_Bel._ Whither shall I fly?
Where hide me and my miseries together?
Where’s now the Roman constancy I boasted?
Sunk into trembling fears and desperation.
_Jaf_. Mercy! Kind Heaven has surely endless stores
Hoarded for thee, of blessings yet untasted.
--Otway.
So Lotte Clinton began the world afresh. Her prospects were newer and
brighter. Since she had been flung abruptly and rudely upon the hard
world, she had not known such true comfort and happiness as she now
enjoyed. The death of her parents, within a few days of each other, had
left her and her brother--her senior only some fifteen months--utterly
destitute. The disinterested charity of a neighbouring humble tradesman,
who had known something of the family in better times, not only provided
the expenses of the double funeral, but paused not until it had placed
the boy in a lawyer’s office, and the girl at a milliner’s, as an
apprentice for three years in the house.
In those three years, Lotte had been trained to exist with as few hours
nightly sleep as it was possible for her young nature to sustain without
actually sinking under it. But she had acquired the whole mystery of
cap-makings and some little knowledge of dressmaking.
When the term of her apprenticeship expired, she went through the
routine of day work until her skill, and the known power she had of
working long after midnight, and rising with the sun, enabled her to ask
for, and to obtain, her work at home.
The advantages afforded her by this arrangement were, that she saved the
time occupied in passing to and from her place of business, and she was
spared exposure to insult on her nightly return to her humble lodging.
When our tale opened, she was occupied in making those pretty blonde,
flowered fronts, worn by ladies as the inner adornment of their bonnets.
For making up these, she was paid at the rate of sixpence-halfpenny,
sevenpence-halfpenny, and for some eight-pence-halfpenny per _dozen_.
At this miserable pay she had to rise with the dawn, and work until
past the hour of midnight, to earn even a scanty pittance-Many a fair
creature, consulting her mirror, has, with gratified pride, observed the
becoming properties of the small and pretty addition to her head-dress;
but how very few have reflected that their own efforts to procure it as
cheaply as possible have helped to hurry many a poor exhausted careworn
sister into the crowded paths of sin, or into a pauper grave!
Lotte was rapid with her needle, and was full of self-sacrifice, that
she might be self-dependent. She possessed great powers of endurance,
and, to preserve her independence, she taxed those powers to the utmost.
No one but herself knew what privations she had undergone. No one but
herself could tell of the hardships she had faced, struggled with,
without a despairing sigh, and had surmounted--until the cruel
circumstances succeeding the fire had ruthlessly dragged from her all
hope.
Now her trials and her miseries seemed to have vanished. She had not to
work so hard, for she was far better paid, and if her old habit of early
rising still adhered to her, she laid her pretty, happy face upon her
soft pillow at least an hour before midnight.
Her furniture was all her own, too, now; to the kind liberality of Flora
Wilton she was indebted for that, and she had, at least, a sovereign
by her for an emergency. She had begun to deposit in a Savings Bank
already. She had a plan daintily conceived, which involved a fair amount
of poetical justice. She had indomitable perseverance, and, if events
unforeseen and uncontrollable did not occur, she fully resolved to
carry it out. Her room--her one room, for she had only one--was a little
picture, so clean, so tidy, so prettily arranged it was. There was
her table with its two flaps, so that if she felt lonely and somewhat
disposed to turn with liberal hand her economy aside it would
accommodate a visitor--ay, actually company.
Then, in addition to her neat set of chairs, there was a sofa, which,
by a marvel of mechanical ingenuity was converted at night into a pretty
little bedstead. There was upon the floor a neat-patterned carpet. Upon
the flowered walls a picture or two, not of much value, but they added
to the liveliness of the room.
She had, too, a charming little canary, such a dear tiltle “dick,” which
chirruped and sang to her all the long day, looking at her every now and
then, and calling “sweet” to her with as knowing an expression in his
little bright eye, as if he were that young smart though anky grocer
himself round the corner, who never served her with sugar but he gazed
upon her as if, like the genuine “barley,” he was a “sweetness long
drawn out.”
