Dolff

“ That Gussy should believe in the man whom he had heard and seen so false—so false! who had jeered and laughed at her devotion and talked of her to another woman, another traitor! that she should hang over his bed and kiss him when he came back to himself! Dolff ground his teeth and muttered an oath of fury. The last thing in the fellow’s consciousness must be that lingering talk with Janet, holding her hands, making love to her—and the next would be Gussy’s kiss! Dolff felt that he could not bear it—the villain, the rascal, the cad! ”

“ You don’t belong to us—at least Charley Meredith doesn’t belong to us, and Gussy thinks more of him than of all of us together. Oh, Dolff, it only matters to you and me!{302} I believe,” cried Julia, catching her brother’s arm, “that old madman’s our father, Dolff. I believe he is our father. It’s terrible, it’s odious, and I will never forgive mamma. Why isn’t he dead? as she said he was. Dolff—oh, don’t mind it so dreadfully! I don’t mind it so dreadfully: he’s only mad—and that’s not wicked after all.” ”

“ Oh, don’t you know when one never has had a father, what one thinks he must have been? And then to see—that! but I must have satisfaction,” cried Dolff. “What has he done? What are you going to do?”
At this moment the door was opened hastily, and Gussy came in, followed by Meredith. There had been so much excitement in the house that they all came together for every new incident.
“Is my mother ill?” she said, with a glance at Mrs. Harwood in her chair. “Something has gone wrong. Dolff, who is this gentleman? ”

“ It was the last thing in the world that was desirable for any one concerned.
“I shall tell my mother I have set my heart on having a dance. How can you expect a man to stick to his home as you wish if he has nothing to amuse him? I will settle all that with my mother myself,” said Dolff, somewhat magisterially. He turned round upon her, however, after a moment: “If you don’t interfere.”
“Why should I interfere, if it makes you happy? To be sure it is a great trouble turning everything upside down.”
“One would think you were forty, Gussy!” ”

“ Dolff was a little sulky: he was disappointed and troubled that Janet had run away from him after tea, just when they might have had, he said to himself, a quiet hour, undisturbed by anyone, either for music or talk. Now that fellow Meredith would come and take possession of the piano, and make an exhibition of himself and his singing all night—keeping everybody else out in the cold. Dolff thought that it was not fair. He ought to be the first to be considered in the house; not a fellow who has not even the pluck to speak out, who was dangling on forever without coming to anything. ”

“ Gloom and anger and misery were on Dolff’s face. As for Janet, she had stiffened more and more with every word he said, and Julia, who had been clinging, with all a child’s affection, to the arm of her governess, felt herself repulsed and detached, she could not tell how, and protested loudly:
“Janet, because Dolff is disagreeable that’s no reason for shaking me off!”
“I have no intention of being disagreeable,” said Dolff, walking slowly with them. “I only say what every one must perceive to be the fact. ”

“ Harwood was very angry with her children, feeling that Gussy had deserted her and that Dolff had insulted her. But it takes more than that to make a woman betray her sons and daughters. With the flush of anger still on her cheek and the tremble on her lips she told Priscilla how tired Miss Harwood was, how she had been overdoing herself, how she had made her go to bed. ”

“ Harwood, hotly. “A girl’s best years may be wasted like that—always waiting and waiting—and perhaps some other cut her out in the end. You can’t think I should approve of that, my dear. I only say that Dolff, poor boy, is all the other way, and will most likely fling himself at the head of the first girl he fancies, which would be a pity for the girl too, for Dolff will not be very well off. ”

“ Looking at him again in this favorable new light, Janet decided that he was not so very old—older than herself, no doubt, older than Meredith or Dolff, but not so old—at the utmost no more than middle-aged—a man still in his prime. ”

