BYMRS. OLIPHANT,AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC.COPYRIGHT EDITION.IN THREE VOLUMES.VOL. III.LEIPZIGBERNHARD TAUCHNITZ1879.The Right of Translation is reserved.
Lottiemade her way down the Slopes alone, with feelings which had greatly changed from those of a few minutes ago. How happy she had been! The hour that had passed under the falling leaves had been like paradise; but the portals of exit from paradise are perhaps never so sweet as those of entrance. Her coming away was with a sense of humiliation and shame. As she wound her way down her favourite by-road winding among the shrubs and trees, she could not help feeling that she was making her escape, as if from some guilty meeting, some clandestine rendezvous. In all her life Lottie had never known this sensation before. She had been shy, and had shrunk from the gaze of people who had stared at her, in admiration of her beauty or of her singing, but in her shyness there had always been the pride of innocence; and never before had she been afraid to meet any eye, orfelt it necessary to steal away, to keep out of sight as if she were guilty. She had not done anything wrong, but yet she had all the feeling of having done something wrong—the desire to escape, the horror of detection. To some the secret meeting, the romance and mystery, would have been only an additional happiness, but Lottie, proud and frank and open-hearted, could not bear the very thought of doing anything of which she was ashamed. The sensation hurt and humiliated her. All had been very differentbefore: to meet her lover unawares, yet not without intention, with a delightful element of chance in each encounter—to look out secretly for him, yet wonder innocently to find him—to let her steps be drawn here or there by a sense of his presence, with a fond pretence of avoiding him, a sweet certainty of meeting him—all these risks and hazards of emotion had been natural. But Lottie felt with a sudden jar of her nerves and mind that this ought not to continue so. She had felt a little wondering disappointment on the previous night when he had asked her to meet him again, without any suggestion that he should go to her, or make the new bond between them known. Even then there had been a faint jar, a sigh of unfulfilled expectation. But now their hurried parting, her own flight, the little panic lest they should be seen, and discovery follow, made Lottie’s heart sick. How well she could imaginehow this ought to have been! They ought not to have fled from each other, or been afraid of any man’s eye. It ought not to have mattered whether the Signor or anyone suspected. Blushing and shy, yet with full faith in the sympathy of all who saw her, Lottie should have walked down the Dean’s Walk with her betrothed: she should have avoided no one. She should have been shamefaced but not ashamed. What a difference between the two! all the difference that there is between the soft blush of happiness and the miserable burning of guilt. And this was what ought to have been. Half the misery of Lottie—as half the misery of all imaginative inexperienced women—arose from the pain and disappointment of feeling that those she loved did not come up to the ideal standard she had set up in her soul. She was disappointed, not so much because of the false position in which she herself was placed (for this, except instinctively, she had but little realised), but because Rollo was not doing, not yet, all that it seemed right for him to do. She would have forced and beaten (had she been able) Law into the fulfilment of his duty, she would even have made him generous to herself, not for the sake of herself, but that he should be a model of brotherhood, an example of all a true man ought to be; and if this was so in the case of her brother, how much more with her lover? If to be harsh as a tyrant or indifferent as asultan, was the highest ideal of a man’s conduct, how much happier many a poor creature would be! It seems a paradox to say so, but it is true enough; for the worst of all, in a woman’s mind, is to feel that the wrong done toheris worse wrong tohim, an infringement of the glory of the being whom she would fain see perfect. This, however, is a mystery beyond the comprehension of the crowd. Lottie was used to being disappointed with Law—was she fated to another disappointment more cruel and bitter? She did not ask herself the question, she would not have thought it even, much less said it for all the world; but secretly there was a wonder, a pang, a faintness of failure in her heart.
It is not without an effort, however, that the heart will permanently admit any such disappointment. As Lottie went her ways thus drooping, ashamed and discouraged, thinking of everything that had been done and that ought to have been done, there drifted vaguely across her mind a kind of picture of Rollo’s meeting with her father, and what it would be. She had no sooner thought of this than a glow of alarm came over her face, bringing insensibly consolation to her mind. Rollo and her father! What would the Captain say to him? He would put on his grand air, in which even Lottie had no faith; he would exhibit himself in all his vain greatness, in all his self-importance, jauntyand fine, to his future son-in-law. He would give Lottie herself a word of commendation in passing, and he would spread himself forth before the stranger as if it was he whom Rollo wanted and cared for. Lottie’s steps quickened out of the languid pace into which they had fallen, and her very forehead grew crimson as she realised that meeting. Thank heaven, it had not taken place yet! Rollo had been too wise, too kind, too delicate to humble his love by hurrying into the presence of the Captain, into the house where the Captain’s new wife now reigned supreme. The new wife—she too would have a share in it, she would be called into counsel, she would give her advice in everything, and claim a right to interfere. Oh, Lottie thought, how foolish she had been! how much wiser was Rollo, no doubt casting about in his mind how it was best to be done, and pondering over it carefully to spare her pain. She felt herself enveloped in one blush from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet; but how sweet was that shame! It was she who was foolish, not he who had failed. Her cheeks burned with a penitential flush, but he was faultless. There was nothing in him to disappoint, but only the most delicate kindness, the tenderest care of her. How could she have thought otherwise? It was not possible that Rollo should like secret meetings, should fear discovery. In the first days of their acquaintance he had shown noreluctance to come to the humble little lodge. But now—his finer feeling shrank from it now—he wanted to take his love away from that desecrated place, not to shame her by prying into its ignoble mysteries. He was wiser, better, kinder than anyone. And she was ashamed ofherself, not any longer of anything else, ashamed of her poor, mean, unworthy interpretation of him; and as happy in her new, changed consciousness of guilt, and penitence and self-disgust—as happy as if, after her downfall into earth, she had now safely got back into heaven.
