Chapter 26
NAPLES.
Dolly shared her friend's room. Talk ran on, all the while they were undressing, upon all manner of trifles. When they were laid down, however, and Dolly was just rejoicing to be quiet and think, Christina began to speak in a different tone.
"Dolly, how do you like him?"
I think, if Dolly had liked him less, she would have been fuller in his praise. I do not know by what sort of hidden instinct and unconscious diplomacy she answered very coolly and with no enthusiasm.
"I like him very well. I think he is true."
"True! Of course he is true. If he wouldn't be so stupid. To expect one to be unlike all the world."
Dolly was silent.
"He's crochetty, that's what he is," Christina went on. "I hate a man to be crochetty. I shall work him out of it, if ever we come to live together."
"I don't believe you will, Christina."
"Why not?"--quickly.
"I don't _think_ you will," Dolly repeated.
"Because you have the same notions that he has. My dear little Dolly! you don't know the world. You _can't_ live in the world and be running your head perpetually against it; indeed you cannot. You may break your head, but you won't do anything else. And the world will laugh at you."
"But, Christina, whom do you serve? For it comes to that."
"Whom do I serve! Pooh, that's not the question."
"It comes to that, Christina."
"Well, of course there is but one answer. But Sandie would have me give up everything;--everything!--all I like, and all I want to do."
"Christina, it seems to me the Bible says we must give Christ our whole selves."
"Oh, if you are going to take the Bible literally"----
"How else can you take it?"
"Seasonably."
"But how are you going to settle what is reasonable? Didn't the Lord know what He wanted His people to do? And He said we must give Him ourselves and all we have got."
"Have you?" said Christina.
"What?"
"Given up all, as you say?"
"I think I have," Dolly answered slowly. "I am sure, Christina, I do not want anything but what God chooses to give me."
"And are you ready to give up all your own pleasure and amusement, and your time, and be like no one else, and have no friends in the world?" Christina spoke the words in a kind of hurry.
"You go too fast," said Dolly. "You ask too many things at once; and you forget what Mr. Shubrick said--that it is pleasure to please our Master. _He_ said it was His meat to do His Father's will; and He is our pattern. And doing His will does not prevent either pleasure or amusement, of the right sort; not at all. O Christina! I do not think anybody is rightly happy, except those who love Christ and obey him."
"Are you happy?" was the next quick question. Dolly could not answer it as immediately.
"If I am not," she said at last, "it is because there are some things in my life just now that--trouble me."
"Dear Dolly!" said Christina affectionately. "But you looked quite happy this evening."
"I was," said Dolly. "You made me so."
Christina kissed her, and thereupon at once fell asleep. But Dolly was not sleepy. Her thoughts were wide awake, and roved over everything in the world, it seemed to her; at least over all her friend's affairs and over all her own. She was not fretting, only looking at things. Christina's ease and security and carelessness, her own burdens and responsibilities; the fulness of means here, the difficulty of getting supplies in her own household; Sandie Shubrick, finally, and Lawrence St. Leger! What a strange difference between one lot and another! It was a bright night; the moonlight streamed in at one of the windows in a yellow flood. Dolly lay staring at the pool of light on the floor. Roman moonlight! And so the same moonlight had poured down in old times upon the city of the Caesars; lighted up their palaces and triumphal arches; yes, and the pile of the Colosseum and the bones of the martyrs. The same moonlight! Old Rome lay buried; the oppressor and the oppressed were passed away; the persecutor and his victims alike long gone from the scene of their doings and sufferings; and the same moon shining on! What shadows we are in comparison! thought Dolly; and then her thoughts instantly corrected themselves. Not we, but _this_, is the shadow; this material, so unchanging earth. Sense misleads us. "The world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Then it is only to do that, thought Dolly; be it hard or easy; that is the only thing to care about. And therewith another word came to her; it seemed to be written in the moonlight:--"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" It came so soft and sweet upon Dolly's heart as I can hardly tell; her eyelids dropped from their watch, and in another minute she too was fast asleep.
The next day was wholly pleasant to her. It was merry, as Christmas ought to be; and Dolly had laid aside her own cares and took everything as light-heartedly as anybody else. More, perhaps, if the truth were known; for Dolly had laid her cares she knew where, and that they would be looked after. The pleasant people, whose festivities she shared, were all kind to her; she had not been forgotten in the gifts which were flying about; and altogether the day was a white one. It only ended too soon. At four o'clock Dolly prepared to go home. Christina protested that she was not wanted there.
"I am wanted more than you think. I must give mother a piece of my Christmas Day."
"Well, you're all coming to us at Sorrento, remember; and that will be charming. We will go everywhere together. And Sandie;--you will be with us, Sandie? in the spring, at the villa? Oh, you must!"
"If I possibly can," he said gravely.
