TRIUMPH AND TERROR.
Lottie had gone home that night, it need not be said, with her head full
of excitement. Had she not good reason to look upon this evening as of
importance in her life? She had met the man who, before he had ever
spoken to her, had, according to all appearances, placed her on the
highest pinnacle on which a girl can be placed--the throne of a romantic
love. Though it had been a temporary downfall to her to be placed in the
charge of Mr. Ashford and the Signor, instead of crossing the Dean’s
Walk in the company of this secret and poetical lover, yet she was
almost glad to be thus let drop into quietness, to avert any word or
look too much, which might have spoiled the visionary elevation on which
she felt herself. Yes, she was glad that they had never been alone. Had
he whispered an avowal of any kind into her ear, she was not, she knew,
prepared for it; Lottie was honest even in her self-delusion, and she
knew that, however profoundly to her advantage it might be, she could
not make any response to a man whom she did not know, whom she was
speaking to for the first time, notwithstanding her consciousness that
he must have been thinking of her for a long time. She could not have
made any fit reply. She must have said something which probably would
have hurt him in the fervour of his romantic passion; for, though
grateful to him and romantically touched by his evident devotion, Lottie
could not have persuaded herself that he was anything to her except a
delightful wonder and most flattering novelty. No, it was better, much
better, that he did not come; she must have hurt his feelings,
discouraged him, probably driven him away from her; and she was very far
from wishing to drive him away. Lottie thought, with an innocent
calculation, if she saw a little more of him, had a little time given
her to make his acquaintance, that probably she would come to love him
quite naturally and spontaneously; but at present it was not possible
that she could do so, and she felt a natural shrinking from any
premature disclosure of his feelings. Thus it was evidently most
fortunate that the Dean had interposed, that Rollo had not been allowed
to come home with her--fortunate, and yet a little disappointing too.
There had been a very few words exchanged with her companions as they
crossed the Dean’s Walk. Mr. Ashford had most kindly and courteously
reminded her that she had expressed a wish to speak to him about
something. “It is too late now to ask what it was,” he said; “I must not
keep you out of doors at this hour; but if you will permit me, I will
call and inquire in what way I can be of use to you?” “You know in what
way _I_ would like to be of use to you, Miss Despard,” the Signor said
on the other side. All this was very flattering, even though she might
be displeased by the Signor’s reiteration of his disagreeable offer. She
made him a curtsey like Lady Caroline, while to the minor canon she gave
her hand, which perhaps was quite sufficient to mark her different
estimation of them. And indeed the Signor had been very kind about the
accompaniments, which he had certainly played to perfection. This
recollection came to her mind as he thanked her for her singing,
undaunted by the stiffness of her leave-taking. “Indeed, I owe you more,
a great deal more, than you can possibly owe me,” Lottie said, with a
burst of compunction; “I never sang so well before, because I never had
such an accompaniment.” “Then I hope I may accompany you very often
again,” he said, with a smile, as he went away. Thus even with the
Signor, Lottie felt herself in perfect good-humour and charity. A man
who paid such compliments to her voice, how could she be hard upon him,
even if he made a little mistake in respect to her position? And she
went in out of the summer night in a state of celestial satisfaction
with all the people surrounding her--and herself. Even Lady Caroline had
melted into something which was warmth for her. She had said, “I have
enjoyed your singing very much, Miss Despard,” and had touched Lottie’s
hand with two limp fingers--that was something, indeed it was much for
Lady Caroline. And all the other great ladies had spoken, or at least
had smiled upon Lottie, thanking her. What could she have wished for
more? She went up into her little tiny room, which was not much bigger
than Lady Caroline’s grand piano, and throwing off the Indian shawl (if
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy could but have seen it!) on the floor, sat down upon
her little white bed and began to think. To think! nothing of the
sort--to go over everything that had happened, with a dazzle of light
and delight and triumph round her. She seemed to herself to have thrown
down all the boundaries that had hitherto separated her from her lawful
sphere. If a suitor should come from that higher and better world who
could wonder now? Had she not been adopted into it--received to her just
place at last?
