Kitabı oku: «The End of a Coil», sayfa 23

"What's the fun here? I don't get at it," he remarked.

"O Rupert! the beauty of the things."

"They are what I call right homely. What a colour they have got. Is it damp, or what?"

"Don't you know? these dark ones come from Herculaneum, and were locked up in lava; the others, the greenish ones, are from Pompeii, where the covering was lighter and they were exposed to damp, as you say."

"Well, I suppose they are curious, being so ancient."

"Rupert, they are most beautiful."

But Rupert as well as Dolly found a mine of interest in the Greek and gladiatorial armour and weapons.

"It makes my head turn!" said Rupert.

"What?"

"Why, it is eighteen hundred years ago. To think that men lived and fought with those helmets and weapons and shields, so long back! and now here are the shields and helmets, but where are the men?"

Dolly said nothing.

"Do you think they are anywhere?"

"Certainly!" said Dolly, turning upon him. "As certainly as they wore that armour once."

"Where, then?"

"I can't tell you that. The Bible and the ancients call it Hades – the place of departed spirits."

"But here are their shields, – and folks come and look at them."

"Yes."

"It gives one a sort of queer feeling."

"Yes," said Dolly. "One of those helmets may have belonged to a conqueror, and another may have been unclasped from a dead gladiator's head. And it don't matter much to either of them now."

"It seems as if nothing in the world mattered much," said Rupert.

"It don't!" said Dolly quickly. "'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.'"

"You think such a one is better off than the rest?" said Rupert. "How? You say the rest are living somewhere."

"Existing."

"What's the difference?"

"Just all the difference between light and darkness; – or between life and death. You would not call it living, if all joy and hope were gone out of existence; you would wish that existence could end."

"How do you know all about it so well, Miss Dolly?" the young man asked a little incredulously.

"Rupert, it begins in this world. I know a little of the difference now. I never was where all joy and hope were gone out of existence – though I have seen trouble," said Dolly gravely. "But I do know that nothing in this world is so good as the love of Christ; and that without Him life is not life."

"People seem to have a good time without it," said Rupert.

"For a little. How would they be, do you think, if all their pleasures were taken away? – their money, and all their money gets for them; friends and all?"

"Wretched dogs," said Rupert.

"But nobody in the world that loved Christ was ever that," Dolly said, smiling.

There was in her smile something so tender and triumphant at once, that it silenced Rupert. It was a testimony quite beyond words. For that instant Dolly's spirit looked out of the transparent features, and the light went to Rupert's heart like an arrow. Dolly moved on, and he followed, not looking at the gladiators' shields or Greek armour.

"Then, Miss Dolly," he burst out, after his thoughts had been seething a little while, – "if this world is so little count, what's the use of anything that men do? what's the good of studying – or of working – or of coming to look at these old things? – or of doing anything else, but just religion?"

Dolly's eyes sparkled, but she laughed a little.

"You cannot 'do' religion that way, Rupert," she said. "The old monks made a mistake. What is the use? Why, if you are going to be a servant of Christ and spend your life in working for Him, won't you be the very best and most beautiful servant you can? Do you think a savage has as much power or influence in the world as an educated, accomplished, refined man? Would he do as much, or do it as well? If you are going to give yourself to Christ, won't you make the offering as valuable and as honourable as you can? That is what you would do if you were giving yourself to a woman, Rupert. I know you would."

Rupert had no chance to answer, for strangers drew near, and Dolly and he passed on. Perhaps he did not wish to answer.

There were other times when Dolly visited the museum with her father. Then she studied the frescoes from Pompeii, the marble sculptures, or sat before some few of the pictures in the collections of the old masters. Mr. Copley was patient, admiring her if he admired nothing else; but even he did admire and enjoy some of the works of art in which the museum is so rich; and one day he and Dolly had a rare bit of talk over the collection of ancient glass. Such hours made Dolly only the more grieved and distressed when she afterwards perceived that her father had been solacing himself with other and very much lower pleasures.