By this time she had got out of the wooded Slopes, and over the stile, and into the steep thoroughfare at the foot of the Abbey walls, the pavement of St. Michael’s Hill. Lottie did not feel that there was any harm in walking through the street alone, as Rollo thought there was. She wanted no attendant. A little bodyguard, invisible, but with a radiance going out from them which shone about her, attended upon her way—love and innocence and happiness, no longer with drooping heads but brave and sweet, a band invisible, guaranteeing their charge against all ills. As she went along the street with this shining retinue, there was nothing in all the world that could have harmed her; and nobody wanted to harm the girl—of whom, but that she was proud, no soul in St. Michael’s had an unkind word to say. Everybody knew the domestictrouble that had come upon her, and all the town was sorry for Lottie—all the more that there was perhaps a human satisfaction in being sorry for one whose fault was that she was proud. She met Captain Temple as she entered the Abbey Gate. Many thoughts about her had been in the kind old man’s heart all the morning, and it was partly to look for her, after vain walks about the Abbey Precincts, that he was turning his steps towards the town. He came up to her eagerly, taking her hand between his. He thought she must have been wandering out disconsolate, no matter where, to get away from the house which was no longer a fit home for one like her. He was so disturbed and anxious about her, that the shadow which was in his mind seemed to darken over Lottie, and cast a reflection of gloom upon her face. “You have been out early, my dear? Why did you not send for me to go with you? After matins I am always at your service,” he said.
But there was none of the gloom which Captain Temple imagined in Lottie’s face. She looked up at him out of the soft mist of her own musings with a smile. “I went out before matins,” she said; “I have been out a long time. I had—something to do.”
“My poor child! I fear you have been wandering, keeping out of the way,” said the old Captain. Then another thought seized him. Had she begun alreadyto serve the new wife and do her errands? “My dear,” he said, “what have you been doing? you must not be too good—you must not forget yourself too much. Your duty to your father is one thing, but you must not let yourself be made use of now—you must recollect your own position, my dear.”
“My position?” she looked up at him bewildered; for she was thinking only of Rollo, while he thought only of her father’s wife.
“Yes, Lottie, my dear child, you have thought only of your duty hitherto, but you must not yield to every encroachment. You must not allow it to be supposed that you give up everything.”
“Ah,” said Lottie, lifting to him eyes which seemed to swim in a haze of light; “to give up everything would be so—— I don’t know what you mean,” she added hastily, in a half-terrified tone. As for Captain Temple, he was quite bewildered, and did not know what to think.
“Need I explain, my dear, what I mean? There can be but one thing that all your friends are thinking of. This new relation, this new connection. I could not sleep all night for thinking of you, in the house with that woman. My poor child! and my wife too. You were the last thing we talked of at night, the first thing in the morning——”
“Ah,” said Lottie again, coming back to reality with a long-drawn breath. “I was not thinking of her; but I understand you now.”
Lottie had, however, some difficulty in thinking ofher, even now; for one moment, being thus recalled to the idea, her countenance changed; but soon came back to its original expression. Her eyes were dewy and sweet—a suspicion of tears in them like the morning dew on flowers with the sunshine reflected in it, the long eyelashes moist, but the blue beneath as clear as a summer sky; and the corners of her mouth would run into curves of smiling unawares; her face was not the face of one upon whom the cares of the world were lying heavy, but of one to whom some new happiness had come. She was not thinking of what he was saying, but of something in her own mind. The kind old Captain could not tell what to think; he was alarmed, though he did not know why.
“Then it is not so bad,” he said, “as you feared?”
“What is not so bad? Things at home? Oh, Captain Temple! But I try not to think about it,” Lottie said hastily, with a quiver in her lip. She looked at him wistfully, with a sudden longing. “I wish—I wish—but it is better not to say anything.”
“You may trust to me, my dear; whatever is in your heart I will never betray you; you may trust to me.”
Lottie’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at him,but she shook her head. They were not bitter tears, only a little bitter-sweet of happiness that wanted expression, but which she dared not reveal. If she could but have told him! If Rollo, failing her father, would but come and speak to this kind and true friend! But she shook her head. She was no longer free to say and do whatever pleased her out of her own heart. She must think ofhim; and while he did not speak, what could she say? She put out her hand to her old friend again with a little sudden artifice unlike Lottie. “I have been out all the morning,” she said; “I must make haste and get back now.”
“I am very glad you are not unhappy,” said the old Captain, looking at her regretfully. He was not quite sincere. To tell the truth it gave him a shock to find that Lottie was not unhappy; how could she put up with such a companion, with such a fate? He went in to his wife, who had been watching furtively at the window while this conversation was going on, to talk it all over. Mrs. Temple was almost glad to find something below perfection in the girl about whom secretly she thought as much as her husband talked. “We have been thinking too much about it,” she said; “if she can find the stepmother congenial, it will be better for her.”
“Congenial! you are talking folly. How could she be congenial?” cried Captain Temple, with great heat,but he did not know what to make of it. He was disappointed in Lottie. When he had met her the day before she had been quivering with pain and shame, revolted and outraged, as it was right and natural she should be: but now it seemed to have passed altogether from her mind. He could not make it out. He was disappointed; he went on talking of this wonder all day long and shaking his white head.
