probation, he could never have learned how muchshe was ready to face for love’s sake. And it was such an innocentphantom, too, this bright little figure smiling upon him through thedarkness, with Dolly’s own face, and Dolly’s own saucy, fanciful ways,and Dolly’s own hands outstretched toward him. He quite plucked upspirit.

  “If Old Flynn could just be persuaded to give me a raise,” he said; “itwould n’t take much of an income for two people to live on.”

  “No,” answered the wise one, feeling some slight misgivings, more onthe subject of the out-go than the income. “You might live on verylittle--if you had it.”

  “Yes,” said Griffith, apparently struck by the brilliancy of theobservation, “Dolly and I have said so often.”

  “Let me see,” considered Aimée, “suppose we were to make a sortof calculation. Give me your lead-pencil and a leaf out of yourpocket-book.”

  Griffith produced both at once. He had done it often enough before whenDolly had been the calculator, and had made a half-serious joke of theperformance, counting up her figures on the tips of her fingers, andmaking great professions of her knowledge of domestic matters; butit was a different affair in Aimée’s hands. Aimée was in earnest, andbending over her scrap of paper, with two or three little lines onher white forehead began to set things down with an air at oncebusiness-like and vigorous, reading, the various items aloud.

  “Rent, coals, taxes, food, wages,--you can’t do your own washing, youknow,--clothes, etceteras. There it is, Griffith,” the odd, tried looksettling in her eyes.

  Griffith took the paper.

  “Thank you,” he remarked, resignedly, after he had glanced at it. “Justfifty pounds per annum more than I have any prospect of getting. Butyou are very kind to take so much interest in it, little woman.” “Littlewoman” was his pet name for her.

  She put her hand up to her forehead and gave the wrinkles a little rub,as if she would have liked to rub them away.

  “No,” she said, in distress. “I am very fond of calculating, so it isn’tany trouble to me. I only wish I could calculate until what you want andwhat you have got would come out even.”

  Griffith sighed. He had wished the same thing himself upon severaloccasions.

  He had one consolation in the midst of his tribulations, however. He hadDolly’s letters, one of which arrived at “the office” every few days.Certainly they were both faithful correspondents. Tied with blue ribbonin a certain strong box, lay an immense collection of small envelopes,all marked with one peculiarity, namely, that the letters inside themhad been at once closely written, and so much too tightly packed that itseemed a wonder they had ever arrived safely at their destination.They bore various postmarks, foreign and English, and were of differenttints, but they were all directed in the one small, dashing hand, whose_t’_s were crossed with an audacious little flourish, and whose capitalswere so prone to run into whimsical little curls. Most of them had beenwritten when Dolly had sojourned with her charges in Switzerland, andsome of them were merely notes of appointment from Bloomsbury Place; buteach of them held its own magnetic attraction for Griffith, and not oneof them would he have parted with for untold gold. He could count thesesmall envelopes by the score, but he had never received one in hislife without experiencing a positive throb of delight, which held freshpleasure every time.

  Most of these letters, too, had stories of their own. Some had come whenhe had been discouraged and down at heart, and they had been so full ofsunshine, and pretty, loving conceits, that by the time he had finishedreading them he had been positively jubilant; some, I regret to say,were a trifle wilful and coquettish, and had so roused him to jealousfancies that he had instantly dashed off a page or so of insane reproachand distrust which had been the beginning of a lover’s quarrel; someof them (always written after he had been specially miserable andunreasoning) were half-pathetic mixtures of reproach and appeal, full ofsmall dashes of high indignation, and outbursts of p
enitence, and withsuch a capricious, yet passionate ring in every line, that they hadseemed less like letters than actual speech, and had almost forced himto fancy that Dolly herself was at his side, all in the flush and glowof one of her prettiest remorseful outbreaks.

  And these letters from Brabazon Lodge were just as real, so theyat least helped him to bear his trials more patiently than he couldotherwise have done. She was far more comfortable than she had expectedto be, she told him. Her duties were light, and Miss MacDowlas not hardto please, and altogether she was not dissatisfied.