And naturally it was upon Rollo that her recollections chiefly centred;
he was the chief figure of the whole company to Lottie. She remembered
minutely everything he had said and done, the expression of his face
(though she put infinitely more meaning in it than was there), the tone
of his voice. How the room had become at once full of interest, of
excitement, when he came in, clearing away all the dimness! Lottie had
scarcely time even to wonder how and where their next meeting would be,
for thinking of this first meeting. How his face had lighted up when he
saw that she was there; how he had been caught by some one on his way to
her, and kept talking in spite of himself, with his eyes upon her all
the time; how he had escaped and pressed through all the fine company to
get to her side; how he had confessed that he had but a very visionary
right to claim her acquaintance at all, but nevertheless meant to stand
on that right as, for the time being, the son of the house! Lottie had
scarcely forgotten a word of all he said. And, as a matter of fact,
Rollo had been very careful to behave himself with due discretion, not
to make it too apparent that her voice was the thing that most
interested him. She thought that he admired her singing as a part of his
enthusiasm for herself. She had not a suspicion of the real state of the
case. It seemed to her that her voice was a delightful discovery to him,
a something _pardessus le marché_, an added charm; that it was the sole
foundation of his apparent enthusiasm never occurred to the girl;
neither, though she knew that her general triumph was caused by her
singing, did she solely set down to that cause the friendly looks and
smiles and flattering compliments she had received. This was absurd, but
we do not pretend that Lottie was beyond the reach of absurdity. She
knew that it was her singing which had suddenly silenced all the
conversation going on in the room, and called the attention of
everybody; but yet it was surely something more; it was herself, not her
voice, which brought that kindly look to their eyes as they smiled upon
her. It is hard to acknowledge to ourselves that it is for some special,
perhaps accidental, quality we may possess, that we are favoured and
esteemed by our fellow-creatures. Human nature is humbled by the
conviction that it is the possession of a gift worthy of popularity
which makes an individual popular. We all prefer to be prized for
nothing at all, for ourselves. And this, in the face of circumstances,
and clean against all reason, was what Lottie hoped and determinedly
believed. She could not consent to the other idea. To be praised and
made friends with _for her voice_ was intolerable. The only approbation
which is really flattering and delightful is that which is given upon no
ground at all.
She had been sitting thus for some time on her bed, musing, with eyes
that sparkled and a heart that fluttered with happiness; and had taken
off her evening gown, and loosed the roses from her hair, and wrapped
her white shining satin shoulders in a white cotton dressing-gown; and
had even brushed out those long dark locks, and twisted them up again
close to her head for the night, with innumerable fancies twisted out
and in of all she did, before Captain Despard, fumbling for the
key-hole, opened his own door and came in, in the dark. It was Lottie’s
habit to sit up till he came in, but to-night she had been too much
occupied by her own concerns to hear his approach, and it was only when
he came upstairs that she woke up to think of him. Lottie’s experienced
ear caught the lurch in his step, just as Law’s experienced eye had
caught it. “Again!” she said to herself, with a momentary flash of
anger; but it did not make her wretched as it might have done a more
sensitive daughter. Lottie was accustomed to accept her father without
question, not expecting much of him, and somewhat disposed, when he did
not come up even to the little she expected, to satisfy herself that it
was just like papa. But his entrance relieved her from her habitual
vigil. She heard Law steal upstairs afterwards, and wondered how or when
he had got in, and where he went at night, with more curiosity than she
expended on her father; but even that did not much disturb Lottie, who
had been used all her life to irregular entrances and exits. After a
while all was still in the little house, notwithstanding the anxieties
and excitements collected under its roof. Disquietude and trouble could
not keep Law from sleeping any more than excitement and triumph could
keep his sister; and, as for the Captain, the sleep of the just was
never so profound as that which wrapped him in a not too lovely
tranquillity. The air was all thrilling with emotion of one kind or
another, but they slept as profoundly as if they had not a care in the
world--as soundly as the good O’Shaughnessys next door, who had been
asleep since eleven o’clock, and who had no cares but those of their
neighbours to disquiet them; or old Colonel Dalrymple on the other side,
who dozed through his life. The soft night stilled them all, young and
old and middle-aged, in their kind, just as it held in soft shadow the
Abbey, with all its grey pinnacles and immemorial towers. Nature cared
nothing for the troubles of life; but life submitted to the gentle yoke
of nature, which relieves the soul, while it binds the body, and makes a
temporary truce and armistice with all the army of mortal cares.
Next morning Law lounged into the little drawing-room after breakfast
with a big book in his hand. He had almost given up the pretence of
reading for some time, so that it was all the more wonderful to see a
book which was not a yellow railway novel in his hand. Lottie had been
up early, awakened by the commotion in her mind, which did not allow her
to rest--or rather which prevented her from going to sleep again when
the early noises of the morning woke her up. Accordingly she had got
through a great deal of her ordinary household work by this time, when
Law, after a breakfast which was later than usual, lounged in upon her.