As for Lottie, when she went home, she passed through the house, light and silent as a ghost, to her own little room, where, abstracted from everything else, she could live in the new little world of her own which had come out of the mists into such sudden and beautiful life. It was very unlike Lottie, but what more does the young soul want when thevita nuovahas just begun, but such a possibility of self-abstraction and freedom to pursue its dreams? Rapt in these, she gave up her occupation, her charge, without a sigh. When she was called to table she came quite gently, and took no notice of anything that passed there, having enough in her own mind to keep her busy. Law was as much astonished as Captain Temple. He had thought that Lottie would not endure it for a day; but, thanks to that happy preoccupation, Lottie sailed serenely through these troubled waters for more than a week, during which she spent a considerable portion of her time on the Slopes, though the weathergrew colder and colder every day, and the rest in her own room, in which she sat fireless, doing her accustomed needlework, her darnings and mendings, mechanically, while Polly remodelled the drawing-room, covering it up with crocheted antimacassars, and all the cheap and coarse devices of vulgar upholstery. While this was going on, she too was content to have Lottie out of the way. Polly pervaded the house with high-pitched voice and noisy step; and she filled it with savoury odours, giving the two men hot suppers, instead of poor Lottie’s cold beef, which they had often found monotonous. The Captain now came in for this meal, which in former times he had rarely favoured; he spent the evenings chiefly at home, having not yet dropped out of the fervour of the honeymoon; and on the whole even Law was not sure that there was not something to be said for the new administration of the house. There was no cold beef—that was an improvement patent to the meanest capacity. As for Polly, nothing had yet occurred to mar her glory and happiness. She wore her blue silk every day, she walked gloriously about the streets in her orange-blossoms, pointed out by everybody as one of the ladies of the Abbey. She went to the afternoon service and sat in her privileged seat, and looked down with dignified sweetness upon “the girls” who were as she once was. She felt herself as a goddess,sitting there in the elevated place to which she had a right, and it seemed to her that to be a Chevalier’s wife was as grand as to be a princess. But Polly did not soil her lips with so vulgar a word as wife. She called herself a Chevalier’s lady, and her opinion of her class was great. “Chevalier means the same thing as knight, and, instead of being simple missis, I am sure we should all be My lady,” Polly said, “if we had our rights.” Even her husband laughed, but this did not change her opinion. It was ungrateful of the other Chevaliers’ ladies that they took no notice of this new champion of their order. But for the moment Polly, in the elation of her success, did not mind this, and was content to wait for the recognition which sooner or later she felt would be sure to come.
This elation kept her from interfering with Lottie, whose self-absorbed life in her own room, and her exits and entrances, Mrs. Despard tolerated and seemed to accept as natural; she had so many things to occupy and to please her, that she could afford to let her step-daughter alone. And thus Lottie pursued for a little time that life out of nature to which she had been driven. She lived in those moments on the Slopes, and in the hours she spent at the Signor’s piano, singing; and then brooded over these intervals of life in the silence. Her lessons had increased to three in the week, and these hours of so-called studywere each like a drama of intense and curious interest. Rollo was always there—a fact which he explained to the Signor by his professional interest in the new singer, and which to Lottie required no explanation; and there too was her humble lover, young Purcell, who as she grew familiar with the sight of him, and showed no displeasure at his appearance, grew daily a little more courageous, sometimes daring to turn the leaves of the music, and even to speak to her. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who sat by, watching them all with lively but not extravagant interest, was the only one in the little party who was not more or less excited. As for Lottie, this lesson was the centre of all her life. If music be the food of love, love was the very inspiration of music to her; the two re-acted upon each other, raising her to such a height of primitive heroic passion as nobody near her divined—as nobody, indeed, except perhaps the Signor, with his Italian susceptibility, was capable of divining. He saw indeed with dissatisfaction, with an interest which was almost angry, that it was not art that moved her, and that the secret of the astonishing progress she made, was not in his instructions. What was it? The Signor was angry, for he felt no certainty that this wonderful progress was real. Something made her sing like an angel. What was it? not art. The natural qualities of her voice were not to be gainsayed; but the musicianfelt that the training under which she seemed to be advancing visibly, was all fictitious, and that it was something else that inspired her. But Rollo had no such enlightenment. He remarked with all the technicality of an amateur how her high notes gained in clearness, and her low notes in melody, at every new effort. It was wonderful; but then the Signor was a wonderful teacher, a wonderful accompanyist, and what so natural as that a creature of genius like this, should grow under his teaching like a flower? Though it was to him she sang, and though her love for him was her inspiration, Rollo was as unaware of this as old Pickering in the hall, who listened and shook his head, and decided in his heart that a woman with a voice like that was a deal too grand for Mr. John. “She’s more like Jenny Lind than anything,” old Pick said; and in this Mr. Ridsdale agreed, as he sat and listened, and thought over the means which should be employed to secure her success. As for young Purcell, he stood entranced and turned over the leaves of the music. Should he ever dare to speak to her again, to offer her his love, as he had once ventured to do,—she who seemed born to enthral the whole world? But then, the young fellow thought, who was there but he who had an ’ome to offer Lottie? He was the nobler of the two between whom she stood, the two men who loved her: all his thought was, that she being unhappy, poor, her father’s house made wretched to her, he had an ’ome to offer her; whereas Rollo thought of nothing but of the success she must achieve in which he would have his share. In order to achieve that success Rollo had no mind to lend her even his name; but the idea that it was a thing certain, comforted him much in the consciousness of his own imprudent engagement, and gave a kind of sanction to his love. To marry a woman with such a faculty for earning money could not be called entirely imprudent. These were the calculations, generous and the reverse, which were made about her. Only Lottie herself made no calculations, but sang out of the fulness of her heart, and the delicate passion that possessed her; and the Signor stood and watched, dissatisfied, sympathetic, the only one that understood at all, though he but poorly, the high emotion and spring-tide of life which produced that flood of song.
