Vagabondia Part 32

"One cannot forget so much in so short a time," Dolly pleaded. "And it is so much,--more than even you think. One cannot forget seven years in three months,--give me seven months, Aimee. I shall be better in time, when I have forgotten."

Forgotten! Even those far duller of perception than Aimee could have seen that she would not soon forget. She had not begun in the right way to forget. The pain which had made the pretty figure and the soft, round face look faintly worn, was sharper to-day than it had been even three months before, and it was gaining in sharpness every day, nay, every hour.

"The days are so long," she said, plaiting the silk of her dress on-the restless hands. "We are so quiet, except when we have visitors, and somehow visitors begin to tire me. I scarcely ever knew what it was to be tired before. I don't care even to scatter the Philistines now,"

trying to smile. "I am not even roused by the prospect of meeting Lady Augusta tonight. I forgot to tell you she was coming, did n't I? How she would triumph if she knew how I have fallen and--and how miserable I am! She used to say I had not a thought above the cut of my dresses. She never knew about--_him_, poor fellow!"

It was curious to see how she still clung to that tender old pitying way of speaking of Grif.

Aimee began to cry over her again.

"You must come home, Dolly," she said. "You must, indeed. You will get worse and worse if you stay here. I will speak to Miss MacDowlas myself.

You say she is kind to you."

"Dear little woman," said Dolly, closing her eyes as she let her head rest upon the girl's shoulder. "Dear, kind little woman! indeed it will be best for me to stay here. It is as I said,--indeed it is. If I were to go home I should _die!_ Oh, don't you _know_ how cruel it would be!

To sit there in my chair and see his old place empty,--to sit and hear the people pa.s.sing in the street and know I should never hear his footstep again,--to see the door open again and again, and know he would never, never pa.s.s through. It would break my heart,--it would break my heart!"

"It is broken now!" cried Aimee, in a burst of grief, and she could protest no more.

But she remained as long as she well could, petting and talking to her.

She knew better than to offer her threadbare commonplace comfort, so she took refuge in talking of life at Bloomsbury Place,--about Tod and Mollie and Toinette, and the new picture Phil was at work upon. But it was a hard matter for her to control herself sufficiently to conceal that she was almost in an agony of anxiousness and foreboding. What was she to do with this sadly altered Dolly, the mainspring of whose bright, spirited life was gone? How was she to help her if she could not restore Grif,--it was only Grif she wanted,--and where was he? It was just as she had always said it would be,--without Grif, Dolly was Dolly no longer,--for Grif's sake her faithful, pa.s.sionate girl's heart was breaking slowly.

Lady Augusta, encountering her ex-governess in the drawing-room that evening, raised her eyegla.s.s to that n.o.ble feature, her nose, and condescended a questioning inspection, full of disapproval of the heavy, well-falling black silk and the Elizabethan frill.

"You are looking shockingly pale and thin," she said.

Dolly glanced at her reflection in an adjacent mirror. She only smiled faintly, in silence.

"I was not aware that you were ill," proceeded her ladys.h.i.+p.

"I cannot say that I am ill," Dolly answered. "How is Phemie?"

"Euphemia," announced Lady Augusta, "is well, and I _trust_" as if she rather doubted her having so far overcome old influences of an evil nature,--"I _trust_ improving, though I regret to hear from her preceptress that she is singularly deficient in application to her musical lessons."

Dolly thought of the professor with the lumpy face, and smiled again.

Phemie's despairing letters to herself sufficiently explained why her progress was so slow.

"I hope," said her ladys.h.i.+p to Miss MacDowlas, afterward, "that you are satisfied with Dorothea's manner of filling her position in your household."

"I never was so thoroughly satisfied in my life," returned the old lady, stiffly. "She is a very quickwitted, pleasantly natured girl, and I am extremely fond of her."

"Ah," waving a majestic and unbending fan of carved ivory. "She has possibly improved then. I observe that she is going off very much,--in the matter of looks, I mean."

"I heard a gentleman remark, a few minutes ago," replied Miss MacDowlas, "that the girl looked like a white rose, and I quite agreed with him; but I am fond of her, as I said, and you are not."

Her ladys.h.i.+p shuddered faintly, but she did not make any further comment, perhaps feeling that her hostess was too powerful to encounter.

At midnight the visitors went their several ways, and after they had dispersed and the rooms were quiet once again, Miss MacDowlas sent her companion to bed, or, at least, bade her good-night.

"You had better go at once," she said. "I will remain to give orders to the servants. You look tired. The excitement has been too much for you."

So Dolly thanked her and left the room; but Miss MacDowlas did not hear her ascend the stairs, and accordingly, after listening a moment or so, went to the room door and looked out into the hall. And right at the foot of the staircase lay Dolly Crewe, the l.u.s.treless, trailing black dress making her skin seem white as marble, her pretty face turned half downward upon her arm.

Half an hour later the girl returned to consciousness to find herself lying comfortably in bed, the chamber empty save for herself and Miss MacDowlas, who was standing at her side watching her.

"Better?" she said. "That is right, my dear. The evening was too much for you, as I was afraid it would be. You are not as strong as you should be."

"No," Dolly answered, quietly.

There was a silence of a few minutes, during which she closed her eyes again; but she heard Miss MacDowlas fidgeting a little, and at last she heard her speak.

"My dear," she said, "I think I ought to tell you something. When you fell, I suppose you must somehow or other have pressed the spring of your locket, for it was open when I went to you, and--I saw the face inside it."

"Grif," said Dolly, in a tired voice, "Grif."

And then she remembered how she had written to him about what this very _denouement_ would be when it came. How strange, how wearily strange, it was to think that it should come about in such a way as this!

"My nephew," said Miss MacDowlas. "Griffith Donne."

"Yes," said Dolly, briefly. "I was engaged to him."

"Was!" echoed Miss MacDowlas. "Did he behave badly to you, my dear?"

"No, I behaved badly to him--and that is why I am ill."

Miss MacDowlas blew her nose.

"How long?" she asked, at length. "May I ask how long you were engaged to each other, my dear? Don't answer me if you do not wish."

"I was engaged to him," faltered the girlish voice,--"we were all the world to each other for seven years--for seven long years."

CHAPTER XV. ~ IN WHICH WE TRY SWITZERLAND.

IN the morning of one of the hot days in June, Mollie, standing at the window of Phil's studio, turned suddenly toward the inmates of the room with an exclamation.

"Phil!" she said, "Toinette! There is a carriage drawing up before the door."

"Lady Augusta?" said Toinette, making a dart at Tod.

"Confound Lady Augusta!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Phil, devoutly. "That woman has a genius for presenting herself at inopportune times."

"But it is n't Lady Augusta," Mollie objected. "It is n't the Bilberry carriage at all. Do you think I don't know 'the ark'?"

"You ought to by this time," returned Phil. "I do, to my own deep grief."

"It is the Brabazon Lodge carriage!" cried Mollie, all at once. "Miss MacDowlas is getting out, and--yes, here is Dolly!"