Lawhad left Mr. Ashford, not knowing, as the vulgar have it, if he stood on his head or his heels. He had somewhat despised the Minor Canon, not only as a clergyman and an instructor, intending to put something into Law’s luckless brains, yet without force enough to do it effectually, but as a man, much too mild and gentle to make any head against the deceitfulness of mankind, and all those guiles and pretences in which an unwilling student like Law knows himself so much more profoundly informed than any of his pastors and teachers can be. The sense of superiority with which such a youth, learned in all manner of “dodges” and devices for eluding work, contemplates the innocent senior who has faith in his excuses, was strong in Law’s mind towards his last tutor, who was so much less knowing than any of the others, that he had taken him “for nothing,” without even the pay which his earlier instructor, Mr. Langton, had been supposed to receive: supposed—for Captain Despard was paymaster, and he was not any more to be trustedto for recollecting quarter-day than Law was to be trusted to for doing his work. But Mr. Ashford had never said anything about pay. He had taken Law for his sister’s sake, “for love,” as the young man said lightly; taken him as an experiment, to see what could be made of him, and kept him on without a word on either side of remuneration. This curious conduct, which might have made the pupil grateful, had no such result, but filled him instead with a more entire contempt for the intellects of his benefactor. It is easy, in the estimation of young men like Law, to be learned and wise in book-learning, yet a “stupid” in life; and if anything could have made this fact more clear, it would have been the irregularity of the business transaction as between a non-paying pupil and a “coach” who gave just as much attention to him as if he had been an important source of revenue. “What a soft he must be! What a stupid he is,” had been Law’s standing reflection. But he had liked all the same the object of his scorn, and had felt “old Ashford” to be “very jolly,” notwithstanding his foolish believingness, and still more foolish indifference to his own profit. It was this which had made him go to the Minor Canon with such a frankness of appeal—but he had not been in the least prepared for the reply he received. It took away his breath. Though it was a superlative proof of the same “softness” which hadmade Mr. Ashford receive a pupil who paid him nothing, the dazzled youth could no longer regard it with contempt. Though he was tolerably fortified against invasions of emotion, there was something in this which penetrated to his heart. Suddenly, in a moment, to be lifted out of his dull struggle with books which he could not understand, and hopeless anticipation of an ordeal he could never pass, and to have the desire of his heart given to him, without any trouble of his, without price or reward, was all very wonderful to Law. At first he could not believe it. To think “old Ashford” was joking—to think that a man so impractical did not put the ordinary meaning into his words—this was the first natural explanation; but when the Minor Canon’s first recollection that “he knew a man” brightened into the prospect of money to pay the young emigrant’s passage, and an actual beginning of his career, Law did not know, as we have said, whether he was standing upon solid ground or floating in the air. The happiness was almost too much for him. He went up to London next day by Mr. Ashford’s suggestion, and, at his cost, to learn all particulars about the voyage, but kept his own secret until it had gained so much of solid foundation as the actual sight of a ship which was bound for Australia, a printed account of the times of sailing, and fares, and an outfitter’s list of indispensables, could give; then, still dazzled bythe sudden fulfilment of his wishes, but feeling his own importance, and the seriousness of his position as a future emigrant, Law had endeavoured to find an opportunity of communicating the great news to Lottie, but had failed, as has been seen. And having thus failed, and seeing in her none of the eager desire to know what he was about, which he thought would have been natural in circumstances so profoundly interesting, Law got up from the table and went out with a certain sense of injury in his mind. He saw there was “something up” in respect to his sister herself, but he did not take very much interest in that. Yet he thought it curiously selfish of her, almost incomprehensibly selfish, to ask no question, show no concern in what was happening to him. He had said, “I am going to Australia!” but had he said, “I am going to play football,” she could not have taken it more calmly; and she had never asked a question since. What funny creatures women are, one time so anxious about you, another time caring nothing, Law said to himself; but he was not at all conscious that it might have been natural for him too to take some interest in Lottie’s affairs. He did not. It was some rubbish, he supposed, about that fellow Ridsdale. He thought of the whole business with contempt. Far more important, beyond all comparison, were those affairs which were his own.
And when he went out, a little angry, irritated, but full of excitement and elation, and eager to find somebody who would take due interest in the story of his good fortune, where could Law’s footsteps stray but to the place where they had turned so often in his idleness and hopelessness? He had gone once before since the visit of Polly, and had been confronted by Mrs. Welting, now established in the workroom, to the confusion of all the little schemes of amusement by which the girls had solaced the tedium of their lives. “Mother” had been glad enough to be allowed to look after her house in quiet, and the rest of the family, without troubling herself about her girls. But the sharp prick of Polly’s denunciation had given Mrs. Welting new ideas of her duty. Would she let it be said by an artful creature like that, who had done the same thing herself, asherdaughters were laying themselves out to catch a gentleman? Not for all the world! She would not have a girl of hers marry a gentleman, not for anything, Mrs. Welting said. She forbade the little expeditions they were in the habit of making in turns for thread and buttons. She would not allow even theFamily Herald. She scolded “for nothing at all,” resenting her compulsory attendance there, and banishment from her domestic concerns. The workroom was quite changed. There was no jollity in it, no visitors, not half so much chatter as hadbeen carried on gaily while Polly was paramount. “She took all the good herself, but she never could bear seeing anyone else happy,” Emma said, who was doubly aggrieved. And it could not be said that the work improved under this discipline. The moment altogether was not happy; and when Law, by dint of wandering about the windows, and whistling various airs known to the workroom, made his presence known, Emma, when her mother withdrew, as she did perforce as the evening got on, and it became necessary to look after the family supper, the younger children, and her lodgers—came cautiously out to meet him, with a cloak about her shoulders. “I haven’t got a moment to stay,” Emma said. “Mother would take off my head if she found me out!” Yet she suffered herself to be drawn a few steps from the door, and round the corner to the riverside, where, on this wintry evening, there was nobody about, and the river itself in the darkness was only discernible by the white swell and foam round the piers of the bridge, by which it rushed on its headlong passage to the weir. Here, now going, now coming, a few wary steps at a time, awaiting a possible warning from the window of the lighted workroom, the two wandered in the damp darkness, and Emma, opening large eyes of astonishment, heard of all that was about to happen. “Old Ashford has behaved like a brick,” Law said. “He is going to giveme introductions to people he knows, and he means to give me my passage-money too, and something to begin upon!”
“Lor!” cried Emma, “what is it for? Is he going to marry your sister?” Her attention was awakened, but she did not think she had anything to do with it; she was so much afraid of not hearing any possible tap on the window, or not having time to run home before her absence was discovered.
“Now look here, Emma,” said Law. He did not speak with any enthusiasm of tenderness, but calmly, as having something serious to propose. “If I go away, you know, it’s for life; it’s not gone to-day and back to-morrow, like a soldier ordered off to the Colonies. I’m going to make my living, and my fortune, if I can, and settle there for life. No, nobody’s knocking at the window. Can’t you give me your attention for a moment? I tell you, if I go, it’s for life.”