He was very big, and filled up the little room; and his habit of doing
as little as possible, and his want of money, which made some
imperfections in his toilet inevitable, gave him a look of indolence
and shabbiness such as was not natural to his age, or even to his
disposition, for by nature Law was not lazy. He came sauntering in with
one hand in his pocket, and with his book under the other arm; and he
sat down in the only easy-chair the room contained, exasperating Lottie,
to whom his very bigness seemed an offence. There were times when she
was proud of Law’s size, his somewhat heavy good-looks, his athletic
powers; but this morning, as many times before, the very sight of those
long limbs jarred upon her. What was the use of all that superfluous
length and strength? He took the only easy-chair, and stretched out his
long limbs half across the room, and Lottie at the height of her
activity felt impatience rise and swell within her. She could not put up
with Law that morning. His indolence was an offence to her.
“What do you want, Law?” she said, in a voice which was not so sweet as
it had been at the Deanery. She gave a rapid glance up at him as she
went on with her darning, and took in the whole picture, the easy-chair
and the lounging attitude. If he had sat upright upon the little hard
wickerwork chair, Lottie would have felt more merciful.
“Well, I want nothing in particular, except to talk to you a little,”
said Law. “You need not be so cross.”
“I am not cross; but to see you in an easy-chair, idling away all the
morning----”
“How do you know I’ve been idling this morning? Look at my book: that’s
Virgil,” said Law, looking at it with simple admiration. “I don’t think
a fellow could do much better than that.”
“But have you _really_ been reading?” Lottie’s tone modified; she began
to look at him with respect. “Oh, Law, if you only would work! it would
make such a difference, it would make me quite happy. I was speaking to
Mr. Ashford last night. You know Mr. Ashford, the minor canon. He is so
clever with his pupils. If you could but go to him, if he would only
take you, Law!”
“He would take me fast enough if we could afford the money. I say,
Lottie, the governor was awfully late last night: did you hear him
coming in? I want to tell you something about him--something I have
heard.”
“I think you were very late, too, Law.”
“Oh! never mind about that; it does not matter about me. Lottie, listen.
A friend--I mean somebody--was speaking to me about him. Did it ever
come into your head that he was not an old man, and that such a thing
was possible as that he might--it seems too ridiculous to say it--marry
again?”
“Marry again? you are dreaming!” cried Lottie loudly, in her
astonishment.
“Yes, while we knew nothing of it. After all, when you come to think of
it, when you look at him, you know, he is not so awfully old. One thinks
he must be, because he is one’s father. But some of these old beggars
are just as silly”--said Law in awestruck tones, “and you can’t stop
them doing things as you can a fellow that is young. It is an awful
shame! a fellow that is under age, as they call it, you can pull him up,
though there’s no harm in him; but an old fellow of fifty, you can’t
stop him, whatever nonsense he may set his face to. That’s what I heard
last night.”
“It is not true. I don’t believe a single word of it,” said Lottie. “You
must have been in very strange company, Law,” she added with severity,
“to hear all this gossip about papa.”
Lottie did not mean to pass such a tremendous sentence on her father;
she spoke simply enough. To hear this gossip her brother must have been
in haunts such as those that Captain Despard frequented. She did not
know what they were, but she knew they were evil; therefore she made use
of this weapon instinctively, which she found, as it were, lying by her,
not meaning any censure upon her father, only a necessary reproof to
Law.
“You may say what you please about bad company,” he said, “but that’s
what I heard; that he wasn’t so old after all; and what would become of
us if he married again? It was not gossip. I believe really, though I
was very angry at the time, that it was meant kindly; it was meant for a
warning. You would have thought so yourself, if you had been there.”
“I do not believe a word of it,” said Lottie; but she had grown pale.
She did not ask again who had told him or where he had been; she set
herself seriously to prove the thing to be false, which showed that she
was not so sure of not believing it as she pretended to be. “It is all a
falsehood,” she went on. “Is papa a man to do that sort of thing? Marry!
he would have to give us a great many things if he married. He could not
afford to spend his money as he does; he would not be allowed to be
always out in the evenings as he is now. Why, even poor mamma, she did
not give in to him as we are obliged to do; he had to pay a little
attention to her--sometimes. And now he has got more used to do what he
likes than ever, and has more money to spend; do you think he would give
up that _for a wife_?” cried Lottie with disdain. “It only shows that
you don’t know papa.”
