Andwhat a problem it was with which Lottie Despard was thus left alone! The house was still, no one moving in it—nothing to distract her thoughts. Now and then a swell of music from the Abbey, where service was going on, swept in, filling the silence for a moment; but most of the inhabitants of the Lodges were at matins, and all was very still in the sunshine, the Dean’s Walk lying broad and quiet, with scarcely a shadow to break the light. Downstairs the little maid-of-all-work had closed the door of the kitchen, so that her proceedings were inaudible. And the Captain, as in duty bound, was in the Abbey, trolling forth the responses in a fine baritone, as he might have done had they been the chorus of a song. Lottie sat like a statue in the midst of this stillness, her eyes abstracted, her mind absorbed. What a problem to occupy her! Law, rustling over his books in his own room, grew frightened as he thought of her. She would break her heart; it would make her ill; it might almost kill her, he thought. She sat with her work dropped on her knee, her eyes fixed but not seeing anything; her mind—what could occupy it but one reflection? the sudden possibility of a breaking up of all her traditions, an end of her young life—a dismal sudden survey of the means of maintaining herself, and where she could go to in case this unthought-of catastrophe should occur at once. Poor desolate Lottie, motherless, friendless, with no one to consult in such an emergency, no one to fly to! What could be more terrible than to be brought face to face with such an appalling change, unwarned, unprepared? What was she to do? where was she to go? Worse than an orphan, penniless, homeless, what would become of her? No wonder if despair was paramount in the poor girl’s thoughts.
Well—but then despair was not paramount in her thoughts. She made a stand for a moment with wild panic before the sudden danger. What was it that was going to happen? Lottie gave a momentary gasp as a swimmer might do making the first plunge; and then, like the swimmer, lo! struck off with one quick movement into the sunshine and the smoothest gentle current. Change! the air was full of it, the world was full of it, the sky was beautiful with it, and her heart sprang to meet it. Do you think a girl of twenty on the verge of love, once left free to silence and musing, was likely to forget her own dreams in order to plunge into dark reveries as to what would happen to her if her father married again? Not Lottie, at least. She launched herself indeed on this subject, the corners ofher mouth dropping, a gleam of panic in her eyes; but something caught her midway. Ah! it was like the touch of a magician’s wand. What did it matter to Lottie what might happen to other people; had not everything that was wonderful, everything that was beautiful, begun to happen to herself? She floated off insensibly into that delicious current of her own thoughts, losing herself in imaginary scenes and dialogues. She lost her look of terror without knowing it, a faint smile came upon her face, a faint colour, now heightening, now paling, went and came like breath. Sometimes she resumed her work, and her needle sped through her mending like the shuttle of the Fates; sometimes it dropped out of her hand altogether, and the work upon her knee. She lost count of time and of what she was doing. What was she doing? She was weaving a poem, a play, a romance, as she sat with her basket of stockings to darn. Themise en scènewas varied, but the personages always the same; two personages—never any more; sometimes they only looked at each other, saying nothing; sometimes they talked for hours; and constantly in their talk they were approaching one subject, which something always occurred to postpone. This indefinite postponement of the explanation which, even in fiction, is a device which must be used sparingly, can be indulged in without stint in the private imagination, and Lottie in her romance took full advantage of thispower. She approached the borders of heréclaircissementa hundred times, and evaded it with the most delicate skill, feeling by instinct the superior charm of the vague and undecided, and how love itself loses its variety, its infinite novelty, and delightfulness, when it has declared and acknowledged itself. Law, in his room with his big book, comforting himself under the confused and painful study to which the shock of last night’s suggestion had driven him by the idea that Lottie too must be as uncomfortable as himself, was as much mistaken as it was possible to imagine. His compunction and his satisfaction were equally thrown away. Still the feeling that he had startled her, and the hope that it would “do her good,” gave him a little consolation in his reading, such as it was. And how difficult it was to read with the sun shining outside, and little puffs of soft delicious air coming in at his open window, and laying hands upon him, who shall say? He was comforted to think that next door to him, Lottie, with her basket of clothes to mend, patching and darning, must be very much disturbed too; but it would have been hard upon Law had he known that she had escaped from all this, and was meanly and treacherously enjoying herself in private gardens of fancy. He had his Emma to be sure—but of her and the very well-known scenes that enclosed her, and all the matter-of-fact circumstances around, he felt no inclination to dream. He liked to have herby him, and for her sake submitted to the chatter of the workroom (which, on the whole, rather amused him in itself), and was quite willing to read theFamily Heraldaloud; but he did not dream of Emma as Lottie did of the incident which had happened in her career. It was true there was this fundamental difference between them, that Lottie’s romance alone had any margin of the unknown and mysterious in it. About Emma there was nothing that was mysterious or unknown.
It was not likely, however, that these two young people in their two different rooms, Law gaping over his Virgil, and feeling his eyes wander after every fly that lighted on his book, and every bird that chirped in the deep foliage round the window; and Lottie with her needle and her scissors, thinking of everything in the world except what she was doing or what had just been told her, should be left undisturbed for long in these virtuous occupations. Very soon Law was stopped in the middle of a bigger yawn than usual by the sound of a step coming up the stairs, which distracted his not very seriously fixed attention—and Lottie woke up from the very middle of an imaginary conversation, to hear a mellow round voice calling her, as it came slowly panting upstairs. “Are you there then, Lottie, me honey? You’d never let me mount up to the top of the house, without telling me, if ye weren’t there?” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, like many of her country-folks, was half aware of the bull she was uttering, and there was a sound of laughter in her voice. Lottie, however, sat still, making no sign, holding her needle suspended in her fingers, reluctant to have her pleasant thoughts disturbed by any arrival. But while the brother and sister, each behind a closed door, thus paused and listened, the Captain (audibly) coming home from morning service, stepped in after Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and addressed the new-comer. “Lottie is in the drawing-room,” he said, “though she does not answer. I am just going out again when I’ve fetched something—but I must first see you upstairs;” and then there was an interval of talking on the stairs and the little landing-place. Lottie made no movement for her part. She sat amidst her darnings, and awaited what was coming, feeling that her time for dreams was over. Captain Despard came lightly up, three steps at a time, after Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had panted to the drawing-room door. He was jaunty and gay as ever, in his well-brushed coat with a rosebud in his button-hole. Few, very few, days were there on which Captain Despard appeared without a flower in his coat. He managed to get them even in winter, no one could tell how. Sometimes a flaming red leaf from the Virginia creeper, answered his purpose, but he was always jaunty, gay, decorated with something or other. He came in behind the large figure of their neighbour, holding out a glove with a hole in the finger reproachfully to Lottie. “See how my child neglects me,” he said. He liked to display himself even to Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and stood and talked to her while Lottie, with no very good grace, put down her darning and mended his glove.
“When I was a young fellow, my dear lady,” he said, “I never wanted for somebody to mend my glove; but a man can’t expect to be as interesting to his daughter as he was in another stage of life.”
“Oh, Captain, take me word,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “the likes of you will always be interesting to one or another. You won’t make me believe that ye find nobody but your daughter to do whatever ye ask them. Tell that—to another branch of the service, Captain Despard, me dear friend.”