“Lor!” said Emma, startled. “You don’t mean to say as you’ve come to say good-bye, Mr. Law? and you as always said you were so true. But I do believe none of you young men ever remembers nor thinks what he’s been saying,” she added with a half whimper. A lover’s desertion is never a pleasant thing in any condition of life.
“It’s just because of that I’m here,” said Law, sturdily. “I remember all I’ve ever said. I’ve cometo put it to you, Emma, straightforward. I am going away, as I tell you, for life. Will you come with me? that’s the question. There is not very much to spare, and there’s the outfit to get, but it will go hard if I can’t draw old Ashford for your passage-money,” said the grateful recipient of the Minor Canon’s bounty; “and it would be a new start and a new life, and I’d do the best I could for you. Emma, you must make up your mind quick, for there isn’t much time. The boat sails—well, I can’t exactly tell you when she sails; but in a fortnight or so——”
“A fortnight!” Emma cried, with a sense of dismay.
“Yes. We needn’t have a very grand wedding, need we? Emigrants must be careful both of their money and their time.”
“Emigrants? I don’t know what you mean by emigrants—it don’t sound much,” said the girl, with a cloud upon her face.
“No, it is not very fine. It means people that are going to settle far away, on the other side of the world. Australia is—I don’t know how many thousand miles away.”
“Can you go there by land?” said Emma. “You needn’t laugh—how was I to know? Oh, I can’t abide going in a ship.”
“That’s a pity, for you can’t go in anything else.But it’s a fine big ship, and every care taken. Look here, Emma, you must make up your mind. Will you go?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Emma; “I can’t tell; how long would you be in the ship? It isn’t what I ever expected,” she said in a plaintive voice. “A hurry, and a fuss, and then a long sea-voyage. Oh, I don’t think I should like it, Mr. Law.”
“The question is, do you like me?” said Law, with a little thrill in his deep yet boyish bass. “You couldn’t like the parting and all that—it wouldn’t be natural; but do you likemewell enough to put up with it? I don’t want you to do anything you don’t like, but when I go it will be for good, and you must just make up your mind which you like best—to go with me, though there’s a good deal of trouble, or to stay at home, and good-bye to me for ever.”
At this, Emma began to cry. “Oh, I shouldn’t like to say good-bye for ever,” she said; “I always hated saying good-bye. I don’t know what to do; it would be good-bye to mother, and Ellen, and them all. And never to come back again would be awful! I shouldn’t mind if it was for a year or two years, but never to come back—I don’t know what to do.”
“We might come home on a visit, if we got very rich,” said Law, “or we might have some of the others out to see us.”
“Oh, for a visit!” said Emma. “But they’d miss me dreadful in the workroom. Oh, I wish I knew what to say.”
“You must choose for yourself—you must please yourself,” said Law, a little piqued by the girl’s many doubts; then he softened again. “You know, Emma,” he said, “when a girl gets married it’s very seldom she has her own people near her, and I don’t know that it’s a good thing when she has. People say, at least, husband and wife ought to be enough for each other. And, supposing it was only to London, it would still be away from them.”
“Oh, but it would be different,” cried Emma; “if one could come back now and again, and see them all; but to live always hundreds of thousands of miles away.”
“Not hundreds of thousands; but a long voyage that takes months——”
“Months!” Emma uttered a cry. “Too far to have mother if you were ill,” she said, casting her mind over the eventualities of the future; “too far, a deal too far for a trip to see one. I don’t think it would be nice at all. Mr. Law, couldn’t you, oh, couldn’t you stop at home?”
“Perhaps you’d tell me what I should do if I stayed at home,” said Law, not without a touch of contempt. “It’s more than I can tell. No, I can’t stay at home.There is nothing I could do here. It is Australia or nothing, Emma; you must make up your mind to that.”
“Oh, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay in London; there are always places to be got there; you might look in the papers and see. Mother used to get theTimesfrom the public-house, a penny an hour, when Willie was out of a place. Did you ever answer any advertisement, or try—really try?”
“All that is nothing to the purpose,” said Law, with some impatience. “The advertisements may be all very well, but I know nothing about them. I am going to Australia whether or not. I’ve quite made up my mind. Now the thing is, will you come too?”
Emma did not know what answer to make. The going away was appalling, but to lose her gentleman-lover, though he was banished from the workroom, was a great humiliation. Then she could not but feel that there was a certain excitement and importance in the idea of preparing for a sudden voyage, and being married at seventeen, the first of the family. But when she thought of the sea and the ship, and the separation from everything, Emma’s strength of mind gave way. She could not do that. The end was that, driven back and forward between the two, she at last faltered forth a desire to consult “Mother” before deciding. Law, though he was contemptuous of thisweakness, yet could not say anything against it. Perhaps it was necessary that a girl should own such a subjection. “If you do, I can tell you beforehand what she will say,” he cried. “Then Ellen; I’ll ask Ellen,” said Emma. “Oh, I can’t settle it out of my own head.” And then the girl started, hearing the signal on the window, and fled from him, breathless. “Mother’s come to shut up,” she said. Law walked away, not without satisfaction, when this end had been attained. He was more anxious to have the question settled than he was anxious to have Emma. Indeed, he was not at all blind to the fact that he was too young to marry, and that there were disadvantages in hampering himself even in Australia with such a permanent companion. Then, too, all that he could hope for from Mr. Ashford was enough for his own outfit and passage, and he did not see how hers was to be managed. But, still, Law had been “keeping company” with Emma for some time, and he acknowledged the duties of that condition according to the interpretation put upon it in the order to which Emma belonged. Clearly, when good fortune came to a young man who was keeping company with a young woman, it was right that he should offer her a share of it. If she did not accept it, so much the better; he would have done what honour required without any further trouble. As Law walked up the hill again, he reflectedthat on the whole it would be much better if he were allowed to go to Australia alone. No one could know how things would turn out. Perhaps the man Mr. Ashford knew might be of little use, perhaps he might have to go from one place to another; or he might not succeed at first; or many things might happen which would make a wife an undesirable burden. He could not but hope that things might so arrange themselves as that Emma should drop back into her natural sphere in the workroom, and he be left free. Poor little Emma! if this were the case, he would buy her a locket as a keepsake off Mr. Ashford’s money, and take leave of her with comfort. But in the other case, if she should make up her mind to go with him, Law was ready to accept the alternative. His good fortune put him doubly on his honour. He would prefer to be free, yet, if he were held to it, he was prepared to do his duty. He would not let her perceive that he did not want her. But, on the whole, he would be much better satisfied if “Mother” interfered. Having disposed of this matter, Law began to think of his outfit, which was very important, wondering, by the way, if Emma went, whether her family would provide hers? but yet keeping this question, as uncertain, quite in the background. He recalled to himself the list he had got in his pocket, with its dozens of shirts and socks, with no small satisfaction. Was it possible thathe could become the owner of all that? The thought of becoming the owner of a wife he took calmly, hoping he might still avoid the necessity; but to have such a wardrobe was exciting and delightful. He determined to get Lottie to show him how to mend a hole and sew on a button. To think that Lottie knew nothing about his plans, and had never asked him what he meant, bewildered him when he thought of it. What could be “up” in respect to her? Something like anxiety crossed Law’s mind; at least, it was something as much like anxiety as he was capable of—a mingling of surprise and indignation; for were not his affairs a great deal more important than anything affecting herself could be? This was the idea of both. Law was going to Australia, but Lottie was going to be married, a still more important event! and each felt that in heaven and earth no other such absorbing interest existed. It must be said, however, for Lottie, that Law’s whispered communication counted for nothing with her, since she knew no way in which it could be possible. Wild hopes that came to nothing had gleamed across his firmament before. How could he go to Australia? As easy to say that he was going to the moon; and in this way it took no hold upon her mind; while he, for his part, had no clue whatever to the disturbing influence in Lottie’s thoughts.
