“If you had come forward—if you had gone to her when she was in trouble,” he said, “we might have had a child again to comfort us.” The old Captain was sadly put out, and did nothing but roam about all the day restless and lamenting. He went to theSignor’s to hear what Lottie thought would be her last lesson, and thus bemoaned himself.
“Going away!” the Signor said in great surprise; and Lottie sang so well that day that the musician felt the desertion doubly. She sang fitfully but finely, saying to herself all the time, “To-morrow—to-morrow!” and taking her leave, as she supposed, joyfully, regretfully of Art. That day Lottie thought nothing whatever about Art. Her spirit was moved to its very depths. To-morrow the man whom she loved was coming to take her away from all that was petty, all that was unlovely in her life. From the hardness of fate, from the unkindness of her family, from the house that was desecrated, from the existence which was not made sweet by any love—he was coming to deliver her. The air was all excitement, all agitation, to Lottie. It was not so much that she was glad—happiness was in it, and trouble, and regret, and agitation, made up by all these together. It was life in its strongest strain, tingling, throbbing, at the highest pressure. The earth was elastic under her feet, the whole world was full of this which was about to happen; and how she sang! Those lessons of hers were as a drama to the Signor, but he did not understand this art. He had understood the struggle she made to get hold of her powers on the day when Rollo was not there, and Lottie had made a proud, forlorn attempt to devote herself toSong, as Song; he had understood the confusion and bewildered discouragement of the day when Mrs. Daventry assisted at the lesson; but this time the Signor was puzzled. There was nothing to excite her, only Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Captain Temple, listeners who cared nothing for art, but only for Lottie; yet how she sang! He made her a little solemn compliment, almost for the first time.
“Miss Despard,” he said, “you change from lesson to lesson—it is always another voice I hear; but this is the one I should like to retain; this is the one that shows what wonderful progress we have made.”
Lottie smiled in a way which nearly won the Signor’s steady heart. A golden dazzlement of light got into her eyes, as if the slanting afternoon sun was in them. She did not speak, but she gave him her hand—a thing which was very rare with Lottie. The Signor was flattered and touched; but he would not have been so flattered had he known that she was saying to herself, “It is the last time—it is the last!”
Mr. Ashford met the party coming out, and walked with them along the north side of the Abbey and through the cloisters. He could not make out why Lottie said nothing to him about her brother. To tell the truth, he wanted to have something for his money, and it did not seem that he was likely to get anything.He said to her at last, abruptly, “I hope you think Law is likely to do well, Miss Despard?”
“Law?” she said, looking up with wondering eyes.
He was so confounded by her look of bewilderment that he did not say anything more.
Next day dawned bright and fair, as it ought. A fair, clear, sunny winter’s day—not a leaf, even of those few that hung upon the ends of the boughs, stirring—not a cloud. Earth in such a day seems hanging suspended in the bright sphere, not certain yet whether she will turn back again to the careless summer, or go through her winter spell of storm duty. Lottie had all her preparations made; her dress ready to put on in the morning; her little bonnet done up in a parcel incredibly small, a veil looped about it; and the great cloak, a homely waterproof, which was to cover her from head to foot, and conceal her finery, hung out all ready. Everything ready—nothing now to be done but to meet him on the Slopes, and to hear how all had been settled, and arrange for the final meeting on the wedding morning. Even her railway fare, so many shillings, was put ready. She would not let him pay even that for her until she belonged to him. She went out with the dreamy sweetness of the approaching climax in her eyes when the last rays of the sunset were catching all the Abbey pinnacles. She scarcely saw the path over which her light feet skimmed.The people who passed her glided like the people in a dream; the absorbing sweet agitation of happiness and fear, and hope and content, was in all her veins; her eyes were suffused with light as eyes get suffused with tears—an indescribable elation and alarm, sweet panic, yet calm, was in her breast. Mr. Ashford met her going along, swift and light, and with that air of abstraction from everything around her. She did not see him, nor anyone; but she remembered after, that shehadseen him, and the very turn of the road where he made a half pause to speak to her, which she had not taken any notice of. In this soft rapture Lottie went to the corner of the bench under the elm-tree. It was too early, but she placed herself there to wait till he should come to her. This was the place where he was certain to come. By-and-by she would hear his step, skimming too, almost as light and quick as her own—or hear him vaulting over the low wall from the Deanery—or perhaps, to attract less notice, coming up the winding way from the Slopes. Where she sat was within reach of all the three. It was a little chilly now that the sun had gone down, but Lottie did not feel it. She sat down with a smile of happy anticipation on her face, hearing the Abbey bells in the clear frosty air, and then the bursting forth of the organ and all the strains of the music. These filled up her thoughts for the time, and it was not till the largervolume of sound of the voluntary put Lottie in mind of the length of time she had waited, that she woke up to think of the possibility that something might have detained her lover. It was strange that he should be so late. The light was waning, and the sounds about were eerie; the wind that had lain so still all day woke up, and wandered chilly among the bare shrubberies, tossing off the late leaves. She shivered a little with the cold and the waiting. Why did not he come? the hour of stillness was passing fast, the organ pealing, the light fading moment by moment. Why was not Rollo here?
At last there was a step. It was not light and quick like his step; but something might have happened to make it sound differently—something in the air, or something in him, some gravity of movement befitting the importance of the occasion. So anxiety beguiles itself, trying to believe what it wishes. The step came nearer, and Lottie roused herself, a little alarmed, wondering if anything (she could not tell what) could have happened to him—and looked round. A figure—a man coming her way—her heart jumped into her throat, then sank down, down, with a flutter of fright and pain. It was not Rollo—but what then? it might be only some chance passer-by, not having anything to do with her and him. Another moment, and she waited with an agonised hope thathe was passing along without taking any notice, and that he had indeed nothing at all to do with her. But the steady step came on—nearer, nearer. She raised her head, she opened her eyes that had been veiled in such sweet dreams, with a wideness of fear and horror. What could he have to do with her? What had he come to tell her? The man came up to her straight, without any hesitation. He said, “Are you Miss Despard, ma’am? I was sent to give you this from my lord.”
