Old Kensington Part 21

'My spirit is quite broken,' she would say, cheerfully. 'Give me that small hand-screen, Dolly; for _your_ sake, Sarah, I will gladly chaperone Dolly to Cambridge, as Robert proposes (it must be after my return from Yorks.h.i.+re); but I do wish you would let me write and ask for an invitation for you. George, poor fellow, wants me to bring Rhoda and the Morgan girls. I do hate girls. It is really wicked of him.'

'If that were George's worst offence----,' said his Aunt Sarah, grimly.

'My poor boy!' said Mrs. Palmer. 'Sarah, you are not a mother, and do not understand him. Come here, darling George. How I wish I could spare you from going back to those horrid examinations!'

George flushed up very red. 'I should be very sorry to be spared,' he muttered.

Mrs. Palmer used to ask Robert endless questions about Henley Court, and his aunt Lady Henley. 'Was she looking as weather-beaten as ever? Did she still wear plaids? Vulgar woman!' whispered Mrs. Palmer to Dolly.

Robert pretended not to hear. 'I shall make a point of going there, Robert,' she said, 'and facing the Henley buckram.' Robert gravely a.s.sured her that she would be most welcome.

'Welcome, my dear Robert! You cannot imagine what an impertinent letter I have received from Joanna,' says Mrs. Palmer. 'I shall go when it is convenient to me, if only to show her that I do not care for anything she can say. Joanna's style is only to be equalled by the Admiral's. The mail will be in on Monday.'

So Philippa remained a victim, placidly sipping her coffee and awaiting the Admiral's insulting letters. The only wonder was that they had not burst their envelopes and seals, so explosive were they. His fury lashed itself into dashes and blots and frantic loops and erasures. The bills had come in for her bracelets and m.u.f.flers and tinkling ornaments. Had she forgotten the fate of the daughters of Jerusalem, that went mincing and tinkling with their feet? She might take a situation as a kitchen-maid for all he cared. She was a spendthrift, idle, extravagant, good-for-nothing, &c. &c. Not one farthing would he allow her, &c. &c.; and so on. Mrs. Palmer used to go up to her room in high spirits to lie down to rest on the days they arrived, and send for Colonel Witherington to consult upon them.

She would not come down till dinner was just over, and appeared on these occasions in a long grey sort of dressing-gown and a _neglige_ little lace cap; she used to dine off almonds and raisins and cups of coffee, to Lady Sarah's secret indignation. 'Oh, Sarah, _you_ will not turn me away?' Mrs. Palmer would say, leaning back in languid comfort. Lady Sarah was very sorry, but somewhat sceptical. She would meet Pauline carrying French novels to the library after scenes which had nearly unnerved them all.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TERRACE AT ALL SAINTS' COLLEGE.

Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne, Die liebt ich einst alle in Liebeswonne.

--Heine.

Somewhere in the fairyland of Dorothea's imagination rises a visionary city, with towers and gables straggling against the sky. The streets go up hill and down hill, leading by cloisters and gateways and by walls, behind which gardens are lying like lakes of green among the stones and the ivy. A thrush is singing, and the shrill echoes of some boyish melancholy voices come from a chapel hard by. It is a chapel with a pile of fantastic columns standing in the quiet corner of a lane. All round the side door are niches and winding galleries, branches wreathing, placed there by faithful hands, crisp saints beatified in stony glory.

Are these, one is tempted to ask, as one looks at the generous old piles, the stones that cry out now-a-days when men are silent? They have, for the last century or two, uttered warnings and praises to many a generation pa.s.sing by: speaking to some of a bygone faith, to others of a living one. They still tell of past love and hope, and of past and present charity.

But in these times charity is a destroying angel; even the divine attributes seem to have changed, and Faith, Hope, and Charity have gone each their separate way.

To Dolly Vanborough, who had thought happiness was over for ever, it was the first great song of her youth that these old stones sang to her on her eighteenth birthday. She hears it still, though her youth is past.