“You do me a great deal too much honour,” he said with the laugh of flattered vanity; for he was not difficult in the way of compliments. “Alas, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who would pay any attention to an old married man, the father of a grown-up son and daughter, like me?”
“Sure, and you’re much to be pitied, so old as ye are, with one foot in the grave, Captain dear,” the old Irishwoman said; and they both laughed, she enjoying at once her joke, and the pleasure of seeing her victim’s pleased appreciation of the compliment; while he, conscious of being still irresistible, eyed himself in the little glass over the mantelpiece, and was quiteunaware of the lurking demon of good-humoured malice and ridicule in her eyes.
“Not so bad as that perhaps,” he said, “but bad enough. A man grows old fast in this kind of life. Matins every morning by cockcrow, to a man accustomed to take his ease, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. The Major grumbles, I make no doubt, as well as I.”
“Sure it’s nothing half as bad as morning parade. That’s what O’Shaughnessy says; and he never was used to his ease, Captain. I took better care of him than that. But, Lottie, me honey, here we’re talking of ourselves, and it’s you I’ve come to hear about. How many hearts did ye break? how many scalps have ye got, as we used to say in Canada? It wasn’t for nothing ye put on your finery, and those roses in your hair. The Captain, he’s the one for a flower in his coat; you’re his own daughter, Miss Lottie dear.”
“Were you out last night, my child?” said Captain Despard, taking his glove from Lottie’s hand. “Ah, at the Deanery. I hope my friend the Dean is well, and my Lady Caroline? Lady Caroline was once a very fine woman, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, though you would not think it. The Courtlands were neighbours of ours in our better days, and knew all our connections; and Lady Caroline has always been kind to Lottie. I do not think it necessary to provide any chaperon for her when she goes there. It is in society that a girl feelsthe want of a mother; but where Lady Caroline is, Lottie can feel at home.”
“Fancy that now,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “how a body may be deceived! I never knew ye were among old friends, Captain. What a comfort to you—till you find somebody that will be a nice chaperon for your dear girl!”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, that would be a satisfaction; but where could I find one that would satisfy me after Lottie’s dear mother, who was a pearl of a woman? Good-morning to you, my dear lady; I must be going,” he said, kissing the fingers of the mended glove. And he went out of the room humming a tune, which, indeed, was as much a distinction of Captain Despard as the flower in his coat. He was always cheerful, whatever happened. His daughter looked up from her work, following him with her eyes, and Law, shut up in his room next door, stopped reading (which indeed he was very glad to do), and listened to the light carol of the Captain’s favourite air and his jaunty step as he went downstairs. No lurch in that step now, but a happy confidence and cheerful ring upon the pavement when he got outside, keeping time surely not only to the tune, but to the Captain’s genial and virtuous thoughts. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy looked after him without the cloud which was on his children’s faces. She laughed. “Then, sure, it does one’s heart good,” she said, “to see a man as pleasedwith himself as me friend the Captain. And Lottie, me darlin’, speaking of that, there’s a word I have to say to you. Ye heard what I said and ye heard what he said about a chaperon—though, bless the child, it’s not much use, so far as I can see, that you have for a chaperon——”
“No use at all,” cried Lottie, “and don’t say anything about it, please. Papa talks; but nobody pays any attention to him,” she exclaimed, with a flush of shame.
“If he’d stop at talking! but Lottie, me dear, when a man at his age gets women in his head, there’s no telling what is to come of it. I wouldn’t vex ye, me dear, but there’s gossip about—that the Captain has thoughts——”
“Oh, never mind what gossip there is about! there’s gossip about everything——”
“And that’s true, me honey. There’s your own self. They tell me a dozen stories. It’s married ye’re going to be (and that’s natural); and there’s them that uphold it’s not marriage at all, but music, or maybe the stage even, which is what I never would have thought likely——”
Lottie had risen to her feet, her eyes sparkling, her face crimson with excitement. “Wherever you hear it, please,pleasesay it is a lie. I—on the stage! Oh, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, could you believe such a thing? I would rather die!”
“Dying’s a strong step to take, me dear. I wouldn’t go that length, Lottie; but at your age, and with your pretty looks, and all the world before ye, it’s not the thing I would advise. I don’t say but there are chances for a pretty girl that’s well conducted——”
“Mrs. O’Shaughnessy! do you dare to speak to me so?” said Lottie with crimson cheeks, her eyes blazing through indignant tears. Well conducted! the insult went to her very soul. But this was beyond the perception of her companion.
“Just so, me, dear,” she said. “There was Miss O’Neil, that was a great star in my time, and another stage lady that married the Earl of——, one of the English earls. I forget his title. Lords and baronets and that sort of people are thrown in their way, and sometimes a pretty girl that minds what she is about, or even a plain girl that is clever, comes in for something that would never—— Who is that, Lottie? Me dear, look out of the window, and tell me who it is.”
Lottie did not say a word; she gasped with pain and indignation, standing erect in the middle of the room. How it made the blood boil in her veins to have the triumphs of the “stage-ladies” thus held up before her! She did not care who was coming. In her fantastical self-elevation, a sort of princess in her own sight, who was there here who would understand Lottie’s “position” or her feelings? What was the use even of standing up for herself where everybodywould laugh at her? There was no one in the Chevaliers’ Lodges who could render her justice. They would all think that to “catch” an earl or a Sir William was enough to content any girl’s ambition. So long as she was well conducted! To be well conducted, is not that the highest praise that can be given to anyone? Yet it made Lottie’s blood boil in her veins.
While she stood thus flushed and angry, the door was suddenly pushed open by the untrained “girl,” who was all that the household boasted in the shape of a servant. “She’s here, sir,” this homely usher said; and lo, suddenly, into the little room where sat Mrs. O’Shaughnessy taking up half the space, and where Lottie stood in all the excitement and glow of passion, there walked Rollo Ridsdale, like a hero of romance, more perfect in costume, appearance, and manner, more courteous and easy, more graceful and gracious, than anything that had ever appeared within that lower sphere. The Captain was jaunty and shabby-genteel, yet even he sometimes dazzled innocent people with his grand air; but Mr. Ridsdale was all that the Captain only pretended to be, and the very sight of him was a revelation. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, sitting with her knees apart and her hands laid out upon her capacious lap, opened her mouth and gazed at him as if he had been an angel straight from the skies. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy knew him, as she knew every onewho came within the Abbey precincts. She was aware of every visit he paid to his aunt, and saw him from her window every time he passed up and down the Dean’s Walk, and she had the most intimate acquaintance with all his connections, and knew his exact place in the Courtland family, and even that there had been vicissitudes in his life more than generally fall to the lot of young men of exalted position. And, if it did her good even to see him from her window, and pleased her to be able to point him out as the Honourable Rollo Ridsdale, it may be imagined what her feelings were, when she found herself suddenly under the same roof with him, in the same room with him. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy sat and stared, devouring his honourable figure with her eyes, with a vague sensation of delight and grandeur taking possession of her soul.
“You must pardon my intrusion at such an early hour, Miss Despard,” he said. “I wanted your maid to ask if I might come in, and I did not know she was ushering me into your very presence. But I have my credentials with me. I bear a note from Lady Caroline, which she charged me to support with my prayers.”
