“Mr. Ashford is going Miss Despard’s way. And, Rollo, your aunt wants you, I think. We have all been so much delighted that we have forgotten the progress of time, and Lady Caroline is not very strong. Mr. Ashford,” said the Dean, “I am sure we may leave to you the privilege of seeing Miss Despard to her own door.”
“And I am here,” said the Signor. Nevertheless,poor Lottie felt as if she had stepped suddenly out of heaven to earth again when she found herself between the musician and the minor canon outside the Deanery door.
Lawwent with his sister dutifully to the door in the great cloister. He did not care much for the honour and glory of going to the Deanery, but he was pleased to walk with Lottie in her pretty evening dress, with the roses in her hair. This gave him a certain gratification and sense of family pride, though he scoffed at that sentiment in general. Law did not feel that on the whole he had much to be proud of. Still, he was proud of Lottie, who was a creature quite out of the common, and like nobody else he had ever seen. He waited till the Deanery door was opened to her. That was a world of which Law knew nothing, and did not want to know anything. How Lottie had managed to get among these fine people, and why she liked to get among them, were equally strange to him. He admired her for the first, and wondered at her for the last. She was, at the present moment, the only lady belonging to the Chevaliers who had got footing in the Deanery; and this was just like Lottie, just what he would have expected from her, he said to himself; but how she could stand those old fogies, with theirpride and their finery, that was what he could not tell. All the same, it gave him a certain gratification to leave her there in her element among the great people. And when the door closed upon him Law went off about his own business. He went through the cloister, and a curious little back cloister beyond—for there were many intricacies about the Abbey, the different degrees of the hierarchy being very distinct, one cloister for the Chapter, another for the Minor people, and a third for the lay clerks. He went through the little square of the minor cloister, and came out upon a stone staircase which abridged the slopes of St. Michael’s Hill, and led straight down into the town. The lights had begun to be lighted in the picturesque street which wound round the foot of the hill; they twinkled here and there in the shops opposite, and appeared in glimmers in the villages across the river. The dim misty plain lying doubly broad in the twilight, stretching out vaguely to the sky, was here and there defined by one of those twinkles which showed where a group of houses stood together. The town was all out in the streets, and on the river this lovely evening: boats floating dimly about the stream, people walking vaguely up and down the hill. And the air was filled with pleasant soft, uncertain sounds of talking, of footsteps, now and then the clocks chiming or striking, and a bugle sounding faint and far from where the soldiers were quartered, for there was amilitary depôt not far off. Law stopped at the head of the Steps, as they were called, and looked down over all this scene. The mere notion of being out in thegrand air, as the French call it, with somehow a fuller sense of space and width than we can find a word for, was pleasant to Law; but if he paused, it was neither to enjoy the picture before him, nor was it because he had no definite place to go to. He knew very well where he was going. No vagueness on that point was in his mind; and he did not care a brass farthing for the landscape; but he paused at the head of the Steps and looked about, just as a child will pause before eating his cake, a pause of anticipation and spiritual enjoyment of the dainty before it goes to his lips. Then he ran down the Steps three at a time, skimming down the long flights, turning the corners like a bird. To take care of his sister had been duty, but Law was about his own business now.
What was Law’s business? In all St. Michael’s there was not a more idle boy. He was over eighteen, and he did nothing. Vague hopes that he would get some appointment—that something would turn up for him—that he would suddenly awake and find himself in an office somehow, doing something and making money—had been in his own mind and that of his family all his life. Law had no objection. Had some one taken him and set him down at once in any office, it was quite possible that he might have donethe best he could in his place, and succeeded as well as most men; but in the meantime there were a great many preliminaries to go through, for which Law had never been required or encouraged to fit himself. In these days of examination, when the pitifullest little bit of an office builds up those prickly thorns, those red-hot ploughshares before its door, how was he to get into any office without education? He had spent all his earlier years, as has been seen, in eluding school as cleverly as possible, and doing as little as he could of his lessons; and now here he was on the verge of manhood, with nothing to do and no great wish to do anything;—a great, straight, powerful young fellow, without any absolute aim or tendency to evil, but good for nothing, not capable of anything, with neither purpose nor object in his life. He could row very well when anyone would give him an oar. He was not amiss at cricket when anyone asked him to play. He could walk with any man, and had won a race or two, and was quite capable of competing for a high jump, or for throwing a cricket-ball, or any of those useful accomplishments; but as for anything else he was not capable. He hated books with that sincere and earnest hatred which seems possible only to those who know books to be the preliminary of everything—a peculiarity of this examining age. Never before surely was such a candid and thorough detestation of the tools of knowledge possible. Law knewthat no door could possibly open to him without them, and therefore he hated and despised them, illogically no doubt, but very cordially all the same; and so went drifting along upon the stream, not asking what was to become of him, never thinking much of the subject, though he suffered greatly from want of pocket-money, and would gladly have made some exertion from time to time to obtain that, had he known what to do.
This want of pocket-money is the grand drawback to the education or no education of the youths of the nineteenth century. So long as they can have enough of that, what a pleasant life is theirs! For it does you no particular harm to be supposed to be “working for an examination” so long as you don’t work much for that, and are exempted, for the sake of it, from all other kinds of work. Boating and cricketing and running races, and every kind of exercise, are known now-a-days to be compatible with the hardest mental labour, and he is a stern parent indeed who interferes with his son’s training in such essential points. But all these delights are more or less dependent upon pocket-money. Law, whose bread and cheese had never yet failed, and whose conscience was not active, would have found his life quite pleasant but for that; but it was hard upon him not to be able to pay his subscription to a cricket club, nor the hire of a boat, nor even the entry money for a race, though that was sure torepay itself abundantly if he won it. This was very hard upon him, and often stimulated him to the length of a resolution that he would work to-morrow and conquer all his subjects, and “scrape through” by sheer force of will, so as to have an income of his own. But the habit of idleness unfortunately overcame the resolution next morning, which was a pity, and Law “loafed,” as he himself said, not being able to afford to “do anything.” It is needless to inform the instructed who have to do with youths working for examinations, that it is cricket and boating and athletics these heroes mean when they talk of “having something to do.”