CHAPTER XXVII
SORRENTO

It was not till the end of May that they got away from Naples. Mrs. Copley was long tired of her stay there, and even, she said, tired of the bay! Dolly was glad to have her father at a distance from hotels and acquaintances, even though but for a time; and the gentlemen liked moving, as men always do. So the little party in the carriage were in very good spirits and harmony. Rupert had gone on before with the luggage, to make sure that all was right about the rooms and everything ready. They were engaged in the house to which Lady Brierley's housekeeper had given them the address.

The day was one of those which travellers tell us of in the south of Italy, when spring is in its glory or passing into summer. In truth, the weather was very warm; but Dolly at least never regarded that, in her delight at the views presented to her. After Castellamare was passed, and as the afternoon wore on, her interest grew with every step. Villages and towns, rocks and trees, were steeped in a wonderful golden light; vineyards and olive groves were etherialised; and when they drew near to Meta, and the plain of Sorrento opened before them, Dolly hung out of the carriage almost breathless.

"Is it better than the bay of Naples?" asked Lawrence, smiling.

"I am not comparing," said Dolly. "But look at the trees! Did you ever see such beautiful woods?"

"Hardly woods, are they?" said Lawrence. "There's variety, certainly."

"Said to be a very healthy place," remarked Mr. Copley. "I envy you, Dolly. You can get pleasure out of a stick, if it has leaves on it. Naturally, the plain of Sorrento – But this sun, I confess, makes me wish for the journey's end."

"That is not far off, father. Yonder is Sorrento."

And soon the carriage rolled into the town, and turning then aside brought them to a house on the outskirts of the place, situated on a rocky cliff overhanging the shore of the sea. Rupert met them at the gate, and announced a neat house, civil people, comfortable lodgings, and dinner getting ready.

"I only hope they will not give us maccaroni with tomatoes," said Mrs. Copley. "I am so tired of seeing maccaroni with tomatoes."

"Don't mind for to-day, mother, dear," said Dolly. "We'll have it all right to-morrow."

The rooms were found so pleasant, bright and clean, that even Mrs. Copley was satisfied. The dinner, which was ready for them as soon as they were ready for it, proved also excellent; with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit. Till the meal was over, Dolly had scarce a chance to see where she was; but then she left the others at the table and went out at the open glass door upon a piazza which extended all along the sea front of the house. Here she stood still and cried to the others to follow her. The house was built, as I said, like many houses in Sorrento, on the edge of a rocky cliff, from which there was fair, unhindered view over the whole panorama of sea and land. The sun was descending the western sky, and the flood of Italian light seemed to transfigure the world. Between the verandah and the absolute edge of the rocks, the space was filled with beds of flowers and shrubbery; and a little a one side, so as not to interrupt the view, were fig-trees and pomegranate-trees and olives. Dolly ran down the steps into the garden, and the rest of the party could not but come after her. Dolly's face was flushed with delight.

"Did anybody ever see such colours before?" she cried. "Oh, the colours! Look at the blue of the water, down there in the shade; and then see that delicious green beyond, set off by its fringe of white foam; and then where the sun strikes, and where the clouds are reflected."

"It is just what you have been seeing in the bay of Naples," said Mrs. Copley.

"And Vesuvius, mother! Do look at Vesuvius; how noble it is from here, and in this light."

"We had Vesuvius at Naples too," said Mrs. Copley. "It is a wonder to me how people can be so fond of being near it, when you never know what tricks it will play you."

"Mother, dear, the lava never comes so far as this, in the worst eruptions."

"The fact that it never did does not prove what it may do some time."

"You are not afraid of it, surely?" said Mr. Copley.

"No," said his wife. "But I have no pleasure in looking at anything that has done, and is going to do, so much mischief. It seems to me a kind of monster."

"You cannot be fond of the sea, at that rate, Mrs. Copley," Lawrence observed.

"No, you are right," she said. "The only thing I like about it is, that it is the way home."

