Chapter 9: Was Something Wrong?

WITHIN ten minutes of the time fixed, Mrs. Stirring called at the door for “Miss Tracy,” and Dorothea rose to go.

Miss Henniker still sat on perseveringly, doing her six calls in one, and the tête-à-tête on which Mrs. Effingham had set her heart never took place. Little conversation had passed between the elderly lady and the young girl; and each was conscious of disappointment.

“But we will meet again, my dear,” Mrs. Effingham murmured, answering Dorothea’s unspoken thought as they shook hands. “I don’t quite know how long I may be absent, or whether I shall run up to town for a month in the spring. London never suits me for any length of time. But when I do return, I shall send for you. We will not forget one another meantime!”

So the longed-for call was over, and nothing had come of it: nothing was likely to come of it for the present. Dorothea, walking home in the dark beside the little lodging-house keeper, was conscious of feeling flat. She had had an amusing peep into a life which would have been very pleasant, —just enough of a peep to be tantalising and no more. It was all over now, at least for a good while to come. She would have to go back to her solitude and friendlessness. She could almost have echoed the words of Dolly Erskine, written not long before: “It does seem sometimes as if life were made up of disappointments.”

Almost—not quite. Dorothea Tracy, with far less of outward brightness in her life than Dorothea Erskine, was far more disposed to look upon what brightness she had, and to turn her back upon the shadows. Also she had a more real and vivid belief in the Overshadowing Love which arranged every step of the path she had to tread, —even the disappointing steps.

“One thing is certain, —I have no business to grumble,” she told herself cheerily. “It is all right, or it would be different; and if I am meant to be dull for a while, why, I just have to be dull, and to keep cheerful through it.” Then she smiled at the opposition of ideas. “Mrs. Kirkpatrick would call that an Irishism. After all, it isn’t outside things that make dulness. It just depends on what one is in oneself. I shall find interests—somehow. Perhaps by-and-by I shall even find that I can be of use to my father.”

“And you had a nice party, I hope, Miss Tracy?” said Mrs. Stirring, curiosity getting the upper hand.

“Yes, very nice, —only it was not a party,” Dorothea answered.

“There was folks to talk to, though, wasn’t there? That’s what you’d ought to have, —a young lady like you! Never going nowhere, nor seeing nobody, —it ain’t natural. You do take it patient, and no mistake; but it ain’t right, and if I was you, I’d tell your Pa, that I would!”

This little outburst, the culmination of much smothered pity, took Dorothea by surprise. She did not speak, and Mrs. Stirring went on—

“Gentlemen don’t know what’s fit for a young lady. If you had a Ma alive, it ‘ud be a different life for you, Miss, —and I wish it was different, too.”

“My father must decide for himself. That is only his business—and mine,” Dorothea said with gentle decision.