Law, however, had a pleasure before him which had no connection with pocket-money. He went straight down with the directness of habit, till he came to a lane very tortuous and narrow, crowded with builders’-yards and coal-merchants, and affording glimpses of the little wharves where a little traffic was carried on, edging the river. Threading his way through them, he came to a red brick house, the front of which overhung the stream with its projecting gable. Law went in through a door which stood open always, and showed signs of much and constant use. There were lodgings upstairs, which were very pleasant in summer, and which were always let, and made a very comfortable item in the earnings of the family; but it was not upstairs that Law went, though that would have done him good. On the first floor, in the roomwith the square window, which overlooked and indeed overhung the river, the excellent curate was living with whom Law occasionally “read,” and to whom no doubt he would have said he was going had Lottie seen him at this door. But Law had no intention of disturbing the curate, who for his part did not want his pupil. He passed the staircase altogether, and pushed open a green baize door, beyond which was a short passage leading into a room, all ablaze with gas. The door of the room was wide open, and so were the windows, to admit all the air that was possible, and round the large table between sat three or four young women working and talking. They were very busy; the great table was covered with silk and muslin, and all kinds of flimsy trimming, and though they chatted they were working as for bare life. As Law sauntered in they all looked up for a moment, and threw a smile or a nod or half-a-dozen words at him, but scarcely intermitted a stitch. “We’re awful busy; we can’t so much as look at you; we’ve got some wedding things to finish for to-morrow,” said one fair-haired girl who seemed specially to appropriate his visit. She pushed her chair a little aside without pausing in her work, as if accustomed to make room for him; and Law took a chair and placed it sideways, so that he could lean his idle elbow on the table between this busy needlewoman and the rest. Perhaps as a stormy sea gives zest to the enjoyment of tranquillity on shore, so the extremeoccupation of this workroom made him feel his own absolute leisure more delightful.
“Who is going to be married?” he said.
“Oh, you know just as well as I do. I am sure you have heard us talking of it for the last week. Polly, didn’t you tell Mr. Despard all about it? It’s a lady you know. It’s Miss Hare at the Golden Eagle, who is one of your papa’s great friends. I don’t know what the Captain will do when she’s gone. Polly, do you?”
“I don’t know what the Captain has to do with her, nor me neither,” said the young lady at the head of the table. The rest of the girls were sisters, with fair frizzy locks a little out of order after the long day’s work, what with the warmth of the room, and the fluttering of the faint breeze from the river that ruffled the well-crimped tresses. But Polly was of a different stamp. She had a mountain of dark brown hair upon her head in plaits and curls and puffs innumerable, and though she was sallow in complexion, had commanding features, a grand aquiline nose, and brilliant eyes. “The Captain nor me, we hav’nt much to say to that sort,” said Polly. “I don’t go with them that has a word and a laugh for everybody. What I like is a young lady that respects herself. If you work for your living, that’s not to say that you ain’t as good as the best of them. Stick up for yourself, and other folks will think of you according, that’s what I say.”
“I am sure Miss Hare always sticks up for herself,” said the girl by Law’s side. “Going to be married in a veil, like one of the quality!”
“And so would I, if it was me,” cried Polly. “The quality! What are they better than us, only they’ve got a pocketful of money. If I was the Queen, I’d do away with them all. I’d be the Queen, and all the rest should be the people. There shouldn’t be one more than another, or one greater than another, only me. And then shouldn’t I do whatever I pleased, and cut off their heads if they said a word!”
This instinctive perception of the secret of despotism made Law laugh, who thought he knew a great deal better. “It would be a funny world with Queen Polly over it,” he said. “I hope you’d take me for your prime minister.”
Polly gave him a look of saucy malice. “I’d take the Captain,” she said.
“Has he been here to-night, Emma? I think he’s always coming here,” said Law, under his breath. It was a kind of growl which the young fellow gave out when he spoke low, in the voice which not very long ago had been treble, a soprano, as clear and pure as Lottie’s—but it was extremely bass now.
“He wants to know,” said Emma, with a glance at the others as she pinned her work straight, “if the Captain has been here;” upon which there was achorus of laughter, making Law red and angry. He turned upon them with a furious look.
“I should like to know how you would all like it,” said the boy, “if your governor were to come poking in the very same place where——”
“Oh, you may make yourself quite easy, Mr. Lawrence,” said Polly, with a toss of her elaborately dressed head. “He don’t meddle with you. The Captain is a man of taste, he ain’t a boy, like some folks. He knows what’s what, the Captain does. Other girls may have their fancies; I don’t say anything against that, but give me a man as knows the world, and knows what he wants. That’s the sort for me.”
“She gets more insufferable than ever. I wonder how you can put up with her,” said Law under his breath.
“Doesn’t she,” said Emma in a whisper. “I wish she had never come into our workroom; but she has taste, mother says, and we have to put up with it. Everything has to give way to the work,” the girl added, threading her needle; and as she made a knot upon the end of the new thread, she shook her head with a sigh.
Everything has to give way to the work! Law could not but smile, feeling the superiority of his gentlemanhood. With him it was the work that gave way to everything. “Poor little Em!” he said, with a little laugh. She was only seventeen, a year youngerthan he was; her forefinger was seamed into furrows with her needle, and sometimes bled, which called forth no sympathy, but only scoldings, from the forewoman or her mother, when an unlucky red mark appeared on a hem. Emma did not very much mind the scoldings, which came natural to her, and she never made any comparison of herself with Law. He was agentleman, that made all the difference. And it was a great deal nicer, and much more important, to have such a fine fellow to keep company with, than a young painter or carpenter, or even a tailor, which was what ’Liza had to be content with. Mr. Despard was a very different sort of person. As Law whispered to her, Emma felt her heart swell with pride. She went on with her work all the same, sometimes threatening to prick him with the needle which was at the end of that long thread. Emma was only “running a skirt,” not trusted as yet with the more difficult parts of the work, and she pointed her needle at Law’s nose when he came too close. But it was very sweet to her to have him there. Polly might brag as she pleased of the Captain—the Captain was old, and what was the good of him? He did nothing but puff Polly up with pride, the younger girls thought, and nothing would ever come of it. But Law was young, and there was no telling what might come of that. Emma threatened him with her needle, but in her heart was very proud of him. And there he sat and talked to her, whileLottie was having her little triumph among all the fine people at the Rectory. The Welting girls were all pleased to have Law there. They liked to talk of Mr. Despard, “from the Abbey,” and how they “could not keep him out of their workroom.” By and by they began to joke about his idleness, the only idle one among so busy a company. “Can’t you give him something simple to do—a skirt to run up or a long hem?” “Oh, yes,” said Emma. “Do, Polly, he bothers me so I can’t get my skirt done.” Polly opened her drawer, and drew out from it the current number of a distinguished periodical, which all these young women admired.
