Ivy Compton-Burnett - Dolores

The next days dragged by heavily. A burden of constraint seemed to lie on the parsonage. Mr Hutton showed an uncommitting moroseness; not referring to the conduct of his son, and avoiding all but conventional dealings with his brother. The Very Rev. James was an embarrassing union of courteous guestship and lofty forbearance with unthankful folly. Mrs Hutton was nervous and constrained; and Bertram forgot his spirits, and sank into unbroken depression, repulsing effort to learn his position almost with anger. The person to break the oppressiveness was the Very Rev. James. He suddenly laid aside his discomfiting bearing, and began to show Mrs Hutton courtly attentiveness, and to display great interest in her children. She responded in accordance with maternal diplomacy, treating him as an indubitable source of superior counselling; and it was known that he held to his desire to benefit his brother’s family, and was to undertake the education of his youngest boy and girls. On his leaving the parsonage, his partings carried a new geniality, which was accorded to Bertram with the rest; and the Rev. Cleveland was supplanted as escort to the station by Evelyn and Sophia.

Dolores looked into the future, questioned her duty, and saw it clear. Much in her home showed it clearer. Her father, as though he regarded the late perplexities as giving him a right to mould his habits afresh, fell back into open seeking of her fellowship; and, although while his wife was engrossed in arranging for her children, the course was safe, she felt its covered danger. Mrs Hutton’s dealings with herself put an end to anything that remained of choice. She excused her children from study for their time at home, and did all to be done for them wholly herself; neither seeking Dolores’ aid nor accepting it when offered; so that Dolores’ time was her own from dawn to dusk. Her purpose was not of the things to which Dolores was easily blind. She knew she was being shown her presence in her father’s home as no more needed. She saw her case, simply and without rebellion, as it was; spent one dark hour, looking at the little good to her kin that had cost all to herself; and set her face forward with her old faith in the just. Full happiness in her father’s lot was not a thing that must be sought. She must seek for him peace in his loneliness, the content which — albeit in blindness — he had chosen, made untroubled. She would not act without his sanction and counsel; and she told him her purpose, in words that were few but bore their meaning. As she ended, he spoke in a new tone.

“My daughter,” he said, “you are a good woman. Your mother lives on in you. I will say nothing. You know better than I. Your way will be opened for you.”

The father said words of truth. Dolores’ way was opened for her, and for a space her days were light. She needed the accustomed tribute to her fitness to teach; and her appeal brought an answer with hidden meaning. The place she might have held in the days that were behind, had met support, and was open to her need. Then thoughts of her own life came; but they were second to those of her brother’s, till the others grew to purpose.

As she waited one evening in the churchyard, knowing that Bertram chose this path to the parsonage, she met Dr Cassell, on his way to her sisters in some childish ailment; and asked if he knew of her brother’s whereabouts.

“Ah, history repeats itself, does it not, Miss Dolores? There comes a time when the best sister is not enough,” said the doctor, with a wink and a gesture towards the road.

Dolores saw that comprehension was accepted, and asked no question; but waited with a sense of seeing a dawning on what had been dark.

When Bertram came up the churchyard, the dusk was gathering; and she started at the sight of the sombre figure breaking the shadows. The start was a help, and she spoke the words she had been schooling herself to utter.

“Bertram, I am going to ask you a question, and I want your answer to be true and full. So it is no longer your wish to go to Oxford, if the way should open?”

Bertram started and whitened.

“Yes,” he said in a shaky tone. “It is a small thing to wish so much, and feel so hopeless; but I do still wish it, Dolores — more than I can say in words.”

“But the reason you had for refusing to go — the reason you will not disclose — does not that remain? What meaning had your absolute refusal of my uncle’s offer? I would rather you should give up all, than do what is against your conscience.”

“What do you mean?” said Bertram. “It is not possible for me to go.”

“Yes, I think it is possible,” said Dolores, gently. “I am taking a post at my old college — I am going away from home; it will be better so, Bertram, — where the salary would enable me to give you some help; and father could do something now, with the children’s education settled. But if in some way it cannot be, we will not speak of it.”

“Dolores, I will tell you it all,” said Bertram. “I will tell you it all, and then you will know what you are doing; or I could not accept your sacrifice, much as I can accept from you. But do not speak to me while I am speaking. It began with my being so hopeless over being denied the chance to make a name as a scholar. My life seemed so narrow, and I saw no hope of its widening; and I was in despair, and made a grasp at all that was within my reach. I–I will not speak of my feeling for — for Elsa. You either know it, or you do not know it, — in either case we will not speak of it. The thing I have to tell you is — is that we are married. No; do not speak, Dolores. We met in that time when we were both away from home, by her leaving her friends before her people thought. We knew that our families would oppose, as my prospects were so poor; but we meant to disclose our marriage, and settle down at the grammar school-house, where I was to be master. Well, you understand my feelings when I returned, and was met by my uncle’s offer. My manner of meeting it is no longer a mystery. Of course, I saw my accepting it as impossible. But with the suggestion the old longing returned. It had lived so long with me; and Elsa was sorry for both our sakes, that I had given up the chance of fulfilling it. She saw the difference it would make to the lives of us both; and thought we might have kept our secret, and lived apart in our homes, as betrothed to each other, till my college years should be over. I was troubled and bewildered by her thinking I should have done differently; and I simply revealed nothing, and did nothing: and — well, that is all, Dolores. It is not less than enough, I daresay you will think.”

Bertram pressed his hands to his head, and leant against a tree, dropping his eyes to the ground.

“Then that is why you have been sometimes so excitable, and sometimes so depressed, ever since I came home?” said Dolores, too startled to think of anything but following her brother’s course.

“Yes,” said Bertram, in the tone of one simply giving a desired explanation. “I alternately worried over the passing of my youth without the chance I longed for, and yielded myself to thinking of Elsa, and our secret betrothal.”

For some moments Dolores was silent, the image of Perdita vivid in her mind.

“Well, and what now?” she said at last, in the same voice.

Bertram hesitated.

“If I could go to Oxford — you are generous, Dolores — it is the dream of my boyhood — I–I do not see why it would not be right.”

“You are married—” said Dolores.

“We have been through the marriage service,” said Bertram. “Not that that is not enough. We are married for life, of course; and I am grateful that it is so; but I cannot see that the living apart for a few years, especially as betrothed, is such a wrong thing that our prospects for life must be sacrificed. Anyhow, I do not think so, Dolores. It is my honest opinion that it is not so; and I think I have a right to decide. I am a man of three-and-twenty, and not young for my years. I have a right to act according to my honest opinions.”