Thenight after that decisive talk upon the Slopes was a trying one for Rollo Ridsdale. He went home with the fumes of his resolution in his mind. Now the die was cast. Whatever prudence might say against it, the decision was made, and his life settled for him, partly by circumstances, but much more by his personal will and deed. And he did not regret what he had done. It was a tremendous risk to run; but he had confidence that Lottie’s voice was as good as a fortune, and that in the long run there would be nothing really imprudent in it. Of course it must be kept entirely “quiet.” No indiscreet announcements in the newspapers, no unnecessary publicity must be given to the marriage. Whosoever was absolutely concerned should know; but for the general public, what did it matter to them whether the bond which bound a man of fashion to a celebrated singer was legitimate or not? Lottie would not wish for society, she would not feel the want of society, and particularly in the interval, while she was still not a celebrated singer, itwas specially necessary that all should be kept “quiet.” He would take her to Italy, and it would be not at all needful to introduce any stray acquaintance who might happen to turn up, to his wife. In short, there was no occasion for introducing anyone to her. Lottie would not want anything. She would be content with himself. Poor darling! what wonderful trust there was in her! By this time he was able to half-laugh at his own guilty intention, which she had so completely extinguished by her inability to understand it, her perfect acceptance of it as all that was honourable and tender. He was going to do the right thing now—certainly the right thing, without any mistake about it; but still that it should be made to look like the wrong thing, was the idea in Rollo’s mind. He would take her to Italy and train her for her future career; but neither at the present time nor in the future would it be necessary to put the dots upon the i’s in respect to her position. As for Lottie, he knew very well that she, having no doubt about her position, would not insist upon any publication of it. It would never once occur to her that there was any possibility of being misconstrued.
With these thoughts in his mind, Rollo dressed very hastily for dinner, as he had lingered with Lottie to the last moment. And as it happened, this was the very evening which Augusta chose for discussingopenly the subject to which she had, without speaking of it, already devoted all her powers of research since she had arrived at home. In the evening after dinner Rollo was the only one of the gentlemen who came into the drawing-room. Augusta’s husband was an inoffensive and silent man, with what are called “refined tastes.” For one thing he was in a mild way an antiquary. He did not enter very much into his wife’s life, nor she into his. She was fashionable, he had refined tastes; they were perfectly good friends; and though not yet married six months, followed each their own way. Spencer Daventry had gone to his father-in-law’s study accordingly, to investigate some rare books, and his wife was in the drawing-room alone—that is, not exactly alone, for Lady Caroline was “on the sofa.” When Lady Caroline was on the sofa she did not trouble anybody much, and even the coming in of the lamps had not disturbed her. She had “just closed her eyes.” Her dress was carefully drawn over her feet by Mrs. Daventry’s care, and a waddedcouvre-piedin crimson satin laid over them. Augusta liked to see to every little decorum, and would have thought the toe of her mother’s innocent shoe an improper revelation. Perhaps it was by her orders that Mr. Daventry had not come in. There was no company that evening, and when Rollo entered the drawing-room, he saw at once that he had falleninto a trap. Augusta sat on a comfortable chair by the fire, with a small table near her and a lamp upon it. The other lights were far away, candles twinkling in the distance on the piano, and here and there against the walls: but only this one spot by the fire in warm and full light; and a vacant chair stood invitingly on the other side of Augusta’s table. No more snug arrangement for atête-à-têtecould have been, for Lady Caroline was nothing but a bit of still life—more still almost than the rest of the furniture. Augusta looked up as her cousin came in, with a smile.
“Alone?” she said; “then come here, Rollo, and let us have a talk.”
Rollo would not have been Rollo if he had felt any repugnance to this amusement. Needless to say that in their boy and girl days there had been passages of something they were pleased to call love between the cousins; and equally needless to add that all this had long been over, both being far too sensible (though one had been led astray by Lottie, to his own consternation and confusion) to think of any serious conclusion to such a youthful folly. Rollo sat down with mingled pleasure and alarm. He liked a confidential talk with any woman; but in this case he was not without fear.
And his fears were thoroughly well founded as itturned out. After a few preliminaries about nothing at all, Augusta suddenly plunged into her subject.
“I am very glad,” she said, “to have a chance of speaking to you, by ourselves. Mamma does not pay any attention; it is quite the same as if she were not there. You know I’ve always taken a great interest in you, Rollo. We are cousins, and we are very old friends—more like brother and sister.”
“I demur to the brother and sister; but as old friends as memory can go,” said he; “and very happy to be permitted all the privileges of a cousin—with such a good fellow as Daventry added on.”
“Oh, yes. Spencer’s very nice,” said she. “He takes very kindly to my people; but it is not about Spencer I want to talk to you, Rollo, but about yourself.”
“That’s so much the better,” said Rollo; “for I might not have liked bridal raptures, not being able, you know, Augusta, quite to forget——”
“Oh, that’s all nonsense,” said Augusta, with the faintest of blushes; “bridal fiddlesticks! People in the world keep clear of all that nonsense, heaven be praised. No, Rollo, it’s about yourself. I am very anxious about you.”
“Angelic cousin!—but there is no cause for anxiety that I know of in me.”
“Oh, yes, Rollo, there is great cause of anxiety.I must speak to you quite frankly. When I was married you had never seen Lottie Despard——”
“Miss Despard!” He repeated the name in a surprised tone and with eyes full of astonishment. He was glad of the opportunity of looking to the buckles of his armour and preparing for the onset; and therefore he made the surprise of the exclamation as telling as he could. “What can she have to do with your anxiety?” he said.
“Yes, Lottie Despard. Oh, she has a great deal to do with it. Rollo, how can you think that any good can come of such a flirtation either to you or the girl?”
“Flirtation, Augusta?”
“Yes, flirtation, or something worse. Why do you always go to her lessons? Oh, I know you always go. She can’t sing a bit, poor thing; and it only fills her poor heart with vanity and nonsense; and you meet her when you walk out. Don’t contradict me, please. Should I say so, if I had not made quite sure? I know the view you men take of honour. You think when a girl is concerned you are bound to deny everything. So you may be sure I did not say it till I had made quite sure. Now, Rollo, I ask you what can possibly come of anything of this kind? Of course you only mean to amuse yourself; and of course it is the girl’s fault if she gets herself talked about; for shemust know as well as I do that there can be nothing in it; but for all that——”
“You take away my breath,” said Rollo; “you seem to know so much better than I do the things that have happened or are happening to myself.”