“Ah! but you don’t know----” said Law. He was about to say “Polly,” but
stopped in time. “You don’t know what might be put into his head,
Lottie. He might be made to believe that to get rid of us would put all
right. If he got rid of us, don’t you see? he would want a woman in the
house; and if it was some one he liked himself, that would make herself
agreeable to him, and flatter him, and coddle him--that would please him
better,” said Law, with precocious knowledge of a man’s requirements,
“than you, who are always trying to keep things straight but not to
humour him, Lottie; or me--that am of no use at all.”
Lottie grew paler and paler during this explanation. She had never
humoured her father, it was true. She had made desperate exertions “to
keep things straight,” to recover the family credit, to pay the bills,
to keep regular hours; but, with the hardihood of youth, she had not
hesitated even to stint her father of a meal when it seemed to her
impetuous determination to be necessary, and she had not flattered him,
nor made his convenience the absolute rule of the household, as some
girls would have been wise enough to do. Lottie had reflected that he
kept the lion’s share of the family income to himself, and was quite
able to make up for any shortcomings in her bill of fare; and she had
carried out her regulations with a high hand, feeling no compulsion upon
her, no primary necessity to please her father. She perceived all this
at a glance while Law spoke, and immediately felt herself confronting
such a breach of all the ordinary usages of her life as made her shiver.
What might he not do? turn them out suddenly from his doors, out upon
the world, at any moment whenever he pleased. He had the power to do it
whenever he pleased, whatever seemed to him good. She drew a long
shivering breath, feeling as if all were over, as if already she heard
the door clanging and barred behind her, and was looking out penniless
and destitute upon the world, not knowing where to go. Was it possible
that such a fate was reserved for her? She became as white as her dress
with that sudden panic of the imagination which is more terrible than
any reality. Law was very anxious and alarmed also, but he had got over
the worst on the previous night, and it gave him a kind of half pleasure
to see how he had frightened Lottie; though, at the same time, the
effect of his communication upon her deepened his own conviction of the
danger about to overtake them. He leaned back in his easy-chair with a
certain solemn satisfaction, and stretched his long legs farther across
the room than ever.
“You see, Lottie,” he said, “it is what I have told you before; you
never would humour him. I don’t say that he’s not unreasonable, but he
might never perhaps have dropped among those sort of people if you had
laid yourself out to----”
Lottie sprang to her feet in a sudden gust of passion. She took Law by
the shoulders, and with the sudden surprise of her assault got the
better of him and turned him out of the chair. “You sit there, lolling
all over the room,” she cried, “and tell me my duty, you lazy, idle,
useless boy! If papa turns you out, it will serve you right. You have a
hundred things open to you; you have the whole world open to you; but
you will not so much as take the trouble to pass the door. You would
like to be carried over all the ditches, to be set up on a throne, to
have everything and to do nothing. It will serve you right! And where do
you get all this gossip about papa?” she went on. “Who are the sort of
people you are spending your time with? You thought I did not know how
late you came in last night. Where were you, Law? where are you always,
all these long evenings? You say you are going out, and you never mind
that I am sitting in the house all alone. You go somewhere, but I never
hear that you have been with anybody--anybody in our own class----”
“In our own class! I wonder what is our own class?” said Law, with a
scornful sense of the weakness of the position. “Would you like me to
take a hand in old O’Shaughnessy’s rubber, or read the papers to old
Dalrymple? They are half as old again as the governor himself. I suppose
that’s what you call my own class.”
Lottie felt that she had laid herself open to defeat, and the
consciousness subdued her greatly. She sat down again on her little
chair, and looked up at him as he stood leaning upon the door, red with
indignation at her onslaught. Lottie herself was flushed with the
exertion and the shame of having thus afforded him an opportunity for a
scoff. She eluded the dilemma as he proposed it, however, and flung
herself back into the larger question: “You are grown up,” she said,
indignantly; “a great big boy, looking like a man. It is a disgrace to
you to be dependent on papa. It would be a good thing for you, a very
good thing, if he were to--marry, as you say, and cast you off, and
force you to work for yourself. What else have I been saying to you for
years?”
“And what would it be for you?” said Law, taking, she thought, an unkind
advantage of her; “there are two of us to be considered. What would it
be for you, Lottie, I should like to know? What could you do any more
than I?”