In this highly-strained unnatural way, life went on amid this little group of people, few of whom were conscious of any volcano under their feet. It went on day by day, and they neither perceived the gathering rapidity of movement in the events, nor any other sign that to-day should not be as yesterday. Shortly after the explanation had taken place between Rollo and Lottie, Augusta Huntington, now Mrs. Daventry, arrived upon her first visit home. She was the Dean’s only child, and naturally every honour was done to her. All the country round, everyone that was of sufficient importance to meet the Dean’s daughter, was invited to hail her return. The Dean himself took the matter in hand to see that no one was overlooked. They would all like, he thought, to see Augusta, the princess royal of the reigning house; and Augusta was graciously pleased to like it too. One of these entertainments ended in a great musical party, to which all who had known Miss Huntington, all the singers in the madrigals and choruses of which she had been so fond, were asked. When Lottie’s invitation came, there was a great thrill and commotion in Captain Despard’s house. Lottie did not even suspect the feeling which had been roused on the subject when she took out her white muslin dress, now, alas, no longer so fresh as at first, and inspected it anxiously. It would do still with judicious ironing, but what must she do for ornaments, now that roses were no longer to be had? This troubled Lottie’s mind greatly, though it may be thought a frivolous question, until a few hours before the time, when two different presents came for her, of flowers: one being a large and elaborate bouquet, the other a bunch of late roses, delicate, lovely, half-opened buds, which could only have come out of some conservatory. One of these was from Rollo, and who could doubt which it was? Who buthe would have remembered her sole decoration, and found for her in winter those ornaments of June? What did she care who sent the other? She decked herself with her roses, in a glow of grateful tenderness, as proud as she was happy, to find herself thus provided by his delicate care and forethought. It did not even occur to Lottie to notice the dark looks that were thrown at her as she came downstairs all white and shining, and was wrapped by Law (always ostentatiously attentive to his sister in Polly’s presence) in the borrowed glory of Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s great Indian shawl.
The party was large and crowded, and Lottie, all alone in it, was frightened and confused at first; but they were all very kind to her, she thought. Lady Caroline said, “How do you do, Miss Despard?” with something like a smile, and looked as if she might have given Lottie her hand, had not the girl been afraid; and Augusta, when she found her out, came forward with a welcome which was almost effusive. “I hear you have improved so much,” she said, taking in at one glance all the particulars of Lottie’s appearance, with a wondering question within herself where the roses came from, though she perceived at once that it was the same white muslin frock. And when Lottie sang, which the Signor managed she should do with great effect towards the close of the evening,Augusta rushed to her with great eyes of astonishment. “Where did you get all that voice?” she cried; “you did not have that voice when I went away.” “I flatter myself it was I that found Miss Despard out,” said Rollo, suffering himself to look at her, which hitherto he had only done when there was a shield of crowding groups between him and his cousin. Before this he had managed to make the evening sweet to Lottie by many a whispered word: but when he looked at her now, unawares, under Augusta’s very eyes, with that fond look of proprietorship which is so unmistakable by the experienced, and to which Lottie responded shyly by a smile and blush, and conscious tremor of happiness, neither of them knew what a fatal moment it was. Augusta, looking on, suddenly woke up to the meaning of it, the meaning of Rollo’s long stay at the Deanery, and various other wonders. She gave the pair but one look, and then she turned away. But Lottie did not see that anything strange had happened. She was so happy that even when Rollo too left her, her heart was touched and consoled by the kindly looks of the people whom she knew in the crowd, the ladies who had heard her sing before at the Deanery, and who were gracious to her, and Mr. Ashford who kept by her side and watched over her—“like a father,” Lottie said to herself, with affectionate gratitude, such as might have become that impossible relationship. The Minor Canon did not leave her for the rest of the evening, and he it was who saw her home, waiting till the door was opened, and pressing kindly her trembling cold hand: for, she could not tell how, the end of the evening was depressing and discouraging, and the pleasure went all out of it when Rollo whispered to her in passing, “Take care, for heaven’s sake, or Augusta will find us out!” Why should it matter so much to him that Augusta should find it out? Was not she more to him than Augusta? Lottie shrank within herself and trembled with a nervous chill. She was half grateful to, half angry with even Mr. Ashford. Why should he be so much more kind to her, so much more careful of her than the man who had promised her his love and perpetual care?
But even now when she stole in, shivering with the cold of disappointment and discouragement, through the dark house to her room Lottie did not know all that this evening had wrought. And she scarcely noticed the gloom on Polly’s face, nor the strain of angry monologue which her father’s wife gave vent to, next morning. Polly wondered what was the good of being a married lady, when a young unmarried girl that was nobody, was took such notice of, and her betters left at ’ome? Did people know no manners? gentlefolks! they called themselves gentlefolks, and behaved like that? If that was politeness, Polly thanked heaven it was not the kind as she had been taught. But the outburst came when Lottie, taking no notice, scarcely even hearing what was said, showed herself with her music in her hands going out to her lesson. Polly came out of her husband’s room and planted herself defiantly in Lottie’s way. “Where are you going again,” she said, “Miss? where are you going again? is this to be always the way of it? Do you mean never to stay at home nor do anything to help nor make yourself agreeable? I declare it is enough to put a saint in a passion. But I won’t put up with it, I can tell you. I did not come here to be treated like this, like the dirt under your feet.”
Lottie was almost too much taken by surprise to speak. It was the first absolute shock of collision. “I am going for my lesson,” she said.