“ The woman who deliberates is lost. After a great deal of self-discussion, Janet put on her hat hastily, as if by stealth, and went out. It was half dark already, though it was not four o’clock. It occurred to her vaguely that it was a happiness she could scarcely have anticipated not to have Dolff on her hands, who was almost always waiting for the opportunity of falling upon her. But she had scarcely seen Dolff all day.
If ever man spent a miserable day it was Dolff upon this occasion, when all his faculties were roused to watch the girl whom he had thought so perfect. ”

“ Upon which Gussy, feeling more and more the soft welling-up from under the crackling frost, of the warmer waters, felt a compunction.
“Poor Dolff,” she said, “is not altogether exalted in his tastes, you know. And he has taken a music-hall craze. I suppose it is from the music-hall they come, all those wonderful performances. But he likes them, it appears, as well—as well——”
“As we like ours,” said Meredith. ”

“ And Dolff—Dolff{128}——”
“What of Dolff? It must be delightful for a stranger to hear what we think of each other.”
“What do you mean by calling her Miss Summerhayes and a stranger, when you know it was settled she was to be like one of ourselves—and by far the best of us?” cried Julia, with flushed cheeks and blazing eyes.
“Miss Summerhayes,” said Gussy, turning again upon Janet, with a wave of her hand towards the indignant Julia, “I think your pupil is not doing you much credit to-day.” ”

“ There is nothing in the world that so suddenly sobers wild excitement and passion as to carry out its practical suggestions. A blow brings down the pulses of wrath as nothing else can do. It is a dangerous remedy, but it is a sure one.
Dolff was like a devil incarnate as he swooped down upon his victim and beat his head against the stones. ”

“ A girl is not going to let her mother be insulted, who after all means her own side, without interposing. Julia suddenly flew forth from behind her mother’s chair and flung herself upon Dolff’s arm, seizing it and shaking him violently.
“How dare you speak to her like that?” cried Ju, “you that can’t do anything you try—not even kill Charley Meredith when you have the chance! I should be ashamed to look any one in the face. ”

“ Harwood. I am afraid I have no dress——”
“You have a very pretty dress; and let me tell you, my dear—though I daresay you know it—that black is always becoming, and that you look very well in that dress. Now, Dolff——”
“I hope we shan’t hear any more on that subject,” said Gussy, with an air of decision, as her mother’s chair was wheeled away. “I’m very glad to humor Dolff, but I shall soon be very tired of it if there are many more difficulties. Dress is always a nuisance on such occasions. ”

“ As for Dolff, he turned away as if he took no interest in it. His mother to him was a deceiver, getting sympathy by an exhibition of weakness. Julia, half moved by her mother’s faint, half by her brother’s rebellion and excitement, wavered between the two, uncertain. Janet and her doctor alone gave themselves up to Mrs. Harwood as if there was nothing else in the world to think about.
“Such an effort as that to a woman in her state might be fatal,” said the doctor. “She must have the constitution of an elephant. ”

“ This speech of his sister’s for the first time roused Dolff a little. He had been sitting all the evening with a stupefied air, saying nothing, calling forth much sympathy and admiration from his mother, who whispered to Janet how tender-hearted he was, how much he felt it. But Gussy’s words roused him. He glanced at Janet, as Janet had glanced at him with the same impulse, to say, “She’s the cause of it all,” as she had felt to say, “That is the man.” ”

“ He called her attention to two or three, and made her laugh. She felt no longer any difficulty in being amused.
“But I am afraid I must go soon,” she said; “I am engaged for the next dance.”
“Sit close,” said Meredith, “and the man will never find you. Dolff’s men are all as blind as bats. They know nobody, and they go prowling round trying to recognize some girl they have only seen for a moment. There is one who has begun his round already, peering at everybody. I hope he is not your man?”
“Perhaps he is,” said Gussy, drawing further back; “I don’t know him any more than he knows me.” ”