“I’ll tell you what he can do,” she said, “and make himself useful—for we’ve got to sit up all night a’most, and there’s nothing makes work go like reading out loud. Mr. Lawrence, if you want to be as good as your professions, and help us young ladies on, as are far harder worked than the like of you knows of even, there’s the last number of theFamily Herald, and we’re all that anxious, we don’t know how to bear it, to hear how Lady Araminta got on——”
“Oh, give it me,” said Emma, with her eyes sparkling. “Oh, give it me! Oh, you nasty cruel creature, to have it in your drawer all the time, and never to tell!”
“I’ll give it to Mr. Despard,” said Polly, “and we’ll all be done half as soon again if he’ll read it out loud.”
“Give it here,” said Law with lordly good-nature, and he began at once upon his task. How the needles flew as he read! Lady Araminta was a wonderful heroine. She wore nothing less than velvet and satin, and carried her diamonds about with her wherever she went, and the title deeds of her estate in the bosom of her dress. Law leaned his long arm on the table, sometimes pausing to take breath and playing with Emma’s pins and cotton. He would thus tantalise them now and then when the story grew most exciting and his auditors most breathless. He wasbon princeamong them all, very good-natured and willing to please them, though Emma had his special vows. His head was not so much turned as was the head of virtuous Lottie, listening to the applause of Mr. Rollo Ridsdale, but he was very happy with this little court about him all the same.
Itwas late before Law got home. In the first place he read theFamily Heraldthrough to his interested and busy auditors. Their needles flew like lightning along the lengthy seams; trimmings were as nothing to them, and even a hem became interesting as he read. When he had pursued Lady Araminta to the end of this little portion of her history, showing how she refused that wicked Duke who was at the bottom of all her troubles, and whose expedients to get her into his power were so manifold, he began the next story—and so on till all was finished. It took some time to get through the delightful pennyworth. What good it did to the poor girls at their work! They were not patient, superior, noble-minded needlewomen, pensively bearing up against the privations of their lot, but very commonplace girls, grumbling at their privations frankly, yet sitting up half the night over wedding finery or funeral robes, without any very clear idea that it was a hardship, or indeed more than an inevitable feature of “the dressmaking.” It was under this simple matter-of-fact aspect that their vigilappeared to them now, and they did not feel it any very great grievance; but, such as it was, it was infinitely lightened by Law and theFamily Herald. He was, to tell the truth, a little bit interested himself in the stories. He thought them very finely written. He liked the bits about Araminta’s true, but alas! poor and unfortunate lover. This lover was tall and strong, interesting and clever beyond description. He could do whatever he tried to do, and managed to live comfortably upon nothing at all. Law had a half notion that this elegant and perfect being was like himself. He would not have breathed it to anyone, but yet he thought so. And when one story was finished he began another. He did not mind whether it was the beginning, or the middle, or the end of the tale; all was the same to Law; he went stoutly on, and read the whole number through—poetry, answers to correspondents, and all. It was not very fine literature perhaps, or, rather, it was very superfine literature, with nobody below the rank of a baronet in the leading stories; but what it did for these poor dressmaking girls! They followed Lady Araminta through every turn of her wonderful fortunes, with eyes that glowed and shone over their needlework. They identified themselves with her, exclaiming, “That’s just what I’d have done!” and, “No, I wouldn’t have had him, not I, if he’d been fifty dukes!” with true enthusiasm. Their needles flew, and the work got on as by magic;their excitement showing itself in the speed with which they worked. The wedding things were done an hour sooner than they would otherwise have been done, under this stimulus, and it was little more than twelve o’clock when Polly, after folding up the last dress, in readiness to be sent home first thing in the morning, said, “Now, Mr. Lawrence, you’ve been a deal of use. If you like, you can see me home!”
“As if it was a treat for him to see her home!” Emma cried, who owned the special allegiance of Law; but the youth for his part had no objection. It was a beautiful night, and a little additional walk was nothing but a pleasure to him; and he was quite good-natured, ready to exert himself in any way that was not legitimate and necessary. Emma, indeed, did not smile upon this undertaking. She (who had been obliged to do as much before now without anyone to take care of her) did not see what Polly wanted with an escort in a quiet place like St. Michael’s. “You’ll meet nobody worse than the policeman,” she said.
“Policemen are bad enough, sometimes,” said Polly.
“Mind you don’t meet the Captain,” said Emma’s elder sister, “and get him into trouble with his papa.”
At this Polly laughed, tossing her head with its innumerable plaits and puffs. “I hope I can manage the Captain,” she said. And whoever had heard the style of Polly’s conversation as she walked up thesweep of the steep street by Law’s side, with the soft night air blowing in their faces, would have recognised at once the superiority of Polly to all the insinuations addressed to her. All was very quiet in the High Street of St. Michael’s: they met nobody worse than the policeman, as Emma had suggested; and everything was still and dark, except the stars shining far away overhead; for the shop-windows had long been closed, and the lamps glimmered few and far between.
“You mustn’t think anything of what these foolish things say about the Captain,” said Polly; “because I’m a bit more reasonable than the rest, he likes to have a chat with me now and again. He’s a very well-informed man is your papa; but you mustn’t think nothing of what they say——”
“Oh, I don’t!” said Law, with the serenest confidence; “I know the governor’s way.”
This, however, was not a reply which pleased Polly. “What do you mean by the governor’s way?” she cried sharply. “You are not half respectful enough, if you would like to hear my opinion. You shouldn’t talk of the Captain like that; he’s a fine man, and he’s one that many in this town thinks a deal of.”
“Is he really?” said Law, in genuine surprise; “I did not know that. I wonder what kind of people they are? Is it far off where you live, Polly? I haven’t got a latchkey, so I don’t want to be very late.”
“You never thought of being late so long as youwere sitting by Emma; though what you can see in a little white-haired thing like that, like a white cat! You haven’t got a latchkey? I should think not at your age. Mr. Lawrence, take my advice, and never be so late out of bed unless there is a very good reason for it.”
“I like that!” cried Law, “when it was you that kept me there all the time.”
“I thought it would do you good,” said Polly. “I am almost sure you had not done a thing besides, or looked into a book for the whole day.”