"And Sandie will take you home now, as you must go. I see he is ready."
Dolly would have objected, but she could not alter this arrangement; and Mr. Shubrick walked home with her. It was a very matter-of-fact walk, however. There was as nearly as possible no conversation between the two. Nevertheless, the walk had its fascination for Dolly. The stately, straight, manly figure beside her, inspired her with an admiration which had a little awe mixed with it; to walk with him, even in silence, was an undoubted pleasure; and when he took leave of her at the door of her lodgings and turned away, Dolly felt, and not till then, that her holiday was over.
She went up the stairs slowly. Her short holiday was over. Now work again. Well! Dolly remembered the conclusion of last night's thoughts in the moonlight; took up her burden on her shoulders, and carried it up stairs with her.
She found her mother alone.
"Dearest mother, how do you do?" she said, kissing her; "and how has the day been? I have stayed away pretty late, but I could hardly help it; and I have had a very nice time."
"I don't like holidays," was Mrs. Copley's answer. "They're the wearisomest days I know; especially when every one else is out and enjoying himself. This Christmas has been a year long, seems to me. Who did you see?"
"Just themselves, and Christina's friend, Mr. Shubrick."
"What's he like?"
"He's very fine, mother, I think. Christina ought to be a happy woman."
"He hasn't got anything, as I understand?" said Mrs. Copley. "I don't think Mrs. Thayer is at all delighted with the match. I know I shouldn't be."
"Mrs. Thayer does not see things with my eyes, probably; and you don't see them at all, mother, dear, not knowing Mr. Shubrick. Look at my presents; see this lovely cameo ring; Christina gave it to me Christmas Eve; and this brooch is from Mrs. Thayer; and Mr. Thayer gave me this dear little bronze lamp."
"What do you want with such a thing as that? you can't use it."
"Oh, for the antique beauty, mother; and the lovely shape. It's real bronze, and Mr. Thayer says the workmanship is very fine."
"But he has nothing, has he?" said Mrs. Copley, weighing the bronze lamp in her hand disapprovingly.
"Who? He has another just like it. Do you mean Mr. Thayer?"
"Pshaw, child, no! I mean the other man, Christina's intended. He has nothing, has he?"
"I do not know what you call 'nothing.' He has a very fine figure, an excellent face, sense and firmness and gentleness; and a manner that's fascinating. I never saw anybody with a finer manner. I think he has a good deal."
"Mr. St. Leger has all that, Dolly, and money to boot."
"Mother! There is all the difference in the world between the two men."
"St. Leger has the money, though; and that makes more difference than anything else I know of. Dolly, I _wish_ you would make up your mind. I think that would bring your father all right."
"Where is father, mother?"
"Gone out."
"But I thought he would stay with you while I was away. Couldn't you keep him at home, mother? just this one day?"
"I never try to influence your father's motions, Dolly. I never did. And it would be no use. Men do not bear that sort of thing."
"What sort of thing?"
"Interference. They never do. No man of any spunk does. They are all alike in that."
"Do you mean that no man will give up any of his pleasure for a woman that he loves, and that loves him?"
"While men are just in love, Dolly, and before they are married, they will make fools of themselves; and for a little while after. Then things fall into their regular train; and their regular train is as I tell you. Let a man alone, if you want to keep the peace and have a comfortable time, Dolly. I _never_ interfere with your father. I never did."
Would it have been better if she had? Dolly queried. _She_ must interfere with him now, and it was hard. Dolly thought the wife might have done it easier than the daughter. She did not believe her father was looking up antiquities; she had not faith in his love of art; he could be on no good errand, she greatly feared. Christmas Day! and he would go out and leave his nervous, invalid wife to count her fingers in solitude; not even waiting till Dolly should be at home again. _Are_ all men like that? Mr. Shubrick, for instance? But what was to be done? If Mr. Copley had found places and means of dissipation in Rome, then Rome was a safe abode for him no longer. Where would be a safe abode? Dolly's heart was bitter in its sorrow for a moment; then she gathered herself up.
"Mother, do you like Rome?"
"Why should I like it? I think we came away from Venice a great deal too soon. You would come, Dolly. There is nothing here, for me, but old tumbledown places; and the meals are not near so good as we had there in Venice. No, I'm sick and tired of Rome. I'm glad you've had a good Christmas Day; it's been forlorn to me."
"I won't go again from you, mother. Will you like to make a visit to the Thayers at their villa?"
"I don't know. Is Mr. St. Leger invited?"
"Particularly."
"And the other man?"
"What other man?" said Dolly, laughing.
"You know,--Christina's man."
"He is asked. I do not know about his coming. He would if he could, he said. Why? do you want to see him?"
"No."