  “But that I am away from _you_,” she wrote, “I should say BrabazonLodge was better than the Bilberrys’. There is no skirmishing with LadyAugusta, at least; and, though skirmishing with Lady Augusta is notwithout its mild excitement, it is not necessary to one’s happiness,and may be dispensed with. I wonder what Miss MacDowlas would say if sheknew why I wear this modest ring on my third finger. When I explained toher casually that we were old friends, she succinctly remarked that youwere a reprobate, and, feeling it prudent not to proceed with furtherdisclosures, I bent my head demurely over my embroidery, and subsidedinto silence. I cannot discover why she disapproves of you unless itis that she has erratic notions about literary people. Perhaps she willalter her opinion in time. As it is, it can scarcely matter whether sheknows of our engagement or not. When a fitting opportunity arrivesI shall tell her, and I don’t say I shall not enjoy the spice of the_denouement_. In the meantime I read aloud to her, talk, work wonders inBerlin wool, and play or sing when she asks me, which is not often. Inthe morning we drive out, in the afternoon she enjoys her nap, andin the evening I sit decorously intent upon the Berlin wonders, butthinking all the time of you and the parlor in Bloomsbury Place, whereTod disports himself in triumphant indifference to consequences, andwhere the girls discuss the lingering possibilities of their wardrobes.You may-tell Mollie we are very grand,--we have an immense footman, whoaccompanies us in our walks or drives, and condescends to open and shutour carriage-door for us, with the air of a gentleman at leisure. I amrather inclined to think that this gentleman has cast an approving eyeupon me, as I heard him observe to the housemaid the other day, that Iwas ‘a reether hinterestin’ young party,’ which mark of friendly noticehas naturally cheered me on my lonely way.”

  Among the people who felt the change in the household keenly, RalphGowan may assuredly be included. He missed Dolly as much as any of themdid, but he missed her in a different manner. He did not call quite asoften as he had been in the habit of doing, and when he did call he wasmore silent and less entertaining. Dolly had always had an inspiringeffect upon him, and, lacking the influence of her presence, evenVagabondia lost something of its charm. So sometimes he was guilty ofthe impoliteness of slipping into half-unconscious reveries of a fewminutes’ duration, and, being thus guilty upon one particular occasion,he was roused, after a short lapse of time, through the magneticinfluence of a pair of soft eyes fixed upon him, which eyes heencountered the instant he looked up, with a start.

  Mollie--the eyes were Mollie’s--dropped her brown lashes with a quickmotion, turning a little away from him; so he smiled at her with a senseof half-awakened appreciation. It was so natural to smile so at Mollie.

  “Why, Mollie,” he said, “what ails us? We are not usually so dull. Wehave not spoken to each other for ten minutes.”

  The girl did not look at him; her round, childish cheek was flushed,and her eyes were fixed on the fire, half proudly, half with a sort ofinnocently transparent indifference.

  “Perhaps we have nothing worth saying to each other,” she said.“Everybody is n’t like Dolly.”

  Dolly! He colored slightly, though he smiled again. How did she know hewas thinking of Dolly? Was it so patent a fact that even she could readit in his face? It never occurred to him for an instant that there couldexist a reason why the eyes of this grown-up baby should be sharpened.She was such a very baby, with her ready blushes and her pettish, lovelyface.

  “And so you miss Dolly, too?” he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders, as if to imply that she considered thequestion superfluous.

  “Of course I do,” she answered; “and of course we all do. Dolly is thesort of person likely to be missed.”

  She was so petulant about it that, not understanding her, he was bothamused and puzzled, and so by degrees was drawn into making diversgallant, almost caressing speeches, such as might have been drawn fromhim by the changeful mood of a charming, wilful child.

  “Something has made you angry,” he said. “What is it, Mollie?”

  “Nothing has made me angry,” she replied. “I am not angry.”

  “But you look angry,” he returned, “and how do you suppose I am to beinteresting when you look angry?”

  “It cannot matter to you,” said Miss Mollie, “whether I am angry ornot.”

  “Not matter!” he echoed, with great gravity. “It amounts to positivecruelty. Just at this particular moment I feel as if I should neversmile again.”

  She reddened to her very throat, and then turned round all at once,flashing upon him such a piteous, indignant, indescribable glance asalmost startled him.

  “You are making fun of me,” she cried out. “You always make fun of _me_.You would n’t talk so to Dolly.” And that instant she burst into tears.

  He was dumbfounded. He could not comprehend it at all. He had thoughtof her as being so completely a child, that her troubles were never morethan a child’s troubles, and her moods a child’s moods. He had admiredher, too, as he would have admired her if she had been six years old,and he had never spoken to her as he would have spoken to a woman, inthe whole course of their acquaintance. She was right in telling himthat he would not have said such things to Dolly. He was both concernedand touched. What could he do but go to her and be dangerously penitent,and say a great many things easily said, but not soon to be forgotten!Indeed, her soft, nervous, passionate sobs, of which she was so muchashamed, her innocent tremor, and her pretty, wilful disregard of hisremorse were such a new sensation to him, that it must be confessed hewas not so discreet as he should have been.