“Your lesson!” cried Polly. “Oh my patience, oh my poor ’usband! that is the way his money goes—lessons for you and lessons for Law, and I don’t know what! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you two. You ought to be making your living both of you, if you were honest, instead of living on your father as wants all he’s got for himself. But you shan’t go to any lesson if I can help it,” she cried. “You’ll stay at home and try and be of a little use, or you’ll march off this very day, and find some one else toput up with you and your lessons. It shan’t be me. I won’t stand by and see my ’usband wronged. You’ll ruin him between you, that’s what you’ll do; go back, Miss, and put down them books this moment. I won’t have it, I tell you. I’ll not see my ’usband eaten up by the likes of you.”
Polly’s diction suffered from her passion, and so did her appearance. Her face grew scarlet, her eyes flashed with fury. She put out her hand to push Lottie back, who shrank from her with a cry of dismay—
“Let me pass, please,” said Lottie piteously. She could not quarrel with this woman, she could not even enter so much into conflict with her as to brush past her, and thus escape. She shrank with pain and horror from the excited creature in her way.
“It’s you that will have to go back,” said Polly, “not me. I’m the mistress of this house, you’ll please to recollect, Miss Lottie. Your father’s been a deal too good, he’s let you do just what you pleased, but that’s not my style. I begins as I mean to end. You shan’t stay here, I tell you, whatever you may think, if you want to trample upon me, and eat up every penny he has. Go and take off your things this moment, and see if you can’t be a little use in the house.”
Lottie was struck dumb and could not tell what to say. She had not been cared for much in her life,but she had never been restrained, and the sensation was new to her. She did not know how to reply. “I do not wish to be in your way,” she cried. “I shall not stay long nor trouble you long, but please do not interfere with me while I am here. I must go.”
“And I say you shan’t go!” said Polly, raising her voice after the manner of her kind, and stamping her foot upon the floor. “If you disobey me, I won’t have you here not another day. I’ll turn you out if it was twelve o’clock at night. I’ll show you that I am mistress in my own house. Do you think I’m going to be outfaced by you, and treated like the dirt below your feet? Go and take off your things this moment, and try if you can’t settle to a bit of work. Out of this house you shan’t go, not a single step.”
“I say, stand out of the way,” said Law; he had come out of the dining-room with his hands in his pockets, having just finished his dinner. Law was not easily moved, but he had now made up his mind that he was on Lottie’s side. “Don’t give yourself airs to her. She is not of your sort,” he said. “The governor may let you do many things, but not bully her. Look here, Polly, you’d better stand out of her way.”
“And who are you, you lazy, useless lout, that dares to call me Polly?” she cried. “Polly, indeed! your father’s wife, and far better than you. I’ll make him put you to the door, too, you idle low fellow,spending your time with a pack of silly, dressing, useless girls——”
“I say, stop that,” cried Law, growing red and seizing her suddenly by the arm; he stood upon no ceremony with Polly, though she was his father’s wife; but he gave an uneasy alarmed glance at Lottie. “There’s some one waiting for you outside,” he cried. “Lottie, go.”
She did not wait for any more. Trembling and horrified, she ran past and got out breathless, hastily closing the door behind her. The door had been open, and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy outside—drawing her skirts round her, physically and metaphorically, so as to avoid all pollution, yet listening to everything she could hear, was walking up and down the pavement. “Me poor child!” the good Irishwoman said, half sorry, half delighted to hear the first of the scandal. “Already! has it come to this? Me heart is sore for ye, Lottie me dear!”
Lottiescarcely knew how she got through that afternoon. Rollo presented himself for but a moment at the Signor’s, in great concern that he could not stay, and begging a hundred pardons with his eyes, which he could not put into words. Lady Caroline and Augusta had made an engagement for him from which he could not get free. “At the elm-tree!” he whispered in the only moment when he could approach Lottie. Her heart, which was beating still with the mingled anger, and wonder, and fright of her late encounter, sank within her. She could only look at him with a glance which was half appeal and half despair. And when he went away the day seemed to close in, the clouds to gather over the very window by which she was standing, and heaven and earth to fail her. Rollo’s place was taken by a spectator whose sympathy was more disinterested than that of Rollo, and his pity more tender; but what was that to Lottie, who wanted only the one man whom she loved, notany other? What a saving of trouble and pain there would be in this world if the sympathy of one did as well as that of another! There was poor Purcell turning over the music, gazing at her with timid eyes full of devotion, and longing to have the courage and the opportunity to offer her again that ’ome which poor Lottie so much wanted, which seemed opened to her nowhere else in the whole world. And on the other side stood Mr. Ashford without any such definite intention as Purcell, without any perception as yet of anything in himself but extreme “interest in,” and compassion for, this solitary creature, but roused to the depths of his heart by the sight of her, anxious to do anything that could give her consolation, and ready to stand by her against all the world. The Minor Canon had been passing when that scene took place in the hall of Captain Despard’s house with its open door. He had heard Polly’s loud voice, and he had seen Law rush out, putting on his hat, and flushed with unusual feeling. “I don’t mind what she says to me as long as she keeps off Lottie!” the young man had said; and careless as Law was, the tears had come to his eyes, and he had burst forth, “My poor Lottie! what is she to do?” Mr. Ashford’s heart had been wrung by this outcry. What could he do?—he was helpless—an unmarried man; of what use could he ever be to a beautiful, friendless girl? He felt howimpotent he was with an impatience and distress which did not lessen that certainty. He could do nothing for her, and yet he could not be content to do nothing. This was why he came to the Signor’s, sitting down behind backs beside Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who distracted him by much pantomimic distress, shaking her head and lifting up her hands and eyes, and would fain have whispered to him all the time of Lottie’s singing had not the Signor sternly interfered. (“Sure these musical folks they’re as big tyrants as the Rooshians themselves,” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy said indignantly.) This was all the Minor Canon could do—to come and stand by the lonely girl, though no one but himself knew what his meaning was. It could not be any help to Lottie, who was not even conscious of it. Perhaps, after all, the sole good in it was to himself.