My lord—who was my lord? She took it with a gasp of terror. It was not Rollo that was my lord. The man, a middle-aged, respectable servant, gave her a look of grave pity and went away. Lottie sat still for a moment with the letter in her hand, thinking with wild impatience that the sound of those heavy departing steps would prevent her from hearing Rollo’s light ones when he came. My lord—who was my lord? Suddenly an idea seized upon her. The light was almost gone. She tore the letter open, and read it by the faint chill shining of the skies, though it was almost too dark to see.
Captain Templewas an old soldier, whose habit it was to get up very early in the morning. He said afterwards that he had never got up so early as on that morning, feeling a certain pride in it, as showing the magical power of sympathy and tenderness. He woke before it was light. It had been raining in the night, and the morning was veiled with showers; when the light came at last, it was white and misty. He was ready to go out before anyone was stirring. Not a soul, not even the milkman, was astir in the Dean’s Walk. The blinds were still down over his neighbours’ windows. The only one drawn up, he noticed in passing, was Lottie’s. Was she too early, like himself? the question went through his mind as he passed. Poor child! her life was not a happy one. How different, he could not help feeling, how different his own girl would have been had she but been spared to them! He shook his white head, though he was all alone, wailing, almost remonstrating, with Providence. How strange that the blessing should be with those who did not know how to prize it, while those whodid were left desolate! The Captain’s step rang through the silent place. There was no one about; the Abbey stood up grey and still with the morning mists softly breaking from about it, and here and there, behind and around, smoke rose from some homely roof, betraying the first signs of waking life, Captain Temple walked briskly to the Slopes; it was his favourite walk. He made one or two turns up and down all the length of the level promenade, thinking about her—how often she had come with him here: but lately she had avoided him. He paused when he had made two or three turns, and leaned over the low parapet wall, looking down upon the misty landscape. The river ran swiftly at the foot of the hill, shewing in a pale gleam here and there. The bare branches of the trees were all jewelled coldly with drops of rain. It began to drizzle again as he stood gazing over the misty wet champaign in the stillness of the early morning. He was the only conscious tenant of this wide world of earth and sky. Smoke rising from the houses in the town, and a faint stir was beginning; but here on the hill there was no stir or waking movement, save only his own.
What was that? a sound—he turned round quickly—he could not tell what it was; was there someone about after all, someone else as early as himself? But he could see nobody. There was not a step nor a visible movement, but there was a sense of a humanpresence, a feeling of somebody near him. He turned round with an anxiety which he could not explain to himself. Why should he be anxious? but it pleased him afterwards to remember that all his sensations this morning were strange, uncalled for, beyond his own control. He peered anxiously about among the bushes and bare stems of the trees. At last it seemed to him that he saw something in the corner of the bench under the elm-tree. He turned that way, now with his old heart beating, but altogether unprepared for the piteous sight that met his eyes. She was so slim, so slight, her dress so heavy and clinging with the rain, that a careless passer-by might never have seen her. He hurried to the place with a little cry. Her head drooped upon the rough wooden back of the seat, her hands were wrapped in her cloak, nothing visible of her but a face as white as death, and wet—was it with rain or with tears? Her eyes were closed, her long dark eyelashes drooping over her cheek. But for her frightful paleness she would have looked like a child who had lost its way, and cried itself to sleep. “Lottie!” cried the old man; “Lottie!” But she made no response. She did not even open her eyes. Was she sleeping, or, good God——! He put his hand on her shoulder. “Lottie, Lottie, my dear child!” he cried into her ear. When after a while a deep sigh came from her breast, the old man could have wept for joy. She was living then. He thought for a moment what was to be done; some help seemed indispensable to him; then rushed away down through the cloisters to the house of Mr. Ashford, which was one of the nearest. The Minor Canon was coming downstairs; he had something to do which called him out early. He paused in some surprise at the sight of his visitor, but Captain Temple stopped the question on his lips. “Will you come with me?” he cried; “come with me—I want you,” and caught him by the sleeve in his eagerness. Mr. Ashford felt that there was that in the old man’s haggard face which would not bear questioning. He followed him, scarcely able in the fulness of his strength to keep up with the nervous steps of his guide. “God knows if she has been there all night,” the Captain said. “I cannot get her to move. And now the whole place will be astir. If I could get her home before anybody knows! They have driven her out of her sweet senses,” he said, gasping for breath as he hurried along. “I came for you because you are her friend, and I could trust you. Oh, why is a jewel like that given to those who do not prize it, Mr. Ashford, and taken from those that do? Why is it? why is it? they have broken her heart.” The Minor Canon asked no questions; he felt that he too knew by instinct what it was. The rain had come on more heavily, small and soft, without any appearance of storm, but penetrating and continuous. The Captain hurried on to the corner where he hadleft her. Lottie had moved her head; she had been roused by his first appeal from the stupor into which she had fallen; her eyes were open, her mind slowly coming, if not to itself, at least to some consciousness of the external world and her place in it. The instinct that so seldom abandons a woman, that of concealing her misery, had begun to dawn in her—the first sign of returning life.
“Lottie, Lottie, my dear child, you must not sit here in the rain. Come, my pet, come. We have come to fetch you. Come to your mother, or at least to one who will be like a mother. Come, my poor dear, come home with me.” The old man was almost sobbing as he took into his her cold hands.
Lottie did her best to respond. She attempted to smile, she attempted to speak mechanically. “Yes,” she said, under her breath; “I will come—directly. It is—raining.” Her voice was almost gone; it was all they could do to make out what she said.
“And here is a kind friend who will give you his arm, who will help you along,” said Captain Temple. He stopped short—frightened by the change that came over her face; an awful look of hope, of wonder, woke in her eyes, which looked preternaturally large, luminous, and drowsy. She stirred in her seat, moving with a little moan of pain, and attempted to turn round to look behind her.
“Who is it?” she whispered. “Who is it? is it—you?”