The passion melted out of Lottie’s countenance. Her eyes softened—the very lines of her figure, all proud and erect and vehement, melted too as if by a spell—the flush of anger on her cheek changed to arose-red of gentler feeling. The transformation was exactly what the most accomplished actress would have desired to make, with the eye of an able manager inspecting her possibilities. “I beg your pardon,” she said instinctively, with a sudden sense of guilt. It shocked her to be found so full of passion, so out of harmony with the melodious visitor who was in perfect tune and keeping with the sweet morning, and in whose presence all the vulgarities about seemed doubly vulgar. She felt humble, yet not humiliated. Here was at last one who would understand her, who would do her justice. She looked round to find a seat for him, confused, not knowing what to say.
“May I come here?” said Rollo, pushing forward for her the little chair from which she had evidently risen, and placing himself upon the narrow window-seat with his back to the light. “But let me give up my credentials first. My aunt is—what shall I say?—a little indolent, Miss Despard. Dear Aunt Caroline, it is an unkind word—shall I say she is not fond of action? Pardon if it is I who have acted as secretary. I do so constantly now that Augusta is away.”
“Lottie,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, as Lottie, confused, took the note from his hand, and the chair he offered; “me dear!—you have not presented me to your friend.”
Rollo got up instantly and bowed, as Lottie faltered forth his name (“A real bow,” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy saidafter; “sure you never get the like but in the upper classes”), while she herself, not to be outdone, rose too, and extended a warm hand—(“What does the woman expect me to do with her hand?” was Mr. Ridsdale’s alarmed commentary on his side).
“I’m proud to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. “Me husband the Major was once a great friend of an uncle of yours, Mr. Ridsdale—or maybe it was a cousin; when we were out in Canada, in the Hundred and Fiftieth—the Honourable Mr. Green; they were together in musketry practice, and me Major had the pleasure of being of a great deal of use to the gentleman. Many a time he’s told me of it; and when we came here, sure it was a pleasure to find out that me Lady Caroline was aunt—or maybe it was cousin to an old friend. I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy continued, shaking him warmly by the hand, which she had held all this time. Mr. Ridsdale kept bowing at intervals, and had done all that he could, without positive rudeness, to get himself free.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “I have cousins and uncles and that sort of thing scattered through the earth in every regiment under the sun; and very bad soldiers, I don’t doubt, always wanting somebody to look after them. I am sure Major O’Shaughnessy was very kind. Won’t you sit down?”
“It wasn’t to make a brag of his kindness—not abit of that—but he is a kind man and a good man, Mr. Ridsdale, though I say it that shouldn’t. I have been married to me Major these forty years, and if anyone knows it I ought to be the one to know.”
“Undoubtedly, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. I for one am most ready to take the fact on your word.”
“And you’d be in the right of it. A man’s wife, that’s the best judge of his character. Whatever another may say, she’s the one that knows; and if she says too much, one way or the other, sure it’s on herself it falls. But, maybe you’re not interested, Mr. Ridsdale, in an old woman’s opinions?”
“I am very much interested, I assure you,” said Rollo, always polite. He kept an eye upon Lottie reading her note, but he listened to her friend (if this was her friend) with as much attention, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy always remembered, as if she had been a duchess at the least.
Meanwhile Lottie read the note, which purported to come from Lady Caroline, and had a wavering C. Huntington at the bottom of the page, which was her genuine autograph. The warmth of the appeal, however, to her dear Miss Despard, to take pity on the dulness of the Deanery and come in “quietly” that evening for a little music, was not in any way Lady Caroline’s. She had consented indeed to permit herself to be sung to on Rollo’s strenuous representation of the pleasure it had given her. “You know, AuntCaroline, you enjoyed it,” he had said; and “Yes, I know I enjoyed it,” Lady Caroline, much wavering, had replied. It would not have been creditable not to have enjoyed what was evidently such very good singing; but it was not she who wrote of the dulness of the Deanery nor who used such arguments to induce her dear Miss Despard to come. Lottie’s countenance bending over the note glowed with pleasure as Mrs. O’Shaughnessy kept up the conversation. Even with those girls who think they believe that the admiration of men is all they care for, the approbation of a woman above their own rank is always a more touching and more thorough triumph than any admiration of men. And Lottie, though she was so proud, was all humility in this respect; that Lady Caroline should thus take her up, and encourage her, praise her, invite her, went to her very heart. She almost cried over the kind words. She raised her face all softened and glowing with happiness to the anxious messenger who was listening to Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and as their eyes met a sudden smile of such responsive pleasure and satisfaction came to Rollo’s face as translated Lottie back into the very paradise of her dreams.
“I can’t say, me dear sir,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “that things are just exactly as we wish here, or as we thought we had a right to look for. The Major and me, we’ve been used to a deal of fine company. Wherever we’ve gone, was it in Canada, was it theChannel Islands, was it at the depôt of the regiment, we’ve always been called upon by the best. But here, sure the position is not what we were led to expect. Money is all that most people are thinking of. There’s the society in the town would jump at us. But that does not count, Mr. Ridsdale, you know, that does not count; for to us in Her Majesty’s service, that have always been accustomed to the best——”
“Surely, surely, I quite understand; and you have a right to the best. Miss Despard,” said the ambassador, “I hope you are considering what Lady Caroline says, and will not disappoint our hopes. Last night was triumph, but this will be enjoyment. You, who must know what talent Miss Despard has—I appeal to you, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy—I am sure from your kind looks that we will have your aid.”
“Is it to go and sing for them again, Lottie, me dear?” said the old lady in an undertone. “That’s just what I don’t like, Mr. Ridsdale—excuse me if I speak my mind free—me Lady Caroline and his reverence the Dean, they’re ready enough to take an advantage, and make their own use of the Chevaliers’——”
“Do I need to write a note?” said Lottie, interrupting hastily to prevent the completion of a speech which seemed to threaten the very foundations of her happiness. “Perhaps it would be more polite to write a note.” She looked at him with a little anxiety, forthe thought passed through her mind that she had no pretty paper like this, with a pretty monogram and “The Deanery, St. Michael’s,” printed on its creamy glaze, and even that she did not write a pretty hand that would do her credit; and, going further, that she would not know how to begin, whether she should be familiar, and venture upon saying, “Dear Lady Caroline,” which seemed rather presumptuous, calling an old lady by her Christian name—or——
“I need not trouble you to write. I am sure you mean to say yes, Miss Despard, which is almost more than I dared hope. Yes is all we want, and I shall be so happy to carry it——”
“Yes is easy said,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy; “a great deal easier than no. Oh, me dear, I don’t object to your going; not a bit; only I take an interest in ye, and ye must not make yourself too cheap. Know her talent, Mr. Ridsdale? sure I can’t say that I do. I know herself, and a better girl, saving for a bit of temper, don’t exist. But a girl is the better of a spark of temper, and that’s just what you’ve got, me dear Lottie. No; I don’t know her talent. She has a voice for singing, that I know well; for to hear her and Rowley when she’s having her lesson, sure it’s enough to give a deaf person the ear-ache. But that’s the most that I know.”