“I do,” said Augusta, “for I have been thinking about it, and you have not. You have just done what was pleasant at the moment, and never taken any thought. You are doing a great deal of harm to Lottie, poor thing, filling her head with silly fancies, and turning her against people of her own class. And suppose some reallynicegirl were to turn up, some one with money, what would she think of you, dangling for ever after a young woman who is not even in society? I am taking it for granted that it is only a silly flirtation: for as for anything worse,” said Augusta, with severity, “it cannot be supposed for a moment thatIcould speak to you of that; but you know very well, Rollo, a man of the world, like you, how very dreadful, how fatal all those sort of entanglements are, even when you don’t look at them from a high moral point of view.”
“You make me out a pretty character,” said Rollo, with an angry smile. “I never knew I was a Lovelace till now.”
“Oh, all you men are the same,” said Augusta, “if women will let you. Women have themselves to thankwhen anything happens, for it is of ten times more importance to them than it is to you. A man is none the worse for things that would ruin a girl for ever. But, still, you are not in a position to be careless of what people say. You have not a penny, Rollo; and I don’t believe in your opera. The only way in which you will ever have anything is by a suitable marriage. Suppose that any of your relations were to find a really nice person for you, and you were to spoil it all by a folly like this! That is how I look at it. To ruin yourself for a girl’s pretty face! and her voice—when she can’t sing a note!”
“Am I to infer that you have got a nice person for me?” said Rollo, furious inwardly, yet keeping his temper, and turning the conversation in this direction by way of diverting it from more dangerous subjects. And then Augusta (drawing somewhat upon her imagination, it must be allowed) told him of a very nice person indeed. Rollo listened, by way of securing his escape; but by and by he got slightly interested, in spite of himself. This really nice girl was coming to the Deanery for two or three days. She had a hundred thousand pounds. She had heard of Rollo Ridsdale, and already “took an interest” in him. It was perhaps partly fiction, for the visit of this golden girl to the Deanery was not by any means settled—but yet there was in it a germ of fact. “Itis an opportunity that never may occur again,” Augusta said, like a shop that is selling off. And indeed it was a sale which she would have greatly liked to negotiate, though Rollo was less the buyer than the piece of goods of which sale was to be made.
A hundred thousand pounds! He could not help thinking of it later in the evening, when he smoked his cigar, and as he went to bed. His affairs seemed to him to be managed by some malign and tricky spirit. Just at this moment, when he was pledged to the most imprudent marriage that could be conceived, was it not just his luck that fate should take the opportunity of dangling such a prize before him? A hundred thousand pounds! Why was it not Lottie that had this money? or why, as she had no money, had she been thrown in his way? To be sure she had a voice, which was as good as a fortune, but not equal to a hundred thousand pounds. However, he said to himself, there was no help for it now. All this happened before the brief interview on the hill, which sent him off to town before the hour he intended, and which proved to him, over and over again, her trust in him, which was beyond anything he had ever dreamed of. That she should guard him even from her father, that she should believe in him, to the disdain of every safeguard which the vulgar mind relied on, astonished, confounded, and impressedhis mind beyond description. To deceive her would be the easiest thing in the world, but, at the same time, would it not be the most impossible thing, the last that any man not a villain could do? And there was besides a glimmering perception in Rollo’s mind that deception would only be practicable up to a certain point, and that the scorn and horror and indignation with which Lottie would turn upon the criminal who had intended shame to her, would be something as much unlike the ordinary rage of a wronged woman as her trust was beyond the ordinary suspicious smoothness of ordinary belief. Shame and she had nothing to do with each other. She might die in the agony of the discovery, but first her eyes, her lips, the passion of her indignant purity would slay. With a deep regret he thought of the easier tie. Augusta’s words had been those of a silly woman when she spoke of fatal entanglements. On the contrary, marriage was the fatal thing. The other—what harm would it have done? None to Lottie in her career; no one would have thought any the worse of her. People would be sure to suppose that something of the kind had occurred in a singer’s life, whether it was true or not. It would have done her no harm; and it would not have done Rollo any harm. To think of it as fatal was the greatest folly. On the contrary, they would have been of use to each othernow, and after they would each have been free to consult their own interests. He could not help thinking very regretfully of this so easy, agreeable expedient, which would have been anything but fatal. To be sure, this was not, as Augusta said, a high moral point of view; but Rollo did not pretend to be a moralist. All these thoughts poured through his mind again as he went to London, with the full intention of getting a license for his marriage, and making all the arrangements which would bind Lottie to him as his wife. He was obliged to do this; he could not help himself. Much rather would he have done anything else—taken the other alternative—but it was not possible. There was but this one thing to do—a thing which put it entirely out of his power for ever and ever to consider the claims of any really nice person with a hundred thousand pounds at her disposal. Rollo did not pretend to himself that he took the decisive step with any satisfaction. He was no triumphant bridegroom; but he was a true lover, and not a villain, and regretfully but steadfastly he gave himself up to what he had to do.
It was too late to do anything in respect to the license when he arrived in town, but there were many other things to be settled, in order to make a considerably long absence practicable, and these he arranged in his own mind as he approached his journey’s end. For one thing, he had the funds to provide; and that, as will be readily perceived, was no small matter. He walked out of the railway station, pondering this in his mind. It was a grave question, not one to be lightly solved. He did not want to return to town till the season should have begun. No doubt five months’ honeymooning would bore any man, but he felt it to be too important to think of mere personal amusement; and he could always make expeditions himself to more lively places, and get a share of any amusement that might be going, when he had settled down Lottie to her studies, under the best masters that were to be had. All this was quite easily settled; but for an absence of five months, if you have not any income to speak of, it is necessary to have an understanding with your bankers, or somebody else. He meant to try his bankers, for his confidence in Lottie’s future success was extreme, and he felt justified in speaking of it as money which his future wife would be entitled to. All these plans he was laying very deliberately in his head, calculating how much he would need, and various other particulars, when the face of a man approaching in a hansom suddenly struck him. It was Rixon, his father’s confidential servant, a man who had been in Lord Courtland’s service as long as anybody could recollect. What was he doing there? The hansom was directingits course towards the railway from which Rollo had just come, and Rixon’s countenance was of an extreme gravity. What could it mean? Could anything have happened? Rollo saw the hansom pass, but its occupant did not see him. He could not banish from his thoughts the idea that something must have happened—that it was to tell him something, some news more or less terrible that Rixon was on his way to the railway which went to St. Michael’s. After a moment’s hesitation he turned and went back to the station, not being able to divest himself of this idea. To be sure Rixon might be going somewhere on business of his own; he might be looking grave about his own affairs. Still Rollo turned and went back; in any case it was best to know. The man was standing among several others, waiting to take his ticket for the train, when Rollo re-entered the station; he was getting his money out of his pocket to pay his fare; but looking up as he did this, Rixon started, put his money back, and immediately disengaged himself from thequeue. It was then a message from home of sufficient importance to be sent by special envoy. Rollo had time to examine this bearer of ill-news as he approached. What but ill-news was ever so urgent? special messengers do not travel about to stray sons of a family with news of birth or bridal. There is but one thing which calls for such state, and that is death. Rollo ran overall the chances in a moment, in his mind. His father—if it were his father there would be a little delay, a little ready money, more need than ever, and a very good excuse, for keeping everything quiet. It was not absolute want of feeling that suggested this thought. If it was his father there would be many reasons for being sorry. Home, with your brother at the head of affairs, is not home like your father’s house. And Lord Courtland, though his second son had worn out his kindness, was still kind more or less. Rollo was not insensible; he felt the dull consciousness of a blow before he received it, as he fixed his eyes upon Rixon’s mournful countenance, and the band on his hat.
