Dolores (7 page)

“It does not do to think of what might have been. We must admit that father has found happiness in his second marriage, and it is that we have to think of. It was his own life he was concerned with when he married again. It was no right of mine to be everything to him. We have always had from him a father's affection and a father's duty. More than that we have no reason to expect.”

“If
I
have always had a father's affection,” said Bertram, “I should not say that affection was a strong point with fathers.”

Dolores was silent; and no more was said till they walked up the garden of the parsonage.

“Well, Dolores,” said Mrs Hutton, coming into the porch; “I am glad to see you at home again. You must be tired after your long journey. Children, came and say ‘how do you do' to Dolores.”

The two little sisters—Sophia, a noble-looking girl of eight, and Evelyn, a fragile little damsel two years younger—obeyed with an eagerness which brought a chill into Mrs Hutton's mellow tones.

“Come, there is no need to be boisterous. Do not be rough, Sophy. Bertram, there is no
occasion to stand in the middle of the hall, leaving no passage for any one. Your father is in his study, Dolores, if you would like to see him.”

“Well, my daughter,” said the Reverend Cleveland, stepping from this sanctuary in response to the sounds that reached him, and speaking with a touch of emotion in his tones, “so you have left your school-days behind you. Well, it is a chapter of your life past; so things go by one by one till everything is behind. But I think you may look back on them as a chapter well lived”

“Come, Cleveland, let some of us move out of the hall,” said Mrs Hutton. “I daresay Dolores would prefer some tea after her journey to listening to such a mixture of metaphors. Who ever heard of any one's school-days being a chapter—and a chapter well
lived,
too? Come, children, run into the dining-room.”

Poor Mr Hutton, checked in the rather morose philosophising natural to him as a vehicle of fatherly greeting, bestowed upon his daughter a conventional paternal embrace, and followed his family in silence.

“The news of your scholarship gave me the greatest pleasure, my daughter,” he presently said, with the formal precision which marked his dealings with Dolores. “Its proof of perseverence and ability is as gratifying as its substantial
aid. I am glad to be assured of your fitness for the work you have chosen. Convinced of your power to succeed, I could wish you nothing better.” Mr Hutton had a way of making public defence of his sanction of his daughter's earning her bread.

Mrs Hutton gave a quick glance at her husband, and opened her lips; but closed them again, and busied herself with the wants of her children.

“Dolores is the cleverest person in the house, isn't she?” said Sophia, fixing her eyes gravely on Dolores' face, as if appreciation were a serious matter.

“She has had the most advantages,” said Mrs Hutton.

“We met Dr Cassell on our way from the station,” said Dolores, “and heard two entirely fresh anecdotes. His memory is bottomless.”

“Did he congratulate you on your scholarship?” said the Reverend Cleveland, who, as a university gentleman of clerical calling, took a somewhat exaggerated view of the moment of matters academic.

“Yes, it was he who reminded me of it,” said Bertram. “But he does not follow that sort of thing. His ideas of education are very queer. However, he assured her she was richer in the possession of knowledge than of anything else on earth.”

“Well, well, he might be further wrong there, my daughter,” said Mr Hutton.

“My dear Cleveland,” said Mrs Hutton, “we all know that Dolores is your daughter. You need not remind us of it again.”

Mr Hutton did not glance at his wife, or give any sign of hearing her words. He fell into silence.

“Father always calls Dolores that, doesn't he?” said Sophia, who was subject to the tendency of early days to cast every other remark in the form of a question.

“No, no, of course not; only sometimes,” said Mrs Hutton. “All fathers call their daughters that sometimes—after they are grown up.”

“Has this scholarship been gained by a pupil at your school before, Dolores?” said Mr Hutton.

“Oh, pray do not let us talk about the same thing for the whole of tea-time,” said Mrs Hutton. “I am sure we are all very glad that Dolores has made the most of her advantages, and so gained other advantages for herself. But we need not confine our conversation to it entirely. It is such a very dull subject for the children.”

Dolores coloured and made no response to her father.