There were flowers in the window. She was very fond of flowers. She
could not afford the more expensive kinds, but as it was, she delighted
in tending her geraniums, her mignionette, her fuchsias, and her trained
convolvuli.
Altogether, in her eyes, her room was an earthly Paradise. She almost
sighed with too much happiness as at times she lifted up her eyes from
her work to gaze around.
“Oh, if Charley could only see me here, how happy he would be!” she
would often say to herself; and then she would pray with earnest fervour
that he might soon be restored to her.
As yet she had not had a visitor. Flora was away in the country. Hal
Vivian she had expected to call, if only to say, “How do you do?” but he
had never been, and Mrs. Bantom--who had promised to return the visit,
which Lotte, full of gratitude and thankfulness to her for her motherly
kindness in her distress, had paid--had not yet put in an appearance.
Several times when a loud ring came to “her” bell, she ran with a light
step and a beating heart down the stairs to answer the door, expecting
to see some loved face reward her hopeful anticipations, but it was only
“the milk,” or a boy to bring her a fresh supply of work, and take away
that which she had done. She would return up to her room with just a
little bit of a sigh, and take refuge once more in the sanguine belief
that some one would come to see her, and that before long.
She little dreamed all this while that there was “some one” on the
look-out to find her--one who was fully as anxious to become a visitor
to her as she could be to receive one.
She was all unconscious that her round, attractive face had won the
heart of “the heir of the haughty Grahame”--that is, so much of the
article as he possessed. Alas! too, like many others of his sex, as
far as woman was concerned, his heart greatly resembled a garden-grown
cabbage, luxuriant in leaf, but without the solid centre, which was
necessary to make it of value to the possessor.
She had no inkling that while she longed for some face, bearing a kind
expression, to come shining through her doorway, that a suitor for
her--love--was roaming through the more retired of the west-end streets,
examining apartments to let, making kind inquiries after imaginary
persons of impatient landladies, in the strong hope, that he should at
last “come shining through the doorway” to her, as though by the most
charming accident in the world.
But this swain was not successful. Something more than the reverse, for
he pursued his investigation in a manner so peculiar that in several
cases he was suspected of being after the time-piece, or any stray purse
or plate, instead of the lodgings; and was, consequently, answered with
abruptness, not permitted to be left by himself for an instant, and was
shown to the door with all possible speed. In other instances, he was
imagined to be an individual shrinking from an interview with sharp and
urgent creditors, whose claims he could not liquidate. In nearly
every case, he was considered impertinently inquisitive, and received
monosyllables in reply, but not in satisfaction of the object of
his questions, as that formed precisely the point upon which the
interrogated joined issue with him, especially if the lady with
diminished resources who let apartments to help out her income, or who
had “more room than she wanted,” happened to have a daughter old enough
to be thought of by young men--and to think of them. Then Malcolm
Grahame observed, as he questioned, the elderly landlady’s face redden,
her brow contract, her lips purse up, her eyes brighten, and her
conversational powers stricken with a sudden frost; and he found himself
gradually backed, inch by inch, down the stairs, along the passage too
narrow mostly to be dignified with the name of a hall, until he was
fairly in the street, and then the door was slammed in his face.
“Cursedly rude,” thought he: “devilish odd, too, they should treat a
person of my standing and appearance in such a beastly fashion.”
The more his imagination dwelt upon Lotte, the more infatuated he grew;
the difficulties thrown in his path, in his endeavour to discover her,
served but to add to the flame already kindled; and thus much time that
ought to have been passed at Oxford was spent in wandering through
whole streets of unlet apartments to find one who had no idea of his
existence, and who, as soon as his identity was established, would think
about him pretty much as she had done before, that is to say--not at
all.