"You don't want to see the way home just now, my dear," said Mr. Copley. "You have but now got to the place of your desires."

"If you ask me what that is, it is Boston," said Mrs. Copley.

But, however, for a while she did take satisfaction in the quiet and beauty and sweet air of Sorrento. Dolly revelled in it all. She was devoted to her mother and her mother's pleasure, it is true; and here as at Rome and Naples she was thus kept a good deal in the house. Nevertheless, here, at Sorrento, she tempted her mother to go out. A little carriage was procured to take her to the edge of one of the ravines which on three sides enclose the town; and then Dolly and her mother, with Rupert's help, would wind their way down amid the wilderness of lovely vegetation with which the sides and bottom of the ravine were grown. At the bottom of the dell they would provide Mrs. Copley with a soft bed of moss or a convenient stone to rest upon; while the younger people roved all about, gathering flowers, or finding something for Dolly to sketch, and coming back ever and anon to Mrs. Copley to show what they had found or tell what they had seen; and Mrs. Copley for the time forgot her ills, and even forgot Boston, and was amused, and enjoyed the warm air and the luxuriant and sweet nature of Italy. Sometimes Lawrence came instead of Rupert; and Dolly did not enjoy herself so well. But Lawrence was at his own risk now; she could not take care of him. Except by maintaining her calm, careless, disengaged manner; and that she did. There were other times when Dolly and Rupert went out in a boat on the sea. Steps in the rock led immediately down from the garden to the shore; on the shore were fishermen's huts, and a boat was always to be had. Long expeditions by water could not be undertaken, for Mrs. Copley could not be tempted out on the sea, and she might not be long left alone; but there were lovely hours, when Rupert rowed the boat over the golden and purple waves, when all the air seemed rosy and all the sea enamelled, and the sky and the clouds (as Rupert said) were as if they had come out of a fairy book; every colour was floating there and sending down a paradise of broken rainbows upon water and land and the heads of the two pleasure-takers.

But even at Sorrento there was a shadow over Dolly.

For the first weeks the gentlemen, that is, Mr. Copley and his supposed secretary, made numerous excursions. Mrs. Copley utterly declined to take part in anything that could be called an excursion; and Dolly would not go without her. Lawrence and Mr. Copley therefore went whither they would alone, and saw everything that could be seen within two or three days of Sorrento; for they were gone sometimes as long as that. They took provisions with them; and Dolly sadly feared, nay, she knew, that wines formed a large part of their travelling stock on these occasions; she feared, even, no small part of the attraction of them. Mr. Copley generally came back not exactly the same as when he went; there was an indescribable look and air which made Dolly's heart turn cold; a disreputable air of license, as if he had been indulging himself in spite of strong pledges given, and in disregard of gentle influences that were trying to deter him. And when he had not been on excursions, Dolly often knew that he had found his favourite beverage somewhere and was a trifle the worse for it. What could she do? she asked herself with a feeling almost of desperation. She had done all she knew; what remained? Her father was well aware how she felt. Yet no! not that. He could not have the faintest conception of the torture he gave his daughter by making her ashamed of him, nor of the fearful dread which lay upon her of what his habit of indulgence might end in. If he had, Mr. Copley could not, at this stage of things at least, have borne it. He must have yielded up anything or borne anything, rather than that she should bear this. But he was a man, and could not guess it; if he had been told, he would not have understood it; so he had his pleasure, and his child's heart was torn with sorrow and shame.

There came a day at last when in their lodgings Mr. Copley called for a bottle of wine at dinner. Dolly's heart gave a great jump.

"O father, we do not want wine!" she cried pleadingly.

"I do," said Mr. Copley, "and St. Leger does. Nonsense, my dear! no gentleman takes his dinner without his wine. Isn't it so, Lawrence?"

And the wine was brought, and the two gentlemen helped themselves. Mrs. Copley accepted a little; Rupert, – Dolly looked to see what he would do, – Rupert quietly put it by.