“ The table was already spread for the dinner at which Meredith was to have been one of the chief guests and Dolff to have occupied the place of master of the house. Fortunately Gussy did not as yet know the double misery involved. It was dreadful enough to have this calamity fall so suddenly without warning upon the domestic happiness and calm. The dinner-table, with all its pretty arrangements of flowers and shining crystal and plate, was such a mockery of the sudden, unexplained, incomprehensible catastrophe, that this touch of the familiar and commonplace almost broke down Gussy’s composure. ”

“ Perhaps he had been hard upon Janet! Oh, if that little fact, that short, all-important scrap of time could be but blown away, made to vanish and to be heard of no more! Oh, if he could but forget, and return to what he was before! Many a man has had the same thought before Dolff: a little scrap of time, a single day, an hour or two—and to think that should influence, darken, perhaps ruin, a whole life ”

“ At all hazards that danger must be staved off. But Meredith saw means of torturing both those culprits which would be very effectual without any intervention of the law. He would have Dolff at his mercy; he would pierce him with arrows of ridicule from which it would be impossible for the young man to defend himself; and Janet, who had forsaken him, who held apart, and even played for him, when she was bidden to do so, unwillingly—Janet should suffer too.
Lights of malice and mockery woke up in Meredith’s eyes. ”

“ I have no objection to being a governess. You need not be so careful of my feelings. I am quite contented to be what I am.”
“That is because you are——” Dolff murmured something in his young moustache, and grew redder than ever.
Janet was not sure that it was not ‘an angel’; and she was very much amused—not displeased either. There is no harm in being well thought of. She liked it on the whole.
“It is because I had—nothing else to look for,” she said; “and I am not a discontented person. One can always get a little fun out of everything. ”

“ Look there, Miss Summerhayes—for I must talk of something—look at that man Vicars. What a hang-dog face he has! Like a man that is up to some mischief, don’t you think?”
“I don’t like Vicars,” said Janet, hastily; “he would like to be insolent, if he dared.”
“Insolent, the beast! You have only to give Dolff a hint,” said Meredith, with a laugh, “and he’ll soon put a stop to that. I should like, all the same, to know a little what’s Vicars’s mission in this house. Oh, I know he’s an old servant, and all that. I have my little curiosities, Miss Summerhayes; haven’t you? ”

“ It is strange how difficult it sometimes is in such a discussion, when there is one whose invincible ignorance holds out in face of all argument and proof, to say the single word which will cut the knot. It was on Gussy’s lips to say it; but she did not, perhaps because Dolff’s want of comprehension was so curious to them all. And at this moment, almost before he could be replied to, there arose a little commotion in the hall. Janet’s voice was heard in a faint cry, and there was a shuffling of feet, and another unknown male voice rising in the quiet. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Julia would say; “I shall complain to mamma. If all the others are so busy, Vicars might bring it up, once in a way.”
“Who is Vicars?” said Janet.
“Oh, he is the man; he never goes into the dining-room except when Dolff is here—but he might bring up our supper if all the rest are so busy. As if there was any reason to make such a fuss! Two men to dinner! You would think there were twenty, all fine ladies and gentlemen, to see how Gussy goes on.”
“They are probably great friends, and more important than twenty ladies and gentlemen,” said Janet, with her most correct governess air. ”

“ Julia received this, as she usually did Janet’s remonstrances, with a look of rage, a flush of shame, and then a sudden self-subdual.
“You want to go away,” she said. “You are the only nice one that has ever been here; and you want to go and leave me. I know you do. You’ll go before Dolff comes home, and then he’ll never know you, and will think—will just think I am a stupid and don’t know anything, as they all do!” ”

“ In the midst of these efforts there came into her mind so strong an impulse to denounce him that Janet was afraid of herself. Even while she was scheming how best to divert all suspicion the voice seemed to struggle up in her almost audibly—“Take him! take him. That is the man!” How could she be sure that she would not yield to it at some moment when the sight of him had driven her frantic with indignation and impatience? That Gussy should seek his sympathy; that everybody should look to Dolff to direct the search; that the very constable—and all the time he was the man—he was the man! ”