It is the song of the wonder of life, of the divine in the human. As we go on its echoes reach us repeated again and again, reverberating from point to point; who that has heard them once will ever forget them? To some they come with happiness and the delight of new undreamt-of sympathy, to others with sorrow and the realisation of love.... Its strains came with prayer and long fasting to the saints of old. This song of Pentecost, I know no better name for it, echoes on from generation to generation from one heart to another. Sometimes by chance one has looked into a stranger's face and seen its light reflected.

Frank Raban saw its light in Dolly's face that day as she came out of the chapel to where her brother had left her. Just for an instant it was there while the psalm still sung in her heart. And yet the light in Dolly's face dimmed a little when she saw, not the person she had expected to see, but Mr. Raban waiting there.

'I came in Henley's place,' said he, hastily, guessing her thought. 'He was sent for by the Vice-Chancellor, and begged me to come and tell you this. He will join us directly.'

Mr. Raban had been waiting in the suns.h.i.+ny street while Dolly deliberately advanced down the worn steps of the chapel, crossed the flagged court, and came out of the narrow iron wicket of which the barred shadow fell upon her white fete-day dress. Miss Vanborough's face was shaded by a broad hat with curling blue feathers; she wore a pink rose in her girdle; it was no saintly costume; she was but a common-place mortal maiden in sprigged muslin, and saints wear, as we all know, red and blue, and green stained gla.s.s and damask and goatskins; and yet Frank Raban thought there was something saint-like in her bright face, which, for an instant, seemed reflecting all her heart.

'Henley lives on my staircase,' continued Raban. 'Those pink frills are his. He makes himself comfortable, as you see.'

'I'm glad of that,' said Dolly, smiling. 'How nice it must be for you to have him so near.'

'He always takes ladies to see his rooms,' Raban continued. 'He is a great favourite with them, and gives tea-parties.'

'A great favourite!' said Dolly, warmly. 'Of course one likes people who are kind and good and clever and true and nice.'

'Who are, in short, an addition sum, made up of equal portions of all the cardinal virtues,' said Raban.

He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did not care to hear Henley's praises from Dolly. It seemed to him dishonest to acquiesce.

Dolly stopped for half a second and looked at him.

Dorothea was a tall woman and their eyes were on a line, and their looks met. My heroine was at no pains to disguise the meaning of her indignant glances. 'How can you be so ungenerous?' she said, as plainly as if she had spoken.

Frank answered her silence in words.

'No, I don't like him,' he said, 'and he don't like me; and I don't care to pretend to better feelings than I really have. We are civil enough, and pull very well together. I beg your pardon. I own he deserves to succeed,' said the young man. 'There, Miss Vanborough, this is our garden, where we refresh ourselves with cigars and beer after our arduous studies.'

Dolly was still too much vexed to express her admiration.

They all began calling to them from under the tree. John Morgan, who was of the party, was lying flat upon his broad back, beaming at the universe, and fanning away the flies, Rhoda was sitting on the gra.s.s, in a foam of white muslin and Algerian shawls. George Vanborough, privileged for the day, was astride on a wooden table; a distant peac.o.c.k went strutting across the lawn; a little wind came blowing gently, stirring all the shadows; a college bell began to tinkle a little, and then left off.

'Glorious afternoon, isn't it?' says John Morgan, from the gra.s.s.

'It is like heaven,' says Dolly, looking up and round and about.

Rhoda's slim fingers clasp her pearl locket, which has come out again.

They were in the shade, the sun was s.h.i.+ning hot and intense upon the old garden. The roses, like bursting bubbles, were breaking in the heat against the old baked bricks, upon rows of prim collegiate flowers: lilies, and stocks, and marigolds. There was a multiplicity of sweet scents in the air, of shadows falling on the lawns (they flow from the old gates to the river); a tone is struck, an insect floats away along the garden wall. With its silence and flowers, and tremulous shades and suns.h.i.+ne, I know no sweeter spot than the old garden of All Saints'.