Lottie had never sung so little well. She did not sing badly. She took trouble; the Signor felt she tried to do her best, to work at it, to occupy herself with the music by way of getting rid of things more urgent which would press themselves upon her. In short, for the time Lottie applied herself to it with some faint conception of the purposes of art. To have recourse to art as an opiate against the pangs of the inner being, as an escape from the harms of life, is perhaps not the best way of coming at it, but the Signor knew that this was one of the most beatenways towards that temple which to him enshrined everything that was best in the world. It was, perhaps, the only way in which Lottie was likely to get at it, and he saw and understood the effort. But it could not be said that the effort was very successful. The others, who were thinking only of her, felt that Lottie did not do so well as usual. She was not in voice, Purcell said to himself; and to the Minor Canon it seemed very natural that after the scene which she had just gone through poor Lottie should have but little heart for her work. It was easily explained. The Signor, however, who knew nothing of the circumstances, came to the most true conclusion. The agitation of that episode with Polly would not have harmed her singing, however it might have troubled herself, had Lottie’s citadel of personal happiness been untouched. But the flag was lowered from that donjon, the sovereign was absent. There was no inspiration left in the dull and narrowed world where Lottie found herself left. Her first opening of vigorous independent life had been taken from her, and for the first time the life of visionary passion and enthusiasm was laid low. She did not give in. She made a brave effort, stilling her excited nerves, commanding her depressed heart. The Signor himself was more excited than he had been by all the previous easy triumphs of her inspiration. Now was the test of what she hadin her. Happiness dies, love fails, but art is for ever. Could she rise to the height of this principle, or would she drop upon the threshold of the sacred place incapable of answering to the guidance of art alone? Never before had he felt the same anxious interest in Lottie. He thought she was groping for that guidance, though without knowing it, in mere instinct of pain to find something that would not fail her. She did not rise so high as she had done under the other leading; but to the Signor this seemed to be in reality Lottie’s first step, though she did not know it, on the rugged ascent which is the artist’s way of life. Strait is the path and narrow is the way in that, as in all excellence. The Signor praised her more than he had ever praised her before, to the surprise of the lookers-on; the generous enthusiasm of the artist glowed in him. If he could, he would have helped her over the roughness of the way, just as the Minor Canon, longing and pitiful, would have helped her if he could, over the roughness of life. But the one man was still more powerless than the other to smooth her path. Here it was not sex, nor circumstances, which were in fault, but the rigid principles of art, which are less yielding than rocks; every step, however painful, in that thorny way the neophyte must tread for herself. The Signor knew it; but the more his beginner stumbled, the more eager was he to cheer her on.
“I am afraid I sang very badly,” Lottie said, coming out with Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and the Minor Canon, who went along with them he scarcely knew why. He could do nothing for the girl, but he did not like to leave her—to seem (to himself) to desert her. Only himself was in the least degree aware that he was standing by Lottie in her trouble.
“Me child, you all think a deal too much about it. It was neither better nor worse; that’s what I don’t like in all your singing. It may be fine music, but it’s always the same thing over and over. If it was a tune that a body could catch—but it’s little good the best tune would have been to me this day. I didn’t hear you, Lottie, for thinking what was to become of you. What will ye do? Will you never mind, but go back? Sure you’ve a right to your father’s house whatever happens, and I wouldn’t be driven away at the first word. There is nothing would please her so well. I’d go back!”
“Oh, don’t say any more!” cried Lottie with a movement of sudden pride. But when she caught the pitying look of the Minor Canon her heart melted. “Mr. Ashford will not be angry because I don’t like to speak of it,” she said, raising her eyes to him. “He knows that things are not—not very happy—at home.”
Then Mr. Ashford awoke to the thought that he might be intruding upon her. He took leave of the ladies hurriedly. But when she had given him her hand, he stood holding it for a minute. “I begin to like Law very much,” he said. To feel that this was the way in which he could give her most pleasure was a delicate instinct, but it was not such a pleasure as it would have been a month ago. Lottie did not speak, but a gleam of satisfaction rose in her eyes. “If there is anything I can do,” he said faltering, “to be of use——”
What could he do? Nothing? He knew that, and so did she. It was only to himself that this was a consolation, he said to himself when they were gone. He went away to his comfortable house; and she, slim and light, turned to the other side of the Abbey, with Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, with nowhere in the world to go to. Was that so? was it really so? But still he, with that house of his, a better home than the one which young Purcell was so eager to offer her, what could he do? Nothing; unless it were one thing which had not before entered his thoughts, and now, when it had got in, startled him so, that, middle-aged as he was, he felt his countenance turn fiery red, and went off at a tremendous pace, as if he had miles to go. He had only a very little way to go before he reached his own door, and yet he had travelledmore than miles between that and the dwelling of the Signor.
