The End of a Coil

"I can believe it," he said, smiling. "You see what reason I have to rejoice that I am a poor man."

Dolly thought, poor child, as they turned and went homeward, she could hardly go so far as to rejoice that she was a poor woman. Not that she wanted Brierley; but she did dread possible privation which seemed to be before her. She feared the uncertainty which lay over her future in regard to the very necessaries of life; she shrank a little from the difficulty and the struggle of existence, which she knew already by experience. And then, Mr. Shubrick, who had been such a help and had made such a temporary diversion of her troubled thoughts, would be soon far away; she had noticed that he did not speak of some other future opportunity of seeing the house and gardens, when she remarked that it was too late to-day. He would be going soon; this one walk with him was probably the last; and then the old times would set in again. Dolly went along down among the great oaks and beeches, down the bank now getting in shadow, and spoke hardly a word. And Mr. Shubrick was as silent as she, probably as busy with his own thoughts. So they went, until they came again in sight of the bridge and the little river down below them, and a few steps more would have brought the cottage into view.

"We have come home fast," said Mr. Shubrick. "Do you think we need go in and show ourselves quite yet? Suppose we sit down here under this tree for a few minutes again, and enjoy all we can."

Dolly knew it must be approaching the time for her to see about supper; but she could not withstand the proposal. She sat down silently and took off her hat to cool herself.

"I come here very often," she said, "to get a little refreshment. It is so pleasant, and so near home."

"You call Brierley 'home.' Have you accepted it as a permanent home?"

"What can we do?" said Dolly. "Mother and I long to go back to America – we cannot persuade father."

"Miss Dolly, will you excuse me for remarking that you wear a very peculiar watch-chain," Mr. Shubrick said next, somewhat irrelevantly.

"My watch-chain! Oh, yes, I know it is peculiar," said Dolly. "For anything I know, there is only one in the world."

"May I ask, whose manufacture it is?"

"It was made by somebody – a sort of a friend, and yet not a friend either – somebody I shall never see again."

"Ah? How is that?"

"It is a great while ago," said Dolly. "I was a little girl. At that time I was at school in Philadelphia, and staying with my aunt there. O Aunt Hal! how I would like to see her! – The girls were all taken one day to see a man-of-war lying in the river; our schoolmistress took us; it was her way to take us to see things on the holidays; and this time it was a man-of-war; a beautiful ship; the 'Achilles.' My chain is made out of some threads of a cable on board the 'Achilles.'"

"You did not make it?"

"No, indeed. I could not, nor anybody else that I know. The manufacture is exquisite. Look at it," said Dolly, putting chain and watch in Mr. Shubrick's hand.

"But somebody must have made it," said the young officer, examining the chain attentively.

"Yes. It was odd enough. The others were having lunch; I could not get into the little cabin where the table was set, the place was so full; and so I wandered away to look at things. I had not seen them half enough, and then one of the young officers of the ship found me – he was a midshipman, I believe – and he was very good to me. He took me up and down and round and about; and then I was trying to get a little bit of a piece off a cable that lay coiled up on the deck and could not, and he said he would send me a piece; and he sent me that."

"Seems strong," said Mr. Shubrick, still examining the chain.

"Oh, it is very strong."

"This is a nice little watch. Deserves a better thing to carry it."

"Better!" cried Dolly, stretching out her hand for the chain. "You do not appreciate it. I like this better than any other. I always wear this. Father gave me a very handsome gold chain; he was of your opinion; but I have never had it on. This is my cable." She slipped the chain over her neck as she spoke.

"What makes you think you will never see the maker of the cable again?"

"Oh, that is a part of the story I did not tell you. With the chain came a little note, asking me to say that I had received it, and signed 'A. Crowninshield.' I can show you the note. I have it in my work-box at home. Do you know anybody of that name in the navy, Mr. Shubrick?"

"Midshipman?"

"He might not be a midshipman now, you know. That is nine years ago."

"True. I do not know of a Lieutenant Crowninshield in the navy – and I am sure there is no captain of that name."