“What is the matter?” he said, as the man approached. “What has happened? You were going to me? Tell me at once what it is.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir,” said Rixon, with the perpetual apology of a well-bred servant. “Yes, Sir, I was going to St. Michael’s. My lord sent me to tell you——”
“Thank heaven, that it is not my father! You mean that my father sent you? That is a relief,” said Rollo, drawing a long breath.
“Yes, my—Sir!” said Rixon, with confusion, “My lord is in the enjoyment of perfect health—at least as good as is compatible with the great misfortune, the catastrophe that has—snatched——”
“What do you mean?” said Rollo. Rixon was fond of long words. He laughed, “You are always mysterious. But if my father is all right——”
“Oh, don’t! my—don’t, Sir!” said the man, “laughing is not what ought to be on your lips at such a moment. Your brother has had an accident——”
“My brother—Ridsdale? Good heavens! Can’t you speak out? What has happened?” said Rollo, with blanched cheeks. Horror, fear, hope, all sprung up within him, indistinguishable the one from the other. The moment seemed a year during which he stood waiting for Rixon’s next words.
“It is too true, my lord,” said the man, and the address threw around Rollo a sudden gleam of growing light. “Your brother had a terrible accident on the hunting-field. His horse stumbled on King’s Mead, at that bad fence by Willowbrook. He was taken up insensible, and died before he could be got home. Things are in a terrible state at Courtlands. I was sent to let your lordship know. My lord would be glad if you would come home at once.”
Rollo staggered back, and put himself against the wall. A cold moisture burst out over him. He grew so pale that Rixon thought he was going to faint. The man said afterwards that he could not have believed that Mr. Ridsdale had so much feeling. And partly it was feeling as Rixon thought. For the first momentthe thought that his brother, upon whom fate had always smiled—Ridsdale!Ridsdale!—the very impersonation of prosperity and good fortune, should be lying dead, actually dead, at his age, with all his prospects, appalled him. It seemed too much, unnatural, beyond all possibility of belief. Then the blood rushed back through all his veins with a flush and suffusion of sudden heat. The change alarmed the messenger of so much evil and so much good. He put out his hand to support his young master. “My lord, my lord!” he said (they were words which Rixon loved to repeat, and which added to his own dignity as a gentleman’s gentleman), “remember your father; now that your lamented brother is gone, all his lordship’s trust is in you.”
Rollo waved his hand, not caring for the moment to speak. “Let me alone!” he said. “Let me alone! leave me to myself.” And it did not take him long to recover and shake off the horrible impression, and realise the astounding change that had occurred. Perhaps it is not possible that the death of a brother, which produces so extraordinary and beneficial a change in the situation and prospects of the next in succession, can be regarded with the natural feeling which such an event uncomplicated by loss or gain of a pecuniary kind calls forth. There was a sudden shock, then a consciousness that something was expectedfrom him, some show of grief and profound distress; and then a bewildering, overwhelming, stupefying, yet exciting realisation of the change thus suddenly accomplished in himself. He was no longer merely Rollo, a fashionable adventurer, dealing in every kind of doubtful speculation, and legitimatised gambling, a man of no importance to anyone, and free to carry out whatever schemes might come into his head; but now—an altogether different person—Lord Ridsdale, his father’s heir; the future head of a great family; a future peer; and already endowed with all the importance of an heir-apparent. The world seemed to go round and round with Rollo, and when it settled again out of the whirling and pale confusion as of an earthquake, it was not any longer the same world. The proportion of things had changed in the twinkling of an eye. The distant and the near had changed places. What was close to him before receded; what was far away became near. In the hurry of his thoughts he could not even think. Pain mingled with everything, with the giddiness of a strange elation, with the bewilderment of a surprise more startling than any that had ever come to him before in all his life. Ridsdale!—he who had always been so smiling and prosperous; he to whom everything was forgiven; whose sins were only peccadilloes; whose lightest schoolboy successes were trumpeted abroad, whose movements were recorded where-ever he went; it was inconceivable that he should be lying—dead; inconceivable that Rollo, the detrimental, the one in the family whom all disapproved of, should be put in his place, and succeed to all his privileges and exemptions. It did not seem possible. It needed Rixon saying my lord to him at every moment, to make the curious fiction seem true. Rixon got a cab to drive his young master to the other station, by which he must go to Courtlands; and Rollo—leaving all his former life behind him, leaving his license, his marriage, his bride, in the opposite direction, fading into misty spectres—turned his back upon all that had been most important to him half an hour ago, and drove away.
He went through that day like a dream—the whole course of his existence turned into another channel. He got home, rolling up to the familiar door with sensations so different from any that had ever moved him when entering that door before. He looked at it this time with a feeling of proprietorship. It had been his home for all his early life; but now it was going to behis own, which is very different. He looked at the very trees with a different feeling, wondering why so many should be marked for cutting down. What had they been doing to want to get rid of so many trees? When he went into the room where his brother lay dead, it was to him as if a waxen image lay there, as if it wereall a skilful scene, arranged to make believe that such a change, one man substituted for another, could bereal. To Rollo it did not seem to be real. It was the younger son who had died, with all his busy schemes—his plans for the future, his contrivances to get money, and the strange connections which he had formed. Rollo, who was the founder of the new opera, the partner of the bustling manager; it was he who was lying on that bed. All his plans would be buried with him—his Bohemianism, his enterprises, his——. What was it that the poor fool had gone in for, the last of all his undertakings, the thing in which he had been happily arrested ere he could harm himself or embarrass the family?—his love——. It was when standing by the bed on which his brother lay dead that this thought suddenly darted into the new Lord Ridsdale’s mind. He turned away with a half groan. Providence had interposed to prevent that foolish fellow from consummating his fate. He had not yet reached the highest pitch of folly when the blow fell. Something there was which the family had escaped. When the key was turned again in the door, and he went back to another darkened room and heard all about the accident, it was almost on his lips to contradict the speakers, and tell them it was not Ridsdale that was dead. But he did not do so. He preserved his decorum and seriousness. He was “very feeling.” LordCourtland, who had been afraid of his son’s levity, and had trembled lest Rollo, who had never been on very intimate terms with his brother, should show less sorrow than was becoming, was deeply satisfied. “How little we know what is in a man till he’s tried,” he said to his sister, Lady Beatrice. Lady Courtland, the mother of the young man, was happily long ago dead.