As for Lottie, she went home with Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, not knowing what she was to do after. The elm-tree—that was the only place in the world that seemed quite clear to her. For a moment, in the sickness of her disappointment to see Rollo abandon her, she had said to herself that she would not go; but soon a longing to tell him her trouble came upon her. After the Abbey bells had roused all the echoes, and the usual congregation had come from all quarters for the evening service, she left Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and went slowly towards the Slopes. It was still early, and the wintry afternoon was cold. There was an east wind blowing, parching the landscape, and turning all its living tints into lines of grey. Lottie was not very warmly clothed. She had her merino gown and little cloth jacket, very plain garments, not like the furs in which Augusta had come home; but, then, Lottie was not used to living like Augusta, and perhaps her thinner wrap kept her as warm. She went up the Dean’s Walk languidly, knowing that it was too early, but unable to rest. She would have to go home after all, to steal in and hide herself in her room, for this night at least; but, after that, what was she to do? The O’Shaughnessys had not a room to give her. She had no relations whom she might go to; what was tobecome of her? When she got to the elm-tree there was nobody there. She had known it was too early. She sat down and thought, but what could thinking do? What could she make of it? She looked over the wide landscape which had so often stilled and consoled her, but it was all dead and unresponsive, dried up by that east wind; the earth and the sky, and even the horizon on which they met, all drawn in pale outlines of grey. Her face was blank and pale, like the landscape, when the lover for whom she was waiting appeared. The wind, which was so cold, had driven everybody else away. They had it all to themselves, this chilly wintry landscape, the shadowy trees, with a few ragged garments of yellow or faded brown still clinging to them. Rollo came up breathless, his feet ringing upon the winding path. He came and placed himself beside her, with a thousand apologies that she should have had to wait. “It was a trick of Augusta’s,” he said; “I am sure she suspects something.” Lottie felt that this repeated suggestion that someone suspected ought not to be made to her. But her paleness and sadness roused Rollo to the most hearty concern. “Something has happened,” he said; “I can see it, darling, in your eyes. Tell me what it is. Have not I a right to know everything?” Indeed he was so anxious and so tender that Lottie forgot all about offence and her disappointment, and everythingthat was painful. Who had she beside to relieve her burdened heart to, to lean upon in her trouble? She told him what had happened, feeling that with every word she uttered her load was being lightened. Oh! how good it is to be able to say forth everything, to tell someone to whom all that happens to you is interesting! As she told Polly’s insults, even Polly herself seemed to grow more supportable. Rollo listened to every word with anxious interest, with excitement, and indignation and grief. He held her closer to him, saying, “My poor darling, my poor Lottie!” with outbursts of rage and tender pity. Lottie’s heart grew lighter and lighter as she went on. He seemed to her to be taking it all on his shoulders, the whole of the burden. His eyes shone with love and indignation. It was not a thing which could be borne; she must not bear it, he would not allow her to bear it, he cried. Finally, a great excitement seemed to get possession of him all at once. A sudden impulse seized upon him. He held her closer than ever, with a sudden tightening of his clasp, and hasty resolution. “Lottie!” he cried; and she could feel his heart suddenly leap into wild beating, and looked up trembling and expectant, sure that he had found some way of deliverance. “Lottie, my love! you must not put up with this another day. You must come away at once. Why not this very night? I could not rest and thinkyou were bearing such indignity. You must be brave, and trust yourself to me. You will not be afraid, my darling, to trust yourself to me?”
“To-night!” she said, with a cry of answering excitement, alarm, and wonder.
“Why not to-night?” he cried, with more and more energy. “I know a place where I could take you. A quiet, safe place, with people to take care of you, who would not suffer you to be annoyed even when I was not there myself to watch over you. Lottie, dearest, you would not be afraid to trust yourself to me?”
“No, Rollo, why should I be afraid?—but——” The suddenness of this prospect of deliverance, which she did not understand, took away Lottie’s breath.
“But—there are no buts. You would be taken care of as if you were in a palace. You would have everything to make your life pleasant. You could work at your music——”
“Ah!” she said, interrupting him; his excitement roused no alarm in her mind. She was incapable of understanding any meaning in him that was inconsistent with honour. “Would it be so necessary to think of the music?” she said. It seemed to her that for Rollo Ridsdale’s wife it need not be any longer a point essential. A host of other duties, more sweet, more homely, came before her dazzled eyes.
“Above all things!” he said, with a sudden panic, “without that what would you—how could I?——“—the suggestion was insupportable—“but we can discuss this after,” he said. “Lottie, my Lottie, listen! Trust yourself to me—let me take you away out of all this misery into happiness. Such happiness! I scarcely can put it into words. Why should you have another day of persecution, when you can be free, if you will, this very night?”
His countenance seemed aflame as he bent towards her in the wintry twilight; she could feel the tumultuous beating of his heart. It was no premeditated villany, but a real impulse, acted upon, without any pause for thought, with that sudden and impassioned energy which is often more subtle than the craftiest calculation. Even while his heart beat thus wildly with awakened passion, Rollo answered the feeble resistance of his conscience by asking himself what harm could it do her? it would not interfere with her career. As for Lottie, she raised herself up within his arm and threw back her head and looked at him, not shrinking from him nor showing any horror of the suggestion. There was a pause—only for a moment, but it felt like half-an-hour, while wild excitement, love, and terror coursed through his veins. Surely she understood him, and was not alarmed? If she had understood him and flung away from him in outragedvirtue, Rollo would have been abject in guilt and penitence. For the moment, however, though his heart beat with alarm, there was a sense of coming triumph in all his being.
Lottie raised her drooping shoulders, she threw back her head and looked at him, into the glowing face that was so close to her. Her heart had given one answering leap of excitement, but was not beating like his. At that moment, so tremendous to him, it was not passion, but reflection, that was in her eyes.
“Let me think—let us think,” she said. “Oh, Rollo! it is a great temptation. To go away, to be safe with you——”
“My darling, my own darling! you shall never have cause to fear, never to doubt me; my love will be as steady, as true——” So high had the excitement of suspense grown, that he had scarcely breath to get out the words.
