Chapter VI: A Possible Acquaintance

DOROTHEA built a good deal upon the promised call from Mrs. Effingham. As one day after another passed, and nobody came, she began to feel flat. Not knowing the old lady's address, she could not ask after her, so nothing remained but to wait.

Three days after Christmas, the frost broke up and a spell of mild weather set in. Dorothea had her morning rambles pretty regularly, but she found the long afternoons and evenings hard to get through, whether alone, or in wordless attendance on her occupied father. What he was always so busy about, Dorothea could not make out. He sent her upstairs or downstairs for books, and sometimes he set her to work copying dry extracts, but he gave no reasons or explanations.

She could not flatter herself that he grew less silent. All her efforts to call out his interest and sympathy were at present a failure.

The oppression of this continual silence was creeping over Dorothea herself. She could not persist in talk which had no response. Silent walks, silent meals, silent tête-à-têtes with the Colonel,—these were steadily subduing her young spirits. At thirty or forty, she could have struck out her own way of life, could have made her own work and interests. At eighteen, she was not free.

A Christmas card had come from Mrs. Kirkpatrick, but no letter. Dorothea, had begun to long with actual heart-sick craving for a letter, a word, a smile, from somebody. Anything to break the dead monotony of her present existence. Yet when New Year's Day brought from happy schoolfellows eager scrawls about their home delights, she had a little shower of tears over them. Her own lot was so different.

"Have you seen St. Paul's?" demanded Colonel Tracy next day at lunch.

"Seen St. Paul!" The girl had not fallen yet into London colloquialisms, and a sudden question from her father always had a bewildering effect.

"Cathedral."

"No, never."

"I'll take you this afternoon—by omnibus. Get ready sharp, you know."

"O father, can we stay to the Service?"

"What for?"

"I should so like it."

"Don't know. I must be back by half-past four."

No hope then. But any innovation in the daily round was delightful, and Dorothea had never been satiated with sight-seeing. She made short work of her dressing, and Colonel Tracy looked in surprise at her bright face.

"You like going about!" he said.

"O yes, indeed."

"Well—we'll do Westminster Abbey some day. Monuments worth looking at there."

Dorothea thought they were worth looking at in St. Paul's. She would have liked to dream over each in succession, and to spend a quiet hour studying the outlines of the great expanse:—not a solitary hour, for she had too much of solitude, but a quiet reverent hour, with her father by her side, feeling—if that had been possible—that he felt with her.

Colonel Tracy's notions of "doing a cathedral" admitted of no dreams. He whisked his daughter through the aisles and past the monuments in the most approved British style. "That's so-and-so, my dear; and that's so-and-so," came in quick succession. The whispering gallery was remarkable in his estimation—"best thing in the Cathedral," he asserted.

Reaching home before five o'clock, they were met in the hall by Mrs. Stirring. "There's been callers, Miss," the little woman said, swelling with gratification. "Callers, Miss—a lady and a gentleman. And they come together, and the lady she was that disappointed to find you out. I did say it was a thousand pities, for you wasn't scarcely never out, and such a dull life too! And she hopes you'll be sure and go to see her, Miss Tracy."

Dorothea took up the cards from the hall slab, following her father into the dining-room. "Mrs. Effingham," she said. "I wish I had been at home. To think that she should have come this day of all days! Father, Mrs. Effingham has called—the lady who slipped down on Christmas Day. Don't you remember—I told you?"

The Colonel's recollections of his over-boiled turkey were vivid: not so his recollections of the cause.

"Eh, what? Somebody slipped down?"

"On Christmas Day, just before dinner; don't you remember?"

"My dear I know you were late, and everything was spoilt," said Colonel Tracy, waking up into a lively air of attention. "Turkey a mere rag—pudding broken to pieces! Never dined worse on Christmas Day. Next year, I'm sure I hope—"

Then he stopped, reading discomfort in his daughter's face, and asked, "Who did you say had slipped down?"

"It was on Christmas Day—a dear old lady, coming out of church. I helped her and that hindered me. I am afraid she would have been run over, if I had not been so near," added Dorothea, feeling it needful to explain.

"A policeman ought to have been at hand. Great shame!" said the Colonel, who, like most people, expected each policeman to parade ubiquitously the whole of his beat. "But it's done—can't be helped now. Old ladies have no business to cross streets alone. Where's the book I left here—what's its name?"

"Father, Mrs. Effingham has been to call on us."

"Eh! Then she wasn't seriously injured! Where is that book?" soliloquised the Colonel, peering about.

"No, and she said she would call. I should so like to know her. Somebody else has been too—'The Rev. E. Claughton!' See, father—he has left two cards. I don't know who Mr. Claughton is, but—"

"One o' the Curates, Miss," came in subdued tones from Mrs. Stirring in the doorway.

"What's the woman dawdling there for?" muttered Colonel Tracy, and at the sound of his growl Mrs. Stirring vanished. Colonel Tracy received the cards from Dorothea, and frowned over them.

"Claughton! Claughton! I don't know anybody of the name of Claughton. Must be a mistake, my dear. Just chuck it into the waste-paper basket."

"O no; I am sure it is meant kindly. Father, he is one of the Curates of our Church. Don't the Clergy always call?" asked Dorothea. "And I think it must be the same who helped to lift up Mrs. Effingham. I should not know his face again, because I am so blind without my glasses; but he had a nice voice, and I really think you would like him."

The Colonel grunted. He had a particular aversion to Curates.

"Mrs. Effingham lives in Willingdon Square, I see. Then, she can't be very far off, can she? Father, shall I call on Mrs. Effingham alone, or will you come with me?"