“Then, Miss Despard,” said Rollo, springing to his feet; “if your—friend is in this condition of doubt, it is impossible she can ever have heard you; will younot gratify me and convince her by singing something now? I know it is horrible impertinence on my part, so recent an acquaintance. But—no, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, you never can have heard her. I have some songs here that I know you would sing to perfection. I deserve to be ordered out of the house for my presumption. I know it; but——” and he clasped his hands and fixed supplicating eyes upon Lottie, who, blushing, trembling, frightened, and happy, did not know how to meet those eyes.
“Sure he’ll be down on his knees next,” cried Mrs. O’Shaughnessy delighted; “and you wouldn’t have the heart to deny the gentleman when he begs so pretty. I’ll not say but what I’ve heard her, and heard her many a time, but maybe the change of the circumstances and the want of Rowley will make a difference. Come, Lottie, me darling, don’t wait for pressing, but give us a song, and let us be done with it. If it was a good song you would sing, and not one of those sacred pieces that make me feel myself in the Abbey—where we all are, saving your presence, often enough——”
“I have a song here that will please you, I know,” said Rollo. “We shall have you crying in two minutes. You don’t know, my dear Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, what a glorious organ you are talking of.”
“Organ! that’s the Abbey all over; but, praised beHeaven, there’s no organ here, only an old cracked piano——”
“Oh, indeed,” cried Lottie. “It is not fit to play on, and I don’t think I can sing at sight; and—I know I can’t play an accompaniment.”
“That shall be my happy office,” he said, looking at her with those eyes that dazzled Lottie. They were not dazzling by nature, but he put a great deal of meaning into them, and Lottie, foolish Lottie, innocently deceived, put a great deal more. Her eyes sank beneath this look. She could scarcely keep the tears from coming into them, tears of confused pleasure and wonder and happiness; and she could not refuse him what he asked. He opened the wretched old piano, worn out and jingling, and out of tune as it was. And Mrs. O’Shaughnessy put her knees a little more apart, and threw her bonnet-strings over her shoulders, and spread out her warm hands in her lap. There was a little good-humoured cynicism in her face. She did not expect to enjoy the singing, but all her faculties were moved by the hint, the scent, of a flirtation; and that she was prepared to enjoy to the full.
Mr. Ashfordhad not said much to Miss Despard on the way home; it was but crossing the road, a brief progress which left little room for conversation, and the Signor was better acquainted with her than he was. Besides, the Minor Canon was not a man who could carry on a conversation with several people at a time, or open his heart to more listeners than one. He could sometimes be eloquent with a single interlocutor, but he was a silent man in society, with very little to say for himself, even when his companions were of the most congenial kind. He was an unsuccessful man, and carried in his soul, though without any bitterness, the burden of his own unsuccess. He was a man of “good connections,” but none of his connections had done anything for him—and he had considerable talents, which had done nothing for him. He had got a scholarship, but no other distinction, at the University. Nobody was at all clear how this came about. He was not idle, he was not careless, but he did not succeed; his talents were not those that win success. At twenty he published a little volume of poetry, whichwas “full of promise.” At thirty he brought out a learned treatise on some matter of classical erudition, which, as it is too high for us to understand, we will not venture to name. And nothing came of that; his poems were not sold, neither was his treatise. His fellow-scholars (for he was a true scholar, and a ripe and good one) occupied themselves with pulling holes in his coat, writing whole pages to show that he had taken a wrong view of a special passage. And there was something worse than this that he had done. He had put a wrong accent upon a Greek word! We tremble to mention such a crime, but it cannot be slurred over, for it was one of the heaviest troubles in Mr. Ashford’s life. Whether it was his fault or the printer’s fault will never be known till the day of judgment, and perhaps not even then: for it seems more than likely that a mistake in an accent, or even the absence of the accent altogether, will not affect the reckoning at that decisive moment; but this was what had been done. Not once—which might have been an accident, or carelessness in correcting the press, such a misfortune as might occur to any man—but a dozen times, if not more, had this crime been perpetrated. It disfigured at least the half of his book. It was a mistake which no properly conducted fourth-form boy would have been guilty of. So everybody said;—and it crushed the unlucky man. Even now, five years after, that incorrect accent coloured his life.He went in mourning for it all his days. He could not forget it himself, even if other people might have been willing to forget it. It seemed to justify and explain all the failures in his career. Everybody had wondered why he did not get a fellowship after he had taken his degree, but this explained everything. A man capable of making such a mistake! The buzz that arose in the University never died out of his ears. Robuster persons might laugh, but Ernest Ashford never got over it. It weighed him down for the rest of his days.
Nor was he a man to thrive much in his profession. He tried a curacy or two, but he was neither High Church enough for the High, nor Low Church enough for the Low. And he could not get on with the poor, his rectors said. Their misery appalled his gentle soul. He emptied his poor pockets in the first wretched house he went into, and retreated to his lodgings after he had done so, with a heart all aching and bleeding, and crying out against the pain he saw. He was not of the fibre which can take other people’s sufferings placidly, though he had a fine nerve in bearing his own. This, no doubt, was weakness in him; and in all probability he got imposed upon on every side; but the fact was he could not support the wretchedness of others, and when he had given them every six-pence he had, and had entreated them to be comforted, he fled from them with anguish in his heart. He couldnot eat or drink for weeks after for thinking that there were people in the world near at hand who had little or nothing on their board. He suffered more from this than his fellow-curate did from neuralgia, or his rector from biliousness, and he did what neither of these martyrs felt themselves compelled to do—he fled from the trouble he could not cope with. They quoted Scripture to him, and proved, from the text “The poor ye have always with you,” that nothing better was to be expected. But he answered with a passionate protestation that God could never mean that, and fled—which, indeed, was not a brave thing to do, and proved the weakness of his character. Thus the Church found him wanting, as well as the University. And when at last he settled down into a corner where at least he could get his living tranquilly, it was not by means of his talents or education, but because of a quality which was really accidental, the possession of a beautiful voice. This possession was so entirely adventitious that he was not even a learned musician, nor had he given much of his time to this study. But he had one of those voices, rich and tender and sweet, which go beyond science, which are delicious even when they are wrong, and please the hearers when they perplex the choir and drive the conductor out of his senses. Mr. Ashford did not do this, having an ear almost as delicate as his voice, but both of these were gifts of nature, and not improved by training to the degreewhich the Signor could have wished. He had been persuaded to try for the Minor Canonry of St. Michael’s almost against his will; for to be a singing man, even in the highest grade, did not please his fancy. But no one had been able to stand before him. The Signor had strongly supported another competitor, a man with twice the science of Mr. Ashford; but even the Signor had been obliged to confess that his friend’s voice was not to be compared with that of the successful candidate. And after knocking about the world for a dozen years without any real place or standing-ground, Ernest Ashford found himself at thirty-five suited with a life that was altogether harmonious to his nature, but which he felt half humiliated to have gained, not by his talents or his learning, or anything that was any credit to him, but by the mere natural accidental circumstance of his beautiful voice. He was half-ashamed and humbled to think that all his education, which had cost so much, went for nothing in comparison with this chance talent which had cost him nothing, and that all his hopes and ambitions, which had mounted high, had come to no loftier result. But as, by fair means or foul, for a good or bad reason, life had at last found a suitable career for him, where he could be independent, and do some sort of work, such as it was, he soon became content. The worst thing about it (he said) was that it could not be called work at all. To go twice a day and sing beautifulmusic in one of the most beautiful churches in the world, would have been the highest pleasure, if it had not been the business of his life. He had never even been troubled by religious doubts which might have introduced a complication, but was of a nature simply devout, and born to go twice a day to church. When, however, he found himself thus, as it were, exalted over the common lot, he made an effort to bring himself down to the level of common mortality by taking pupils, an experiment which succeeded perfectly, and brought him into hot water so speedily that he no longer felt himself elevated above the level of mankind.