It was well on in the evening before Mr. Copley made his appearance. And then he was taciturn and not in an agreeable temper. The worse for wine he was not, in one sense; he was in no measure overcome by it; but Dolly knew that he had been taking it somewhere. O fathers! she thought, if you are not to "provoke your children to anger," neither ought you to drive them to despair; and you ought never, never, to let them blush for you! That I should be ashamed for _my father!_
She said nothing that night but what was in the way of sweetest ministry to both father and mother. She talked of all that she had seen and done during her visit. She got out a supper of fruit, and would have them eat it. Not very easy work, for her father was glum and her mother unresponsive; but she did what could be done. Next day she proposed going on to Sorrento.
"It does not agree very well with mother here; at least I do not think she is gaining; and she does not enjoy it."
"You enjoy it, don't you?"
"Oh yes; as far as that goes. But I care more for mother and you."
"And I care for you, Dolly. No, no; we are old people; it doesn't signify a rush whether we like it or no. You are young, and you are here for once, in Rome, and I am not going away till you've seen it fairly. Don't you say so, mother, hey? Now she has got a good chance, she must use it."
"I'm afraid it's expensive," put in Mrs. Copley.
"Nonsense; no more than anywhere else. It'll be just about the same thing at Sorrento, or wherever you go. See all you can, Dolly. We'll stay."
"I should think you would send Rupert home, at least," said his wife rather disconsolately; but true to her principles she put in no objection to her husband's pleasure. "We might save so much."
"We shouldn't save anything. Rupert makes himself very useful; if we had not him, we should want some rogue of a courier. I'll keep Rupert. How he enjoys it, the dog!"
Rupert was invaluable to Dolly, though she said nothing about it. Always ready to attend upon her, always devoted to her wishes, her intelligent companion, and her most faithful and efficient servant in making purchases of drawing materials or in disposing of her finished work. Dolly attempted to overrule the decision made ostensibly in her favour, that their stay in Rome should be prolonged; but had no success. Everybody, except only her mother, was against her. And though she feared sadly that her father's motive was twofold and regarded his own pleasure more than hers, she could not change the present status of things.
They remained at Rome all winter. It was a winter of mingled delight and distress to Dolly; strangely mingled. The immediate money cares were lifted off; that was one thing. The family lived cheaply, and gave themselves few indulgences, but the bills were paid, somehow; and it was a perpetual indulgence only to be in Rome. How Dolly took the good of it, I have not room to describe. She was busy, too; she even worked hard. Before the Thayers went away, she had taken all their portraits; and with so much acceptance that they introduced her to other friends; and Dolly's custom grew to be considerable. It paid well, for her pictures were really exquisite. Her great natural gift had been trained judiciously, so far as it was trained at all, in America; and now necessity spurred her, and practice helped her, and habitually conscientious work lost no time, and maturing sense and feeling added constant new charm to her performances, discernment to her eye, and skill to her hand. Dolly was accumulating a little stock of money against a time of need; and the secret knowledge of this was a perpetual comfort.
And when she gave herself play-time, how she played! Then, with her father if she could get him, or with Rupert if, as most often was the case, Mr. Copley was out of the way or indisposed for sight-seeing, Dolly went about the old city, drinking in pleasure; revelling in historical associations, which were always a hobby of hers; feasting with untiring enjoyment on the wonders of architecture old and new; or in churches and galleries losing herself in rapt ecstasy before this or that marvel of the painter's art. It was a wonderful winter to Dolly. Many a young lady has passed the same season in the same place, but it is only one here and there who finds the hundredth part of the mental food and delectation that Dolly found. Day by day she was growing, and knew it; in delicacy of appreciation, in tenderness of feeling, in power of soul to grasp, in largeness of heart to love, in courage to do and suffer. For all Dolly's studying and enjoying she did in the light of Bible truth and the enriching of heavenly influences; and so, in pictures of the old masters and creations of the grand architects of old and new time, she found truth and teaching and testimony utterly missed by those who have not the right key. It is the same with nature and with all the great arts; for Truth is one; and if you are quite ignorant of her in her highest and grandest revelations, you cannot by possibility understand the more subordinate and initiative. Some dim sense of the hidden mystery, some vague appreciation of the outward beauty of the language without getting at its expressed meaning, or but very partially, just so far as you have the key; that is all there is for you.
In all Dolly's horizon there was but one cloud. Lawrence was one of the company, it is true, almost one of the family; treated with greatest consideration and familiarity by both father and mother. But Dolly was not a weak young woman. She knew her own mind, and she had given Lawrence to know it; she was in no confusion about him, and her conscience was clear. Lawrence was also enjoying Rome, after his own fashion; if he was staying for her, Dolly did not know it, and it was not her fault.
