THE fears of the household, however, were not justified. Dolff dutifully came home to lunch.
Janet, who, instead of being offended and dwelling upon his rudeness, had not thought of him at all, save with a certain passing satisfaction such as moves a woman involuntarily when she perceives that her own appearance has had the effect which it ought to produce—continued to be agreeably impressed during luncheon with the evident awe and admiration which she elicited from the son of the house. He was very quiet, not saying much, civil to his sisters, evidently disposed to please. His appearance did not impress Janet. He was colorless, like the rest of his family, with whiskers and a budding mustache, which, being very light, scarcely showed upon his face: and his form was wanting in those fine proportions which a girl’s imagination requires in a hero—the length of limb and commanding height. Dolff was not short, but he was thick, which neutralized his real stature. It is impossible to describe how civil he was—to everybody, to Priscilla when she handed him the potatoes; even to Ju—whom he called Julia. He inquired how she was getting on with her—history. Evidently he did not know what study he ought to inquire into, but selected that as most dignified. This continued during the whole day; for Dolff, to the evident amazement of his family, came in again at five o’clock and drank tea and ate bread-and-butter in large quantities.
“I did not think you ever took tea, Dolff,” said his mother, amazed.
“Oh, I think it’s very good for a fellow,” said Dolff; “better than—other drinks——”
“So do I, my dear,” cried his mother, fervently, and was about to make further remarks, even perhaps to improve the occasion, had Gussy not interposed with an imploring glance.
In the evening he suggested a game of backgammon with his mother; the power of virtue could no further go. The ladies kept a close but carefully-concealed watch upon him, expecting the moment when he would break loose, when he would exclaim that he must go out and get a little air, which generally meant that Dolff disappeared for the evening and was seen no more. But he endured like a man these hours of severe domesticity. He looked on while the ladies worked; he stood in front of the fire and told them stories of Oxford, condescending so far to their inferiority as to explain phrases and even to apologize for slang, as well as to throw in several passing biographies of “men” from other colleges with whom he had formed alliances. I could not assert authoritatively that Mrs. Harwood, or even Julia, enjoyed these stories, but they all expressed the utmost interest, plied him with questions, and did everything that could be done to prolong the autobiographical narrative. Occasionally a glance would pass between Mrs. Harwood and her elder daughter—a glance of wonder and satisfaction. Dolff had turned over a new leaf! Dolff had passed without apparent difficulty a long, unbroken evening at home.
The next day Dolff continued in the same good dispositions. He even arranged his books in the little room that was called his study, and retired there for an hour or two to work, as he said. The ladies scarcely ventured to express their delight.
“There is no doubt that Dolff must have turned over a new leaf,” said Mrs. Harwood.
“It looks like it,” said Gussy, “but we must not build much on the first night.”
The second night, however, was even better than the first. Dolff made an offer to Julia to help her with her—history, which made that young lady open her eyes with consternation.
“I’ll come and give you a lecture, if you like—if Miss Summerhayes will let me,” he said. “I’m an awful dab at history. That’s my subject, don’t you know. I’ve given up classics, and I’m going in for history—does a fellow far more good in the world. I’ll give you a course of lectures if Miss Summerhayes has no objection.”
“Oh, no,” cried Janet, demurely, bending her head over her work to hide the laugh which she could scarcely restrain: for it would have been difficult to imagine anything more unlike an academical lecturer than Dolff as he stood, with his legs very wide apart, against the glowing background of the fire. “It would be to my own advantage as well as Julia’s,” she added, “if Mrs. Harwood would not think it too much——”
“Too much for—me?” asked Dolff. “Oh! mother would be delighted to think I was doing something. I’ll come up to-morrow and see what you’re about.”
“Well, Dolff, I am sure it is very good of you,” said Mrs. Harwood; “but I daresay what you learn at the University, where you have the first men to teach you, would perhaps be rather too much for a little girl.”
“Oh! if that is all! I think you might trust me, mother, to break it down into nice little scraps,” cried Dolff.
“It would only waste Ju’s time and keep her back from her—music and other things,” said Gussy, suspicious, though she did not well know why.
“Oh, Gussy!—when you know you have always said I never should do anything in music,” cried Julia, who saw prospects of fun and congenial idleness in Dolff’s proposal.
Janet had suppressed her laugh, and was very grave over her needlework. It was not for her to interfere.
“We’ll think it over,” said Mrs. Harwood; “you don’t always think the same in the morning as in the evening, my dear boy. No doubt it would be for Julia’s advantage, for I don’t think, any more than Gussy, that she will ever do much at her music. I should like to see into it myself first, and whether it wouldn’t interfere with your time, and if you remain in the same mind, and so forth. We’ll think it over, Dolff.”
“I never knew that the mother considered herself clever about history before,” said Dolff, with a laugh. “And what’s all this about music? I’ve grown a great dab at music, too. You’ve had the piano open these two nights. Who plays? or sings, is it? Oh! I suppose it’s you, Gussy. Come along and let us hear.”
“I seldom sing alone,” said Gussy, with a blush.
“Well, come and sing with me. I’m your man. I’ve grown quite a dab at it this term. Anything to make the time pass. I thought it was something new when I saw the piano standing open.”
“It is nothing at all new, Dolff. Gussy has always had a very pretty voice. She is shy about it by herself, so she generally sings in duets or concerted pieces. But she has a very pretty voice, hasn’t she, Janet?”
“Are you musical, Miss Summerhayes?”
“She has a very sweet voice,” said Janet. “It came out beautifully the other night.”
“Are you musical, Miss Summerhayes?”
Janet paused, believing that some one would answer for her. Then she said.
“I play a little occasionally.”
“You could rattle over a little accompaniment?” said Dolff. “Oh, it’s not difficult—I could almost do it myself, only one can’t play and sing too.”