“Do you think I doubt that?” she said, her voice sounding so calm, so soft to his excited ear. “That is not the question; there are so many other things to think of. If you will not think for yourself, I must think for you. Oh, Rollo, no! I don’t see how it could be. Listen to me; you are too eager, oh! thank you, dear Rollo, too fond of me, to take everythinginto consideration—butImust. Rollo! no, no; it would never do; how could it ever do, if you will only think? Supposing even that it did not matter for me, how could you marry your wife from any place but her home? It would not be creditable,” said Lottie, shaking her head with all the gentle superiority of reason, “it would not be right or becoming for you.”
His arm relaxed round her; he tried to say something, but it died away in his throat. For the moment the man was conscious of nothing but a positive pang of gratitude for a danger escaped; he was safe, but he scarcely dared breathe. Had she understood him as he meant her to understand him, what vengeance would have flashed upon him, what thunderbolt scathed him! But for very terror he would have shrunk and hid his face now in the trembling of the catastrophe escaped.
“More than that, even,” said Lottie, going on all unaware; “I have nothing, you know; and how could I take money—money to live upon—fromyou!—till I was married to you? No! it is impossible, impossible, Rollo. Oh! thank you, thank you a thousand times for having thought more of me than of anything else; but you see, don’t you see, how impossible it is? I will never forget,” said the girl softly, drawing a little closer to him who had fallen away from her in the strangetumult of failure—yet deliverance—which took all strength from him, “I will never forget that you were ready to forget everything that was reasonable, everything that was sensible, and even your own credit, for me!”
Another pause, but this time indescribable. In her bosom gratitude, tender love, and that sweet sense of calmer judgment, of reason less influenced by passion than it would be fitting or right for his to be, which a woman loves to feel within herself—her modest prerogative in the supreme moment; in his a tumult of love, disappointment, relief, horror of himself, anger and shame, and the thrill of a hairbreadth escape. He could not say a word; what he had done seemed incredible to him. The most tremendous denunciation would not have humbled him as did her unconsciousness. He had made her the most villainous proposal, and she had not even known what it meant; to her it had seemed all generosity, love, and honour. His arm dropped from around her, he had no force to hold her, and some inarticulate exclamation—he could not tell what—sounded hoarsely in utter confusion and shame in his throat.
“You are not angry?” she said, almost wooing him in her turn. “Rollo, it is not that I do not trust you, you know; who should I trust but you? If that wereall, I would put my hand in yours; you should take me wherever you pleased. But then there are the other things to be considered. And, Rollo, don’t be angry,” she said, drawing his arm within hers, “I can bear anything now. After talking to you, after feeling your sympathy, I can bear anything. What do I care for a woman like that? Of course I knew,” said Lottie, with tears in her eyes, “that you did feel for me, that you thought of me, that you were always on my side. But one wants to have it said over again to make assurance sure. Now I can bear anything, now I can go home—though it is not much home—and wait, till you come and fetch me, Rollo, openly, in the light, in the day.”
Here, because she was so happy, Lottie put her hands up to her face and laid those hands upon his shoulder and cried there in such a heavenly folly of pain and blessedness as words could not describe. That he should not claim her at once, that was a pain to her; and to think of that strange, horrible house to which she must creep back, that was pain which no happiness could altogether drive out of her thoughts. But yet, how happy she was! What did it matter if for the moment her heart was often sore? A little while and all would be well; a little while and she would be delivered out of all these troubles. It was only a question of courage, of endurance, of fortitude, and patience; and Lottie had got back her inspiration,and felt herself capable of bearing anything, everything, with a stout heart. But Rollo had neither recovered his speech nor his self-possession; shame and anger were in his heart. He had not been found out, but the very awe of escape was mingled with intolerable anger; anger no doubt chiefly against himself, but also a little against her, though why he could not have said. The unconsciousness of her innocence, which had impressed him so deeply at first and confounded all his calculations, began to irritate him. How was it possible she did not understand? was there stupidity as well as innocence in it? Most people would have had no difficulty in understanding, it would have been as clear as noonday—or, rather, as clear as gaslight; as evident as any “intention” could be. He could not bear this superiority, this obtuseness of believing; it offended him, notwithstanding that he had made by it what he felt to be the greatest escape of his life.
They parted after this not with the same enthusiasm on Rollo’s part as that which existed on Lottie’s. She was chilled, too, thinking he was angry with her for not yielding to his desire; and this overcast her happiness, but not seriously. They stole down by the side of the Abbey, in the shadow—Lottie talking, Rollo silent. When they came within sight of the cloister gate and the line of the lodges opposite, Lottie withdrew her hand from his arm. The road looked empty and dark; but who could tell what spectator might suddenly appear? She took hisrôlein the eagerness of her heart to make up to him for any vexation her refusal might have given. “Don’t come any further,” she whispered; “let us part here; someone might see us.” In her eagerness to make up to him for her own unkindness, she allowed the necessity for keeping that secret—though to think of it as a secret had wounded her before. Nevertheless, when he took her at her word and left her, Lottie, like the fanciful girl she was, felt a pang of disappointment and painfully realised her own desolateness, the dismal return all alone to the house out of which every quality of kindness had gone. Her heart sank, and with reluctant, lingering steps she came out of the Abbey shadow and began to cross the Dean’s Walk, her forlorn figure moving slowly against the white line of the road and the grey of the wintry sky.
Someone was standing at the door as she came in sight of her father’s house. It was Captain Despard himself, looking out. “Is that you, Lottie?” he called out, peering into the gloom. “Come in, come in; where have you been? You must not stay out again, making everybody anxious.” Then he came out a step or two from his door and spoke in a whisper: “You know what a woman’s tongue is,” he said; “they havea great deal to answer for; but when they get excited, what can stop them? You must try not to pay any attention; be sensible, and don’t mind—no more than I do,” Captain Despard said.