“Oh! I should not mind standing an examination in theFamily Herald,” Law said with a laugh. He had occupied the post of reader in the workroom before, and knew a great deal about Lady Araminta. There could not be any doubt that he was very good-natured, and ready to make himself of use.
“I should like to know,” said Polly—and though he could scarcely see her face, Law felt, with a mixture of amusement and indignation, by the sound of her voice, that Polly, too, meant to give him good advice—“I should like to know, Mr. Lawrence, what you intend to be? Are you going into the army, like the Captain? If I were a young gentleman, that’s what I should choose above everything.”
“I can’t afford the army, worse luck,” cried Law; “we haven’t got any money, and a fellow can’t live on his pay. And there’s those dash’d examinations to pass everywhere before you can get into anything; it’s enough to drive a man out of his senses. I sometimes think I shall emigrate—that’s the only thing you can do without an examination.”
“But you can’t do that without money—a little money at least,” said Polly. “If I were you, I should make a push and get in somewhere. I can’t think how you can stay at home doing nothing, a great strong young man like you.”
“Oh! as for being strong, that don’t do much for an exam.,” said Law. “The little fellows stand the best chance there.”
“I wouldn’t make jokes about it, if I were you. I wonder how you can go on living on the Captain, and such a burden on him—both you and your sister——”
“Hallo,” said Law in extreme surprise. The mention of Lottie bewildered him. He was not even angry for the moment—he was so profoundly astonished.
“Yes, indeed, you and your sister too. You don’t show any consideration for the Captain, and how can you expect that he’s always to be thinking of you? The Captain is a young man still, and he is a fine man, and if he were to marry again, as would be very natural at his age, where would you and Miss Despard be?”
“Let my sister alone, if you please,” said Law, with a momentary flash of anger; and then he relapsed into a laugh. “The governor should be much obliged to you, Polly, for taking his part.”
“Somebody ought to take his part,” said Polly. “I don’t suppose he’s much over fifty—what I call quite a young man still; and why should he deny himself and spend all he’s got on two grown-up young people that ought to be making their own living? A man like the Captain, he wants his ease and his little comforts and a wife to look after him—that’s what he wants. He ain’t an old man to give in to his family. If I were to put upon my folks like that, do you think I’d be walking up St. Michael’s Hill at this hour of the night, after slaving and stitching all day? Not a bit of it, Mr. Lawrence. If I were to do as you’re doing, I might sit at home and make myself comfortable; but I was always one for being independent, and as for the Captain, poor dear! he oughtn’t to be spending his money upon them that can do for themselves. It is himself he ought to be thinking of, to get all the pleasure he can as long as he’s able to enjoy it. And if he were to marry again, as there’s nothing more likely, where would you and Miss Lottie be? Oh, yes, I know your names quite well,” said Polly. “We often talk about you. These sort of names for short are a mistake. For instance me, my name’s Maria, that’s a very lady-like name; but what does it matter when everybody calls me Polly? but, if my name’s common, nobody can say of me that I don’t behave handsome to my parents,” Polly said with emphasis. As for Law, he had felt himself growing hot and cold all through thisspeech. It plunged him into an entirely new world of thought. He tried to laugh, but there was no laughter in his mind.
“It is very kind of you, Polly,” he said, with scorn in his voice, “to take the trouble to give me so much good advice.”
“Oh, I assure you it’s not for your sake, but the Captain’s,” said Polly. “I told him if ever I had a chance with either of you, you should hear a bit of my mind—and I saw my opportunity to-night—that’s why I asked you to come with me, Mr. Lawrence. Oh, it wasn’t for the pleasure of your society! I told the Captain I’d give you a bit of my mind. This is my home, so I’ll bid you good-night, and I hope you’ll lay to heart what I say.”
Law turned up the Abbey Hill when thus dismissed with much secret excitement in his mind. It was altogether a new idea to him that his father was as Polly said, quite a young man still, and that it was on himself, not on his grown-up children, that his money should be spent. Law had never looked upon the income of the family as belonging exclusively to his father. Itwasthe family income, and it had seemed to him that he had just as good a right to have everything he wanted as his father had. As a matter of fact he did not get all he wanted, as Captain Despard managed to do; but that was because his father had the command of everything, not that hehad a better right to it than Law. The idea that he had no right at all, as Polly seemed to think, and that his father might make the home untenable by marrying somebody, perhaps Polly herself, struck him as the most extraordinary of revelations. It was too extraordinary to be thought of calmly—his brain boiled and bubbled with the extraordinariness and novelty of the thought. The governor, who was only not an old fogey because he was so much less respectable, less orderly than old fogeys ought to be!—Law could not associate his father’s image with the idea of, even, comparative youth. But he could not dismiss the suggestion from his mind. He tried to laugh, but something seemed to hang over him like a threat, like a cloud of evil omen. He walked quickly up the slope to the Abbey gate, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling in his mind—trying to postpone at least the new idea which he could not get rid of. When, however, Law had got into the Precincts he saw a passenger not much less active and considerably more jaunty than himself on the way before him, walking with a slight occasional lurch, up the pavement to the Lodges. The lurch was quite slight, and might not have been noticed by an indifferent eye, but Law noted it with the jealous observation of one whose own credit was at stake. It was hard upon a fellow, he thought, that his father should be seen going home night after night with a lurch in his walk, and that his name should berecognised in all the lowest quarters of the town as that of “the Captain’s son.” Why should he suffer for such a cause? Other old men were respectable, were no shame to their sons, but on the contrary furnished a margin of honour and reputation upon which to draw when there was occasion; but this was not the case with Captain Despard. Other old men—but there suddenly flashed across Law’s mind as he instinctively placed his father in this class, a recollection of the words which had just been said to him—“He is what I call a young man still.” Pricked by this thought, he looked at the figure before him with eyes suddenly cleared from the mists of habit and tradition, and saw it in an altogether new light. Captain Despard was straight and active: he carried his head high, and his step, though to-night slightly irregular, was both firm and light. To see him walking in front humming and whistling by turns, perhaps with a certain bravado to show how steady he was, gave Law the most uncomfortable sensation. It was true what Polly had said. This was no old fogey, no heavy father; though up to this moment Law had looked upon the Captain in no other light. He felt a shiver come over him, a sudden realisation of all the possibilities. Who should say that the governor ought not to do what he liked best, whatever that might be? Law felt conscious that he himself, who was so much younger, did what he liked in indifference to everybody’s opinion, and he wasunder no affectionate delusion as to the superior virtue of his father. What if Polly were right? Polly perhaps had a better chance of knowing the Captain’s wishes than either his son or his daughter, to whom he was not likely to talk on such subjects. A chill came over the lad though the night was so warm. Life had always seemed sure enough to him, though it had its privations. He had to put up with that chronic want of pocket-money—and with frequent “rows” from his father, and passionate remonstrances from Lottie. These were the drawbacks of existence; but Law was aware that, except in very favourable circumstances indeed, as when you were born a duke, or at least born to the possession of five thousand a year or so, existence was very seldom without drawbacks; this, however, was very much worse than the want of pocket-money; the governor with a new wife, perhaps Polly! The situation was too horrible to be realised, but for the moment the idea seemed to pour a current of ice into Law’s veins.