Who did she expect it to be? Mr. Ashford, greatly moved, stepped forward quickly and raised her from her seat. It was no time for politeness. He drew her arm within his, not looking at her. “Support her,” he said quickly to Captain Temple, “on the other side.” The Minor Canon never looked at Lottie as he half carried her along that familiar way. He did not dare to spy into her secret, but he guessed at it. The hand which he drew through his arm held a letter. He knew none of the steps which had led to this, but he thought he knew what had happened. As for Captain Temple, he did not do much of his share of the work; he held her elbow with his trembling hand, and looked pitifully into her face, knowing nothing at all. “My poor dear,” he said, “you shall not go back—you shall not be made miserable; you are mine now. I have found you, and I shall keep you, Lottie. It is not like a stepmother that my Mary will be. My love, we will say nothing about it, we will not blame anyone; but now you belong to me.” What he said was as the babbling of a child to Lottie, and to the other who divined her; but they let him talk, and the old man seemed to himself to understand the position entirely. “They have driven her out of her senses,” he said to his wife; “so far as I can see she has been out on the Slopes all night, sitting on that bench. She will be ill,she is sure to be ill—she is drenched to the skin. Think if it had been our own girl! But I will never let her go into the hands of those wretches again.”
No one of the principal actors in this strange incident ever told the story, yet it was known all through the Abbey precincts in a few hours—with additions—that Captain Despard’s new wife had driven her step-daughter out of the house by her ill-usage; turned her to the door, some said; and that the poor girl, distracted and solitary, had spent the night on the Slopes, in the cold, in the rain, and had been found there by Captain Temple. “When we were all in our comfortable beds,” the good people cried with angry tears, and an indignation beyond words. Captain Despard came in from matins in a state of alarm indescribable, and besought his wife to keep indoors, not to allow herself to be seen. No one in the house had known of Lottie’s absence during the night. She was supposed to be “sulky,” as Polly called it, and shut up in her own room. When she did not appear at breakfast, indeed, there had been some surprise, and a slight consternation, but even then no very lively alarm. “She’s gone off, as she said she would,” Polly said, tossing her head; and the Captain had, though with some remorse and compunction, satisfied himself that it was only an escapade on Lottie’s part, which would be explained by the post, or which Law would know about, or Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. Law had gone outearly, before breakfast. It was natural to suppose he would know—or still more likely that his sister had gone with him, on some foolish walk, or other expedition. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Polly cried, “but I shouldn’t break my heart, Harry, if they’d gone for good, and left us the house to ourselves.” When Captain Despard came in from matins, however, the case was very different; he came in pale with shame and consternation, and ready to blame his wife for everything. “This is what has come of your nagging and your impudence,” he said; and Polly flew to arms, as was natural, and there was a hot and dangerous encounter. The Captain went out, swearing and fuming, recommending her if she prized her own safety not to show herself out of doors. “You will be mobbed,” he said; “and you will well deserve it.”
“I’m going to put my hat on,” said Polly, “and let them all see what a coward you are, as won’t stand up for your wife.” But when he had slammed the door emphatically after him, Polly sat down and had a good cry, and did not put on her hat. Oh, what a foolish thing it is, she repeated, to marry a man with grown-up children! It was nature, and not anything she had done, that was in fault.
Lottie made no resistance when she found herself in Mrs. Temple’s care. To have her wet things taken off, to have a hundred cares lavished upon her, as she lay aching and miserable in the bed that hadbeen prepared for her, soothed her at least, if they did nothing more. Chilled in every bit of her body, chilled to her heart, the sensation of warmth, when at last it stole over her, broke a little the stony front of her wretchedness. She never knew how she had passed that miserable night. The fabric of her happiness had fallen down on every side, and crushed her. Her heart had been so confident, her hopes so certain. She had not doubted, as women so often do, or even thought it within the compass of possibility that Rollo could fail her. How could she suppose it? and, when it came, she was crushed to the ground. The earth seemed to have opened under her feet; everything failed her when that one thing in which all her faith was placed failed. She had sat through the darkness, not able to think, conscious of nothing but misery, not aware how the time was passing, taking no note of the coming of the night, or of the bewildering chimes from the Abbey of hour after hour and quarter after quarter. Quarter or hour, what did it matter to her? what did she know of the hurrying, flying time, or its stupefying measures? It began to rain, and she did not care. She cared for nothing—not the cold, nor the dark, nor the whispering of the night wind among the bare branches, the mysterious noises of the night. The pillars of the earth, the arch of the sweet sky, had fallen. There was nothing in all the world but dismal failure and heart-break toLottie. In the long vigil, even the cause of this horrible downfall seemed to fade out of her mind. The pain in her heart, the oppression of her brain, the failing of all things—hope, courage, faith—was all she was conscious of. Rollo—her thoughts avoided his name, as a man who is wounded shrinks from any touch; and at last everything had fallen into one stupor of misery. That it was the night which she was spending there, under the dark sky, just light enough to show the darker branches waving over it, the rain falling from it, Lottie was unconscious. She had nowhere to go, she had no wish to go anywhere; shelter was indifferent to her, and one place no more miserable than another. When Captain Temple roused her, there came vaguely to her mind a sense that her feelings must be hid, that she must try to be as other people, not betraying her own desolation; and this was the feeling that again woke feebly in her when Mrs. Temple took her place by the bedside where Lottie was lying. She tried to make some feeble excuse, an excuse which in the desperation of her mind did not sound so artificial as it was. “I give you a great deal of trouble,” she faltered.
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Temple, with tears, “do not say so; let me do what I can for you—only trust in me, trust in me.”
Lottie could not trust in anyone. She tried to smile. She was past all confidences, past all revelation of herself or her trouble. And thus she lay for days, every limb aching with the exposure, her breathing difficult, her breast throbbing, her heart beating, her voice gone.