So her one only shadow upon the brightness at Rome came from her father. Not that he went into any great excesses; or if he did, they were hidden from Dolly; but he indulged himself, she knew, in one at least of his mischievous pleasures. She had no reason to suppose that he gambled; as I said, there was always money to discharge the weekly bills; but he found wine somewhere and drank it; that was certain; and when did ever evil habits stand still? If he kept within bounds now, who should warrant her that he would continue to do so? Mr. Copley came home sometimes cheerful and disposed to be merry; he had taken only enough to exhilarate him; at other times he came home gloomy and cross, and then Dolly knew he had drunk enough to confuse his head and slightly disturb his conscience. What could she do? She clenched her little hands sometimes when she was walking the streets, and sometimes she wrung them in impotent grief. She strove to win her father to share in her pleasures; with little success. She was lovely to him as a daughter could be, always; and at the same time she let him see by her grave face and subdued manner when he came home with the breath of wine upon his lips, that she was troubled and grieved. What more could she do? So her winter was a complication of great enjoyment with anxiety and mortification.
About the end of March they left the delightful old city and set off southwards. To Sorrento, was Dolly's fond hope. But when they got to Naples, she found that all the men of the party were against proceeding further, at least before the pleasures and novelties of that place had also bean tasted.
"There's a famous museum here, Dolly," said her father. "You could not pass that?"
"And Pompeii--don't you want to see Pompeii?" cried Rupert.
"It will be pleasanter at Sorrento later in the season," said Lawrence; "much pleasanter. Wait till it grows warm here; then Sorrento will be delightful. We are taking everything just at the right time."
"And it is as beautiful here as you can find anything," added Mr. Copley. "You want to look at the bay of Naples, now you have the chance."
Yes, said Dolly to herself, and they say the wines are good at Naples too! But she gave up the question. They established themselves in a hotel.
"For how long, I wonder?" said Mrs. Copley to Dolly when they were alone. "It seems as if I wasn't going to get to Sorrento. I don't know what I expect there, either, I am sure; only we set out to go to Sorrento for my health; and here we are in Naples after five months of wandering and lounging about! and here we are going to stay, it seems."
"The wandering and lounging about was very good for you, mother, dear. You are a great deal improved in your looks."
"I wish I was in my feelings."
"You are, aren't you?"
"What does your father want to do in Naples?"
"I don't know. They all want to stay here a while, you see. And, mother, don't you enjoy this wonderful view?" For their windows commanded the bay.
"I'd rather see Boston harbour, by half."
"Oh, so would I!--on some accounts. But, mother, it is a great thing to see Naples."
"So your father thinks. Men never do know what they want; only it is always something they haven't got."
"We're in Naples, though, mother."
"We shan't be long."
"Well, we don't _want_ to be here long, mother."
"I'd like to be still somewheres. Your father'd as lieve be anywhere else as at home; but I like to see my own fire burn. I don't know as I ever shall again. Unless you'll marry Mr. St. Leger, Dolly. That would bring all right, at one stroke." From which suggestion Dolly always escaped as fast as possible.
It turned out that they were to stay a good while at Naples. Perhaps Mr. Copley feared the seclusion of a private house at Sorrento. However that were, he seemed to find motives to detain him where he was, and Lawrence St. Leger was nothing loth. The days went by, till Dolly herself grew impatient. They went very much after the former manner, as far as the gentlemen were concerned; Lawrence found society, and Mr. Copley too, naturally, took pleasure in meeting a good many people to whom he was known. What other pleasure he took in their company Dolly could but guess; with him things went on very much as they had done in Rome.
With her, not. Dolly knew nobody, kept close by her mother, who eschewed all society, and so of course had no likenesses to paint. She worked busily at the other sort of painting which had engaged her in Venice; made lovely little pictures of Naples; rather of bits of Naples; characteristic bits; which were done with so much truth and grace that Rupert without difficulty disposed of them to the fancy dealers. The time of photographs was not yet; and Dolly made money steadily. She enjoyed this work greatly. Her other pleasures were found in walks about the city, and in visits to the museum. There was not in Naples the wealth of art objects which had been so inexhaustible in Rome; nevertheless, the museum furnished an interest all its own; and Dolly went there day after day. Indeed, the interest grew; and objects which at her first going she passed carelessly by, at the fourth or fifth she began to study with intent interest. The small bronzes found at Pompeii were pored over by her and Rupert till they almost knew the several pieces by heart, and had constructed over them a whole system of the ways of private life in those old days when they were made and used. Dolly often managed to persuade her father to be her escort when she went to the museum; and Mr. Copley would go patiently, for Dolly's sake, seeing the extreme delight it afforded her; but Mr. Copley was not always to be had, and then Dolly chose certain parts of the collection which she and Rupert could study together. So they gave a great deal of time to the collection of coins; not at first, but by degrees drawn on. So with the famous collection of antique bronzes. Rupert looked on these in the beginning with a depreciating eye.
"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.