He had no latchkey, but as soon as he saw his father he made up his mind to take advantage of Captain Despard’s entrance in a way which he had found practicable before this. Light and swift as he was, when the Captain had fumbled and opened the door, Law stole close behind him and entered with him in the darkness. “What’s that?” Captain Despard growled, feeling the movement of the air as his sonpassed. “I’ll swear there’s a ghost in this house,” he added, grumbling to himself. Law, however, was safely out of the way before his father managed to strike a light, and went, swaying from side to side, up the narrow staircase which creaked under him. The young fellow, standing back in the darkness, saw Captain Despard’s face illuminated by the light of the candle he carried, and gazed at it with eyes sharpened by anxiety. It was a handsome face—the contour still perfect, the hair crisp and curling, a heavy military moustache shadowing the well-formed lip. The Captain was flushed, his eyes were blinking, half-closed, and that unloveliest look that can be seen on a man’s face, the look of partial intoxication approaching the sleepy stage, took all spirit and sentiment from him. Yet Law could not but acknowledge that his father was a handsome man. He stood quite still, watching that progress upstairs, half because he was unwilling to be seen, half because he was anxious to see. Captain Despard was “a fine man,” as Polly had said. Law could see now, looking at him between the bars of the railing which guarded the little staircase, that there was nothing in common between him and the old white-haired Chevaliers, old men not strong enough to be warlike, but courteous and gentle as becomes old soldiers, who sunned themselves on the pavement before the Lodges. Captain Despard, middle-aged and self-assertive, was as different aspossible from those old gentlemen with their honourable scars. He had none of their honours nor of the grace of old service; but he was strong in life and vigour, a kind of superiority which Law could appreciate. A grain of pride mingled in the exasperation with which he acknowledged this to himself—and yet he was not only exasperated but alarmed. He retired to bed very softly afterwards, creeping on tiptoe and in the dark up the stairs. There was still a gleam of light under Lottie’s door, but Law preferred not to direct his sister’s attention to the late hour of his own return by going straight to her room to relieve himself of his trouble. He did not want to be forced into confidences or to betray where he had himself been, and how he had heard the alarming prophecies which had so suddenly cleared his sight; and though the temptation was great he resisted it. Thus the lights were burning all at once in three of the little rooms in Captain Despard’s house, each illuminating a separate world of excitement, unsuspected by the others. The Captain’s share of the disturbance was less of the mind than the body. He had lost some money which he could not afford to lose, and was annoyed on this account; and he was excited, but more sleepy, on account of the potations which had accompanied his play. “By——, I’ll have it back to-morrow night—luck can’t be so against me one night after another.” This was the only burden of hissimple and uncomplicated reflections. He thought nothing of his children one way or another. Both his children, however, though in different ways, were thinking of him. Lottie, though she dared not openly sit up for her father, remained up in her own room until he came in, and she had made sure that he did not want anything, and was not likely to set the house on fire. But Law’s reflections were more serious than those of the other two. It seemed to the idle lad as if suddenly a real burden had got on to his shoulders. He was thoroughly frightened out of the pleasant calm of nature—the sense that everything must go on as everything had gone since he could remember. In later days, indeed, things had gone better for Law—Lottie had managed now and then to scrape a shilling or two off the housekeeping to give him, and of late she had not bullied him quite so much as usual. The current had been flowing more evenly—everything had conspired to make the happy-go-lucky of his life more smooth than before. He woke up with all the more fright and surprise to the sudden danger now.
Lottiehad gone home that night, it need not be said, with her head full of excitement. Had she not good reason to look upon this evening as of importance in her life? She had met the man who, before he had ever spoken to her, had, according to all appearances, placed her on the highest pinnacle on which a girl can be placed—the throne of a romantic love. Though it had been a temporary downfall to her to be placed in the charge of Mr. Ashford and the Signor, instead of crossing the Dean’s Walk in the company of this secret and poetical lover, yet she was almost glad to be thus let drop into quietness, to avert any word or look too much, which might have spoiled the visionary elevation on which she felt herself. Yes, she was glad that they had never been alone. Had he whispered an avowal of any kind into her ear, she was not, she knew, prepared for it; Lottie was honest even in her self-delusion, and she knew that, however profoundly to her advantage it might be, she could not make any response to a man whom she did not know, whom she was speaking to for the firsttime, notwithstanding her consciousness that he must have been thinking of her for a long time. She could not have made any fit reply. She must have said something which probably would have hurt him in the fervour of his romantic passion; for, though grateful to him and romantically touched by his evident devotion, Lottie could not have persuaded herself that he was anything to her except a delightful wonder and most flattering novelty. No, it was better, much better, that he did not come; she must have hurt his feelings, discouraged him, probably driven him away from her; and she was very far from wishing to drive him away. Lottie thought, with an innocent calculation, if she saw a little more of him, had a little time given her to make his acquaintance, that probably she would come to love him quite naturally and spontaneously; but at present it was not possible that she could do so, and she felt a natural shrinking from any premature disclosure of his feelings. Thus it was evidently most fortunate that the Dean had interposed, that Rollo had not been allowed to come home with her—fortunate, and yet a little disappointing too. There had been a very few words exchanged with her companions as they crossed the Dean’s Walk. Mr. Ashford had most kindly and courteously reminded her that she had expressed a wish to speak to him about something. “It is too late now to ask what it was,” he said; “I must not keep you out of doors at this hour;but if you will permit me, I will call and inquire in what way I can be of use to you?” “You know in what wayIwould like to be of use to you, Miss Despard,” the Signor said on the other side. All this was very flattering, even though she might be displeased by the Signor’s reiteration of his disagreeable offer. She made him a curtsey like Lady Caroline, while to the minor canon she gave her hand, which perhaps was quite sufficient to mark her different estimation of them. And indeed the Signor had been very kind about the accompaniments, which he had certainly played to perfection. This recollection came to her mind as he thanked her for her singing, undaunted by the stiffness of her leave-taking. “Indeed, I owe you more, a great deal more, than you can possibly owe me,” Lottie said, with a burst of compunction; “I never sang so well before, because I never had such an accompaniment.” “Then I hope I may accompany you very often again,” he said, with a smile, as he went away. Thus even with the Signor, Lottie felt herself in perfect good-humour and charity. A man who paid such compliments to her voice, how could she be hard upon him, even if he made a little mistake in respect to her position? And she went in out of the summer night in a state of celestial satisfaction with all the people surrounding her—and herself. Even Lady Caroline had melted into something which was warmth for her. She hadsaid, “I have enjoyed your singing very much, Miss Despard,” and had touched Lottie’s hand with two limp fingers—that was something, indeed it was much for Lady Caroline. And all the other great ladies had spoken, or at least had smiled upon Lottie, thanking her. What could she have wished for more? She went up into her little tiny room, which was not much bigger than Lady Caroline’s grand piano, and throwing off the Indian shawl (if Mrs. O’Shaughnessy could but have seen it!) on the floor, sat down upon her little white bed and began to think. To think! nothing of the sort—to go over everything that had happened, with a dazzle of light and delight and triumph round her. She seemed to herself to have thrown down all the boundaries that had hitherto separated her from her lawful sphere. If a suitor should come from that higher and better world who could wonder now? Had she not been adopted into it—received to her just place at last?