Downstairs there was many an anxious talk over her between the three most intimately concerned. The old Captain held by his simple idea that she had been driven from home by her stepmother, that idea which all the Abbey had adopted. The Minor Canon was not of that opinion. He came every day to ask for the patient, and would sit and listen to all they could tell him, and to the Captain’s tirades against Polly. “I think there was something more than that,” he would say. And Mrs. Temple looked at him with a look of understanding. “I think so too,” she said. Mrs. Temple had disengaged out of Lottie’s cold hand the letter which she had been grasping unawares. She had not been able to resist looking at it, telling herself that she ought to know what was the cause. These two alone had any idea of it, and no one spoke to Lottie, nor did she speak to anyone of the cause of her vigil. She lay in a silent paradise of warmth and rest, cared for and watched at every turn she made, as she had never been in her life before. And by degrees the pain stole out of her limbs, her cough was got under, and the fever in her veins subdued. Of two things only Lottie did not mend. Her heart seemed dead in her bosom, and her voice was gone.She could neither sing any more, nor be happy any more; these are things which neither doctor nor nurse can touch, but for all the rest her natural health and strength soon triumphed. Her brain, which had tottered for a moment, righted itself and regained its force. She had no fever, though everybody expected it. She did not fall into “a decline,” as was universally thought. She got better, but she did not get happy, nor did she recover her voice. When she was able to be brought downstairs, the good people who had taken her up made a littlefêteof her recovery. Mr. Ashford was asked to dinner, and the room was filled with flowers, rare hothouse flowers, on which the old Captain spent a great deal more than he could afford to spend. “To please the poor child, my dear,” he said, apologetically; and Mrs. Temple had not a word to say. She winced still when in his simple way he would speak of “our own girl,” but in her heart she made a kind of religion of Lottie, feeling sometimes, poor soul, as if she were thus heaping coals of fire, whatever they may be, upon the head—though it might be blasphemy to put it into words—of Him who had bereaved her. He had taken her child from her, and she had been angry, and perhaps had sinned in the bitterness of her grief; but now here was a child who was His—for are not all the helpless His?—whom she would not cast from her, whom she would take to her bosom and cherish, to show Him (was it?)that she was more tender than even the Father of all. “Thou hast taken mine from me, but I have not closed my heart to thine,” was what, all unawares, the woman’s heart said; for she was angry still, being a mother, and unable to see why she should have been bereaved.
A few days after Lottie had begun to be brought downstairs (for this was done without any will of hers), a visit was paid to her which had no small effect upon her life. She was seated in the invalid’s place near the fire, a little table by her side with flowers on it, and a new book, andPunch, and the illustrated papers, all the little innocentgâteriesof which the old Captain could think, the trifles which make the days of a happy convalescent sweet, and which Lottie tried hard to look as if she cared for; and with Mrs. Temple near her, watching her to see lest she should be too warm or too cold, lest she should want anything, with the anxious care of a mother. There was a prancing of horses outside the door, a tremendous knock, a rustle of silk, and wafting of perfume, and the door was opened and Mrs. Daventry announced. Augusta came in with a sweep which filled Mrs. Temple’s little drawing-room. There did not seem room for its legitimate inmates in that redundant presence. Mrs. Temple ran to her patient, thinking Lottie was about to faint, but she recovered herself enough to smile faintly at Augusta when she spoke,which was as much as she did to anyone. Augusta seated herself opposite the convalescent, her train falling round her in heavy masses—the one all wealth and commotion and importance, the other so pale, so slight in her weakness, her brown merino dress hanging loosely upon her. Mrs. Temple was not made much account of by the fine lady, who made her a slight salutation, half bow, half curtsey, and took no further notice of “the people of the house.”
“Well,” she said, “how are you, and what has been the matter? There are the most extraordinary stories told about you. I have come to find out what is really the matter, Lottie. Mamma wishes to know too. You know you were always a kind of favourite with mamma.”
“I will tell you about her illness,” said Mrs. Temple. “She is scarcely well enough yet to enter into details.”
“Oh,” said Augusta, gazing blankly upon the “person of the house,”—then she returned to Lottie again. “I don’t want you to enter into details; but they say the most extraordinary things; they say you were turned out of doors, and stayed all night on the Slopes—that, of course, can’t be true—but I wish you would tell me what is true, that I may give the right version of the story. Mamma is quite anxious to know.”
“Lottie, my dear, I will tell Mrs. Daventry,” said Mrs. Temple, “it is too much for you;” and she held her point and recounted her little story with a primness which suited her voice and manner. Many were the demonstrations of impatience which the fine lady made, but it was not in her power to struggle against Mrs. Temple’s determination. She turned to Lottie again as soon as the tale was told.
“Is that true? Only a very bad cold, and influenza from getting wet? Oh, we heard a great deal more than that; and your voice—we heard you had quite lost your voice. I promised the Signor to inquire. He is quite anxious, he always thought so much of your voice. He is an odd man,” said Augusta, giving a blow in passing, “he thinks so differently from other people about many things. I promised to find out for him all about it. Have you really, really lost your voice, as everybody says?”
It was curious that Lottie, who had never been concerned about her voice, who had never cared anything about it, who had not wanted to be a singer at all, should feel, even in the midst of the greater and deeper unhappiness that possessed her, a distinct sting of pain as she heard this question. Her paleness was flushed with a sudden painful colour. She looked at Mrs. Temple wistfully again.
“You can hear that she is hoarse,” said Mrs. Temple; “a very common consequence of a cold. Shehas lost her voice for the moment, but we hope to find it again.”
“I think she must be dumb altogether, as she never answers me,” said Augusta, fretfully. Then she tried another subject, with a triumphant certainty of success. “I don’t know if you have heard of our trouble,” she said, looking at her black dress. “You remember, Lottie, my cousin, Mr. Ridsdale? Oh, yes; you knew him a little, I think.”
Once more Lottie’s pale face flushed with painful overwhelming colour. She looked up with alarmed and troubled eyes.
“Oh, I see you remember him; he was such a flirt, he was always making himself agreeable to women. It did not matter who they were,” said Augusta, fixing her eyes on her victim’s face, “or what class of people, so long as they were at all nice-looking, or could sing, or draw, or anything. I remember I sent him out to try whether he could not hear you sing the very day I was married. He was another of the people who believed in you, Lottie. He did not hear you then, so he made mamma ask you, you remember. He had something to do with a new opera company, and he was always on the look-out for a new voice.”
Once more Lottie turned her eyes upon Mrs. Temple, eyes full of anguish and wonder. Who else could she turn to?—not to the cruel executioner who sat opposite to her, with a lurking smile about her heartless mouth.How cruel a woman can be with a fair face, and no signs of the savage in her! Augusta saw that her arrow had struck home, and was encouraged to do more.
“Oh, yes; he was in a great state about your voice. He said it would make his fortune and yours too. He was always ridiculously sanguine. You know how he used to flatter you, Lottie, and go to all your lessons. Oh, you must not tell me that you don’t remember, for I could see you liked it. Well,” said Augusta, who did not lose a single change of colour, no quiver of her victim’s lips, or flutter of her bosom, “that sort of thing is all over now. Oh, I daresay he will continue to take a great interest as an amateur; but his position is now entirely changed. My poor cousin Ridsdale, Rollo’s eldest brother, was killed in the hunting-field about a fortnight ago. Such a shock for us all! but it has made a great change for Rollo. He is Lord Ridsdale now, and my uncle Courtland’s heir. His servant came last Friday week to fetch some things he had left at the Deanery—for he had gone away for the day only, not knowing what had happened. Poor fellow; and yet, of course, though he was truly grieved and all that, it is great good fortune for him. We are not likelynow” Augusta added, with a faint smile, “to see much of him here.”