A recent effort of Lotte’s handicraft had been purchased by a lady of
title in Belgravia; and, requiring other articles of attire for her
“budding sprigs,” she desired that the person, young or old, who had
made the articles she had purchased, and was much pleased with,
should, upon a certain evening, after dinner, wait upon her to take her
instructions. Delighted with the taste exhibited in the things she
had bought, the lady concluded that the same excellent fancy would
be displayed by the young person in whatever was made under her own
directions; in fact, that by such a mode of procedure the very best
results would be produced. She was, therefore, very particular in
requesting the presence of the actual workwoman.
Her wishes were conveyed to Lotte, and she, glad of a little change,
readily assented to attend upon the lady, resolving to make, by allowing
herself plenty of time, something more than a mere walk of her journey.
So she tied on the prettiest of little bonnets--we must tell the
truth--so as to cover only half her head and to hide that graceful turn
in her neck, which, without shawl or bonnet, commanded the admiration
of any person with half an eye for beauty of form, and she donned her
dove-coloured mantle, which fell so gracefully from her shoulders,
giving a tantalising suggestion of the small, well-shaped waist it
concealed from view, but not from the imagination; and she drew on
gradually, with a woman’s patience and perseverance in those matters,
the small deep-green kid gloves, and then she seized her little morocco
handkerchief-box hung it on her arm, and sallied forth.
“Well,” she thought, with a smile and a suppressed sigh, “if no one has
been to pay me a visit, it consoles me to think I have a visit to pay.”
Now she had not left her residence more than a few minutes, when Hal
Vivian, with grave and thoughtful face, called at her residence to see
her, and to have a quiet talk with her upon a subject of interest to her
and of moment to himself. He was vexed to find that she was out; but, on
learning that she had gone to Eaton Square, he said it was probable he
might walk in that direction, and, in all likelihood, he should see her;
he therefore declined to leave a message.
Perhaps an hour had elapsed, when Miss Clinton’s bell again gave forth
a loud peal. This time there appeared at the door two young men, one
of whom inquired for Lotte with great earnestness; he displayed much
disappointment when told that, though the young lady for whom he
inquired certainly lived there, that she was not within. When, however,
it was made known to him whither she had gone, he, with his friend, at
once departed in quest of her.
Now, as though visits were to fall on Lotte as thick as hail during her
absence, Mr. Bantom, spruced up and decorated with a tall shirt collar,
so that his wife laughed until she absolutely wept, as she walked round
and surveyed him, when dressed, presented himself at her abode for
admission.
But he had been observed by a policeman to hang round the door for at
least five minutes before he selected the bell-handle he intended to
manipulate upon, and when apparently he had made up his mind, he pulled
it out with such tenderness, that it was only at the fourth effort a
slight “ting” ensued. He had allowed about three minutes to elapse
between each pull, a quarter of-an-hour was therefore very nearly
consumed before the door was opened to him. The policeman having little
on his mind and nothing to do but to crack nuts, lessened gradually the
distance between himself and Bantom, until he stood at his shoulder.
When Lotte’s landlady threw wide the entrance to her mansion, she
almost fainted at beholding the strange man she had seen a short time
previously walking slowly up and down opposite her house, seeming to
examine it with the eye of a practised burglar, picking out its most
vulnerable part, and with him a policeman. A variety of horrible
suggestions presented themselves to her, and she gasped for breath
without being able to utter a word.
Bantom looked slightly bewildered by the unexpected appearance of the
policeman at his elbow; he was at a loss to conceive his object
in pausing there, and waited for him to state his business to the
housekeeper. The policeman, who was no artist in his profession, urged
by a sense of duty and a presentiment that Bantom was animated by a
hope of plunder, also remained silent to hear what Bantom had to say
for himself; for a minute, therefore, the three gazed upon each other
without speaking.