And naturally it was upon Rollo that her recollections chiefly centred; he was the chief figure of the whole company to Lottie. She remembered minutely everything he had said and done, the expression of his face (though she put infinitely more meaning in it than was there), the tone of his voice. How the room had become at once full of interest, of excitement, when he came in, clearing away all the dimness! Lottie had scarcely time even to wonder how and wheretheir next meeting would be, for thinking of this first meeting. How his face had lighted up when he saw that she was there; how he had been caught by some one on his way to her, and kept talking in spite of himself, with his eyes upon her all the time; how he had escaped and pressed through all the fine company to get to her side; how he had confessed that he had but a very visionary right to claim her acquaintance at all, but nevertheless meant to stand on that right as, for the time being, the son of the house! Lottie had scarcely forgotten a word of all he said. And, as a matter of fact, Rollo had been very careful to behave himself with due discretion, not to make it too apparent that her voice was the thing that most interested him. She thought that he admired her singing as a part of his enthusiasm for herself. She had not a suspicion of the real state of the case. It seemed to her that her voice was a delightful discovery to him, a somethingpardessus le marché, an added charm; that it was the sole foundation of his apparent enthusiasm never occurred to the girl; neither, though she knew that her general triumph was caused by her singing, did she solely set down to that cause the friendly looks and smiles and flattering compliments she had received. This was absurd, but we do not pretend that Lottie was beyond the reach of absurdity. She knew that it was her singing which had suddenly silenced all the conversation going on in the room, and called the attention of everybody; but yet it was surely something more; it was herself, not her voice, which brought that kindly look to their eyes as they smiled upon her. It is hard to acknowledge to ourselves that it is for some special, perhaps accidental, quality we may possess, that we are favoured and esteemed by our fellow-creatures. Human nature is humbled by the conviction that it is the possession of a gift worthy of popularity which makes an individual popular. We all prefer to be prized for nothing at all, for ourselves. And this, in the face of circumstances, and clean against all reason, was what Lottie hoped and determinedly believed. She could not consent to the other idea. To be praised and made friends withfor her voicewas intolerable. The only approbation which is really flattering and delightful is that which is given upon no ground at all.
She had been sitting thus for some time on her bed, musing, with eyes that sparkled and a heart that fluttered with happiness; and had taken off her evening gown, and loosed the roses from her hair, and wrapped her white shining satin shoulders in a white cotton dressing-gown; and had even brushed out those long dark locks, and twisted them up again close to her head for the night, with innumerable fancies twisted out and in of all she did, before Captain Despard, fumbling for the key-hole, opened his own door and came in, in the dark. It was Lottie’s habit to situp till he came in, but to-night she had been too much occupied by her own concerns to hear his approach, and it was only when he came upstairs that she woke up to think of him. Lottie’s experienced ear caught the lurch in his step, just as Law’s experienced eye had caught it. “Again!” she said to herself, with a momentary flash of anger; but it did not make her wretched as it might have done a more sensitive daughter. Lottie was accustomed to accept her father without question, not expecting much of him, and somewhat disposed, when he did not come up even to the little she expected, to satisfy herself that it was just like papa. But his entrance relieved her from her habitual vigil. She heard Law steal upstairs afterwards, and wondered how or when he had got in, and where he went at night, with more curiosity than she expended on her father; but even that did not much disturb Lottie, who had been used all her life to irregular entrances and exits. After a while all was still in the little house, notwithstanding the anxieties and excitements collected under its roof. Disquietude and trouble could not keep Law from sleeping any more than excitement and triumph could keep his sister; and, as for the Captain, the sleep of the just was never so profound as that which wrapped him in a not too lovely tranquillity. The air was all thrilling with emotion of one kind or another, but they slept as profoundly as if they had not a care in the world—assoundly as the good O’Shaughnessys next door, who had been asleep since eleven o’clock, and who had no cares but those of their neighbours to disquiet them; or old Colonel Dalrymple on the other side, who dozed through his life. The soft night stilled them all, young and old and middle-aged, in their kind, just as it held in soft shadow the Abbey, with all its grey pinnacles and immemorial towers. Nature cared nothing for the troubles of life; but life submitted to the gentle yoke of nature, which relieves the soul, while it binds the body, and makes a temporary truce and armistice with all the army of mortal cares.