Again Janet hesitated. She cast a glance round the silent company to know what she was expected to do. But Mrs. Harwood gave no sign, and Gussy was abstracted, listening for the step which did not come—and which was so much more important than all the brothers in the world.
“Oh, yes, I think I could rattle over a little accompaniment,” said Janet.
“Then come along,” cried Dolff, delighted. “I’ll fetch some of my songs in a moment. They are not Gussy’s sort, and she would not care to play for me, but the mother will like it, won’t you, mother? There’s a chorus with most of them,” said Dolff, pausing half-way to the door. “Perhaps Ju and you could tune up in the chorus? it’s not difficult, and it adds to the effect.”
“I think, perhaps, I might tune up in the chorus, if it’s not very difficult.”
“Oh, that’s famous,” cried Dolff, rushing out of the room.
Janet turned an ingenuous glance to her patronesses.
“Am I doing what you wish?” she said. “Perhaps you will tell me, dear Mrs. Harwood, what it is best to do.”
“It will be horrible Christy Minstrels and things,” said Gussy; “if any one should come, it would be rather dreadful to have the piano taken up in that way.”
“At the same time,” cried Mrs. Harwood, “it would be strange if my Dolff could not sing what he pleased in his own mother’s house.”
“Oh, if you take it in that way,” said Gussy.
She gave a furtive glance at the clock. It was getting late; the probabilities were that no one would come to-night. And yet sometimes he came quite late, sometimes he was detained by—business. It was strange that he never should have appeared since that evening of triumph, when they had shared the plaudits of their friends, and had been drawn so close to each other, associated so completely in the common regard. Gussy had felt that something more definite must come into her relations with Charles Meredith after that, and she was restless and distraite, unhappy yet subduing her unhappiness, above all things anxious not to betray herself, or to let even her mother suspect what was in her mind. A woman must never betray what she expects, in so far at least as this goes. She went into the other end of the room, voluntarily withdrawing to a distance where she could not hear any step outside, with a fantastic hope that when she was thus out of the way it might come: and moved about, displacing some small pieces of furniture, rustling among the music on the piano, which was chiefly his music with his name upon it, in order to give him a chance of arriving unheard. Poor little device of the strained nerves and sick heart! No one suspected what was in Gussy’s mind except the last person whom she could have desired to know it—Janet, who followed her movements with a half-contempt, half-sympathy. Janet herself was fancy free; though she was immensely interested in Charles Meredith and his present movements, it was solely with the interest which is felt in a story, to see what would happen next; and she had all a girl’s indignation against the woman who thus let herself go and depended upon a man’s decision for her happiness. At Janet’s age a girl resents and scorns such a renunciation of the woman’s rights: yet follows the sufferer with an inalienable pity and wonder, too.
Dolff came back excited with a sheaf of songs.
“Now, Miss Summerhayes, if you will be so good,” he said. He threw off the pile of music that was on the piano. “Oh, that’s all classic stuff,” he said, “I can see with half an eye—and as dull as ditch-water—“C. Meredith”—it seems all to belong to C. Meredith. I hope you’ll find mine a little more lively, Miss Summerhayes. It’s Meredith and Gussy that carry on all that, ain’t it?” he said, with a wink and whisper. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid—I know.”
Janet sat down at the piano without making any reply, and Julia stood by as audience. Dolff placed himself at one side, facing towards the further room in which his mother was sitting. He had turned her chair round a little, that she might see the performance, which, indeed, was supposed to gain in effect from the looks and gestures of the performer. And then there ensued the most curious exhibition of native fatuity, vanity, and simplicity that could be imagined. Janet (perhaps even more important than any other spectator) had the privilege of seeing his face, too, and all the grimaces he made, as he stood facing an imaginary audience. The ladies listened to him in a silence which was almost awful.
Janet, whose hands were busy now, was in no way responsible for Dolff: and the one who could see everything that was ridiculous in the exhibition without being humiliated by it was the one who was best off. But for Mrs. Harwood, listening with a gasp to her son’s performance, seeing his contortions of face, his gestures, his complacency, the moment was terrible. And even Julia, though she was not much more than a child, and disposed to receive all her brother did as admirable, gazed at him open-mouthed with horror in her face. Gussy had given him but one look, and then had strayed out into the hall. She was not capable of judging. Her mind was too much distracted with other thoughts. She went into the hall with a pretence of something to do there, and even into the dining-room on the other side, where all was dark, yet where she penetrated, to carry back a vase with flowers, groping her way. It was so near the garden, the hall door, the outer road. Nobody could pass or come to the gate without being audible. Poor Gussy pretended even to herself that her sole object was to take back the flowers which had been moved into the drawing-room by mistake, though they belonged to the decoration of the dinner-table. She knocked against the displaced chairs and the corner of the table as she went in in the dark, thus preventing herself from hearing any sound outside; and when those noises were still her heart beat so loudly as to drown all sound—of the less importance, as there was no sound to hear!
“Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood, “that is surely a new style for you. I don’t remember ever hearing you sing songs like these before.”
“I have been having some lessons,” said Dolff; “they are all the rage just now. You never learn anything else in Oxford.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harwood; but she said no more, and Dolff, who did not care very much for her opinion, turned to Janet.
“You don’t do yourself justice, Miss Summerhayes,” he said. “You played that first-rate. You must have heard Arthur Roberts, or some of them, to do it as well as that.”
“No,” said Janet, “I never heard of Arthur Roberts. Who is he?” a question which made Dolff laugh—“scream with laughing,”—he said to himself.
“Oh, you are original! Who is Arthur Roberts?—that is a good one! Who is Shakespeare? You might just as well ask one question as the other. But you play as if—as if you had been all your life at the Vic. I never heard any one play so well before.”