"I!" uttered the Colonel, as if she had suggested a leap from the iron gallery of St. Paul's.

"Don't you ever pay calls? I thought gentlemen did sometimes. Then may I go alone? It can't be far off."

"Alone! No, certainly not!" Colonel Tracy spoke with sharpness. "Church was to be the outside limit, remember! I can't have you wandering about London."

"Only if it is near—"

"My dear, I won't have it," declared the Colonel irately.

"I ought to return her call."

"There is no 'ought' in the matter. No necessity whatever. You did her a service, and she has called to express her gratitude. That is all. The matter need go no farther. I shall leave my card—perhaps—some day at Mr. Claughton's; not at present. His coming at all was unnecessary."

The Colonel's decision meant no small disappointment to Dorothea, and it took her by surprise. She had kept up so bravely hitherto, that the Colonel had no idea what this new life really was to her. But the fresh blow, however small, proved to be the final straw; and before Dorothea knew what to expect, three or four bright drops fell quickly from behind her glasses.

"Eh hallo! What! Crying!"

Dorothea said, "O no!" involuntarily, and looked up with a resolute smile; yet the wet glimmer was unmistakable.

Colonel Tracy's astonishment was unbounded. He had counted Dorothea a girl of sense, quite superior to feminine weaknesses, and the very model of an obedient cheerful daughter.

"What's the matter?" he asked curtly. "You don't know Mrs. What's-her-name! Why on earth should you care to see her?"

"I don't know—anybody. I have no friends."

"Humph!" growled the Colonel.

"I don't want to grumble indeed," Dorothea went on eagerly. "Only, if I could just have somebody—somebody I could go and talk to."

"Talk!" Colonel Tracy uttered the word with disdain. It sounded so feminine. Gentlemen never "talk," they always "converse." If Dorothea had expressed a wish to "hold conversations" with Mrs. Effingham, he would have had more respect for her requirements. But to care for mere "talk!" He shrugged his shoulders, and was mute.

"Of course I must do as you wish," she added sorrowfully.

"What on earth should you want to talk about?"

Dorothea laughed. She could not help it. "Why, father,—everything," she said. "The books I read, and the work I do, and the people I see. Is there any harm in talking?"

"Waste of time, my dear."

"But kind and pleasant words are not waste of time, are they? Words that make other people happy."

The Colonel had a marked objection to any remark which savoured ever so slightly of moralising. It was almost as bad as a Curate, in his estimation.

"Where can that book be?" he muttered.

Dorothea could only look upon the matter as settled. She gave one sigh, wondered what Mrs. Effingham would think, hoped they might some day meet again coming out of church, so that she could explain, and then cheerily set herself to find the missing volume.

"What is the name, father? Who is it by?" she asked, smiling.

The Colonel gave her a look. He had not expected this.

"Can't remember the name," he said. "It is by—by—bother my memory! Half-bound, with red edges."

A long search ended in success; and Dorothea then set herself to the copying out of a dry statement about tropical climates, which had seemingly engaged her father's affection. What could be the use of the extract she was unable to imagine. That fact did not lessen her diligence in making a fair copy.

"Thanks," the Colonel said, when she handed it to him. Not a little to her surprise, the monosyllable was followed by a remark "You write a good sensible hand. Like your mother's."

"I am glad. Then handwriting may be inherited," said Dorothea.

The Colonel scratched away with his squeaking quill for another ten minutes, after which he came to a pause, laid down the quill, gazed hard at Dorothea, and said, "I suppose it will have to be."

"It?" repeated Dorothea.

"Your call on Mrs. What's-her-name. I'll leave you at the door some day or other, when I happen to be going in that direction—and come for you later."

"O thank you!" Dorothea was not demonstrative commonly; but she started up in her sudden pleasure, and gave him a kiss. "Thank you very much. How kind you are!"

The rust-red of Colonel Tracy's complexion deepened into a tint not far removed from mahogany. He had not had such a sudden promiscuous kiss in the course of the day for years past; not even from Dorothea. She was rather surprised at her own unwonted impulse, and the Colonel was very much surprised indeed. At the first moment, his impulse was to mutter "Pshaw!" and to turn brusquely away, yet the next instant he would not have been without the kiss. It had an odd softening effect on his feelings. He felt the better for it, and he liked Dorothea the better. But Dorothea only heard that impatient "Pshaw!" and saw his movement of seeming disgust.

"I forgot,—you don't like being kissed," she said apologetically. "I won't do it again."

The Colonel hoped she would, but he made no sign.

"Only I am so grateful!"

"What makes you want to know people?" demanded Colonel Tracy, all the more gruffly because of the softening within.

"Why, father,—it is so sad to have no friends. So dismal and lonely. And how can one do kindnesses to others if one knows nobody?"

The Colonel scented a moral, and shrank into himself forthwith.

"Some afternoon" proved hard to find for the promised pleasure. One day, the Colonel would not go out. Another day, he had an engagement another direction. Another day it rained. So more than a week passed, and then a note came from Mrs. Effingham.

"DEAR MISS TRACY,—Will you not take tea with me this afternoon?
I want to make better acquaintance with my preserver; and I am
leaving town directly. Forgive informality.—Yours truly,"
"E. EFFINGHAM"

"P.S. No reply will mean that I may expect you at about four."

"May I go?" asked Dorothea, showing the note to her father.

Colonel Tracy noted with satisfaction that Mrs. Effingham would be going away.

"Well, if it has to be," he said. "But Mrs. Stirring must fetch you back. I don't mind if I drop you there."