So it had come to this again. Not all her prayers and tears and known wishes could hold her father back from his desire. The desire must already be very strong! Dolly kept her composure with difficulty. She ate no more dinner. And it was a relief to thoughts she could scarcely bear, when Rupert in the evening asked her to go out and take a row on the water.

Such an evening as it was! Dolly ran gladly down the rocky steps which led to the shore, and eagerly followed Rupert into the boat. She thought to escape from her trouble for a while. Instead of that, when the boat got away from the shore, and Dolly was floating on the crimson and purple sea, with a flush of crimson and purple sent down upon her from the clouds, and everything in the world glowing with colour or tipped with gold, – her face as she gazed into the glory took such an expression of wan despair, that Rupert forgot where he was. Greatly he longed to say something to break up that look; and could not find the words. The beauty and the peace of the external world wrought, as it sometimes does, by the power of contrast; and had set Dolly to thinking of her father and of his and her very doubtful future. What would become of him if his present manner of life went on? – and what would become of his wife and of her? What could she do, more than she had done, in vain? Dolly tried to think, and could not find. Suddenly, by some sweet association of rays of light, there came into her mind the night before Christmas, and the moonshine in Christina's room, and the words that were so good to her then. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Yes, thought Dolly, – that is sure. Nothing can come between. Nothing can take that joy from me; "neither death nor life; nor things present, nor things to come." But, oh! I wish my father and mother had it too! – With that came a rush of tears to her eyes; she turned her face away from Rupert so that he might not see them. Had she done anything, made any efforts, to bring them to that knowledge? With her mother, yes; with her father, no. It had seemed hopelessly difficult. How could she set about it? As she pondered this question, Rupert saw that the expression of her face had changed, and now he ventured to speak.

"Miss Dolly, you set me a thinking in Rome."

"Did I?" said Dolly, brightening. "About what?"

"And in Naples you drove the nail further in."

"What nail? what are you talking about, Rupert?"

"Do you remember what you said when we were coming from the Capitoline Museum? We were looking at the Colosseum."

"I do not recollect."

"I do. You drove the nail in then; and when we were in Naples, at the museum there, you gave it another hit. It's in now."

Dolly could not help laughing.

"You are quite a riddle, Rupert. I make nothing of it."

"Miss Dolly, I've been thinking that I will go home."

"Home?" And Dolly's face now grew very grave indeed.

"Yes. I've been splitting my head thinking; and I've about made up my mind. I think I'll go home." Rupert was very serious too, and pulled the oars with a leisurely, mechanical stroke, which showed he was not thinking of them.

"What home? London, do you mean?"

"Well, not exactly. I should think not! No, I mean Boston, or Lynn rather. There's my old mother."

"Oh! – your mother," said Dolly slowly. "And she is at Lynn. Is she alone there?"

"She's been alone ever since I left her; and I'm thinking that's what she hadn't ought to be."

Dolly paused. The indication seemed to be, that Rupert was taking up the notion of duty; duty towards others as well as pleasure for himself; and a great throb of gladness came up in her heart, along with the sudden shadow of what was not gladness.

"I think you are quite right, Rupert," she said soberly. "Then you are purposing to go back to Lynn to take care of her?"

"I set out to see the world and to be something," Rupert went on, looking thoughtfully out to sea; – "and I've done one o' the two. I've seen the world. I don' know as I should ever be anything, if I staid in it. But your talk that day – those days – wouldn't go out of my head; and I thought I'd give it up, and go home to my old mother."

"I'll tell you what I think, Rupert," said Dolly; "a man is a great deal more likely to come out right in the end and 'be something,' if he follows God's plan for him, than if he makes a plan for himself. Anyhow, I'd rather have that 'Well done,' by and by" – She stopped.

"How's a man to find out God's plan for him?"

"Just the way you are doing. When work is set before you, take hold of it. When the Lord has some more for you He'll let you know."