  “You never speak so to Dolly,” she persisted, “nor to Aimée, either,and Aimée is only two years older than I am. It is not my fault,” petulantly, “that I am only seventeen.”

  “Fault!” he repeated after her. “It is a very charming fault, if it isone. Come, Mollie,” looking down at her with a tender softness in hiseyes, “make friends with me again,--we ought to be friends. See,--let usshake hands!”

  Of course she let him take her hand and hold it lightly for a moment ashe talked, his really honest remorse at his blunder making him doublyearnest and so doubly dangerous. She had swept even Dolly out of hismind for the time being, and she occupied his attention so fully for therest of the evening that he had not the time to be absent-minded again.In half an hour all traces of her tears had fled, and she was sitting onher footstool near him, accepting with such evident delight his effortsat amusing her, that she quite repaid him for his trouble.

  After this there seemed to be some connecting link between them. Indefault of other attractions, he made headway with Mollie, and was tosome extent consoled. He talked to her when he made his visits, and itgradually became an understood thing that they were very good friends.He won her confidence completely,--so far, indeed, that she used totell him her troubles, and was ready to accept what meed of praise orfriendly blame he might think fit to bestow upon her.

  It was a few weeks after the above-recorded episode that Griffitharrived one afternoon, in some haste, with a note from Dolly addressedto Aimée, and containing a few hurried lines. It had been enclosed in aletter to himself.

  Somewhat unexpectedly Miss MacDowlas had decided upon giving adinner-party, and Dolly wanted the white merino, which she had forgottento put into her trunk when she had packed it. Would they make a parcelof it and send it by Mollie to Brabazon Lodge?

  “You will have to go at once, Mollie,” said Aimée, afte
r reading thenote. “It will be dark in an hour, and you ought not to be out afterdark.”

  “It is a great deal nicer to be out then,” said Mollie, whose ideasof propriety were by no means rigid. “I like to see the shop windowslighted up. Where is my hat? Does anybody know?” rising from the carpetand abandoning Tod to his own resources.

  Nobody did know, of course. It was not natural that anybody should. Hatsand gloves and such small fry were generally left to provide quartersfor themselves in Bloomsbury Place.

  “What is the use of bothering?” remarked Mrs. Phil, disposing of thedifficulty of their non-appearance when required, simply; “they alwaysturn up in time.” And in like manner Mollie’s hat “turned up,” and ina few minutes she returned to the parlor, tying the elastic under herhair.

  “Your hair wants doing,” said Aimée, having made up her parcel.

  “Yes,” replied Mollie, contentedly, “Tod has been pulling himself up byit; but it would be such a trouble to do anything to it just now, and Ican tuck it back in a bunch. It only looks a little fuzzy, and that ‘sfashionable. Does this jacket look shabby, Aimée? It is a good thing ithas pockets in it. I always _did_ like pockets in a jacket, they are sonice to put your hands in when your gloves have holes in them.”

  “Your gloves oughtn’t to have holes in them,” commented Aimée.

  “But how can you help it if you have n’t got the money to buy new ones?” asked Mollie.

  “You ought to mend them,” said the wise one.

  “Mend them!” echoed Mollie, regarding two or three bare pink finger-tipsdubiously. “They are not worth mending.”

  “They were once,” said Aimée; “and you ought to have stitched thembefore it was too late. But that is always our way,” wrinkling herforehead with her usual touch of old-young anxiousness. “We are notpractical. There! take the parcel and walk quickly, Mollie.”

  Once on the street, Mollie certainly obeyed her. With the parcel in onearm, and with one hand thrust into the convenient pocket, she hurriedon her way briskly, not even stopping once to look at the shop windows.Quite unconscious, too, was she of the notice she excited among thepassers-by. People even turned to look after her more than once, asindeed they often did. The scarlet scarf twisted round her throat tohide the frayed jacket collar, and the bit of scarlet mixed with thetrimmings of her hat contrasted artistically with her brown eyes, andadded brightness to the color on her cheeks. It was no wonder that menand women alike, in spite of their business-like hurry, found time toglance at her and even turn their heads over their shoulders to lookbackward, as she made her way along the pavement.

  It was quite dark when she reached her destination, and Brabazon Lodgewas brilliantly lighted up,--so brilliantly, indeed, that when the heavyfront door was opened, in answer to her ring, she was a trifle dazzledby the flood of brightness in which Dolly’s friend, the “gentleman atleisure,” seemed to stand.

  On stating her errand, she was handed over to a female servant, whostood in the hall.

  “She was to be harsked in,” she heard the footman observe,confidentially, to the young woman, “and taken to Miss Crewe’s roomimmediate.”

