Ivy Compton-Burnett - Dolores

As the carriages drove away, Mrs Merton-Vane looked round the remaining company, and brought her eyes to rest on the Rev. Cleveland.

“It does remind me so of so ma-ny things,” she said, looking down at her widow’s garments. “The de-ar children! May their husbands be spared ve-ry long, to love and care for them.”

“Go on, go on,” said Claverhouse, leaning with his ear towards the lips of his friend. “You hesitate and stumble, so that I find my conception constantly broken. Read more fluently. Begin the passage again.”

Soulsby turned back the pages of manuscript, and read in a controlled expressive voice; but in a moment came to a pause, gave a troubled glance at the blind listener, and sat surveying the scored sheets with contracted brows.

“Go on, go on,” said Claverhouse, moving impatiently, and still stooping forward, as though to drink in every whit of the meaning of what was read.

“I–I cannot — quite follow the — the manuscript here,” said Soulsby, with a face of trouble. “The — it has been — I think there are some lines scored out; but — but the scoring marks are only partly through them, and the final version is written half across the other, so that — so that—”

“So that, so that!” said Claverhouse, with bitter mimicry. “So that it is impossible to see what the old blind driveller meant by his scribbling. Put it aside then. Do not take any trouble to help me. Who am I, that I should exact so much from my friend?”

Soulsby sat silent, in grieved forbearance; until Claverhouse, in the nervous irritation of feebleness and premature age, made a movement of violent impatience, when he again took up the sheets.

“Shall — shall I — go on from the end of the — the doubtful passage?”

“No, do not go on at all,” said Claverhouse, still in the painfully bitter tone. “Go back to your wife, and your life of happiness and love, and leave me alone; to get on, or to fail — or to die, as well as I may. What else do I deserve at your hands?”

“I think I have deserved a little better at yours,” said Soulsby, laying down the papers.

“Ah, you have!” said Claverhouse, covering his face, and pushing the fingers of his other hand through his thin, grey hair. “But you do not know what it is to live in formless blackness, and see it swallowing the work of your days. May you never.”

“I do not know it, indeed,” said Soulsby, with gentle earnestness. “And I am wrong in saying you owe anything to me. The debt is mine.”

“Ah! You pander to me, and soothe me with words with no thought in them, because I am an old blind creature in my second childhood,” said Claverhouse. “Well, I shall be gone soon; and you will have nothing to do for me, but look back and congratulate yourself on your goodness.”

There was a long silence; and at length Soulsby spoke, with the constraint which resumes after a break at embarrassing words.

“I–I have some relatives of my wife’s — her father and elder sister — coming to spend some weeks with me. The — the sister is an old friend of yours and — and of your wife’s; and would feel it a privilege — she tells me — to come and visit you. She—”

“Oh!” said Claverhouse, heaving up his shoulders, and speaking in a querulous manner which gave him a strange resemblance to his mother in her later feebleness. “I have earned my bread amongst women. There are hundreds who would be ‘old friends of mine,’ in speaking to a believer in my powers — or rather in my future fame. They don’t care about me, or know me, nor I them. Some relatives of your wife’s! You are heartless, Soulsby. I don’t want crumbs from your domestic happiness thrown to me.”

“This — this has nothing to do with my domestic happiness,” said Soulsby simply. “Dolores Hutton was a friend and pupil of yours before she knew my name.” He gave a start; for his words were no longer spurned.

Claverhouse made an agitated sound, half-lifted his arms, and seemed to be shivering. Then he pressed his elbows on the table, and crouched forward, with his eyes seeming to strain for sight.

“What?” he said. “Who? What are you talking of?”

“Her name is Dolores Hutton. She is my wife’s sister. Their father is a clergyman in Yorkshire. I have heard you speak of her to your wife,” said Soulsby, watching him with changing expressions.

“When will she come? How soon will you bring her to me?” said Claverhouse, still stooping forward, and speaking in a hoarse tone that was almost a whisper. “Let there be no needless waiting. Have I not waited long enough?”

“She can come at some early hour to-morrow,” said Soulsby, finding that his voice sounded strangely. “She reaches me to-night.”

“Why at some hour to-morrow? What time does she reach you? Oh, you may wonder at me, Soulsby. What matters it what a man does on the brink of the grave? Tell her to come to me to-night. Five years! Nearly all there was left me!”

He sank back in his chair, and made a gesture for his friend to leave him.

“I will give her your message,” said Soulsby, composing the papers with nervous fingers. “I–I see no reason why it should not be as you wish. I–I shall be deeply rejoiced, if — if—”

He saw his friend was giving him no heed, and passed from the room. In the passage he came upon Julia, standing with her hands folded in her apron, and an expression on her wrinkled face he could not interpret.

“You — you — I need not warn you — I am sure you are the last person to need warning. But I–I am bringing a — a friend — a lady, here with me to-night. She is an old friend of — of Mrs Claverhouse. You — you will know to take all that happens as a matter of course?”

“I heard, sir,” said the old servant, in a quietly hopeless tone. “It doesn’t seem as if much good could come out of anything now. But I hope there can’t come any harm either — that the time for that has gone as well. Anyhow you may trust me, sir.”

“I am sure of it,” said Soulsby, in his courteous manner, as he left the dwelling.

It was late in the evening when he entered it again, with Dolores walking behind him. Julia gave but a glance to the tall, spare woman, with the simple garments and worn face; and then led the way in silence.

As the door opened, Claverhouse started to his feet, and put out his hands, as though to repel approach, his ear turned to catch the footsteps on the floor. As Dolores came towards him, some words broke from his lips like a cry.

“Why did you leave me? Why could you spare me nothing of all that you gave?”

As their hands met, Soulsby slipped from the room, closing the door behind him. Julia gave no sign of surprise, as she saw him enter the passage. She moved from the door, placed a chair for him in silence, and entered the kitchen.

It was long that he sat in the darkness, with his hands moving slowly against each other, and his grey head bent as if in pondering. They fell on his ear — filling him with emotions that held thought in abeyance — the voices of these two fellow-creatures of his reverence — the deep, harsh sounds that were to him a prophet’s utterance, and the impressive, woman’s tones which he had thought to hear for his own hourly cheering. When the hour grew late, and he rose and entered the chamber, he found them sitting at the table together; with their lips moving, and their faces seeming to tell simply of long, unbroken friendship. For some moments he watched them mutely; and then stepped forward, and stood at hand, making no further sign.

With instant obedience, as if almost wearied by the hour they had lived, they rose together.

“Ah!” said Claverhouse, with so much of the old sudden vigour of the word, that Soulsby was startled; “so we have had the hour I have lived in. You know it all. It can be as if these years had never been — even though they must remain.”