"That is what I thought," said Dolly. "I do not believe he is alive. Whenever I saw in the papers mention of a ship of the navy in port, I used to go carefully over the lists of her officers; but I never could find the name of Crowninshield."

Mr. Shubrick here produced his pocket-book, and after some opening of inner compartments, took out a small note, which he delivered to Dolly. Dolly handled it at first in blank surprise, turned it over and over, finally opened it.

"Why, this is my note!" she cried, very much confounded. "My own little note to that midshipman. Here is my name. And here is his name. How did you get it, Mr. Shubrick?" she asked, looking at him. But his face told her nothing.

"It was given to me," he said.

"By whom?"

"By the messenger that brought it from you."

"The messenger? But you you – you – are somebody else!"

Mr. Shubrick laughed out.

"Am I?" said he. "Well, perhaps, – though I think not."

"But you are not that midshipman?"

"No. I was he, though."

"Your name, – your name is not Crowninshield?"

"Yes. That is one of my names. Alexander Crowninshield Shubrick, at your service."

Dolly looked at him, like a person awake from a dream, trying to read some of the remembered lineaments of that midshipman in his face. He bore her examination very coolly.

"Why – Oh, is it possible you are he?" cried Dolly with an odd accent of almost disappointment, which struck Mr. Shubrick, but was inexplicable. "Why did you not sign your true name?"

"Excuse me. I signed my true name, as far as it went."

"But not the whole of it. Why didn't you?"

"I had a reason. I did not wish you to trace me."

"But please, why not, Mr. Shubrick?"

"We might say, it was a boy's folly."

"I shall not say so," said Dolly, tendering the note back. "I daresay you had some reason or other. But I cannot somehow get my brain out of a whirl. I thought you were somebody else! – Here is your note, Mr. Shubrick. I cannot imagine what made you keep it so long."

His hand did not move to receive the note.

"I have been keeping it for this time," he answered. "And now, I do not want to keep it any longer, Miss Dolly, unless – unless I may have you too."

Dolly looked at him now with a face of startled inquiry and uneasiness. Whether she were more startled or incredulous of what she heard, it would be impossible to say. The expression in her eyes grew to be almost terror. But Mr. Shubrick smiled a little as he met them.

"I kept the note, for I always knew, from that time, that I should marry that little girl, if ever I could find her, – and if she would let me."

Dolly's face was fairly blanched. "But – you belong to somebody else," she said.

"No," said he, – "I beg your pardon. I belong to nobody in the world, but myself. And you."

"Christina told me" —

"She told you true," said Mr. Shubrick quite composedly. "There was a connection subsisting between us, which, while it lasted, bound us to each other. It happened, as such things happen; years ago we were thrown into each other's company, in the country, when I was home on leave. My home was near hers; we saw a great deal of each other; and fancied that we liked each other more than the fact was, or rather in a different way. So we were engaged; on my part it was one of those boyish engagements which boys frequently form before they know their own minds, or what they want. On the other side you can see how it was from the circumstances of the case. Christina did not care enough about me to want to be married; she always put it off; and I was not deeply enough concerned to find the delay very hard to bear. And then, when I saw you in Rome that Christmas time, I knew immediately that if ever in the world I married anybody, it would be the lady that wore that chain."

"But Christina?" said Dolly, still with a face of terrified trouble. Was then Mr. Shubrick a traitor, false to his engagements, deserting a person to whom, whether willingly or not, he was every way bound? He did not look like a man conscious of dishonourable dealing, of any sort; and he answered in a voice that was both calm and unconcerned.

"Christina and I are good friends, but not engaged friends any more. Will you read that?"

He handed Dolly another letter as he spoke, and Dolly, bewildered, opened it.

"Ischl, May 6, 18 – .

"DEAR SANDIE, – "You are quite ridiculous to want me to write this letter, for anybody that knows you, knows that whatever you say is the truth, absolutely unmixed and unvarnished. Your word is enough for any statement of facts, without mine to help it. However, since you will have it so, here I am writing.