  So she was led up-stairs, and ushered into a pretty bedroom, where shefound Dolly sitting by the fire in a dressing-gown, with her hair abouther shoulders.

  She jumped up the moment Mollie entered, and ran to her, brush in hand,to kiss her.

  “You are a good child,” she said. “Come to the fire and sit down. Didyou have any trouble in finding the house? I was afraid you would. Itwas just like me to forget the dress, and I never missed it until Ibegan to look for it, wanting to wear it to-night. How is Tod?”

  “He has got another tooth,” said Mollie. “I found it to-day. Dolly,” glancing round, “how nice your room is!”

  “Yes,” answered Dolly, checking a sigh, “but don’t sigh after thefleshpots of Egypt, Mollie. One does n’t see the dullest side of life atBloomsbury Place, at least.”

  “Is it dull here?” asked Mollie.

  Dolly shrugged her expressive shoulders.

  “Berlin-wool work is n’t exciting,” she said. “How did you leaveGriffith?”

  “Low-spirited,” replied Mollie. “I heard him tell Aimée this afternoonthat he could n’t stand it much longer.”

  Dolly began to brush her hair, and brushed it very much over her face,perhaps because she wished to take advantage of its shadow; for mostassuredly Mollie caught sight of something sparkling amongst theabundant waves almost like a drop of dew.

  “Dolly,” she said at last, breaking the awkward little sympatheticsilence which naturally followed, “do you remember our reading the‘Vicar of Wakefield’?”

  “Yes,” said Dolly, in a mournful half-whisper; she could not trustherself to say more.

  “And about the family being ‘up,’ and then being ‘down’? I always thinkwe are like they were. First it is ‘the family up,’ and then ‘the familydown.’ It is down just now.”

  “Yes,” said Dolly.

  “It will be ‘up’ again, in time,” proceeded Mollie, sagaciously. “Italways is.”

  Dolly tried to laugh, but her laugh was a nervous little effort whichbroke off in another sound altogether. Berlin-wool work and BrabazonLodge had tried her somewhat and--she wanted Griffith. It seemed to herjust then such a far distant unreal Paradise,--that dream of the modestparlor with the door shut against the world, and the green sofa drawnnear the fire. Were they ever to attain it, or were they to grow old andtired out waiting, and hoping against hope?

  She managed to rally, however, in a few minutes. Feeling discouraged andrebellious was not of much use,--that was one of Vagabondia’s earliestlearned lessons. And what good was there in making Mollie miserable? Soshe plucked up spirit and began to talk, and, to her credit be it said,succeeded in being fairly amusing, and made Mollie laugh outright half adozen times during the remainder of her short stay. It was only a shortstay, however. She remembered Aimée’s warning at last, and rose ratherin a hurry.

  “I shall have to walk quickly if I want to get home in time for tea,” she said, “so good-night, Dolly. You had better finish dressing.”

  “So I had,” answered Dolly. “I am behind time already, but I shall notbe many minutes, and Miss MacDowlas is not like Lady Augusta. Listen; Ibelieve I hear wheels at the door now. It must be later than I fancied.”

  It was later than she fancied. As Mollie passed through the hall twogentlemen who were ascending the steps crossed her path, and, seeing theface of one who had not appeared to notice her presence, she startedso nervously that she dropped her glove. His companion--a handsome,foreign-looking man--bent down and, picking it up, returned it to her,with a glance of admiring scrutiny which made her more excited thanever. She scarcely had the presence of mind to thank him, but rushedpast him and out into the night in a passionate flutter of pain andsudden childish anger, inconsistent enough.

  “He never saw me!” she said to herself, catching her breath piteously.“He is going to see Dolly. It is n’t the party he cares for, and itis n’t Miss MacDowlas,--it is nobody but Dolly. He has tried to get aninvitation just because--because he cares for Dolly.”

  She reached home in time for tea, arriving with so little breath and somuch burning color that they all stared at her, and Aimée asked her ifshe had been frightened.

  “No,” she answered, “but I ran half the way because I wanted to be intime.”

  She did not talk at tea, and scarcely ate anything, and when Griffithcame in, at about nine o’clock, he found her lying on the sofa, flushedand silent. She said she had a headache.

  “I took Dolly her dress,” she said. “They are having a grand partyand--Does Miss MacDowlas know Mr. Gowan, Griffith?”

  Griffith started and changed countenance at once.

  “No,” he answered. “Why?”

  “He was there,” she said, listlessly. “I met him in the hall as I cameout, but he did not see me. He must have tried to get an invitationbecause--well, you
know how he likes Dolly.”

  And thus, the train having been already laid, was the spark applied.