This was the man whom Lottie had seized the opportunity of making acquaintance with, and speaking to, that evening at the Deanery. Mr. Ashford was not badly treated at the Deanery to be only a Minor Canon. He was often enough asked to dinner when there was not anybody of much consequence about: the Dean was very willing to have him, for he was a gentleman, and talked very pleasantly, and could be silent (which he always was when the company was large) in a very agreeable, gentlemanly sort of way; not the silence of mere dulness and having nothing to say. But when there was a large dinner-party, and people of consequence were there, Lady Caroline would often ask Mr. Ashford to come in the evening, and he had come to understand (without being offended) that on theseoccasions he would probably be asked to sing. He was not offended, but he was amused, and sometimes, with a little well-bred malice, such as he had never shown in any other emergency of his life, would have a cold, and be unable to sing. He had not strength of mind to carry out this little stratagem when there seemed to be much need of his services, but now and then he would wind himself up to do it, with much simple satisfaction in his own cleverness. Mr. Ashford was well treated in the Cloisters generally. The other Canons, those whom Mrs. O’Shaughnessy called “the real Canons,” were all more or less attentive to him. He had nothing to complain of in his lot. He had at this moment two pupils in hand: one, the son of Canon Uxbridge, whom he was endeavouring to prepare for the simple ordeal of an army examination; and another, who was clever, the son of the clergyman in the town, and aspiring to a university scholarship. In consequence of the unfortunate failure of that Greek accent it was but few engagements of this more ambitious kind that Mr. Ashford had; his work was usually confined to the simplicity of the military tests of knowledge; but the rector of St. Michael’s was a man who knew what he was about, and naturally, with a sharp young scholar for ever on his traces, the gentle Minor Canon, conscious of having once committed an inaccuracy, was kept very much upon his p’s and q’s.
On the same day on which Rollo Ridsdale wrotefor Lady Caroline that invitation to Lottie, of the terms of which Lady Caroline was so little aware, the Dean gave a verbal invitation to the same effect to Mr. Ashford in the vestry. “Will you dine with us to-day, Ashford?” he said. “My nephew Ridsdale, who is mad about music, and especially about this girl’s voice who sang last night, has persuaded Lady Caroline to ask her again. Yourself and the Signor; I believe nobody else is coming. Ridsdale has got something to do with a new opera company, and he is wild to find an English prima donna——”
“Is Miss Despard likely to become a professional singer?” said the Minor Canon in some surprise.
“I am sure I can’t tell—why not? They are poor, I suppose, or they would not be here; and I don’t see why she shouldn’t sing. Anyhow, Rollo is most anxious to try. He thinks she has a wonderful voice. He is apt to think anything wonderful which he himself has anything to do with, you know.”
“She has a wonderful voice,” said Mr. Ashford, with more decision than usual.
“But—pardon me if I interrupt,” cried the Signor, who had come in while they were talking, “no method; no science. She wants training—the most careful training. The more beautiful a voice is by nature, the more evident is the want of education in it,” the musician added, with meaning. He did not look at Mr. Ashford, but the reference was very unmistakable. TheDean looked at them, and smiled as he took up his shovel hat.
“I leave you to fight it out, Science against Nature,” he said; “as long as you don’t forget that you are both expected this evening at the Deanery—and to sit in judgment as well as to dine.”
“I know what my judgment will be beforehand,” said the Signor; “absolute want of education—but plenty of material for a good teacher to work upon.”
“And mine is all the other way,” Mr. Ashford said, with some of the vehemence of intellectual opposition, besides a natural partisanship. “A lovely voice, full of nature, and freshness, and expression—which you will spoil, and render artificial, and like anybody else’s voice, if you have your way.”
“All excellence is the production of Art,” said the Signor.
“Poeta nascitur,” said the Canon; and though the words are as well known as any slang, they exercised a certain subduing influence upon the musician, who was painfully aware that he himself was not educated, except in a professional way. The two men went out together through the door into the Great Cloister, from which they passed by an arched passage to the Minor Cloister, where was Mr. Ashford’s house. Nothing could be more unlike than the tall, stooping, short-sighted scholar, and the dark keen Italianism of the Anglicised foreigner—the one man full of perception, seeing everything within his range at a glance, the other living in a glimmer of vague impressions, which took form but slowly in his mind. On the subject of their present discussion, however, Ashford had taken as distinct a view as the Signor. He had put himself on Lottie’s side instinctively, with what we have called a natural partisanship. She was like himself, she sang as the birds sing—and though his own education, after a few years of St. Michael’s, had so far progressed musically that he was as well aware of her deficiencies as the Signor, still he felt himself bound to be her champion.
“I am not sure how far we have any right to discuss a young lady who has never done anything to provoke animadversion,” he said, with an old-fashioned scrupulousness, as they threaded the shady passages. “I think it very unlikely that such a girl would ever consent to sing for the public.”
“That is what she says,” said the Signor, “but she can’t understand what she is saying. Sing for the public! I suppose that means to her to appear before a crowd of people, to be stared at, criticised, brought down to the level of professional singers. The delight of raising a crowd to one’self, binding them into mutual sympathy, getting at the heart underneath the cold English exterior, that is what the foolish girl never thinks of and cannot understand.”
“Ah!” said the Minor Canon. He was struck bythis unexpected poetry in the Signor, who was not a poetical person. He said, “I don’t think I thought of that either. I suppose, for my part, I am very old-fashioned. I don’t like a woman to make an exhibition of herself.”
“Do you suppose a real artist ever makes an exhibition of herself?” said the musician almost scornfully. “Do you suppose she thinks of herself? Oh, yes, of course there are varieties. Men will be men and women women; but anyone who has genius, who is above the common stock! However,” he added, calming himself down, and giving a curious, alarmed glance at his companion, to see whether, perhaps, he was being laughed at for his enthusiasm, “there are other reasons, that you will allow to be solid reasons, for which I want to get hold of this Miss Despard. You know Purcell, my assistant, a young fellow of the greatest promise?”
“Purcell? oh, yes; you mean the son of——”
“I mean my pupil,” said the Signor, hurriedly, with a flush of offence.
“I beg your pardon. I did not mean anything unkind. It was only to make sure whom you meant. I know he is a good musician and everything that is good.”