"But really it is very awkward. What do you wish me to say, and how shall I say it? You want a testimony, I suppose. Well, then, this is to certify, that you and I are the best friends in the world, and mean to remain so, in spite of the fact that we once meant to be more than friends, and have found out that we made a mistake. Yes, it was a mistake. We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith declare you free, – that is what you want me to say, is it not? – free with all the honours, and with the full preservation of my regards and high consideration. Indeed, I do not believe I ever shall hold anybody else in quite such high consideration; but perhaps that very fact made me unfit to be anything but your friend. I am afraid you are too good for me, in stern earnest; but I have a notion that will be no disadvantage to you in certain other sweet eyes that I know; the goodness, I mean, not anything else.

"We are here, at this loveliest of lovely places; but we have got enough of it, and are going to spend some weeks in the Tyrol. I suppose I know where to imagine you, at least part of the summer. And you will know where to imagine me next winter, when I tell you that in the fall the probability is that I shall become Mrs. St. Leger. You may tell Dolly. Didn't I remark to her once that she and I had better effect an exchange? Funny, wasn't it? However, for the present I am, as I have long been, your very sincere friend, CHRISTINA THAYER."

Dolly read the letter and stared at it, and finally returned it without raising her eyes. And then she sat looking straight before her, while her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St. Leger had talked to her on this very same subject, she had been able to answer him with scarcely a rise of colour in her cheeks; with a calm and cool exercise of her reasoning powers, which left her fully mistress of the situation and of herself. She had not been disturbed then, she had not been excited. What was the matter now? For Dolly was overtaken by an invincible fit of shyness, such as never had visited her in all her life. I do not think now she knew that she was blushing; according to her custom, she was not self-conscious; what she was conscious of, intensely, was Mr. Shubrick's presence, and an overwhelming sense of his identity with the midshipman of the "Achilles." What that had to do with Dolly's shyness, it might be hard to tell; but her sweet face flushed till brow and neck caught the tinge, and the eyelids fell over the eyes, and Dolly for the moment was mistress of nothing. Mr. Shubrick looking at her, and seeing those lovely flushes and her absolute gravity and silence, was in doubt what it might mean. He thought that perhaps nobody had ever spoken to her on such a subject before; yet Dolly was no silly girl, to be overcome by the mere strangeness of his words. Did her silence and gravity augur ill for him? or well? And then, without being in the least a coxcomb, it occurred to him that her excessive blushing told on the hopeful side of the account. He waited. He saw she was as shy as a just caught bird; was she caught? He would not make so much as a movement to startle her further. He waited, with something at his heart which made it easier every moment for him to wait. But in the nature of the case, waiting has its limits.

"What are you going to do about it?" he inquired at length, in a very gentle manner. "Give me my note back again, with the conditions?"

Dolly did nothing of the kind. She held the note, it is true, and looked at it, but without making any movement to restore it to its owner. So decided an action did not seem at the moment possible to her. She looked at the little note, with the prettiest sort of embarrassment, and presently rose to her feet. "I am sure it is time to have supper," she said, "and they cannot do anything at home till I come."

Mr. Shubrick rose too and followed Dolly, who set off unceremoniously down the bank towards the bridge. He followed her, half smiling, and wholly impatient. Yet though a stride or two would have brought him alongside of her, he would not make them. He kept behind, and allowed her to trip on before him, which she did with a light, hasty foot, until they neared the little gate of the courtyard belonging to the house. Then he stepped forward and held the gate open for her to enter, not saying a word. Dolly passed him with the loveliest shy down-casting of her eyelids, and went on straight into the house. He saw the bird was fluttering yet, but he thought he was sure of her.

CHAPTER XXXIV

UNDER THE SAME OAK

Dolly threw off her hat and went down to the kitchen premises. Mr. Shubrick repaired to the sick-room and relieved Mrs. Copley. That lady, descending to the lower part of the house, found Dolly very busy with the supper-table, and apparently much flushed with the hot weather.

"Your father's getting well!" she said with a sigh.

"That's good news, I am sure, mother."

"Yes, – it's good news," Mrs. Copley repeated doubtfully; "but it seems as if everything good in this world had a bad side to it."

Dolly stood still. "What's the matter?" she said.