Thus, after setting out in the morning—full of tender ardour, notwithstanding his many doubts—to make the arrangements for his marriage, Rollo found himself at night one of the chief mourners in a house full of weeping. It was late at night when he got to his own room, and was able really to set himself to consider his own affairs. Which were his own affairs? The cares of the head of the family, the earl’s heir and right hand—or those strangely different anxieties which had been in the mind of the second son? When he sat down to think it over, once more there came a giddiness and bewilderment over Rollo’s being. He seemed scarcely able to force back upon himself the events which had happened at St. Michael’s only this morning. The figure of Lottie appeared to him through the mist, far, far away, dimly apparent at the end of a long vista. Lottie. What had he intended to do? He had meant to get a license for his marriage to her, to arrange how he could get money—if money was to behad by hook or by crook—to see about the tickets for their journey, to decide where to go to—even to provide travelling-wraps for his bride. All this he had come to London to do only this morning, and now it almost cost him an effort to recollect what it was. He would have been glad to evade the subject, to feel that he had a right to rest after such a fatiguing day; but the revolution in and about him was such that he could not rest. St. Michael’s and all its scenes passed before him like dissolving views, fading off into the mist, then rising again in spectral indistinctness. He could not think they belonged to him, or that the central figure in all these pictures was his own. Was it not rather his brother—he who had died? It seemed to Lord Ridsdale that he was settling Rollo’s affairs for him, thinking what was best to be done. He had been horribly imprudent, and had planned a still greater imprudence to come, when death arrested him in mid-career; but, Heaven be praised, the heedless fellow had been stopped before he committed himself! Rollo shuddered to think what would have happened had the family been hampered by a wife. A wife! What a fool he had been; what a dream he had been absorbed in; folly, unmitigated, inexcusable; but, thank Heaven, he had been stopped in time. Lottie—that was her name, and she had been very fond of him; poor girl, it would be a great disappointment forher. Thus Rollo thought, not feeling that he had anything to do with it. It was all over, so completely over, that there was scarcely a struggle in his mind, scarcely any controversy with himself, on the subject. No advocate, heavenly or diabolical, spoke on Lottie’s behalf. The whole affair was done with—it was impossible—there was no room even for consideration. For Lord Ridsdale to marry a nameless girl, the highest possibility in whose lot was to become a singer, and who had to be educated before even that was practicable, was not to be thought of. It was a bad thing for the poor girl; poor thing! no doubt it was hard upon her.
Thus—was it any doing of Rollo’s? Providence itself opened a door of escape for him from his unwary folly. Law did not act in the same way; when good fortune came to him, by a mere savage and uncultivated sentiment of honour, he had gone to the girl who had been his sweetheart to propose that she should share it. Lord Ridsdale, however, was not of this vulgar strain. The savage virtues were not in his way—they were not possible in his circumstances.Noblesse oblige; he could not raise Lottie to the sublime elevation of the rank he had so unexpectedly fallen into. That was not possible. The matter was so clear that it barred all question. There was not a word to be said on her side.
Nevertheless, had it not been for all the trouble about poor Ridsdale’s funeral, and the attentions required by the father, whose manner had so entirely changed to his surviving son, and who was now altogether dependent upon him—the new heir to the honours of the Courtland family might have broken off with his old love in a more considerate way. But he had no time to think. The very day had come before he could communicate with her; and then it had to be done abruptly. And, after all, a little more or less, what did it matter? The important point, for her sake especially, was that the change should be perfectly definite and clear. Poor Lottie! he was so sorry for her. It would be better, much better for her to hate him now, if she could; and, above all, it was the kindest thing to her to make the disruption distinct, beyond all possibility either of doubt or of hope.
Captain Despardput on his best coat after his return from the Abbey on the morning of Rollo’s departure. He brushed his hat with more than his usual care; he found, after much investigation, among what he called his papers, an ancient and shabby card-case: and thus equipped set forth on his solemn mission. He had a bit of red geranium in his button-hole which looked cheerful against the damp and gloom of the morning. Polly, looking out after him, thought her Captain a finished gentleman, and felt a swell of pride expand her bosom—of pride and of anxiety as well—for if, by good fortune, the Captain should succeed in his mission, then Polly felt that there would be a reasonable chance of getting “her house to herself.” Lottie’s proud withdrawal from all the concerns of the house had indeed given her step-mother a great deal less trouble than she had expected; but she could not escape from the idea of Lottie’s criticism; and the sight of the girl, sitting there, looking as if she knew better, though she never said anything, was to Polly asgall and wormwood. If she would have spoken, there would have been less harm. Mrs. Despard was always ready for a conflict of tongues, and knew that she was not likely to come off second best; but Lottie’s silence exasperated her; and it was the highest object of her desires to get her house to herself. Lottie was coming down the Dean’s Walk, calm, and relieved, and happy, after seeing her lover make his way down the Slopes, when the Captain turned towards the cloisters. Her heart gave a jump of irritation and excitement, followed by a gleam of angry pleasure. This mission, which was an insult to her and to Rollo alike, would be a failure, thank Heaven; but still it was a shame that it should ever have been undertaken. Oh, how unlike, she thought, the perfect trust and faith that was between them, to intrude this vulgar inquiry, this coarse interference, into the perfection of their love! It brought the tears to Lottie’s eyes to think how ready he was to throw prudence to the winds for her sake, to accept all the risks of life rather than leave her to suffer; the only question between them being whether it was right for her to accept such a sacrifice. Lottie did not think of the approval of his family as she ought to have done, and as for the approval of her own, though the secret vexed her a little, yet she was glad to escape from the noisy congratulations to which she would have been subjected, and her father’s unctuous satisfaction had her prospects been known. A few days longer, and the new wife whose presence was an offence to Lottie would have her house to herself. The two, upon such opposite sides, used the very same words; Lottie, too, was thankful above measure that Mrs. Despard would have her house to herself. She calculated the days—Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; Friday was the day on which she was to meet him, in the afternoon, while all the world at St. Michael’s was at the afternoon service, and when the Signor, on the organ, which had been the accompaniment to all the story of their love, would be filling the wintry air with majestic and tender and solemn sound. She seemed to hear the pealing of that wonderful symphony, and Rollo’s voice against it, like a figure standing out against a noble background, telling her all he had done, and when and how the crowning event of their story was to be. Her heart was beating loudly, yet softly, in Lottie’s breast. Supreme expectation, yet satisfaction, an agitated calm, a pathetic happiness, feelings too exquisite in their kind to be without a touch of pain, filled all her being. The happiness she had most prized all her life was to have her ideal fulfilled in those she loved; and was it possible that any man could have more nobly done what a true lover should do, than Rollo was doing it? She was happy, in that he loved her above prudence and care andworldly advantage; but she was almost happier in that this generosity, this tender ardour, this quick and sudden action of the deliverer, was all that poet could have asked or imagination thought of. These were her fancies, poor girl; the fancies of a foolish, inexperienced creature, knowing nothing—and far enough from the truth that the charitable may forgive her, Heaven knows!