The landlady broke ground by faintly demanding to what remarkable
event she might attribute the honour of this most unlooked-for visit;
whereupon Mr. Bantom gracefully resigned to X 94 the privilege of
speaking first, a privilege which was immediately accepted, and used
in directing a series of sharp interrogatories addressed to Mr. Bantom,
every one of which he replied to with skilful evasion. The officer, at
length declared himself extremely dissatisfied with the result of
his examination, and requested Mr. Bantom to accompany him to
the station-house, in order that he might give more satisfactory
explanations concerning himself to the inspector on duty. To this
proposition, Mr. Bantom emphatically declined to accede; he declared it
a violation of the liberty of the subject, to which he would not submit;
and as X 94 endeavoured to enforce his suggestion, a collision ensued.
Lotte’s landlady, when she saw the policeman’s hand upon Bantom’s
collar, and Bantom’s hand upon the policeman’s belt, and the two
commence to revolve with frightful rapidity, thought it prudent to take
no further part in the interview. She therefore retired, closed her
door, bolted it, and put the chain up. She ascended to the room above,
and peeped over a blind to ascertain what followed her departure. She
heard a great shuffling of feet upon the pavement, and the roar of many
voices. There were frequent heavy bumps at the street door, as of human
bodies swung violently against it, the knocker rapped at these times,
untouched by mortal hand; then the uproar increased, grew, swelled into
a mighty sound, and at last she saw the heels of Mr. Bantom quivering in
the air, waving above the shoulders of five policemen, who were
bearing him off in triumph to that audience with the inspector at the
station-house, suggested in the first instance by X 94, but which Bantom
had so obstinately refused to attend.
All this while Lotte was on her way to Eaton Square, She paused
occasionally to look in at the shops--the drapers’ and the milliners’
commanding the largest portion of her attention; though at the time Mr.
Bantom was doing desperate battle against such unequal odds, she was
steadfastly regarding a large variety of pipes in a tobacconist’s
window, with the intention of one day selecting one, and making him a
present of it.
She went on and reached Hyde Park. She struck across towards the
Serpentine.
The sky was blue, clear, and serene; the air was balmy, and the soft
turf green and smooth. The throngs moving to and fro, in carriages and
on foot, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, made the scene busy
and lively, and she tripped on, full of joyful tenderness and freshened
spirits, light and free as a bird.
The route she had determined to pursue lay along the path on the banks
of the Serpentine river, over the bridge, and so towards Knightsbridge.
As she went on, she admired the gay equipages, and the superb dresses of
the fair high-bred creatures borne in them, and no touch of envy mingled
with her admiration. Glad of heart herself, she was delighted to see how
smiling and happy every one appeared--with what a light, elastic step
each one seemed to move, and how deliciously the breeze wafted to her
ear the unsaddened ring of childish laughter, when suddenly she came
upon the boat-house of the Humane Society.
It stood in the gloomy shadow of a cluster of trees upon the bank;
near to it was moored a boat, in which lay at rest the formidable
looking-instrument employed to rescue the drowning, or to bring up from
the cold depths of the river, the dead.
A cold thrill ran through her frame as she gazed upon it, and she
hastened on. The hue of the still river, before so blue and sparkling in
its ripples, now seemed to change--to become leaden and motionless. She
remembered the dark night when, with cold, sinking heart, she hurried to
leap from an arched height into a river’s chill and fatal embrace, that
she might there end in a wakeless sleep, her sorrow and her despair.
She remembered the sudden grip of her wrist, the gentle voice in her
ear, and the infinite mercy of the great and good God who had saved her
in the very moment of committing a mortal sin.
A throng of tears gushed into her eyes. She murmured a prayer of
thankfulness to Him for His beneficence to her, and a blessing on Hal
for his interposition.
While the soft words of gratefulness yet stirred her quivering lips,
her tearful eyes fell upon the pale features of a young, beautiful,
and elegantly dressed lady, who was passing beneath a group of trees,
seemingly desirous of screening herself from public gaze, and evidently
affected with the deepest sadness. Oh! that terrible expression of
despair upon her pallid face--that aspect of blank, hopeless woe-begone
desolation, which the most accomplished mime or the vilest cheat could
never simulate--how sure and perfect an index is it of the utter misery
crushing the prostrated heart of those whose countenances bear its
fearful impress!