"Then you think this is my work, Miss Dolly, to go home and take care of her? She wanted me to make a man of myself; and when Mr. Copley made me his offer, she didn't hold me back. But she cried some!"

"You cannot do another so manly a thing as this, Rupert. I wouldn't let her cry any more, if I were you."

"No more I ain't a-goin' to," said the young man energetically. "But, Miss Dolly" —

"What?"

"Do you think it is my duty, because I do one thing, to do t'other? Do you think I ought to take to shoemaking?"

"Why to shoemaking, Rupert?"

"Well, my father was a shoemaker. They're all shoemakers at Lynn, pretty much."

"That is no reason why you should be. Your education, the education you have got since you came over to this side, has fitted you for something else, if you like something else better."

"That's just what I do!" said Rupert with emphasis. "But I could make a good living that way – I was brought up to it, you see; – and I s'pose she'd like me to take up the old business; but I feel like driving an awl through a board whenever I think of it."

"I wouldn't do it, Rupert, if I could do something I was more fit for. People always do things best that they like to do. I think the choice of a business is your affair. Do what you can do best. But I'd make shoes rather than do nothing."

"I don't know what I am fit for," said Rupert, evidently relieved, "but – oh yes, I would cobble shoes rather than do nothing. I don't want to eat idle bread. Then I'll go."

"Your experience here, in London and on this journey, will not have been lost to you," Dolly observed.

"It's been the best thing ever happened to me, this journey," said the young man. "And you've done me more good, Miss Dolly, than anybody in this world, – if it ain't my mother."

"I? I am very glad. I am sure you have done a great deal for me, Rupert."

"You have put me upon thinking. And till a fellow begins to think, he ain't much more good than a cabbage."

"When will you go, Rupert? I wish we were going too!"

"Well, I guess my old mother has sat lookin' for me long enough. I guess I'll start pretty soon."

"Will you?" said Dolly. "But not before we have made our visit to Mrs. Thayer's villa? We are going there next week."

"I'll start then, I guess."

"And not go with us to the Thayers'?"

"I guess not."

"Didn't they invite you?"

"Not a bit of it! Took good care not, I should say."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, Miss Dolly, Mrs. Thayer was standing two feet from me and asking Mr. St. Leger, and she didn't look my way till she had got through and was talking of something else; and then she looked as if I had been a pane of glass and she was seeing something on the other side – as I suppose she was."

Dolly was silent for a few minutes and then she said, "How I shall miss you, Rupert!" – and tears were near, though she would not let them come.

And Rupert made no answer at all, but rowed the boat in.

Yes, Dolly knew she would miss him sadly. He had been her helper and standby and agent and escort and friend, in many a place now, and on many an occasion. He had done for her what there was no one else to do, ever since that first evening when he had made his appearance at Brierley and she had wished him away. So little do people recognise their blessings often at first sight. Now, – Dolly pondered as she climbed the cliff, – how would she get along without Rupert? How long would her father even be content to abide with her mother and her in their quiet way of living? she had seen symptoms of restlessness already. What should she do if he became impatient? if he left them to St. Leger's care and went back to London? or if he carried them off with him perhaps? To London again! And then afresh came the former question, what was there in her power, that might draw her father to take deeper and truer views of life and duty than he was taking now? A question that greatly bothered Dolly; for there was dimly looming up in the distance an answer that she did not like. To attack her father in private on the subject of religion, was a step that Dolly thought very hopeless; he simply would not hear her. But there was another thing she could do – could she do it? Persuade her father and mother to consent to have family prayer? Dolly's heart beat and her breath came quick as she passed through the little garden, sweet with roses and oleander and orange blossoms. How sweet the flowers were! how heavenly fair the sky over her head! So it ought to be in people's hearts, thought Dolly; – so in mine. And if it were, I should not be afraid of anything that was right to do. And this is right to do.