Lottie did not say a word. She sat, no longer changing colour, perfectly pale, with the great blueeyes that had so expanded and dilated during her illness, fixed upon the vacant air. To hear him named was still something, and filled her with a sick excitement, an anguish of interest and agitation. After the long silence, after the cutting of all ties, after his cruel desertion of her, after the blow which had all but killed her, to hear of him had been something. Pain—yet a pain she was more eager to undergo than to meet any pleasure. But Lottie had not calculated upon the cruel, treacherous, yet careless, blow which fell upon her now, upon her quivering wounds. To hear her voice, was that what it was? not to see her because he loved her, but to hear her singing. Till now she had at least had her past. He was false, and had forsaken her, she knew, but once he had loved her; the Rollo who gazed up in the moonlight at her window had still been hers, though another Rollo had betrayed her trust and broken her heart. But now! the blood ebbed away from her face, and seemed to fail from her heart; the beating of it grew confused and muffled in her ears. She gazed with her great eyes, all strained and pained with gazing, at nothing. To hear her sing, not seeking her, but only running after a new voice! She sat with her hands clasped upon her lap in a kind of piteous appeal, and sometimes would look at the one and then the other, asking them—was it true, could it be true?
“I must go,” said Augusta, having fired her shot,“and I am glad to have such a good account of you. Only a bad cold and a hoarseness, such as are quite common. Mamma will be pleased to hear, and so will the Signor. I can’t tell him anything about your voice, because you have not let me hear it, Lottie. Oh, quite prudent—much the best thing not to use it at all; though with an old friend, to be sure—you look rather ill, I am bound to say.”
Lottie sat still in the same attitude after this cruel visitor was gone, all her thoughts going back upon that time, which after all was only a few months, yet which seemed her life. She had given him up, or rather she had accepted his abandonment of her, without a struggle, without a hope; it had been to her as a doom out of Heaven. She had not even blamed him. It had killed her, she thought. She had not resisted, but it had killed her. Now, however, she could not submit. In her heart she fought wildly against this last, most cruel blow. He was not hers, he was cut off from her, by his own murderous hand; but to give up the lover who had loved her before he knew her, who had watched under her window and wiled her heart away, that she could not do. She fought against it passionately in her soul. The afternoon went on without a sound, nothing but the ashes softly falling from the fire, the soft movement of Mrs. Temple’s arm as she worked; but the silence tingled all the time with the echo of Augusta’s words, andwith the hot conflict of recollections in her own heart, opposing and denying them. Mrs. Temple worked quietly by and watched, divining something of the struggle, though she did not know what it was. At last, all at once in the stillness, the girl broke forth passionately: “Oh, no, no,” she cried, “not that! I will not believe it. Not that; it is not true.”
“What is not true, dear? tell me,” her companion said, laying down her work, and coming forward with tender hands outstretched, and pity in her eyes.
“You heard her,” Lottie said, “you heard her. That it was to hear me singing—that it was all for my voice. No, no, not that! It could not be—thatwas not true. You could not believethatwas true.”
And Lottie looked at her piteously, clasping her hands, entreating her with those pathetic eyes for a little comfort. “Not that, not that,” she said. “My singing, was it likely? Oh you cannot thinkthat!” she cried.
Mrs. Temple did all she could to soothe her. “My poor child, it is all over—over and ended—what does it matter now?”
“It matters all the world to me,” Lottie cried. Kind as her new guardian was, she could not understand that even when her happiness and her hopes were all crushed, it was a bitterness more exquisite, a sting the girl could not bear to believe that her foundations had been sand, that she had been deluded fromthe beginning, that the love she trusted in had never been. This sting was so keen and sharp that it woke her from the apathy of despair that was creeping over her. She was roused to struggle, to a passion of resistance and denial. “How can anyone but I know how it was? It all came from that; without that I should never have thought—we should never have met. It was the beginning. How can anyone know but me?” she cried, contending as against some adversary. When the first strain of this conflict was over, she turned, faltering, to her kind guardian. “I had a letter,” she said; “it wastheletter. I cannot find it.” She gave her a look of entreaty which went to Mrs. Temple’s heart.
“I have got your letter, Lottie. I have it in my desk, put away. No one has seen it. Let me put it into the fire.”
“Ah, no! perhaps there may be something in it different from what I thought.”
She held out her hands supplicating, and Mrs. Temple went to her desk and took out an envelope. Within was something all stained and blurred. The rain had half washed the cruel words away. Once for all, as Rollo’s last act and deed, and suicidal exit from this history, the letter shall be copied here. Imagine how Lottie had been sitting, all happiness and soft agitation and excitement, waiting for him when this curt epistle came:—
“Dear Lottie,—“An extraordinary change has happened in my life—not my doing, but that of Providence. It gives me new duties, and a new existence altogether. What we have been thinking of cannot be. It is impossible in every way. For me to do what I promised to you was, when we parted, a sacrifice which I was willing to make, but now is an impossibility. I am afraid you will feel this very much—and don’t think I don’t feel it; but it is an impossibility. I have things to do and a life to lead that makes it impossible. I hope soon someone will be raised up for you when you want it most, to give you the help and assistance I would so gladly have given. Could I but know that you assented to this, that you saw the reason for my conduct, I should be as happy as I now can ever be; and I hope that you will do so when you can look at it calmly. Farewell, dear Lottie, think of me with as little anger as you can, for it is not I, but Providence. Your voice will soon make you independent; it is only a momentary disappointment, I know, and I cannot help it. To do what we settled to do is now an impossibility—an impossibility. Dear Lottie, farewell!“R. R.”