When she went in, Polly called her, with a certain imperiousness. She was on her way to her room, that sole bower of safety; but this Mrs. Despard had made up her mind not to allow. “You may show me those scales you were speaking of,” said Polly. “I daresay I’ll remember as soon as I see them. It will take up your attention, and it will take up my attention till your pa comes back. I’m that full of sympathy (though it can’t be said as you deserve it), that though I have nothing to do with it, I am just as anxious as you are.”
“I am not anxious,” Lottie said proudly; but she would not condescend to say more. She brought out an old music-book with easy lessons for a beginner, at which she had herself laboured in her childhood, and placed it before her scholar. The notes were like Hebrew and Greek to Polly, and she could not twist her fingers into the proper places; these fingers were not like a child’s pliable joints, and how to move eachone separately was a problem which she could not master. She sat at the piano with the greatest seriousness, striking a note a minute, with much strain of the unaccustomed hand—and now and then looking up jealously to see if her instructress was laughing at her; but Lottie was too preoccupied to smile. She heard her father coming back in what she felt to be angry haste; and then, with her heart beating, listened to his step upon the stairs. At this Polly too was startled, and jumping up from her laborious exercise, snatched the old music-book from its place and opened it at random at another page.
“Me and Miss Lottie, we’ve been practising our duet,” she said. “La, Harry! is that you back so soon?”
“The fellow’s gone,” said Captain Despard, throwing down his hat and cane; that hat which had been brushed for nothing, which had not even overawed Mr. Jeremie, who gazed at him superciliously, holding the Deanery door half open, and not impressed at all by the fine manners of the Chevalier. “The fellow’s gone! He did not mean to go yesterday, that odious menial as good as confessed. He has heard I was coming, and he has fled. There could not be a worse sign. My poor child! Lottie!” said the Captain, suddenly catching a gleam of something like enjoyment in her eyes, “you do not mean to tell me that you were thetraitor. You! Was it you told him? You may be a fool, but so great a fool asthatcouldn’t be!”
Lottie scorned to deny what she had done. She was too proud and too rash to think that she was betraying herself by the acknowledgment. She met her father’s eye with involuntary defiance. “You would not listen to me,” she said, “and I could not bear it. It was a disgrace; it was humbling me to the dust. I warned him you were coming——” As she spoke she suddenly perceived all that was involved in the confession, and grew crimson-red, and then pale.
“So, miss,” said Polly, “you’re nicely caught. Keeping company all this time, and never to say a word to nobody; but if I were your pa, you shouldn’t be let off like that. Was it for nothing but a bit of fun you’ve been going on with the gentleman? That’s carrying it a deal too far, that is. And when your pa takes it in hand to bring him to the point, you ups and tells him, and frightens him away! I’d just like to know—and, Harry, I’d have you to ask her—what she means by it? What do you mean by it, miss? Do you mean to live on here for ever, and eat us out of house and home? If you won’t work for your living, nor do anything to get an ’usband, I’d just like to know what you mean to do?”
“Hold your tongue,” said her husband. “Let her alone. It is I that must speak. Lottie, is it reallytrue that you have betrayed your father? You have separated yourself from me and put yourself on the side of a villain!”
“Mr. Ridsdale is not a villain,” said Lottie, passionately. “What has he done? He has done nothing that can give you any right to interfere with him. I told him, because I would not have him interfered with. He has done nothing wrong.”
“He has trifled with my child’s affections,” said the Captain. “He has filled our minds with false expectations. By Jove, he had better not come in the way of Harry Despard, if that’s how he means to behave. I’ll horsewhip the fellow—I’ll kill him; I’ll show him up, if he were twenty times the Dean’s nephew. And you, girl, what can anyone say to you—never thinking of your own interest, or of what’s to become of you, as Mrs. Despard says?”
“Her own interest!” cried Polly. “Oh, she’ll take care of herself, never fear. She knows you won’t turn her to the door, Harry. You’re too soft, and they knows it. They’ll hang upon you and eat up everything you have, till you have the courage to tell them as you won’t put up with it. Oh, you needn’t turn upon me, Miss Lottie. As long as there was a chance of a good ’usband I never said a word; but when you goes and throws your chance away out of wilful pride, then I’m bound to speak. Your poor pa has not apenny, and all that he has he wants for himself; and I want my house to myself, Harry; you always promised I was to have my house to myself. I don’t want none of your grown-up daughters, as think themselves a deal better than me. I think I will go out of my mind with Miss Lottie’s lessons, and Mr. Law’s lessons, and all the rest. I never would have married you—you know I shouldn’t—if I hadn’t thought as I was to have my house to myself.”
“My love,” said the Captain, deprecatingly, “you know it is not my fault. You know that if I could I would give you everything. I had very good reason to think——”
“Papa,” said Lottie, who had been standing by trembling, but less with fear than passionate disgust and anger, “do you agree in what she says?”
“Of course he agrees,” says Polly. “He hasn’t got any choice; he’s obliged to say the same as me. He promised me when I married him as you shouldn’t be long in my way. He told me as you was going to be married. One girl don’t like another girl for everlasting in her road; and you never took no trouble to make yourself agreeable, not even about the music. Harry, do you hear me? Speak up, and say the truth for once. Tell her if she goes on going against me and you, and all we do for her, like this, that you won’t have her here.”
“My child,” said the Captain, who, to do him justice, was by no means happy in his task, “you see me in a difficult position, a most difficult position. What can I say? Mrs. Despard is right. When I married it was my opinion that you, too, would soon make a happy and brilliant marriage. How far that influenced me I need not say. I thought you would be established yourself, and able to help your brother and—and even myself. I’m disappointed, I cannot deny it; and if you have now, instead of fulfilling my expectations, done your best, your very best, to balk——”
The Captain hesitated and faltered, and tried to swagger, but in vain. He had the traditions of a gentleman lingering about him, and Lottie was his child, when all was said. He could not look at her, or meet her eyes; and Lottie, for her part, who could see nothing but from her own side of the question, who did not at all realise his, nor recognise any extenuating circumstances in the plea that he had thought her about to marry, so blazed upon him with lofty indignation as to have altogether consumed her father had he been weak enough to look at her. She did not even glance at Polly, who stood by, eager to rush into the fray.
“In that case,” she said, with a passionate solemnity, “you shall be satisfied, papa. A few days and youshall be satisfied. I will not ask any shelter from you after—a few days.”