“He is a very fine fellow,” said the Signor, still flushed and self-assertive. “There is nobody of whom I have a higher opinion. He is a better musician thanI am, and full of promise. I expect him to reach the very top of his profession.”
Mr. Ashford bowed. He had no objection to young Purcell’s success: why should he be supposed to have any objection to it? but the conversation had wandered widely away from Miss Despard, in whom he was really interested, and his attention relaxed in a way which he could not disguise. This seemed to disturb the Signor still more. He faltered; he hesitated. At last he said with a sudden burst, “You think this has nothing to do with the subject we were discussing; but it has. Purcell, poor fellow! has a—romantic devotion; a passion which I can’t as yet call anything but unhappy—for Miss Despard.”
“For Miss Despard?”
The Minor Canon turned round at his own door with his key in his hand, lifting his eyes in wonder. “That is surely rather misplaced,” he said the next moment, with much more sharpness than was usual to him, opening the door with a little extra energy and animation. He had no reason whatever for being annoyed, but he was annoyed, though he could not have told why.
“How misplaced?” said the Signor, following him up the little oak staircase, narrow and broken into short flights, which led to the rooms in which the Minor Canon lived. The landing at the top of the staircase was as large as any of the rooms to which itled, with that curious misappropriation of space, but admirable success in picturesque effect, peculiar to old houses. There was a window in it, with a window-seat, and such a view as was not to be had out of St. Michael’s, and the walls were of dark wainscot, with bits of rich old carving here and there. The Canon’s little library led off from this and had the same view. It was lighted by three small, deep-set windows set in the outer wall of the Abbey, and consequently half as thick as the room was large. They were more like three pictures hung on the dark wall than mere openings for light, which indeed they supplied but sparingly, the thickness of the wall casting deep shadows between. And the walls, wherever they were visible, were dark oak, here and there shining with gleams of reflection, but making a sombre background, broken only by the russet colour of old books and the chance ornaments of gilding which embellished them. Mr. Ashford’s writing-table, covered with books and papers, stood in front of the centre window. There was room for a visitor on the inner side, between him and the bookcases on the further wall, and there was room for somebody in the deep recess of the window at his left hand; but that was all.
“How misplaced?” the Signor repeated, coming in and taking possession of the window-seat. “He is not perhaps what you call a gentleman by birth, but he is a great deal better. You and I know gentlemen bybirth who—but don’t let us talk blasphemy within the Precincts. I am a Tory. I take my stand upon birth and blood and primogeniture.”
“And laugh at them?”
“Oh, not at all; on the contrary, I think they are very good for the country; but you and I have known gentlemen by birth—Well! my young Purcell is not one of these, but sprung from the soil. He is a capital musician; he is a rising young man. In what is he worse than the daughter of a commonplace old soldier, a needy, faded gentleman of a Chevalier?”
“Gently! gently! I cannot permit you to say anything against the Chevaliers. They are brave men, and men who have served their country——”
“Better than a good musician serves his?” cried the Signor. “You will not assert as much. Better than we serve the country, who put a little tune and time into her, an idea of some thing better than fifes and drums?”
“My dear Rossinetti,” said Mr. Ashford, with some heat, “England had music in her before a single maestro had ever come from the South, and will have after——”
“No tragedy,” said the Signor, with a low laugh, putting up his hand. “I am not a maestro, nor do I come from the South. I serve my country when I teach these knavish boys, that would rather be playing in the streets, to lengthen their snipped vowels. But suppose they do better who fight—I say nothing against that. I am not speaking of all the Chevaliers, but of one, and one who is very unlike the rest—the only person who has anything to do with the argument—a wretched frequenter of taverns, admirer of milliners’ girls, who is said to be going to marry some young woman of that class. Why should not Purcell, the best fellow in the world, be as good as he?”
“I don’t know the father—and it is not the father Purcell has a romantic devotion for. But don’t you see, Rossinetti, we are allowing ourselves to discuss the affairs of people we know nothing of, people we have no right to talk about. In short, we aregossiping, which is not a very appropriate occupation.”
“Oh, there is a great deal of it done by other persons quite as dignified as we are,” said the Signor, with a smile; but he accepted the reproof and changed the subject. They sat together and talked, looking over the great width of the silent country, the trees and the winding river, the scattered villages, and the illuminated sky. How beautiful it was! fair enough of itself to make life sweeter to those who had it before their eyes. But the two men talked and took no notice. They might have been in a street in London for any difference it made.
When, however, the Signor was gone, Mr. Ashford, having closed the door upon his visitor, came straying back to the window in which Rossinetti had beenseated, and stood there gazing out vaguely. In all likelihood he saw nothing at all, for he was short-sighted, as has been said; but yet it is natural to seek the relief of the window and look out when there is something within of a confused and vaguely melancholy character to occupy one’s thoughts. Twenty-four hours before, Mr. Ashford had not known who Lottie Despard was. He had seen her in the Abbey, and perhaps had found, without knowing it, that sympathy in her face which establishes sometimes a kind of tacit friendship long before words. He thought now that this must have been the case; but he knew very little about her still—nothing except that she had a beautiful voice, a face that interested him, and something she wanted to talk to him about. What was it she wanted to talk to him about? He could not imagine what it could be, but he recollected very well how pleasant a thing it was when this beautiful young lady, lifting the long fringes which veiled them, turned upon him those beautiful blue eyes which (he thought) were capable of expressing more feeling than eyes of any other colour. Probably had Lottie’s eyes been brown or grey, Mr. Ashford would have been of exactly the same opinion. And to think of this creature as the beloved of Purcell gave him a shock. Purcell! it was not possible. No doubt he was a respectable fellow, very much to be applauded and encouraged:—but Mr. Ashford himself had nothing to do with Miss Despard;he was pleased to think that he should meet her again and hear her sing again, and he must try, he said to himself, to find an opportunity to ask her what it was about which she wanted to speak to him. Otherwise he had no hand, and wanted to have no hand, in this little conspiracy of which she seemed the unconscious object. On the contrary, his whole sympathies were with Lottie against the men who wanted to entrap her and make her a public singer whether she would or not. He was glad she did not want it herself, and felt a warm sympathy with her in those natural prejudices against “making an exhibition of herself” which the Signor scorned so much. The Signor might scorn those shrinkings and shyness; they were altogether out of his way; he might not understand them. But Mr. Ashford understood them perfectly. He liked Lottie for having them, comprehended her, and felt for her. Anything rather thanthat, he thought, with a little tremulous warmth, as if she had been his sister. If there should be any discussion on this subject to-night at the Deanery, and she was in need of support, he would stand by her. Having made this resolution he went back to his writing-table and sat down in his usual place, and put this intrusive business, which did not in the least concern him, out of his mind.