“Dear Lottie,—
“An extraordinary change has happened in my life—not my doing, but that of Providence. It gives me new duties, and a new existence altogether. What we have been thinking of cannot be. It is impossible in every way. For me to do what I promised to you was, when we parted, a sacrifice which I was willing to make, but now is an impossibility. I am afraid you will feel this very much—and don’t think I don’t feel it; but it is an impossibility. I have things to do and a life to lead that makes it impossible. I hope soon someone will be raised up for you when you want it most, to give you the help and assistance I would so gladly have given. Could I but know that you assented to this, that you saw the reason for my conduct, I should be as happy as I now can ever be; and I hope that you will do so when you can look at it calmly. Farewell, dear Lottie, think of me with as little anger as you can, for it is not I, but Providence. Your voice will soon make you independent; it is only a momentary disappointment, I know, and I cannot help it. To do what we settled to do is now an impossibility—an impossibility. Dear Lottie, farewell!
“R. R.”
Underneath,Forgive mewas scrawled hastily, as if by an afterthought.
In the calm warm room, in the dull afternoon,under the eyes of her tender nurse, Lottie read over again this letter, which she had read with incredulous wonder, with stupefying misery, by the dim light of the evening under the black waving branches of the leafless trees. She gave a cry of anguish, of horror, of indignation and shame, and with trembling hands folded it up, and put it within its cover, and thrust it back into Mrs. Temple’s keeping. “Oh, take it, take it,” she cried wildly; “keep it, it has killed me. Perhaps—perhaps! the other is true too.”
Lawhad been living a busy life at the time of this crisis and climax of his sister’s existence. He had spent day after day in London, lost in that dangerous and unaccustomed delight of spending money, which is only tasted in its full flavour by those who are little accustomed to have any money to spend. Law was tempted by a hundred things which would have been no temptation at all to more experienced travellers—miracles of convenience and cheapness, calculated to smooth the path of the emigrant, but which were apt, on being bought, to turn out both worthless and expensive—and many a day the young fellow came home penitent and troubled, though he started every morning with an ever-renewed confidence in his own wisdom. Lottie’s sudden illness had checked these preparations in mid-career. He had lost the ship in which he meant to have made his voyage, and though he bore the delay with Christian resignation, it was hard to keep from thinking sometimes that Lottie could not have chosen a worse moment for being ill—a little later, or a little earlier, neither would have matteredhalf so much—but at the very moment when he was about to sail! However, he allowed impartially that it was not his sister’s fault, and did not deny her his sympathy. Law, however, had never been satisfied about the cause of her illness. He did not know why she should have sat out on the Slopes all night. Polly—he refused the idea that it was Polly. Mrs. Despard was bad enough, but not so bad as that; nor did Lottie care enough for the intruder to allow herself to be driven out in this way. But Law kept this conviction to himself, and outwardly accepted the story, not even asking any explanation from his sister. Whatever was the real reason, it was no doubt the same cause which kept her from listening to him when he had tried to tell her of the new step in his own career, and the unexpected liberality of the Minor Canon. “If it had but been he!” Law said to himself—for indeed he, who knew the value of money, never entertained any doubt as to Mr. Ashford’s meaning in befriending him; he was a great deal more clear about this than Mr. Ashford himself.
He lost his passage by the ship with which he had originally intended to go. It was a great disappointment, but what could he do? He could not start off for the Antipodes when his sister might be dying. And as for his own affairs, they had not come to any satisfactory settlement. Instead of saying yes or no to his question to her, Emma, when he had seen her, haddone everything a girl could do to make him change his intention. To makehimchange his intention!—the very idea of this filled him with fierce scorn. It was quite simple that she should make up her mind to leave everything she cared for, for love of him; but that he should change his purpose for love of her, was an idea so absurd that Law laughed at the simplicity of it. As well expect the Abbey tower to turn round with the wind as the weathercock did; but yet Law did not object to stroll down to the River Lane in the evenings, when he had nothing else to do, sometimes finding admission to the workroom when the mother was out of the way, demanding to know what was Emma’s decision, and smiling at her entreaties. She cried, clasping her hands with much natural eloquence, while she tried to persuade him; but Law laughed.
“Are you coming with me?” he said—he gave no answer to the other suggestion—and by this time he had fully made up his mind that she did not mean to come, and was not very sorry. He had done his duty by her—he had not been false, nor separated himself from old friends when prosperity came; no one could say that of him. But still he was not sorry to make his start alone—to go out to the new world unencumbered. Nevertheless, though they both knew this was how it would end, it still amused Law in his unoccupied evenings to do his little love-making at the corner of the River Lane, by the light of the dulllamp, and it pleased Emma to be made love to. They availed themselves of this diversion of the moment, though it often led to trouble, and sometimes to tears; and Emma for her part suffered many scoldings in consequence. The game, it is to be supposed, was worth the candle, though it was nothing but a game after all.
On the day after Mrs. Daventry’s visit, Lottie sent for her brother. He found her no longer a languid invalid, but with a fire of fervid energy in her eyes.
“Law,” she said, “I want you to tell me what you are going to do. You told me once, and I did not pay any attention—I had other—other things in my mind. Tell me now, Law.”
Then he told her all that had happened, and all he had been doing. “It was your sense, Lottie, after all,” he said. “You were always the one that had the sense. Who would have thought when I went to old Ashford to be coached, that he would come forward like this, and set me up for life? Nor he wouldn’t have done that much either,” Law added, with a laugh, “but for you!”
“Law,” cried Lottie, with that fire in her eyes, “this was what we wanted all the time, though we did not know it. It was always an office I was thinking of—and that I would be your housekeeper—your servant if we were too poor to keep a servant; butthis is far better. Now we are free—we have only each other in the world. When must we go?”
“We!” cried Law, completely taken aback. He looked at her with dismay. “You don’t mean you are coming? You don’t suppose I—can take you.”
“Yes,” she cried, “yes,” with strange vehemence. “Were we not always to be together? I never thought otherwise—that was always what I meant—until——”
“Ah,” said Law, “that is just it—until! When you’re very young,” he continued, with great seriousness, “you think like that—yes, you think like that. A sister comes natural—you’ve always been used to her; but then, Lottie, you know as well as I do that don’t last.”
“Oh, yes—it lasts,” cried Lottie: “other things come and go. You suppose you want something more—and then trouble comes, and you remember that there is nobody so near. Who could be so near? I know all you like and what is best for you, and we have always been together. Law, I have had things to make me unhappy—and I have no home, no place to live in.”
“I thought,” said Law, severely, “that they were very kind to you here.”