Though it was happiness Lottie looked forward to, and there could no longer in this house be anything but pain and trouble for her, these words seemed to choke her. To leave her father’s house thus; to make the greatest of changes in her life, thus; all Lottie’s sense of what was fit and seemly was wounded beyond description. She turned away, listening to none of the questions which were showered upon her. “What did she mean? Where was she going? When did she intend to go? What was she thinking of?” To all these Lottie made no reply; she did not even wait to hear them, but swept away with something of the conscious stateliness of the injured, which it is so hard for youth to deny itself. Heaven knows her heart was full enough; yet there was in Lottie’s deportment, as she swept out of the room, perhaps a touch of the injured heroine, a suggestion of a tragedy queen.
She went into her own room, where she found consolation very speedily in such preparations for her departure as she could make. She took out her white muslin dress, the simple garment which was so associated with thoughts of Rollo, and spent an hour of painful yet pleasant consideration over it, wondering how it could be made to serve for Saturday. Such amarriage made the toilette of a bride impossible; but Lottie could not bear the thought of standing by her lover’s side, and pledging him her faith, in her poor little brown frock which she had worn all the winter past. She thought that, carefully pinned up under her cloak, she might wear this, her only white gown, to be a little like a bride. It had been washed, but it had not suffered much. The folds might be a little stiffer and less flowing than before they had undergone the indignity of starch; but still they were fresh and white, and Lottie did not think it would be noticed that the dress was not new. Perhaps it was more appropriate that in her poverty and desolation she should go to him in the gown she had worn, not in one made new and lovely, as if there were people who cared. “Nobody cares,” she said to herself, but without the usual depression which these words convey. She filled up the bodice of her little dress, which had been made open at the throat for evening use, and made it fit close. She put her pearl locket upon a bit of white ribbon. Doing this consoled her for the pangs she had borne. All the money she had of her own was one sovereign, which she had kept from the time of her mother’s death as a last supreme resource in case of emergency; surely she might use it now. Taking this precious coin from the little old purse in which it was put away, in the deepest corner of an old Indianbox, purse and box and coin all coming from her mother, Lottie went out to make a few purchases. She was forlorn, but her heart was light. She went down to the great shop not far from the Abbey gates, of which St. Michael’s was proud, and bought some tulle and white ribbons. Poor child! her heart yearned for a little sprig of orange-blossom, but she did not venture to ask for anything that would betray her. It seemed to Lottie that she met everybody in the place as she went home with her little parcel in her hand. She met Mr. Ashford, for one, who was greatly surprised that she did not stop to speak to him about Law, and who was, indeed, to tell the truth, somewhat disappointed and chagrined that his liberality to his pupil had as yet met with no response except from that pupil himself. The Minor Canon looked at her wistfully; but Lottie, being full of her own thoughts, did nothing but smile in reply to his bow. Then she met Captain Temple, who, less shy, came to her side eagerly, complaining and upbraiding her that she had deserted him.
“I never see you,” said the old man, “and my wife says the same, who takes so much interest in you. We hope, my dear,” he said, kind yet half vexed with her, “that all is going better—going well now?”
“Indeed it is not, Captain Temple,” Lottie said, tears coming suddenly to her eyes. She could not butwonder what he would think of her if he knew—if he would disapprove of her; and this sudden thought brought a look of anxiety and sudden emotion into her face.
“My poor child!” cried the old Chevalier. The ready moisture sprang to his eyes also. “Lottie,” he said, “my wife takes a great interest in you; she would be very fond of you if she knew you better. Come to us, my dear, and we will take care of you.” He said it with the fervour of uncertainty, for he was not sure, after all, how far he could calculate on his wife, and this gave a tremulous heat to his proposition.
But Lottie shook her head and smiled, though the tears were in her eyes. Oh, if she only dared to tell him what was the deliverance which was so near! He went with her to her door, repeating to her this offer of service.
“You might be like our own child,” he said. “My wife cannot talk of it—but she would be very fond of you, my dear, when she knew you. If things go on badly, you will come to us?—say you will come to us, Lottie.”
And while these words were in her ears, old Mrs. Dalrymple came out to her door, to ask if Lottie would not come in, if she would come to tea—if she would stay with them for a day or two.
“It is only next door, to be sure; but it would bea change,” the old lady said. The ladies in the Lodges had forgiven her for her foolish pride, and for the notice the great people had taken of her, and for all the signs of discontent that Lottie had shown on her first coming to the Abbey. Now that the girl was in trouble they were all good to her, compassionate of her forlorn condition, and making common cause with her against the infliction of the stepmother, who was an insult to every one of them. There was not one Chevalier’s wife who was not personally insulted, outraged in her most tender feelings, by the intrusion of Polly, and this quickened their sympathies to the poor girl, who was the most cruelly injured of all.
When Mrs. O’Shaughnessy saw the little group at her neighbour’s door, she too came out. “It’s her own fault, my dear lady, if she ever eats a meal there,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy; “me and the Major, we are both as fond of her as if she was our own.”
Lottie stood amongst them and cried softly, taking care that her tears did not drop upon the little parcel with the tulle, which was connected with still dearer hopes.
“I don’t deserve that you should all be so good to me,” she said. And indeed it was true; for Lottie had been very haughty in her time to the kind people who forgave her in her trouble.
Thus it was that she shared the dinner of the goodO’Shaughnessys, and only went home in the afternoon, after Polly and the Captain had been seen to go out; when Lottie shut herself up in her room, and with much excitement began the “confection” for which she had bought the materials. It is needless to say that with so little money as she had ever had, Lottie had learnt,tant bien que mal, to make most of her own articles of apparel. How she had sighed to have her dresses come home all complete from the dressmaker’s, like Augusta Huntington’s! but as sighing did no good, Lottie had fitted herself with her gowns, and trimmed her little straw hats, and the occasional bonnet which she permitted herself for going to church in, since ever she was able to use her needle and her scissors. She had never, however, made anything so ambitious as the little tulle bonnet which she meant to be married in. She would have preferred a veil, could anyone doubt? but with no better tiring-room than the waiting-room at the railway, how was she to put herself into a veil? She had to give up that idea with a sigh. But, her pale cheeks glowing with two roses, and her blue eyes lighted up with the fires of invention, she sat all the afternoon, with her door locked, making that bonnet. If she but had a little sprig of orange-blossom to mark what it meant! but here Lottie’s courage failed her.Thatshe could not venture to buy.
In this way the days glided on till Friday came.Lottie packed up the things she cared for—the few books, the little trifling possessions of no value, which yet were dear to her to be removed afterwards, and put up her little bonnet (bonnets were worn very small, the fashion books said) in a tiny parcel which she could carry in her hand. Thus all her preparations were made. When she was not in her room making these last arrangements, she was out of doors—in the Abbey or on the Slopes—or with the friends who sought her so kindly, and gave her such meals as she would accept, and would have given her a great many more, overwhelmed her, indeed, with eating and drinking if she would have consented. To some of these Lottie allowed herself the privilege of saying that it was only for a few days she should remain in her father’s house. She would not tell where she was going; to friends—yes, certainly to friends; but she would not say any more. This gave great relief to the minds of the Chevaliers generally, except to Captain Temple, who did not like it. The announcement even drew from him something like a reproach to his wife.