The most intrusive subject! What had he to do with it? And yet it was not at all easy to get it out of his mind. He had not read three lines when hefelt himself beginning to wonder why Rollo Ridsdale had chosen Miss Despard as his prima donna above everybody else, and why the Signor concerned himself so much about it. She had certainly a beautiful voice, but still voices as beautiful had been heard before. It could not be supposed that there was no one else equal to her. Why should they make so determined a set at this girl, who was a lady, and who had not expressed any wish or intention of being a singer? To be sure, she was very handsome as well, and her face was full of expression. And Rollo was a kind of enthusiast when he took anything in his head. Then there was the other imbroglio with the Signor and Purcell. What was Purcell to the Signor that he should take up his cause so warmly? But, then, still more mysterious, what was it all to him, Ernest Ashford, that it should come between him and the book he was reading? Nothing could be more absurd. He got up after awhile, and went to the window again, where he finally settled himself with a volume of Shelley, to which he managed to fix the thoughts which had been so absurdly disturbed by this stranger, and this question with which he had nothing to do. It was a very idle way of spending the afternoon, to recline in a deep window looking out upon miles of air and distance and read Shelley; but it was better than getting involved in the mere gossip of St. Michael’s and turning over in his head against his will the privateaffairs of people whom he scarcely knew. This was the disadvantage of living in a small circle with so few interests, he said to himself. But he got delivered from the gossip by means of the poetry, and so lay there while the brilliant sunshine slanted from the west, now sending his thoughts abroad over the leafy English plain, now feeding his fancy with the poet among the Euganean hills.
Mr. Ridsdalehad perhaps never touched, and rarely heard, anything so bad as the old cracked piano which Lottie had inherited from her mother, and which was of the square form now obsolete, of a kind which brokers (the only dealers in the article) consider very convenient, as combining the character of a piano and a sideboard. Very often had Lottie’s piano served the purpose of a sideboard, but it was too far gone to be injured—nothing could make it worse. Nevertheless Mr. Ridsdale played the accompaniments upon it, without a word, to Lottie’s admiration and wonder, for he seemed to be able to draw forth at his fingers’ ends a volume of sound which she did not suppose to be within the power of the old instrument. He had brought several songs with him, being fully minded to hear her that morning, whatever obstacles might be in the way. But it so happened that there were no obstacles whatever in the way; and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was of the greatest service as audience. With the true talent of a manager, Mr. Ridsdale addressed himself to the subjugation of his public. He placed before Lottie the song from “Marta,” to which, hearing it thus named, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy prepared herself to listen with a certain amiable scorn. “Ah, we shall have you crying in five minutes,” he said. “Is it me you’re meaning?” she cried in high scorn. But the fact was that when the melting notes of “The Last Rose of Summer” came forth from Lottie’s lips, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was altogether taken by surprise, and carried out Rollo’s prophecy to the letter by weeping abundantly. There was much of Mr. Ridsdale’s music which Lottie could not sing—indeed, it would have been wonderful if she had been able to do so, as he had brought with him the finestmorceauxof a dozen operas, and Lottie’s musical education had been of the slightest. But he so praised, and flattered, and encouraged her, that she went on from song to song at his bidding, making the best attempt at them that was possible, while Mrs. O’Shaughnessy sat by and listened. Her presence there was of the utmost consequence to them. It at once converted Rollo’s visit into something allowable and natural, and it gave him a pretence for beginning what was really an examination into Lottie’s powers and compass, at once of voice and of intelligence. Lottie, innocent of any scheme, or of any motive he could have, save simple pleasure in her singing, exerted herself to please him with the same mixture of gratitude and happy prepossession with which she had thought of him for so long. If shecould give a little pleasure to him who had given her his love and his heart (for what less could it be that he had given her?), it was her part, she thought, to do so. She felt that she owed him everything she could do for him, to recompense him for that gift which he had given her unawares. So she stood by him in a soft humility, not careful that she was showing her own ignorance, thinking only of pleasing him. What did it matter, if he were pleased, whether she attained the highest excellence? She said sweetly, “I know I cannot do it, but if you wish it I will try,” and attempted feats which in other circumstances would have appalled her. And the fact was, that thus forgetting herself, and thinking only of pleasing him, Lottie sang better than she had ever done in her life, better even than she had done in the Deanery on the previous night. She committed a thousand faults, but these faults were as nothing in comparison with the melody of her voice and the purity of her taste. Rollo became like one inspired. All the enthusiasm of an amateur, and all the zeal of an enterprising manager, were in him. The old piano rolled out notes of which in its own self it was quite incapable under his rapid fingers. He seemed to see her with all London before her, at her feet, and he (so to speak) at once the discoverer and the possessor of this new star. No wonder the old piano grew ecstatic under his touch; he who had gone through so many vicissitudes, whohad made so many failures; at last it seemed evident to him that his fortune was made. Unfortunately (though that he forgot for the moment) he had felt his fortune to be made on several occasions before.
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy gave a great many nods and smiles when at last he went away. “I say nothing, me dear, but I have my eyesight,” she said, “and a blind man could see what’s in the wind. So that is how it is, Lottie, me darling? Well, well! I always said you were the prettiest girl that had been in the Lodges this many a year. I don’t envy ye, me love, your rise in the world. And I hope, Lottie, when ye’re me lady, ye’ll not forget your old friends.”
“How should I ever be my lady?” said Lottie; “indeed, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, I don’t know what you mean.”
“No, me honey, the likes of you never do, till the right moment comes,” said the old lady, going down the narrow stairs. She kissed her hand to Lottie, who looked after her from the window as she appeared on the pavement outside, and, with her bonnet-strings flying loose, turned in at her own door. Her face was covered with smiles and her mind full of a new interest. She could not refrain from going into the Major’s little den, and telling him. “Nonsense!” the Major said, incredulously; “one of your mare’s-nests.” “Sure it was a great deal better than a mare, it was turtle-doves made the nest I’m thinking of,” said Mrs.O’Shaughnessy; and she took off her bonnet and seated herself at her window, from which she inspected the world with a new warmth of interest, determined not to lose a single incident in this new fairy tale.
Law came out of his room, where he had been “reading,” when Mrs. O’Shaughnessy went away. “What has all this shrieking been about,” said Law, “and thumping on that old beast of a piano? You are always at a fellow about reading, and when he does read you disturb him with your noise. How do you think I could get on with all that miauling going on? Who has been here?”
“Mr. Ridsdale has been here,” said Lottie demurely. “He brought me a note from Lady Caroline, and I am going again to the Deanery to-night.”
Law whistled a long whew—ew! “Again, to-night! she’d better ask you to go and live there,” said the astounded boy; and he said no more about his interrupted reading, but put his big book philosophically away; for who could begin to read again after all the disturbances of the morning, and after such a piece of news as this?
