Ivy Compton-Burnett - Dolores

But her experience was, as always, bent by the lighter experience of others. As she stood on the station, with her courage faltering, and her face old for her years, she was accosted by Elsa Blackwood; whose return from a visit had been timed for the reception of her luggage by the parsonage trap; and who joined her in such bright youth, that it would have been strange hearing to a watcher, that the days which had seen the lives of the two were the same. Elsa was in the lightest of her moods. She yielded her possessions, without the soberness of injunction, to the lad who was gardener and groom at the parsonage; and tripped by Dolores with a flow of prattling, which spared her the effort of words. As they neared the place of their parting, her chatter suddenly ceased.

“Why, there is my mother coming to meet us!” she said, in a voice with a studied lightness.

“Elsa, what is this?” said Mrs Blackwood, as she came into hearing. “This letter came for you from your friends this morning. I noticed the postmark, and knowing you were supposed still to be with them, opened it. It was written yesterday; and they were under the impression that you were on your journey home.”

“You have no right to open my letters, mother,” said Elsa. “Surely I am old enough to have a private correspondence.”

“You are clearly not old enough to have any liberty at all,” said her mother. “Where have you been to-day and yesterday? Your father insists on a full account.”

“Oh, mother, am I never to have any friends of my own choice? Am I to be a child under you and father, till all my youth is past?” said Elsa, with tears in her voice. “What shall I have to look back on, when I am as old as you are? You have had your own youth. Why should you grudge me mine?”

“Elsa, do not be foolish,” said Mrs Blackwood. “If you have been with those friends your father does not approve, say so, and we will forgive you this once, and help you to do better in future. It would be a dreadful thing to have such a burden on your conscience. There is a guidance we cannot understand in these things.”

“Oh, well, mother, if you have guessed it, it is no good to say any more,” said Elsa. “Here is the gate to the churchyard, where Dolores leaves us. Let us say good-bye at once, and spare her a family confession and pardon.”

Dolores was used to Elsa’s wildness; and gave her thoughts, as she bent her steps to the parsonage, to preparing an account of the scene for her father, who was always indulgent and amused over the mischief of his wife’s comely niece.

But as she entered her father’s study, whence a hum of voices sounded, thoughts of Elsa were banished. Mrs Hutton stood by the fireplace, looking flushed and nervous, her dress betraying some elaboration of its daily simple fitness; and by the window two portly, sable figures seemed to block out the light with their ample sombreness. They were the figures of the Rev. Cleveland Hutton and the Very Rev. James Hutton. The latter’s greeting came deliberate and deep.

“Well, Dolores, it is a great pleasure to meet you. It must be two years since I visited your father, and found you at home. What a likeness! — She looks more the student than ever, Cleveland.”

“She has done very well at college,” said Mr Hutton. “I am told I ought to be proud of her.”

“And you are not, I suppose?” said the Dean, with rather laboured pleasantry. “Well, you must leave the being proud to me. I am sure I am very ready to be proud of my niece.”

The Very Rev. James showed little change for the years. He was yet in the prime of his pomposity and portliness, his fondness for kindly patronage, and his contentment with himself and his ecclesiastical condition. Experience had dealt with him gently. His hair was less grey than the Rev. Cleveland’s, and his figure straighter for all its greater cumbrousness. His personality was simple and inclined to transparence. Many had said that a minute of his company sufficed for the knowledge that he was married and childless.

It was only of late that this state had struck the Very Rev. James, in its aspect of difference from that of his brother. It was not that he had given no reflection to the comparison of himself and the Rev. Cleveland. It was a matter which had had some attraction for his thought; but it had seemed to him fairly summed up in their professional relation, or, more vaguely, in the position that he was himself the greater man. The new line of his fraternal considering had a climax which afforded him surprise and a degree of amiable excitement.

“You do not owe my visit to chance, or even merely to brotherly feeling for your father,” he said to Dolores, repeating a speech he had made to Mrs Hutton; and improving the effect of its ending by subjecting one of his eyes to a wink in the direction of his brother. “My coming has a purpose. Your father will perhaps explain it.”

“Your uncle has made a most generous suggestion,” said the Rev. Cleveland, turning to his daughter with an air of elation at once nervous and laborious. “He has offered to bear the expense of a college course for Bertram. As I have told him, we know it to be the wish of your brother’s life. I am most glad and grateful.”

“Oh, so am I,” said Dolores. “It is the thing of all others that Bertram would have chosen; and I have so wished it for him.”

“Ah, James, you see what your offer means,” said the Rev. Cleveland, adjusting his tone between the morose and pathetic. “My children are good children to me. My daughter knew that I could not afford what she wished so deeply for her brother; and I have heard no word of it. My lot has been hard in many ways, but in my children I am blessed.” Mr Hutton felt an attitude of mingled pity and complacence to himself suitable to intercourse with his brother.

The Very Rev. James looked uncertain whether to be gratified by the happy direction of his bounty, or ruffled at the presence of pleasures in his brother’s portion, which were lacking to his own; and Mrs Hutton’s suggestion was opportune, that they should “walk round the garden and find the children; “who had been given hasty, covert directions to make change for the better in their apparel, and place themselves there at general avail.

The presence of the dean was oppressive in the parsonage, by the time that his nephew returned to learn his altered relation to him.

Bertram had not made known the hour of his coming; and he entered his father’s study, where voices summoned him, without word with parents or sisters. Dolores saw that his mood was the temper of strained buoyancy, which had wearied her perplexity. The dean did not choose on this occasion to leave his liberality in his brother’s treatment. He dealt with it himself, with an elaborate precision befitting its greatness, and an air of indulgence towards any impropriety, which should result in his nephew’s deportment from the shock of grasping his fortune.

Bertram’s wordless quest of beseeming response met such smiles and exchange of looks as it merited; but his answer, when it came, brought his hearers to dumb bewilderment.

“Oh, I do not know, sir. I had quite given up thoughts of going to college. I am old for it now. I–I am very grateful to you, sir; but I cannot — must not think of accepting your generosity.”

“Why, you are upset by the news, Bertram,” said Mrs Hutton, earning a grateful glance from her husband. “He has wished it so long, James, that he is quite startled by its being made possible.”

“Ah, ah, I expected as much,” said the dean, as Bertram hastened from the room.

Dolores followed her brother; but he repulsed her advance, and turned to her words an unheeding ear. For the next hours he wandered alone in the garden and lanes, avoiding speech, and turning on his heel at the sight of his uncle or his father. Dolores was deeply bewildered, but he gave her no chance of words; and the next day greater perplexity came. It was known in a troubled and almost guilt-stricken household, that he had met his uncle’s offer with becomingly grateful, but absolute refusal, on the ground of scruples of conscience, which it was not in his power to reveal.