“Kind! it is more than that,” cried Lottie, her hot eyes moistening. “They are like—I do not know what they are like—like nothing but themselves; but I do not belong to them. What right have I to be here?and oh, Law, you don’t know——. To walk about here again—to live, where one has almost died—to see the same things—the place—where it all happened——”
Lottie was stopped by the gasp of weeping that came into her throat. She ended with a low cry of passionate pain. “I must go somewhere. I cannot stay here. We will go together, and work together; and some time, perhaps—some time—we shall not be unhappy, Law.”
“I am not unhappy now,” said the young man. “I don’t know why you should be so dismal. Many a fellow would give his ears to be in my place. But you—that’s quite a different thing. A man can go to many a place where he can’t drag his sister after him. Besides, you’ve got no outfit,” cried Law, delighted to find so simple a reason, “and no money to get one. Old Ashford has been awfully kind; but I don’t think it would be nice to draw him for an outfit for you. It wouldn’t be kind,” said Law, with a grin, “it would be like the engineer fellow in Shakespeare—burst with his own boiler. You know that would never do.”
“A woman does not need an outfit, as a man does,” said Lottie; “a woman can put up with anything. If you go away, what is to become of me? When you are young, whatever you may have had to make you unhappy, you cannot die when you please. That wouldbe the easiest way of all—but it is not possible; you cannot die when you please.”
“Die—who wants to die?” said Law. “Don’t you know it’s wicked to talk so. Why, there’s your singing. You’ll be able to make a great deal more money than I ever shall; and of course you may come over starring to Australia when you’re a great singer; but it would be ruin to you now to go there. Don’t be carried away by it because I’m lucky just now, because it’s my turn,” he said; “everybody wants to hold on by a fellow when he’s in luck—but it is really you who are the lucky one of the family.”
“My voice is gone,” said Lottie, “my home is gone. I have nothing in the world but you. All I used to have a little hope in is over. There are only two of us in the world, brother and sister. What can I do but go with you? I have nobody but you.”
“Oh, that’s bosh,” said Law, getting up from his seat in impatience. “I don’t believe a word they say about your voice. You’ll see it’ll soon come back if you give it a chance; and as for having nobody but me, I never knew a girl that had so many friends—there’s these old Temples, and heaps of people; and it seems to me you may marry whoever you like all round. A girl has no right to turn up her nose at that. Besides, what made old Ashford so kind to me? You don’t find men doing that sort of thing for nothing in this world. I always think it’s kindest tospeak out plain,” said Law, reddening, however, with a sense of cruelty, “not to take you in with pretending. Look here, Lottie. I can’t take you with me. I have got no more than I shall want for myself, and I may have to knock about a great deal there before I get anything. And to tell the truth,” said Law, reddening still more, “if I was to take a woman with me, it would be more natural to take—someone else. A fellow expects to marry, to make himself comfortable when he gets out there. Now you can’t do that if you have a sister always dragging after you. I’ve told you this before, Lottie—you know I have. I don’t want to hurt your feelings when you’ve been ill—but what can a fellow do? To say what you mean once for all, that is the best for both you and me.”
Law made his exit abruptly when he had given forth this confession. He could say what was necessary boldly enough, but he did not like to face his sister’s disappointment. It was a comfort to him to meet Mr. Ashford at the door.
“Lottie is upstairs,” he said. “She wants me to take her with me, but I have told her I can’t take her with me. I wish you would say a word to her.”
Law rushed away with a secret chuckle when he had sent to his sister a new suitor to console her. If one lover proves unsatisfactory, what can be better than to replace him by another? Law felt himself bound in gratitude and honour to do all that hecould for Mr. Ashford, who had been so kind to him; and was it not evidently the best thing—far the best thing for Lottie too?
The Minor Canon went upstairs with a little quickening of his pulse. He had been a great deal about Captain Temple’s little house since the morning when he had brought Lottie there, and her name and the thought of her had been in his mind constantly. He had not defended himself against this preoccupation, for would it not have been churlish to put the poor girl out of his mind when she was so desolate, and had no other place belonging to her? Rather he had thrown open all his doors and taken in her poor pale image, and made a throne for her, deserted, helpless, abandoned as she was. A generous soul cannot take care of itself when a friend is in trouble. Mr. Ashford, who had been on the edge of the precipice, half consciously, for some time, holding himself back as he could, thinking as little about her as he could, now let himself go. He felt as the Quixotes of humanity are apt to feel, that nothing he could give her should be withheld now. If it did not do her any good, still it would be something—it was all he could do. He let himself go. He thought of her morning and night, cherishing her name in his heart. Poor Lottie—life and love had alike been traitors to her. “Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I,” he said, as once was said rashly to a greater than man. What couldhe ever be to her, wrung as her heart was by another? but that did not matter. If it was any compensation to her, she should have his heart to do what she liked with. This was the sentiment in the mind of the Minor Canon, who ought, you will say, to have known better, but who never had been practical, as the reader knows. He went upstairs with his heart beating. How gladly he would have said a hundred words to her, and offered her all he had, to make up for the loss of that which she could not have. But what his generosity would have thrown at her feet, his delicacy forbade him to offer. Lottie, in her disappointment and desertion (which he only divined, yet was certain of) was sacred to him. Mrs. Temple was absent about her household concerns, and there was nobody in the drawing-room upstairs except Lottie, who in her excitement and despair did not hear his step, nor think that anyone might be coming. She was walking about the room, with her hands clasped and strained against her breast, her weak steps full of feverish energy, her eyes glowing with a fire of despair. “What shall I do? what shall I do?” she was moaning in the anguish of her heart.
When Ernest Ashford opened the door, her back was turned to him, so that he heard this moan, and saw the passionate misery of her struggle, before she knew that he was there. When she saw him a momentary gleam of anger came over her face; then she putforce upon herself, and dropped her hands by her side like a culprit, and tried to receive him as she ought. As she ought—for was not he her brother’s benefactor, whom all this time she had been neglecting, not thanking him as he had a right to be thanked? The change from that anguish and despair which she had been indulging when alone, to the sudden softening of courtesy and compunction and gratitude which, after a pathetic momentary interval of struggling with herself, came over her face, was one of those sudden variations which had transported Rollo in the beginning of their acquaintance by its power of expression. But this change, which would have pleased the other, went to the heart of the Minor Canon, to whom Lottie had never appeared in the light of an actress or singer, but only as herself.