Lotte recognised it. Instantly she felt that so she must have
looked when her wretchedness had reached its culminating point. Her
easily-awakened sympathy, prompted her to speak to the young lady; but
as she advanced with this purpose, she perceived that the object of
her interest, observing her, hastily retreated, and hurried away in the
direction of Kensington Gardens.
She gazed wistfully after her, and felt impelled to follow, for she knew
there was an aching heart beating against a prison grate from which it
longed to escape. She would, with earnest fervour, have done her best to
pour consolation into the dull ear of the strange lady, and, as far as
she could, have softened the anguish of her racked soul, but the young
and evidently high-born girl moved so quickly away, that she was beyond
the reach of her voice in less than a minute after she detected that she
had attracted attention.
Lotte, therefore, proceeded upon her mission, was received with
magnificent condescension by the stately mistress of the splendid
mansion to whom she had been accredited, endured much patronage as she
took her instructions, was honoured with a glass of wine and a piece
of cake after her walk, permitted to retire at the proper moment, was
winked at by the footman who conducted her out, and who thought her “a
jewced nice gal,” and found herself in the square, uncertain which route
to take on her return to her own dear little paradise of a room.
Her decision was formed for her. She had been unable to chase from her
brain a vision of the pale woe-smitten face she had seen in the park. It
haunted her from the moment the reality faded from her sight; it settled
before her, the large eyes gazing upon her own sadly and steadfastly,
while she listened to details of juvenile dress; it grew brighter and
more vivid when alone in the deepening twilight, and it seemed to glow
with brighter aspect as she turned herself to retrace her steps through
the park again, and pass the spot where she had seen the wan features,
which she had an indistinct, undefined impression she had known under
happier circumstances.
“I should, perhaps, be less anxious about her,” she thought, “but for
that ugly, death-scented water.” She shuddered. “God preserve her from
seeking rashly such a grave as that!”
She pressed on towards the spot where she had encountered the young
lady, who had so strongly and so strangely excited her interest.
On reaching it, she was scarcely surprised to discern, in the murky
obscurity occasioned by the umbrageous foliage of many trees, whose
branches intertwined, a shadowy phantom like a female, pacing agitatedly
on the narrow pathway beneath.
Lotte glided noiselessly up to her, for she knew that she now beheld
the same young creature she had before seen, though her mental agony,
expressed by her excited movements, appeared to have increased in
intensity since she had quitted her. As Lotte gained her side, she heard
with a sharp pang her choking sob of acute misery. She saw her wring
her hands in despairing agony, and then Lotte placed her lingers lightly
upon her shoulder.
The lady turned, with a low, smothered shriek, to see who had touched
her, but on finding that it was a young female, a stranger, she drew
herself up haughtily, and said, in a low, grating voice--“What do you
want with me?”
Lotte quietly took a firm hold of her elegant mantle, and then replied,
in an earnest tone--
“Pardon me! you are smitten by some terrible grief.”
“Well!” replied the young lady, coldly, as Lotte paused.
“Oh, do not repel me!” she cried, fervidly; “pray do not. I am aware it
may appear intrusive and rude in me to trespass upon your sorrow”----
“You are right; it is both rude and intrusive. Leave me!” interrupted
the young lady, a little vehemently, endeavouring at the same time, to
remove her mantle from Lotte’s grasp, but she retained her hold, and
continued in urgent tones--
“As Heaven is my witness, I am animated by no common motives! You are
a lady: I am humble. Grief knows no distinction: the human heart is
susceptible of misery, though a diadem may glitter upon the brow of its
possessor. The rich are not exempt from its blight, even though it be
the common inheritance of the poor. I have been destitute, am poor”----
The young lady turned her unbending head away, still cold and stern. By
a rapid movement, she drew a purse from the pocket of her dress; and,
offering it to Lotte, said, almost harshly--
“Take it and leave me!”