Dolly avoided the saloon where the rest of the family were, and betook herself to her own room; to consider and to pray over her difficulties, and also to get rid of a few tears and bring her face into its usual cheerful order. When at last she went down, she found her mother alone, but her father almost immediately joined them. The windows were open towards the sea, the warm, delicious air stole in caressingly, the scent of roses and orange blossoms and carnations filled the house and seemed to fill the world; moonlight trembled on the leaves of the fig-tree, and sent lines of silver light into the room. The lamp was lowered and Mrs. Copley sat doing nothing, in a position of satisfied enjoyment by the window.

As Dolly came in by one door, Mr. Copley entered by another, and flung himself down on a chair; his action speaking neither enjoyment nor satisfaction.

"Well!" said he. "How much longer do you think you can stand this sort of thing?"

"What sort of thing, father?"

"Do you sit in the dark usually?"

"Come here, father," said Dolly, "come to the window and see the moonshine on the sea. Do you call that dark?"

"Your father never cared for moonshine, Dolly," said Mrs. Copley.

"No, that's true," said Mr. Copley with a short laugh. "Haven't you got almost enough of it?"

"Of moonshine, father?"

"Yes – on the bay of Sorrento. It's a lazy place."

"You have not been very lazy since you have been here," said his wife.

"Well, I have seen all there is to be seen; and now I am ready for something else. Aren't you?"

"But, father," said Dolly, "I suppose, just because Sorrento is what you call a lazy place it is good for mother."

"Change is good for her too – hey, wife?"

"You will have a change next week, father; you know we are going for that visit to the Thayers."

"We shall not want to stay there long," said Mr. Copley; "and then we'll move."

Nobody answered. Dolly looked out sorrowfully upon the beautiful bright water. Sorrento had been a place of peace to her. Must she go so soon? The scent of myrtles and roses and oranges came in bewilderingly at the open window, pleading the cause of "lazy" Sorrento with wonderfully persuasive flatteries. Was there any other place in the world so sweet? Dolly clung to it, in heart; yearned towards it; the glories of the southern sun were what she had never imagined, and she longed to stay to enjoy and wonder at them. The fruits, the flowers, the sunny air, the fulness and variedness of the colouring on land and sea, the leisure and luxury of bountiful nature, – Dolly was loath, loath to leave them all. No other Sorrento, she was ready to believe, would ever reveal itself to her vision; and she shrank a little from the somewhat rough way she had been travelling before and must travel again. And now in the further way, Rupert, her helper and standby, would not be with her. Then again came the words of Christmas Eve to her – "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" – and with the words came the recollection of the new bit of service Dolly had found to do in her return and answer to that love. Yet she hesitated, and her heart began to beat faster, and she made no move until her father began to ask if it were not time to leave the moonlight and go to bed. Dolly came from the window, then to the table where the lowered lamp stood.

"Mother and father, I should like to do something," she said with an interrupted breath. "Would you mind – may I – will you let me read a chapter to you before we go?"

"A chapter of what?" said her father; though he knew well enough.

"The Bible."

There was a pause. Mrs. Copley stirred uneasily, but left the answer for her husband to give. It came at last, coldly.

"There is no need for you to give yourself that trouble, my dear. I suppose we can all read the Bible for ourselves."

"But not as a family, father?"

"What do you mean, Dolly?"

"Father, don't you think we ought together, as a family, – don't you think we ought to read the Bible together? It concerns us all."

"It's very kind of you, my daughter; but I approve of everybody managing his own affairs," Mr. Copley said, as he rose and lounged, perhaps with affected carelessness, out of the room. Dolly stood a moment.

"May I read to you, mother?"

"If you like," said Mrs. Copley nervously; "though I don't see, as your father says, why we cannot every one read for ourselves. Why did you say that to your father, Dolly? He didn't like it."

Dolly made no reply. She knelt down by the low table to bring her Bible near the light, and read a psalm, her voice quivering a little. She wanted comfort for herself, and half unconsciously she chose the twenty-seventh psalm.

"'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?'"

Her voice grew steady as she went on; but when she has finished, her mother was crying.