Lottie dressed herself with more care than ever that evening. She began to wish for ornaments, and to realise how few her decorations were; the little pearl locket was so small, and her arms seemed so bare without any bracelets. However, she made herself little bands of black velvet, and got the maid to fastenthem on. She had never cared much for ornaments before. And she spent a much longer time than usual over the arrangement of her hair. Above all she wanted to look like a lady, to show that, though their choice of her was above what could have been expected, it was not above the level of what she was used to.Theirchoice of her—that was how it seemed to Lottie. The young lover had chosen, as it is fit the lover should do; but Lady Caroline had ratified his selection, and Lottie, proud yet entirely humble in the tender humility born of gratitude, wanted to show that she could do credit to their choice. She read the note which purported to be Lady Caroline’s over and over again; how kind it was! Lady Caroline’s manner perhaps was not quite so kind. People could not control their manner. The kindest heart was often belied, Lottie was aware, by a stiffness, an awkwardness, perhaps only a shyness, which disguised their best intentions. But the very idea of asking her was kind, and the letter was so kind that she made up her mind never again to mistake Lady Caroline. She had a difficulty in expressing herself, no doubt. She was indolent perhaps. At her age and in her position it was not wonderful if one got indolent; but in her heart she was kind. This Lottie repeated to herself as she put the roses in her hair. In her heart Lady Caroline was kind; the girl felt sure that she could never mistake her, never be disappointed in her again. And inthis spirit she tripped across the Dean’s Walk, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy watching from her window. It was almost dark, but it was not one of the Signer’s nights for practice, and only a few of the inhabitants of the Abbey Precincts were enjoying the air on the Terrace pavement. They all saw her as she came out in the twilight with her uncovered head. Law had gone out, and there was nobody to go with her this time to the Deanery door. But Lottie had no difficulty in finding an escort: as she came out, looking round her shyly to watch for a quiet moment when no one was about, Captain Temple came forward, who lived two doors off, and was passing as she came to the little garden gate. He was the preux chevalier of all the Chevaliers. He came forward with a fatherly smile upon his kind face. “You are looking for some one to go with you,” he said; “your father has gone out. I saw him. Let me take his place.”
“Oh, thanks! I am going to the Deanery. I thought Law would have waited for me.”
“Law, like others of his age, has his own concerns to think of,” said Captain Temple, “but I am used to this kind of work. You have heard of my girl, Miss Despard?”
“Yes, Captain Temple——.” Lottie, touched suddenly in the sympathetic sentiment of her own beginning life, looked up at him with wistful eyes.
“She was a pretty creature, like yourself, my dear.My wife and I often talk of you, and think you like her. She was lost to us before she went out of the world, and I think it broke her heart—as well as ours. Take care of the damp grass with your little white shoes.”
“Oh, Captain Temple, do not come with me,” said Lottie, with tears in her eyes. “I can go very well alone. It is too hard upon you.”
“No—I like it, my dear. My wife cannot talk of it, but I like to talk of it. You must take care not to marry anyone that will carry you quite away from your father’s house.”
“As if that would matter! as if papa would care!” Lottie said in her heart, with a half pity, half envy, of Captain Temple’s lost daughter; but this was but a superficial feeling in comparison with the great compassion she had for him. The old Chevalier took her across the road as tenderly and carefully as if even her little white shoes were worth caring for. There was a moist brightness about his eyes as he looked at her pretty figure. “The roses are just what you ought to wear,” he said. “And whenever you want anyone to take care of you in this way, send for me; I shall like to do it. Shall I come back for you in case your father should be late?”
“Oh, Captain Temple, papa never minds! but it is quite easy to get back,” she said, thinking that perhaps this timehe——
“I think it is always best that a young lady should have her own attendant, and not depend on anyone to see her home,” said the old Captain. And he rang the bell at the Deanery door, and took off his hat, with a smile which almost made Lottie forget Lady Caroline. She went into the drawing-room accordingly much less timidly than she had ever done before, and no longer felt any fear of Mr. Jeremie, who admitted her, though he was a much more imposing person than Captain Temple. This shade of another life which had come over her seemed to protect Lottie, and strengthen her mind. The drawing-room was vaguely lighted with clusters of candles here and there, and at first she saw nobody, nor was there any indication held out to her that the mistress of the house was in the room, except the solemn tone of Jeremie’s voice announcing her. Lottie thought Lady Caroline had not come in from the dining-room, and strayed about looking at the books and ornaments on the tables. She even began to hum an air quietly to herself, by way of keeping up her own courage, and it was not till she had almost taken her seat unawares on Lady Caroline’s dress, extended on the sofa, that she became aware that she was not alone. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried out in a sudden panic. “I thought there was no one in the room.” Lady Caroline made no remark at all, except to say “How do you do, Miss Despard?” That was what she had made up her mind to say, feelingit to be quite enough for the occasion—and Lady Caroline did not easily change her mind when it was once made up. She thought it very impertinent of the girl to come in and look at the photographs on the tables, and even to take the liberty of singing, but there was no calculating what these sort of people might do. She had nearly sat down on Lady Caroline’s feet! “This is what I put up with for Rollo,” the poor lady said to herself; and it seemed to her that a great deal of gratitude from Rollo was certainly her due. She did not move, nor did she ask Miss Despard to sit down; but Lottie, half in fright, dropped into a chair very near the strange piece of still life on the sofa. The girl had been very much frightened to see her, and for a moment was speechless with the horror of it. Nearly to sit down upon Lady Caroline! and a moment of silence ensued. Lady Caroline did not feel in the least inclined to begin a conversation. She had permitted the young woman to be invited, and she had said “How do you do, Miss Despard?” and she did not know what more could be expected from her. So they sat close together in the large, half-visible, dimly-illuminated room, with the large window open to the night, and said nothing to each other. Lottie, who was the visitor, was embarrassed, but Lady Caroline was not embarrassed. She felt no more need to speak than did the table with the photographs upon it which Lottie had stopped to look at. As for Lottie,she bore it as long as she could, the stillness of the room, the flicker of the candles, the dash and fall of a moth now and then flying across the lights, and the immovable figure on the sofa with its feet tucked up, and floods of beautiful rich silk enveloping them. A strange sense that Lady Caroline was not living at all, that it was only the picture of a woman that was laid out on the sofa came over her. In her nervousness she began to tremble, then felt inclined to laugh. At last it became evident to Lottie that to speak was a necessity, to break the spell which might otherwise stupefy her senses too.
“It is a beautiful night,” was all she managed to say; could anything be more feeble? but Lady Caroline gave no reply. She made the usual little movement of her eyelids, which meant an assent; indeed it was not a remark which required reply. And the silence fell on them again as bad as ever. The night air blew in, the moths whirled about the candles, dashed against the globe of the lamp, dropped on the floor with fatal infinitesimal booms of tragic downfall; and Lady Caroline lay on the sofa, with eyes directed to vacancy, looking at nothing. Lottie, with the roses in her hair, and so much life tingling in her, could not endure it. She wanted to go and shake the vision on the sofa, she wanted to cry out and make some noise or other to save herself from the spell. At last, when she could keep silence no longer, she jumped up, throwing overa small screen which stood near in her vehemence of action. “Shall I sing you something, Lady Caroline?” she said.
Lady Caroline was startled by the fall of the screen. She watched till it was picked up, actually looking at Lottie, which was some advance; then she said, “If you please, Miss Despard,” in her calm tones. And Lottie, half out of herself, made a dash at the grand piano, though she knew she could not play. She struck a chord or two, trembling all over, and began to sing. This time she did not feel the neglect or unkindness of the way in which she was treated. It was a totally different sensation. A touch of panic, a touch of amusement was in it. She was afraid that she might be petrified too if she did nothing to break the spell. But as she began to sing, with a quaver in her voice, and a little shiver of nervous chilliness in her person, the door opened, and voices, half discerned figures of men, life and movement, came pouring in. Lottie came to an abrupt stop in the middle of a bar.