"Oh, he's so uneasy. As restless end fidgetty as a fish out of water. He is contented with nothing except when Mr. Shubrick is near him; he behaves quietly then, at least, however he feels. I believe it takes a man to manage a man. Though I never saw a man before that could manage your father. He laughs at it, and says it is the habit of giving orders."

"Who laughs at it?"

"Mr. Shubrick, to be sure. You don't suppose your father owns to minding orders? But he does mind, for all that. What will become of us when that young man goes away?"

"Why, mother?"

"My patience, Dolly! what have you done to heat yourself so! Your face is all flushed. Do keep away from the fire, or you'll certainly spoil your complexion. You're all flushed up, child."

"But father, – what about father?"

"Oh, he's just getting ready to take his own head, as soon as Mr. Shubrick slips the bridle off. He's talking of going up to town already; and he will go, I know, as soon as he can go; and then, Dolly, then – I don't know what will become of us!"

Mrs. Copley put her hands over her face, and the last words were spoken with such an accent of forlorn despair, that Dolly saw her mother must have found out or divined much that she had tried to keep from her. She hesitated with her answer. Somehow, the despair and the forlornness had gone out of Dolly's heart.

"I hope – I think – there will be some help, mother."

"Where is it to come from?" said Mrs. Copley sharply. "We are as alone as we can be. We might as well be on a desert island. Now you have sent off Mr. St. Leger – oh, how obstinate children are! and how little they know what is for their good!"

This subject was threadbare. Dolly let it drop. It may be said she did that with every subject that was started that evening. Mr. Shubrick at supper made brave efforts to keep the talk a going; but it would not go. Dolly said nothing; and Mrs. Copley in the best of times was never much help in a conversation. Just now she had rather a preoccupied manner; and I am by no means certain that, with the superhuman keenness of intuition possessed by mothers, she had not begun to discern a subtle danger in the air. The pressure of one fear being removed, there was leisure for any other to come up. However, Mr. Shubrick concerned himself only about Dolly's silence, and watched her to find out what it meant. She attended to all her duties, even to taking care of him, which to be sure was one of her duties; but she never looked at him. The same veil of shy grace which had fallen upon her in the wood, was around her still, and tantalised him.

Nor did he get another chance to speak to her alone through the next two days that passed; carefully as he sought for it. Dolly was not to be found or met with, unless sitting at the table behind her tea-urn and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity. She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as he did narrowly and constantly, he could perceive now and then a slight break in the gravity of her looks, which made his heart bound with a great thrill. It was not so much a smile as a light upon her lips; a play of them; which he persuaded himself was not unhappy. The loveliness of the whole manifestation of Dolly during those two days, went a good way towards keeping him quiet; but naturally it worked two ways. And human patience has limits.

The second day, Mr. Shubrick's had given out. He came in from his walk to the village, bringing Mrs. Copley something she had commissioned him to get from thence; and found both ladies sitting at a late dinner. And not the young officer's eyes alone marked the sudden flush which rose in Dolly's cheeks when he appeared, and the lowered eyelids as he stood opposite her.

"We began to review the park, the other day," he said, eyeing her steadily. "Can we have another walk in it this afternoon, Miss Dolly? The first was so pleasant."

"I shouldn't think you'd go pleasuring just now, Dolly, when your father wants you," said Mrs. Copley. "You have seen hardly anything of him lately. I should think you would go and sit with him this afternoon. I know he would like it."

Whether this arrangement was agreeable to the present parties concerned, or either of them, did not appear. Of course the most decorous acquiescence was all that came to light. A little later, Mr. Shubrick himself, being thus relieved from duty, quitted the house and strolled down to the bridge and over it into the park; and Dolly slowly went upstairs to her father's room. It was true, she had been there lately less than usual; but there had been a reason for that. Her conscience was not charged with any neglect.

Mr. Copley seemed sleepily inclined; and after a word or two exchanged with him Dolly began to go round the room, looking to see if anything needed her ordering hand. Truly she found nothing. Coming to the window, she paused a moment in idle wistfulness to see how the summer sunshine lay upon the oaks of the park. And standing there, she saw Mr. Shubrick, slowly going over the bridge. She turned away and went on with her progress round the room.