Next morning Law lounged into the little drawing-room after breakfast with a big book in his hand. He had almost given up the pretence of reading for some time, so that it was all the more wonderful to see a book which was not a yellow railway novel in his hand. Lottie had been up early, awakened by the commotion in her mind, which did not allow her to rest—or rather which prevented her from going to sleep again when the early noises of the morning woke her up. Accordingly she had got through a great deal of her ordinary household work by this time, when Law, after a breakfast which was later than usual, lounged in upon her. He was very big, and filled up the little room; and his habit of doing as little as possible, and his want of money, which made some imperfections in his toilet inevitable, gave him a look of indolence andshabbiness such as was not natural to his age, or even to his disposition, for by nature Law was not lazy. He came sauntering in with one hand in his pocket, and with his book under the other arm; and he sat down in the only easy-chair the room contained, exasperating Lottie, to whom his very bigness seemed an offence. There were times when she was proud of Law’s size, his somewhat heavy good-looks, his athletic powers; but this morning, as many times before, the very sight of those long limbs jarred upon her. What was the use of all that superfluous length and strength? He took the only easy-chair, and stretched out his long limbs half across the room, and Lottie at the height of her activity felt impatience rise and swell within her. She could not put up with Law that morning. His indolence was an offence to her.
“What do you want, Law?” she said, in a voice which was not so sweet as it had been at the Deanery. She gave a rapid glance up at him as she went on with her darning, and took in the whole picture, the easy-chair and the lounging attitude. If he had sat upright upon the little hard wickerwork chair, Lottie would have felt more merciful.
“Well, I want nothing in particular, except to talk to you a little,” said Law. “You need not be so cross.”
“I am not cross; but to see you in an easy-chair, idling away all the morning——”
“How do you know I’ve been idling this morning?Look at my book: that’s Virgil,” said Law, looking at it with simple admiration. “I don’t think a fellow could do much better than that.”
“But have youreallybeen reading?” Lottie’s tone modified; she began to look at him with respect. “Oh, Law, if you only would work! it would make such a difference, it would make me quite happy. I was speaking to Mr. Ashford last night. You know Mr. Ashford, the minor canon. He is so clever with his pupils. If you could but go to him, if he would only take you, Law!”
“He would take me fast enough if we could afford the money. I say, Lottie, the governor was awfully late last night: did you hear him coming in? I want to tell you something about him—something I have heard.”
“I think you were very late, too, Law.”
“Oh! never mind about that; it does not matter about me. Lottie, listen. A friend—I mean somebody—was speaking to me about him. Did it ever come into your head that he was not an old man, and that such a thing was possible as that he might—it seems too ridiculous to say it—marry again?”
“Marry again? you are dreaming!” cried Lottie loudly, in her astonishment.
“Yes, while we knew nothing of it. After all, when you come to think of it, when you look at him, you know, he is not so awfully old. One thinks hemust be, because he is one’s father. But some of these old beggars are just as silly”—said Law in awestruck tones, “and you can’t stop them doing things as you can a fellow that is young. It is an awful shame! a fellow that is under age, as they call it, you can pull him up, though there’s no harm in him; but an old fellow of fifty, you can’t stop him, whatever nonsense he may set his face to. That’s what I heard last night.”
“It is not true. I don’t believe a single word of it,” said Lottie. “You must have been in very strange company, Law,” she added with severity, “to hear all this gossip about papa.”
Lottie did not mean to pass such a tremendous sentence on her father; she spoke simply enough. To hear this gossip her brother must have been in haunts such as those that Captain Despard frequented. She did not know what they were, but she knew they were evil; therefore she made use of this weapon instinctively, which she found, as it were, lying by her, not meaning any censure upon her father, only a necessary reproof to Law.
“You may say what you please about bad company,” he said, “but that’s what I heard; that he wasn’t so old after all; and what would become of us if he married again? It was not gossip. I believe really, though I was very angry at the time, that it was meant kindly; it was meant for a warning. Youwould have thought so yourself, if you had been there.”
“I do not believe a word of it,” said Lottie; but she had grown pale. She did not ask again who had told him or where he had been; she set herself seriously to prove the thing to be false, which showed that she was not so sure of not believing it as she pretended to be. “It is all a falsehood,” she went on. “Is papa a man to do that sort of thing? Marry! he would have to give us a great many things if he married. He could not afford to spend his money as he does; he would not be allowed to be always out in the evenings as he is now. Why, even poor mamma, she did not give in to him as we are obliged to do; he had to pay a little attention to her—sometimes. And now he has got more used to do what he likes than ever, and has more money to spend; do you think he would give up thatfor a wife?” cried Lottie with disdain. “It only shows that you don’t know papa.”
“Ah! but you don’t know——” said Law. He was about to say “Polly,” but stopped in time. “You don’t know what might be put into his head, Lottie. He might be made to believe that to get rid of us would put all right. If he got rid of us, don’t you see? he would want a woman in the house; and if it was some one he liked himself, that would make herself agreeable to him, and flatter him, and coddle him—that would please him better,” said Law, with precociousknowledge of a man’s requirements, “than you, who are always trying to keep things straight but not to humour him, Lottie; or me—that am of no use at all.”
Lottie grew paler and paler during this explanation. She had never humoured her father, it was true. She had made desperate exertions “to keep things straight,” to recover the family credit, to pay the bills, to keep regular hours; but, with the hardihood of youth, she had not hesitated even to stint her father of a meal when it seemed to her impetuous determination to be necessary, and she had not flattered him, nor made his convenience the absolute rule of the household, as some girls would have been wise enough to do. Lottie had reflected that he kept the lion’s share of the family income to himself, and was quite able to make up for any shortcomings in her bill of fare; and she had carried out her regulations with a high hand, feeling no compulsion upon her, no primary necessity to please her father. She perceived all this at a glance while Law spoke, and immediately felt herself confronting such a breach of all the ordinary usages of her life as made her shiver. What might he not do? turn them out suddenly from his doors, out upon the world, at any moment whenever he pleased. He had the power to do it whenever he pleased, whatever seemed to him good. She drew a long shivering breath, feeling as if all were over, as if already she heard the door clanging and barred behind her, andwas looking out penniless and destitute upon the world, not knowing where to go. Was it possible that such a fate was reserved for her? She became as white as her dress with that sudden panic of the imagination which is more terrible than any reality. Law was very anxious and alarmed also, but he had got over the worst on the previous night, and it gave him a kind of half pleasure to see how he had frightened Lottie; though, at the same time, the effect of his communication upon her deepened his own conviction of the danger about to overtake them. He leaned back in his easy-chair with a certain solemn satisfaction, and stretched his long legs farther across the room than ever.