“Mr. Ashford,” she said faintly. “I wanted to see you—to thank you——”
She was trembling, and he came up to her tenderly—but with a tenderness that never betrayed its own character—grave and calm, for all that his heart was beating—and took her hand and arm into his, and led her to her chair. “You must not thank me for anything,” he said.
“For Law——”
“No; not for Law. If it would give you any ease or any comfort, you should have everything I have. That is not saying much. You should have all Ican do or think,” he said, with a thrill in his voice, which was all that betrayed his emotion. “The misery of human things is that all I can do is not what you want, Lottie—and that what you want is out of my power.”
He asked no permission to call her by her name; he was not aware he did it—nor was she.
“I want nothing,” she said, with a passionate cry. “Oh, do not think I am so miserable and weak. I want nothing. Only, if Law could take me with him—take me away—to a new place—to a new life.”
He sat down beside her, and softly pressed the hand which he held in his own. Yes, this was the misery of human things, as he said—he did not repeat the words, but they were in his face. That which she wanted was not for her, nor was his desire for him; other gifts might be thrown at their feet, and lie there unheeded, but not that for which they pined and were ready to die.
“Do you think it must not be?” she said. Lottie was willing to make him the judge of her fate—to allow him to decide for her how it was to be. Yes, but only in that way in which he was powerless. He smiled, with a sense of this irony, which is more tragic than any solemn verdict of fate.
“I do not think it could be,” he said, “except with perfect consent and harmony; and Law—does not wish it. He is like the rest of us. He does not care forwhat he can have, though another man might give his life for it. It is the way of the world.”
“I am used to it,” said Lottie, bowing her head; “you need not say it is the way of the world to break it to me, Mr. Ashford. Oh, how well I ought to know! I am used to being rejected. Papa, and Law, and——”
She put her hand over her hot eyes, but she did not mean to drop into self-pity. “Nobody cares to have me,” she said after a moment, with the quiver of a smile on her lips. “I must make up my mind to it—and when you are young you cannot die whenever you please. I must do something for myself.”
“That is it,” said the Minor Canon, bitterly—“always the same; between those you love and those that love you there is a great gulf; therefore you must do something for yourself.”
She looked at him wondering, with sad eyes. He was angry, but not with her—with life and fate; and Lottie did not blush as she divined his secret. It was too serious for that. It was not her fault or his fault; neither of them had done it or could mend it. Had she but known! had he but known! Now there was nothing to be done but to unite what little wisdom they had over the emergency, and decide what she was to do—for herself. Her father had no place for her in his house. Law would not have her with him; her lover had forsaken her; and to those who wouldhave had her, who would have cherished her, there was no response in Lottie’s heart. Yet here she stood with her problem of existence in her hands, to be solved somehow. She looked piteously at the man who loved her, but was her friend above all, silently asking that counsel of which she stood so much in need. What was she to do?
Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Temple came in with Dr. Enderby, who had been kind to Lottie, as they all were, and who regulated everybody’s health within the Precincts, from Lady Caroline downward. The good doctor, who had daughters of his own, looked with kind eyes upon the girl, who was so much less happy than they. He took her slender wrist into his hand, and looked into her luminous, over-clear eyes, wet with involuntary tears.
“She is looking a great deal better. She will soon be quite herself,” he said cheerfully; but winked his own eyelids to throw off something, which was involuntary too.
“Yes, yes,” said Captain Temple, who had come in after him. “She will soon be quite herself; but you must give her her orders to stay with us, doctor. We want to be paid for nursing her—and now she will be able to run about on all our errands, and save us a great deal of trouble, and keep us happy with her pretty voice and her singing. Did you ever hear her sing, doctor? The Signor is very anxious about her.We must begin our lessons again, my pretty Lottie, as soon as ever the doctor gives leave.”
Dr. Enderby looked very grave. “There is no hurry about that,” he said, “let her have a little more time. The Signor must be content to wait.”
Now Lottie had said, and they all had said, that her voice was gone; but when the doctor’s face grew so grave, a cold chill struck to their hearts. She gave him a startled look of alarmed inquiry, she who had suddenly realised, now that all dreams were over, that question of existence which is the primitive question in this world. Before happiness, before love, before everything that makes life lovely, this mere ignoble foundation of a living, must come. When one is young, as Lottie said, one cannot die at one’s own pleasure—and suddenly, just as she had got to realise that necessity, was it possible that this other loss was really coming too? She looked at him with anxious eyes, but he would not look at her, to give her any satisfaction; then she laid her hand softly on his arm.
“Doctor,” she said, “tell me true—tell me the worst there is to tell. Shall I never have my voice again? is it gone, gone?”
“We must not ask such searching questions,” said the doctor, with a smile. “We don’t know anything aboutneverin our profession. We know to-day, and perhaps to-morrow—something about them—but no more.”
He tried to smile, feeling her gaze upon him, and made light of her question. But Lottie was not to be evaded. All the little colour there was ebbed out of her face.
“Shall I never sing again?” she said. “No—that is not what I mean; shall I never be able to sing as I did once? Is it over? Oh, Doctor, tell me the truth, is that over too?”
They were all surrounding him with anxious faces. The doctor got up hurriedly and told them he had an appointment. “Do not try to sing,” he said, “my dear,” patting her on the shoulder. “It will be better for you, for a long time, if you do not even try;” and before anyone could speak again he had escaped, and was hurrying away.
When he was gone, Lottie sat still, half stupefied, yet quivering with pain and the horror of a new discovery. She could not speak at first. She looked round upon them with trembling lips, and great tears in her eyes. Then all at once she slid down upon her knees at Mrs. Temple’s feet.
“Now all is gone,” she said, “all is gone—not eventhatis left. Take me for your servant instead of the one that is going away. I can work—I am not afraid to work. I know all the work of a house. Let me be your servant instead of the one who is going away.”
“Oh, Lottie, hush, hush! are you not my child?” said Mrs. Temple, with a great outcry of weeping,clasping her shoulders and drawing the upturned face to her breast. But Lottie insisted gently and kept her position. In this thing at least she was not to be balked.
“Your servant,” she said, “instead of the one that is going away. I am an honest girl, though they all cast me off. I cannot sing but I can work—your servant, or else I cannot be your child.”