“Has the scholarship been gained by a pupil
from your school before, my daughter?” said the Reverend Cleveland, repeating his question as though he supposed she had not heard it.

Mrs Hutton, whose instinct seldom failed her where her husband was concerned, appeared to be absorbed in presiding at the urn, while Dolores made a brief reply; and the Reverend Cleveland broached another subject, as though no inkling of the jar had reached him.

“By the way, my dear, I met your sister and brother-in-law this morning; and we are to spend the evening with them on Wednesday. Cassell is to be there, and Mrs Merton-Vane, and the new Wesleyan minister; so we shall be quite a party. A queer enough party in all conscience; but one cannot pick and choose one's company in a village. I thought it best to accept. That was right, I suppose?”

“Yes; Carrie would be vexed if we refused. She always wants to show us off to the Wesleyan ministers. Dissenters are proud of being related to church-people, just as the Americans are the nation who set most value on a title,” said Mrs Hutton, who was no longer hampered by her native sectarianism.

There was a general laugh; and for the next few minutes Mrs Hutton was sprightly and talkative.

“I suppose that Bertram and I must go on
foot and leave the trap to you ladies, so that you can keep your furbelows in order?” said the Reverend Cleveland, with a laboured effort to maintain the geniality of his daughter's homecoming.

Bertram smiled and agreed, but Mrs Hutton was silent. The knowledge that Bertram and Dolores were included in her sister's hospitality killed any pleasure in her thoughts of it. Her husband confined his formality with his eldest daughter to his own home; and she saw the evening resolve itself into hours of humiliation under her sister's eyes.

“I cannot think,” she observed to her husband when they were alone later, “why Carrie cannot ever ask us to her house without Dolores and Bertram. They are no imaginable relation of hers.”

The Reverend Cleveland was silent. Silence was neither taxing nor self-committing. He often availed himself of it.

“It is such a very peculiar thing,” continued Mrs Hutton, not soothed by this unreadiness of response. “It seems as if my path is to be continually dogged by my stepchildren. Any one would think that it was you and not I who was related to Caroline.”

Mr Hutton rose and moved towards the door. He was not a man of recreant spirit any more
than he was a man of words; but there were matters where his powers of endurance were minimised.

“Well, well, I expect she means it for the best,” he said. “I daresay they think that, as you have the stepchildren, it would not help your position to refuse to recognise them'

“Well,
Vicar!
” said Mr Blackwood, with genial emphasis, as he welcomed Mr Hutton into his drawing-room. “I am
glad
to see you one of our party again. Well, Bertram, you are growing a fine, strapping young fellow. I declare you will soon have left your father behind you. I declare that he will, Vicar—I declare that he will.”

Mr Hutton shook hands with his host, gave a covered glance at the Wesleyan minister, observed to Dr Cassell that the evening was dry, and fell into silence; feeling that the initiative due from an ordained Churchman in Dissenting company was at an end.

“Now,
Vicar,”
said Mr Blackwood loudly, in the tone of one proceeding to the main business, “let me introduce you to Mr
Billing;
who for the next three years will be amongst us as our minister; and, I hope—am sure, indeed, if he is minded as we are—as our friend. Now, one of the advantages we Wesleyans have over you
Church of England people”—Mr Blackwood's utterance of the last words implied that he did not see himself what especial significance they carried—“is that we have the services—and the friendship—of a different member of our body every three years; instead of being tied to one man all our lives, whether we like him or no. Mr Billing,—Mr Hutton, my brother-in-law—at least, I suppose he is my brother-in-law. I am not well up in these marriage relationships. At any rate our wives are sisters. I can tell you that for a certainty.”

Mr Billing, a wholesome little man of forty, with smooth, red cheeks and twinkling little eyes, excellent both as a man and a Methodist, as his fathers had been before him, but falling short of them in not being excellent as a grocer as well, offered a tentative hand to the member of the body his host referred to with this measure of tact; and underwent increase of humility rather than the opposite process in goodwill, as the latter bent his head with entire remoteness of expression.