“Oh, madam! madam!” cried Lotte, passionately, “do not misconstrue me.
You are a woman, as I am; we are both equal in the eyes of the Creator.
He gave us our lives to hold in trust--not to fling wildly away, and
rush unbidden into His dread presence.”
The startling energy of Lotte’s tones caused the young lady to recede a
pace, and mutter something which was inaudible.
Lotte, in her excitement, changed her grip from the mantle to the wrist
of the young creature she was addressing.
“Look there!” she cried, in a low tone, but with a terrible emphasis.
She pointed to the dark, sluggish, leaden-hued mass of water, stretching
east and west.
“Look upon that dark vaporous river, the graveyard of the madly
despairing. I stood upon the brink of a river mightier and blacker than
that before you; upon its very edge I stood, prepared to spring into its
deadly depths, because I was friendless, homeless, hopeless--do you mark
me?”
The haughty girl cowered.
“I do,” she murmured.
“As with a bitter wail of sorrowing distraction, even such as now burst
from your lips, I was about to leap out of life, I was seized by the
wrist, as I now seize you, and by a friend. To shame me from my dreadful
purpose, God had sent to me a friend, as--as he now sends me to you.”
She fell upon her knees, and clasped the hands of the young lady.
“Oh! believe that, though humble, I can and will do all within my power
to serve you, to console you, to soothe the dreadful anguish which urges
you to crime beyond redemption.”
“Nothing can console or soothe me,” hoarsely replied the young lady.
“Let me free; I have nothing more to do with life.”
“But it has with you. Oh! it has with you,” urged Lotte, vehemently;
“a glimmering light there is to penetrate the foulest vault of sin and
despair. Have but faith in me, and I will show you, though it be as a
star shining afar, the beacon of hope burning steadily. Perhaps you have
not yet tested the value of sincere friendship; perhaps you know not
what peace may be won by pouring your sorrows in a tenderly attentive
ear, or confiding your fears, your worst forebodings--even your
sins--for alas! we are all more or less tainted--to a sympathising
breast.”
The young lady squeezed Lotte’s hands spasmodically.
“I never had such a friend--I know not what it means,” she said, her
lips quivering with emotion.
“Let me he such a one to you,” exclaimed Lotte, with intense
eagerness--“humble, but truthful. Come, let us away from this
dark, lonely place. Come with me for so long as you will. I live by
myself--quite, quite alone. No one visits me, for I am humble--very
humble, but oh! I am happy now, and I will strive to bring back
peacefulness and calm to your poor disturbed heart. I will not ask you
one word about the past. I will not seek for your confidence, but will
act always as though I possessed it. Your station, it is evident, is far
higher than mine, but you can think me a foster sister--though still, in
all tenderness of affection and loving service, a sister.”
She felt the limbs of the young stranger tremble She saw that she shook
like an aspen from head to foot, and she rose up to catch her in her
arms, for she knew that she yearned to fall within them and weep--weep
long and bitterly.
At length Lotte, whose eye from time to time rested painfully upon the
still, almost mist-hidden river, passed her arm gently round the waist
of the young lady, and drew her softly away.
She was yet sobbing, but she made no resistance.
Lotte’s earnest sincerity had subdued her haughty pride; it had found
its way to her heart and to her reason. It suddenly and unexpectedly
offered a future where before all had been blank obscurity; it opened up
to her a store of womanly sympathy and service, which until now she had
credited, but not found; and what weighed much with her, it offered her
with life a secret seclusion, for that was now as needful to her as life
itself; and so she accepted the new position, as though she had suffered
herself to be persuaded and had yielded.
Yet she thought, as she went on, clinging to Lotte’s supporting arm--
“If this is to be humble, how large the price paid by rank to become
ignorant of human worth!”
The group of trees and the leaden river were left behind, and the two
young creatures, upon whom the shadows of Fate had successively so
darkly fallen, moved into the open space, slowly pursuing the pathway
leading towards the glaring lights of Oxford Street.