  On the Friday before they were to start on their little expedition, Mrs. Fane was busy; Dolly had been sitting alone for some time. She suddenly called to old Marker, asked her to put on her bonnet and come out with her. Dolly made Marker stop a cab, and they drove off; the old nurse wanted to turn back when she found out where Dolly was going, but she could not resist the girl's pleading looks. 'It will do me good, Marker,' said Dolly, 'indeed it will. I want to see the dear old place again.' All that morning she felt a longing to see the old place once more: something seemed to tell her that she must go. One often thinks that to be in such a place would bring ease, that the sight of such a person would solve all difficulties, and one travels off, and one seeks out the friend, and it was but a fancy after all. Poor old Church House! All night long Dolly had been dreaming of her home, unwinding the skeins of the past one by one. It may have been a fancy that brought Dolly, but it was a curious chance. They had come to the top of the lane, and Dolly got out and paid her cab. Her eyes were dim with the past, that was coming as a veil or a shroud between her and the present. She had no faint suspicion of what was at hand. They walked on unsuspiciously to the ivy gate: suddenly Marker cried out, and then Dolly too gave a little gasp. What cruel blow had fallen? what desecrating hand had dared to touch the dear old haunt? What was this? She had not dreamt this. The garden wall, so sweet with jessamine, was lying low, the prostrate ivy was struggling over a heap of bricks and rubbish, tracks of wheel-barrows ran from the house to the cruel heap, the lawn was tossed up, a mound of bricks stood raised by the drawing-room windows; the windows were gone, black hollows stood in their places, a great gap ran down from Dolly's old bed-room up above to the oak room on the terrace, part of the dining-room was gone: pathetic, black, charred, dismantled, the old house stood stricken and falling from its foundation. Dolly's heart beat furiously as she caught Marker's arm. 'What has happened?' she said; 'it is not fire—it is—oh, Marker, this is too much.' Poor Marker could not say one word; the two women stood clinging to each other in the middle of the garden walk. The sky was golden, the shadows were purple among the fallen bricks. 'This is too much,' Dolly repeated a little wildly, and then she broke away from Marker, crying out, 'Don't come, don't come.' The workmen were gone: for some reason the place was deserted and there was no one to hear Dolly's sobs as she impatiently fled across the lawn. Was it foolish that those poor old bricks should be so dear to her, foolish that their fall should seem to her something more than a symbol of all that had fallen and passed away? Ah no, no. While the old house stood she had not felt quite parted, but now the very place of her life would be no more; all the grief of that year seemed brought back to her when she stopped short suddenly and stood looking round and about in a scared sort of way. She was looking for something that was not any more, listening for silent voices. Dolly! cried the voices, and the girl's whole heart answered as she stood stretching out her arms towards the ulterior shores. At that minute she would have been very glad to lie down on the old stone terrace and never rise again. Time was so long, it weighed and weighed, and seemed to be crushing her. She had tried to be brave, but her cup was full, and she felt as if she could bear no more, not one heavy hour more. This great weight on her heart seemed to have been gathering from a long way off, to have been lasting for years and years; no tears came to ease this pain. Marker had sat down on the stone ledge and was wiping her grief in her handkerchief. Dolly was at her old haunt by the pond, and bending over and looking into the depth with strange circling eyes. This heavy weight seemed to be weighing her down and drawing her to the very brink of the old pond. She longed to be at rest, to go one step beyond the present, to be lying straight in the murky grey water, resting and at peace. Who wanted her any more? No one now. Those who had loved her best were dead; Robert had left her: every one had left her. The people outside in the lane may have seen her through the gap in the wall, a dark figure stooping among the purple shadows; she heard their voices calling, but she did not heed them, they were only living voices: then she heard a step upon the gravel close at hand, and she started back, for looking up, she saw it was Frank Raban, who came forward. Dolly was not surprised to see him. Everything to-day was so strange, so unnatural, that this sudden meeting seemed but a part of all the rest. She threw up her hands and sank down upon the old bench. His steady eyes were fixed upon her. 'What are you doing here?' he said, frightened by the look in her face, and forgetting in his agitation to greet her formally. 'What does it all matter?' said Dolly, answering his reproachful glance, and speaking in a shrill voice: 'I don't care about anything any more, I am tired out, yes very tired,' the girl repeated. She was wrought up and speaking to herself as much as to him, crying out not to be heard, but because this heavy weight was upon her, and she was struggling to be rid of it and reckless: she must speak to him, to anybody, to the shivering bushes, to the summer dust and silence, as she had spoken to the stagnant water of the pond. She was in a state which is not a common one, in which pain plays the part of great joy, and excitement unloosens the tongue, forces men and women into momentary sincerity and directness, carries all before it; her long self-control had broken down, she was at the end of her powers—she was only thinking of her own grief and not of him just then. As she turned her pale stone-cut face away and looked across the low laurel bushes, Frank Raban felt a pang of pity for her of which Dorothea had no conception. He came up to the bench. 'Don't lose courage,' he said—'not yet; you have been so good all this time.' It was not so much what he said which touched her, as the way in which he said it. He seemed to know how terribly she had been suffering, to be in tune even with this remorseless fugue of pain repeated. His kindness suddenly overcame her and touched her; she hid her face in her hands and burst out crying, and the tears eased and softened her strained nerves. 'It was coming here that brought it all back,' she said, 'and finding——' Her voice failed. 'I am very sorry,' he said. 'How can I forgive myself? It is all my——' He turned quite pale, stopped abruptly, and walked away for a few steps. When he came back he spoke almost in his usual voice, and then and there began to tell Dolly all that had happened, of the curious discovery which Mrs. Fane had made, of Smith's confession, and of all that it involved, that she was now the one person interested in the property, that Rhoda Parnell had no single right to Lady Sarah's inheritance. He told her very carefully, sparing her in every way, thinking of the words which would be simplest and least likely to give pain. 'We ought to have told you before,' he repeated. 'We meant to spare you until all the facts were clearly ascertained. We have made a fatal mistake, and now I am only adding to your pain.' But the tears with which Dolly listened to him were not bitter, his voice was so kind, his words so manly and simple. He did not shirk the truth as some people sometimes do when they speak of sorrow, but he faced the worst with the simplicity and directness of a man who had seen it all very near. If there are certain states of mind in which facts seem exaggerated, and every feeling is over-wrought, it is at these very times that people are most ready to accept the blessings of consolation. 'Peace, be still,' said the Divine Voice, speaking to the tossing waves. And voices come, speaking in human tones to many a poor tempest-tossed soul. It may be only a friend who speaks, only a lover perhaps, or a brother or sister's voice. Love, friendship, brotherhood give a meaning to the words. Only that day Dolly had thought that all was over, and already the miracle was working, the storm was passing from her heart. It all seemed as a dream in the night, when she thought it over afterwards. She had not seen Frank again, but to have seen him once more made all the difference to her. |
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