He stood up against the door, with a provoking smile on his face, and
his big book under his arm, taunting her with her helplessness, even
Lottie felt, with her high notions, which made her helplessness all the
worse. He smiled, looking down upon her from that serene height. “If the
worst came to the worst,” said Law, “I could always carry a hod or ’list
for a soldier. I don’t stand upon our class as you do. I haven’t got a
class. I don’t mind if I take the shilling to-morrow. I have always
thought it would be a jolly life.”
Lottie gave a scream of horror, and flew upon him, seizing his coat
collar with one hand, while she threatened him with her small nervous
fist, at which Law laughed. “Will you dare to speak of ’listing to me,”
she said, flaming like a little fury; “you, an officer’s son, and a
gentleman born!” Then she broke down, after so many varieties of
excitement. “Oh, Law, for the sake of Heaven, go to Mr. Ashford! I will
get the money somehow,” she said, in a broken voice, melting into tears,
through which her eyes shone doubly large and liquid. “Don’t break my
heart! I want you to be better than we are now, not worse. Climb up as
far, as far as you please, above us; but don’t fall lower. Don’t forget
you are a gentleman, unless you want to break my heart.”
And then, in the overflow of feeling, she leaned her head upon his
shoulder, which she had just gripped with fury, and cried. Law found
this more embarrassing than her rage, at which he laughed. He was
obliged to allow her to lean upon him, pushing his book out of the way,
and his heart smote him for making Lottie unhappy. By this time it could
not be said that he was unhappy himself. He had shuffled off his burden,
such as it was, upon her shoulders. He shifted his book, and stood
awkwardly enough, permitting her to lean upon him; but it cannot be said
that he was much of a prop to his sister. He held himself so as to keep
her off as far as possible. He was not unkind, but he was shy, and did
not like to be placed in a position which savoured of the ridiculous. “I
wish you wouldn’t cry,” he said, peevishly. “You girls always cry--and
what’s to be got by crying? I don’t want to ’list if I can help it. I’d
rather be an officer--but I can’t be an officer; or get into something;
but I never was bred up to anything; and what can I do?”
“You can go to Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, feeling herself repulsed, and
withdrawing from him with a glimmer of indignation relighted in her
eyes. “I met him last night, and I spoke to him about you. He seems very
kind. If you go to him, he will at least tell us whether he thinks you
have a chance for anything. Oh, Law, now that you do see the
necessity----”
“But it’s a great deal more serious for you,” said the lad,
mischievously. He was not unkind, but it seemed something like fun to
him to treat Lottie as she had treated him so often, holding up before
him the terrors and horrors of his idleness. Because she was a girl, did
that make any difference? She had just as good a right to be bullied as
he had, and to be made to see how little she could do for herself. Emma,
who was younger than Lottie, worked for her living, and why should not
Lottie do the same? why should she be exempted? Thus Law reasoned, whom
Lottie, it must be allowed, had never spared. He watched, with
mischievous curiosity, making an experiment, not knowing whether it
would be successful or not. But the way in which Lottie took it after
this did not give Law the amusement he expected. She sat down again in
her chair, taking no further notice of him and relapsed into her own
thoughts when he could not follow her. His own mind, however, had
recovered its elasticity; for, after all, if the worst came to the
worst, if the governor was such an ass as to marry Polly, it would not
matter so very much to Law. Something, there was no doubt, would turn
up; or he would ’list--that was an alternative not to be despised. He
was tall enough for the Guards, among whom Law had often heard a great
many gentlemen were to be found; and the life was a jolly life--no
bother about books, and plenty of time for amusement. There was nothing
really in the circumstances to appal him now he had considered them
fully. But it was a great deal more serious for Lottie. After all the
bullying he had endured at her hands, Law may perhaps be excused if, in
sheer thoughtlessness, he rather enjoyed the prospect of this turning of
the tables upon his sister. He wondered how she would like it when it
came to her turn, she who was so ready to urge himself to the last
limits of patience. He did not wish anything unpleasant to happen to
her. He would not have had her actually brought into contact with Polly,
or placed under her power. But that Lottie should “just see how she
liked it herself” was pleasant to him. It would not do her any real
harm, and perhaps it would teach her to feel for other people, and
understand that they did not like it either. A slight tinge of remorse
crossed Law’s mind as he saw how pale and serious she looked, sitting
there thinking; but he shifted his Virgil to his other arm, and went
away, steeling his heart against it. It would make her feel for other
people in future. To have it brought home to herself would do her no
harm.