The gardener had placed seats and a bench under the old beech-tree for pilgrims to rest upon, weary with their journeys from shrine to shrine.

Mrs. Palmer was leaning back in a low garden-chair; the sweep of her flowing silks seemed to harmonise with her languid and somewhat melancholy grace. Rhoda was helping to open her parasol (the parasol was dove-coloured and lined with pink). There was a row of Morgans upon the bench; Mrs. Morgan upright in the midst, nicely curled and trimmed with satin bows and a white muslin daughter on either side.

It all happened in a moment: the sky burnt overhead, the sun shone upon the river, upon the colleges, with their green gardens: the rays seemed to strike fire where they met the water. The swans were sailing along the stream in placid state, followed by their grey brood, skimming and paddling in and out among the weeds and the green stems and leaves that sway with the ripple of the waters; a flight of birds high overhead crossed the vault of the heavens and disappeared in the distance.

Dorothea Vanborough was standing on the terrace at the end of the old college garden, where everything was so still, so sweet, and so intense that it seemed as if time was not, as if the clocks had stopped on their travels, as if no change could ever be, nor hours nor seasons sweep through the tranquil old place.

They were all laughing and talking; but Dolly, who was too lazy and too happy to talk, wandered away from them a little bit, to the garden's end, where she stood stooping over the low wall and watching the water flow by; there was a man fis.h.i.+ng on the opposite bank, and casting his line again and again. In the distance a boat was drifting along the stream, some insects pa.s.sed out towards the meadows humming their summer drone, a wasp sailed by. Dolly was half standing, half-sitting, against the low terrace wall; with one hand she was holding up her white muslin skirt, with the other she was grasping the ledge of the old bricks upon which the lichen had been at work spreading their gold and grey. So the girl waited, sunning herself; herself a part of the summer's day, and gently blooming and rejoicing in its sweetness like any rose upon the wall.

There are blissful moments when one's heart seems to beat in harmony with the great harmony: when one is oneself light and warmth, and the delight of light, and a voice in the comfortable chorus of contentment and praise all round about. Such a minute had come to Dolly in her white muslin dress, with the Cam flowing at her feet and the lights dazzling her grey eyes.

Mrs. Morgan gave a loud sneeze under the tree, and the beautiful minute broke and dispersed away.

'I wonder what it can be like to grow old,' Dolly wonders, looking up; 'to remember back for years and years, and to wear stiff curls and satinette?' Dolly began to picture to herself a long procession of future selves, each older and more curiously bedizened than the other.

Somehow they seemed to make a straight line between herself and Mrs.

Morgan under the tree. It was an uncomfortable fancy. Dolly tried to forget it, and leant over the wall, and looked down into the cool depths of the stream again. Was that fish rising? What was this? Her own face again looking up from the depth. Then Dolly turned, hearing a step upon the gravel, to see Robert Henley coming towards her. He was dressed in his college cap and gown, and he advanced, floating balloon-like, along the terrace. He looked a little strange, she thought, as he came up to her.

'I couldn't get away before,' he said. 'I hope you have been well looked after.'

'Yes, indeed. Come and sit down here, Robert. What a delicious old garden this is! We are all so happy! Look at those dear little swans in the river!'

'Do you like the cygnets?' said Robert, abruptly, as he looked her full in the face, and sat down on the low wall beside her. 'Do you remember Charles Martindale?' he asked; 'we met once at John Morgan's, who went out to India? He is coming home next October.'

'Is he?' said Dolly. 'Look at that little grey cygnet scuttling away!'

'Dolly,' said Henley, quickly, 'they sent for me to offer me his place, and I--I--have accepted it.'

'Accepted it?' said his cousin, forgetting the cygnets, and looking up a little frightened. 'Will you have to go to India and leave everybody?'