“You see, Lottie,” he said, “it is what I have told you before; you never would humour him. I don’t say that he’s not unreasonable, but he might never perhaps have dropped among those sort of people if you had laid yourself out to——”
Lottie sprang to her feet in a sudden gust of passion. She took Law by the shoulders, and with the sudden surprise of her assault got the better of him and turned him out of the chair. “You sit there, lolling all over the room,” she cried, “and tell me my duty, you lazy, idle, useless boy! If papa turns you out, it will serve you right. You have a hundred things open to you; you have the whole world open to you; but you will not so much as take the trouble to passthe door. You would like to be carried over all the ditches, to be set up on a throne, to have everything and to do nothing. It will serve you right! And where do you get all this gossip about papa?” she went on. “Who are the sort of people you are spending your time with? You thought I did not know how late you came in last night. Where were you, Law? where are you always, all these long evenings? You say you are going out, and you never mind that I am sitting in the house all alone. You go somewhere, but I never hear that you have been with anybody—anybody in our own class——”
“In our own class! I wonder what is our own class?” said Law, with a scornful sense of the weakness of the position. “Would you like me to take a hand in old O’Shaughnessy’s rubber, or read the papers to old Dalrymple? They are half as old again as the governor himself. I suppose that’s what you call my own class.”
Lottie felt that she had laid herself open to defeat, and the consciousness subdued her greatly. She sat down again on her little chair, and looked up at him as he stood leaning upon the door, red with indignation at her onslaught. Lottie herself was flushed with the exertion and the shame of having thus afforded him an opportunity for a scoff. She eluded the dilemma as he proposed it, however, and flung herself back into the larger question: “You are grown up,” she said, indignantly; “a great big boy, looking like a man. It is a disgrace to you to be dependent on papa. It would be a good thing for you, a very good thing, if he were to—marry, as you say, and cast you off, and force you to work for yourself. What else have I been saying to you for years?”
“And what would it be for you?” said Law, taking, she thought, an unkind advantage of her; “there are two of us to be considered. What would it be for you, Lottie, I should like to know? What could you do any more than I?”
He stood up against the door, with a provoking smile on his face, and his big book under his arm, taunting her with her helplessness, even Lottie felt, with her high notions, which made her helplessness all the worse. He smiled, looking down upon her from that serene height. “If the worst came to the worst,” said Law, “I could always carry a hod or ’list for a soldier. I don’t stand upon our class as you do. I haven’t got a class. I don’t mind if I take the shilling to-morrow. I have always thought it would be a jolly life.”
Lottie gave a scream of horror, and flew upon him, seizing his coat collar with one hand, while she threatened him with her small nervous fist, at which Law laughed. “Will you dare to speak of ’listing to me,” she said, flaming like a little fury; “you, an officer’s son, and a gentleman born!” Then she brokedown, after so many varieties of excitement. “Oh, Law, for the sake of Heaven, go to Mr. Ashford! I will get the money somehow,” she said, in a broken voice, melting into tears, through which her eyes shone doubly large and liquid. “Don’t break my heart! I want you to be better than we are now, not worse. Climb up as far, as far as you please, above us; but don’t fall lower. Don’t forget you are a gentleman, unless you want to break my heart.”
And then, in the overflow of feeling, she leaned her head upon his shoulder, which she had just gripped with fury, and cried. Law found this more embarrassing than her rage, at which he laughed. He was obliged to allow her to lean upon him, pushing his book out of the way, and his heart smote him for making Lottie unhappy. By this time it could not be said that he was unhappy himself. He had shuffled off his burden, such as it was, upon her shoulders. He shifted his book, and stood awkwardly enough, permitting her to lean upon him; but it cannot be said that he was much of a prop to his sister. He held himself so as to keep her off as far as possible. He was not unkind, but he was shy, and did not like to be placed in a position which savoured of the ridiculous. “I wish you wouldn’t cry,” he said, peevishly. “You girls always cry—and what’s to be got by crying? I don’t want to ’list if I can help it. I’d rather be an officer—but I can’t be an officer; or get intosomething; but I never was bred up to anything; and what can I do?”
“You can go to Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, feeling herself repulsed, and withdrawing from him with a glimmer of indignation relighted in her eyes. “I met him last night, and I spoke to him about you. He seems very kind. If you go to him, he will at least tell us whether he thinks you have a chance for anything. Oh, Law, now that you do see the necessity——”
“But it’s a great deal more serious for you,” said the lad, mischievously. He was not unkind, but it seemed something like fun to him to treat Lottie as she had treated him so often, holding up before him the terrors and horrors of his idleness. Because she was a girl, did that make any difference? She had just as good a right to be bullied as he had, and to be made to see how little she could do for herself. Emma, who was younger than Lottie, worked for her living, and why should not Lottie do the same? why should she be exempted? Thus Law reasoned, whom Lottie, it must be allowed, had never spared. He watched, with mischievous curiosity, making an experiment, not knowing whether it would be successful or not. But the way in which Lottie took it after this did not give Law the amusement he expected. She sat down again in her chair, taking no further notice of him and relapsed into her own thoughts whenhe could not follow her. His own mind, however, had recovered its elasticity; for, after all, if the worst came to the worst, if the governor was such an ass as to marry Polly, it would not matter so very much to Law. Something, there was no doubt, would turn up; or he would ’list—that was an alternative not to be despised. He was tall enough for the Guards, among whom Law had often heard a great many gentlemen were to be found; and the life was a jolly life—no bother about books, and plenty of time for amusement. There was nothing really in the circumstances to appal him now he had considered them fully. But it was a great deal more serious for Lottie. After all the bullying he had endured at her hands, Law may perhaps be excused if, in sheer thoughtlessness, he rather enjoyed the prospect of this turning of the tables upon his sister. He wondered how she would like it when it came to her turn, she who was so ready to urge himself to the last limits of patience. He did not wish anything unpleasant to happen to her. He would not have had her actually brought into contact with Polly, or placed under her power. But that Lottie should “just see how she liked it herself” was pleasant to him. It would not do her any real harm, and perhaps it would teach her to feel for other people, and understand that they did not like it either. A slight tinge of remorse crossed Law’s mind as he saw how pale and serious she looked, sitting there thinking; but he shifted hisVirgil to his other arm, and went away, steeling his heart against it. It would make her feel for other people in future. To have it brought home to herself would do her no harm.