“Now, this is what I
like
to see!” exclaimed Mr Blackwood, who was untroubled by exaggerated keenness of perception. “I
like
to see people of different sects mingling together, and associating in a friendly way with one another. It is
my
belief that that is how it was intended to be. I confess that I am a thorough
Wesleyan,
born and bred, myself; but that does not prevent my being able to see, and be
glad
of what is good in other sects. What do you say, doctor?”

“Yes—yes, certainly,” said Dr Cassell, in a parenthetical tone, without raising his head.

“Yes, yes, that is the attitude,” said Mr Billing, with a quick and rather indistinct utterance, which gave an idea of hurrying that its want of culture might be missed; “that is the attitude we should strive to get at. I trust—I think we are given grounds for hoping—that the day will come when it is the universal attitude. I think—it is thought, you know—that we are to judge that from the prophets.”

“‘If a man hath all things else, and hath not charity,
it profiteth
him nothing,'” said Dr Cassell, with deliberate distinctness and a smile.

Mr Billing gave the doctor a glance of some esteem, and laughed, saying, “Yes, exactly.” Mr Blackwood, who was addicted to inattentiveness, made no response: and the Reverend Cleveland followed the latter example; an effort to attain an expression of utter disregard resulting in one of the same degree of disgust.

After a minute's silence, during which Mr Billing fidgeted amiably, half turning to one and another as though desirous of talk but unprovided with a topic, the door opened to admit the ladies—Mrs Cassell, Mrs Blackwood, and Mrs Hutton; followed by Dolores and the three eldest
children of Mr and Mrs Blackwood. Behind came Mrs Merton-Vane, the wife of the agent of the local nobleman—a comely, kindly, foolish matron, whose foremost quality was a persistence in appending her husband's Christian name by a hyphen to his surname, and regarding his post as agent to a nobleman as establishing his own family as noble. She had chosen to sweep alone into the view of Mr Hutton, whose acceptance of dissenting hospitality was her reason for doing the same.

Mrs Blackwood turned her attention to the introductions to Mr Billing; reserving for him the chief of her cordiality; and looking annoyed by the air assumed towards him by her eldest daughter—a dainty, naughty maiden a little younger than Dolores; who turned away after a careless bow and began to chatter with a favourite's audacity to the Reverend Cleveland. Herbert, a quiet-mannered youth of seventeen, shook hands, and stood aside talking to Dolores and Bertram. Lettice, a stolid - looking girl with a sweet expression, remained with her eyes fixed on his face, while her mother entered into talk.

“I did so enjoy your sermon on Sunday, Mr Billing, and so did my husband. I was so struck by parts of it, that I came straight home and made some notes of them. You know I sometimes speak myself on these subjects in my
humble way; and I found your sermon was so very suggestive.”

“Indeed, indeed, was that so?” said Mr Billing, jumping slightly in his seat, as was his wont when he was nervous or grateful. “I—I am glad, Mrs Blackwood.”

“How ve-ry nice for you to hear Mr Bil-ling!” said Mrs Merton-Vane, who had a trick of pronouncing occasional words with a break in the middle, to the accompaniment of an inclination of her head. “How ve-ry nice!”

“Yes, indeed it was,” said Mrs Blackwood, in her high - pitched, somewhat strained tones. “We all enjoyed it so very much, did we not, Lettice?”

“Yes, indeed we did,” said Lettice. “And I am sure we shall enjoy many others from Mr Billing no less.”

“Well, well, I hope so—with the higher help,” said Mr Billing, dropping his voice at the last words, and making, we will suppose, some transition in their application.

“I was so much struck by the simile at the end of it,” continued Mrs Blackwood. “It is such a beautiful idea—that every good action leaves its light behind—‘a light that shall never be quenched.' You know there is something of the same idea in Shakespeare; when Portia says that, just as the light shines from a window on the darkness of the night, ‘so shines a good deed
in a wicked world.' You know the passage, Mr Billing?”

“Yes, I believe I have come across it,” said Mr Billing—“that is, I do not think it strikes me as—as being new to me.”

“But I think we may accord Mr Billing the tribute of originality,” said Lettice, whom her family considered intellectual. “His idea and that of Shakespeare are quite different.”