"What are you about there, Dolly?" Mr. Copley called to her.

"Just seeing if anything wants my attention, father."

"Nothing does, I can tell you. The room is all right, and everything in it. I've been kept in order, since I have had a naval officer to attend upon me."

"Don't I keep things in order, father?"

"If you do, your mother don't. She thinks that anywhere is a place, and that one place is as good as another."

"Mother seems to think I have neglected you lately. Have you missed me?"

"Missed you! no. I have had care and company. Where did you pick up that young man, Dolly?"

"I, father? I didn't pick him up."

"How came he here, then? What brought him?"

"I don't know," said Dolly. "Would you like to have me read to you?"

"No, child. Shubrick reads to me and talks to me. He's capital company, though he's one of your blue sort."

"Father! He is not blue, nor am I. Do you think I am blue?"

"Sky blue," said her father. "He's navy blue. That's the difference."

"I do not understand the difference," said Dolly, half laughing.

"Never mind. What have you done with Mr. Shubrick?"

"I?" said Dolly, aghast.

"Yes. Where is he?"

"Oh! – I believe, mother sent him into the park."

"Sent him into the park? What for?"

"I do not mean that she sent him," said Dolly, correcting herself in some embarrassment; "I mean, that she sent me up here, and he went into the park."

"I wish he'd come back, then. I want him to finish reading to me that capital article on English and European politics."

"Can I finish it?"

"No, child. You don't understand anything about the subject. Shubrick does. I like to discuss things with him; he's got a clear head of his own; he's a capital talker. When is he going?"

"Going where, father?"

"Going away. He can't stay here for ever, reading politics and putting my room in order. How long is he going to stay?"

"I do not know."

"Well – when he goes I shall go! I shall not be able to hold out here. I shall go back to London. I can't live where there is not a man to speak to some time in the twenty-four hours. Besides, I can do nothing here. I might as well be a cabbage, and a cabbage without a head to it."

"Are we cabbages?" asked Dolly at this. "Mother and I?"

"Cabbage roses, my dear; cabbage roses. Nothing worse than that."

"But even cabbage roses, father, want somebody to take care of them."

"I'll take care of you. But I can do it best in London."

"Then you do not want me to read to you father?" Dolly said after a pause.

"No, my dear, no, my dear. If you could find that fellow Shubrick – I should like him."

And Mr. Copley closed his eyes as if to sleep, finding nothing worthy to occupy his waking faculties. Dolly sat by the window, looking out and meditating. Yes, Mr. Shubrick would be going away, probably soon; his furlough could not last always. Meanwhile, she had given him no answer to his questions and propositions. It was rather hard upon him, Dolly felt; and she had a sort of yearning sympathy towards her suitor. A little impatience seized her at being shut up here in her father's room, where he did not want her, and kept from the walk in the park with Mr. Shubrick, who did want her. He wanted her very much, Dolly knew; he had been waiting patiently, and she had disappointed every effort he made to get speech of her and see her alone, just because she was shy of him and of herself. But it was hardly fair to him, after all, and it could not go on. He had a right to know what she would say to his proposition; and she was keeping him in uneasiness, (to put it mildly), Dolly knew quite well. And now, when could she see him? when would she have a chance to speak to him alone, and to hear all that she yet wanted to hear? but indeed Dolly now was thinking not so much of what she wanted as of what he wanted; and her uneasiness grew. He might be obliged to go off suddenly; officers' orders are stubborn things; she might have no chance at all, for aught she knew, after this afternoon. She looked at her father; he had dozed off. She looked out of the window; the afternoon sun, sinking away in the west, was sending a flood of warm light upon and among the trees of the park. It must be wonderfully pretty there! It must be vastly pleasant there! And there, perhaps, Mr. Shubrick was sitting at this moment on the bank, wishing for her, and feeling impatiently that his free time was slipping away. Dolly's heart stirred uneasily. She had been very shy of him; she was yet; but now she felt that he had a right to his answer. Something that took the guise of conscience opposed her shy reserve and fought with it. Mr. Shubrick had a right to his answer; and she was not treating him well to let him go without it.