BROTHER AND SISTER.
Lottie ran out while Rollo Ridsdale was getting his hat to accompany her
home. She caught up her shawl over her arm without pausing to put it on,
and ran through the dark Cloister and across the Dean’s Walk to her own
door, before he knew she was ready. “The young--lady is gone, sir,” Mr.
Jeremie said, who was rather indignant at having to open the door to
such sort of people. He would have said young woman had he dared. Rollo,
much piqued already in that she had refused to sing for him further, and
half irritated, half attracted by this escapade now, hurried after her;
but when he emerged from the gloom of the Cloister to the fresh dewy air
of the night, and the breadth of the Dean’s Walk, lying half visible in
summer darkness in the soft indistinct radiance of the stars, there was
no one visible, far or near. She had already gone in before he came in
sight of the door. He looked up and down the silent way, on which not a
creature was visible, and listened to the sound of the door closing
behind her. The flight and the sound awoke a new sentiment in his mind.
Ladies were not apt to avoid Rollo.
Not his the form nor his the eye
That youthful maidens wont to fly.
He was piqued and he was roused. Heretofore, honestly, there had been
little but music in his thoughts. The girl was very handsome, which was
so much the better--very much the better, for his purpose; but this
sparkle of resistance in her roused something else in his mind. Lottie
had been like an inspired creature as she sang, this evening. He had
never seen on the stage or elsewhere so wonderful an exhibition of
absorbed impassioned feeling. If he could secure her for his prima
donna, nowhere would such a prima donna be seen. It was not that she had
thrown herself into the music, but that the music had possessed her, and
transported her out of herself. This was not a common human creature.
She was no longer merely handsome, but beautiful in the fervour of her
feeling. And for the first time Lottie as Lottie, not merely as a
singer, touched a well-worn but still sensitive chord in his breast. He
stood looking at the door, which still seemed to echo in the stillness
with the jar of closing. What did her flight mean? He was provoked,
tantalised, stimulated. Whatever happened, he must see more of this
girl. Why should she fly from him? He did not choose to return and tell
the story of her flight, which was such an incident as always makes the
man who is baulked present a more or less ridiculous aspect to the
spectators; but he stood outside and waited till the steps of the Minor
Canon and the Signor had become audible turning each towards their
habitation, and even the turning of Mr. Ashford’s latchkey in his door.
Everything was very still in the evening at St. Michael’s. The
respectable and solemn Canons in their great houses, and the old
Chevaliers in their little lodges, went early to bed. Rollo saw no light
anywhere except a dim glow in the window of the little drawing-room
where he had spent the morning, and where no doubt the fugitive was
seated breathless. His curiosity was raised, and his interest,
supplanting that professional eagerness about her voice which he had
expressed so largely. Why did she run away from him? Why did she refuse
to sing for him? These questions suddenly sprang into his mind, and
demanded, if not reply, yet a great deal of consideration. He could not
make up his mind what the cause could be.
As for Lottie, she could not have given any reasonable answer to these
questions, though she was the only living creature who could know why
she ran away. As a matter of fact, she did not know. The music had been
more than she could bear in the state of excitement in which she was.
Excited about things she would have been ashamed to confess any special
interest in--about her relations with the Deanery, about Lady Caroline,
and, above all, about Rollo--the wonderful strain to which she had all
unconsciously and unthinkingly, at first, given utterance, had caught
at Lottie like a hand from heaven. She had been drawn upward into the
fervour of religious ecstasy, she who was so ignorant; and when she
dropped again to earth, and was conscious once more of Rollo and of Lady
Caroline, there had come upon her a sudden sense of shame and of her own
pettiness and inability to disentangle herself from the links that drew
her to earth which was as passionate as the sudden fervour. How dare she
sing _that_ one moment, and the next be caught down to vulgar life, to
Lady Caroline and Rollo Ridsdale? Lottie would sing no more, and could
not speak, so strong was the conflict within her. She could not even
encounter the momentary _tête-à-tête_ which before she had almost wished
for. She was roused and stirred in all her being as she had never been
before, able to encounter death or grief, she thought vaguely, or
anything that was solemn and grand, but not ordinary talk, not
compliments, not the little tender devices of courtship. She flew from
the possible touch of sentiment, the half-mock, half-real flatteries
that he would be ready to say to her. Love real, and great, and solemn,
the Love of which the Italian poet speaks as twin sister of Death, was
what Lottie’s mind was prepared for; but from anything lower she fled,
with the instinct of a nature highly strained and unaccustomed to though
capable of, passion. Everything was seething in her mind, her heart
beating, the blood coursing through her veins. She felt that she could
not bear the inevitable downfall of ordinary talk. She ran out into the
soft coolness of the night, the great quiet and calm of the sleeping
place, a fugitive driven by this new wind of strange emotion. The shadow
of the Abbey was grateful to her, lying dimly half-way across the broad
silent road--and the dim lamp in her own window seemed to point out a
refuge from her thoughts. She rushed across the empty road, like a ghost
flitting, white and noiseless, and swift as an arrow, from the gate of
the Cloister, wondering whether the maid would hear her knock at once,
or if she would have to wait there at the door till Mr. Ridsdale
appeared. But the door was opened at her first touch, to Lottie’s great
surprise, by Law, who seemed to have been watching for her arrival. He
wore a very discontented aspect, but this Lottie did not at first see,
in her grateful sense of safety.
“How early you are!” he said. “I did not expect you for an hour yet. It
was scarcely worth while going out at all, if you were to come back so
soon.”
Lottie made no reply. She went upstairs to the little drawing-room,
where the lamp had been screwed as low as possible to keep alight for
her when she should return. The room was still more dim than Lady
Caroline’s, and looked so small and insignificant in comparison. On the
table was a tray with some bread and butter and a cup of milk, which was
Lottie’s simple supper after her dissipation; for Lady Caroline’s cup of
tea was scarcely enough for a girl who had eaten a not too luxurious
dinner at two o’clock. She had no mind, however, for her supper now; but
sat down on the little sofa and covered her eyes with her hand, and went
back into her thoughts, half to prolong the excitement into which she
had plunged, half to still herself and get rid of this sudden transport.
It would be difficult to say which she wished most; to calm herself down
or to continue that state of exaltation which proved to her new
capabilities in her own being. She thought it was the former desire that
moved her, and that to be quiet was all she wanted; but yet that strong
tide running in her veins, that hot beating of her heart, that expansion
and elevation of everything in her, was full of an incomprehensible
agony of sweetness and exquisite sensation. She did not know what it
was. She covered her eyes to shut out the immediate scene around her.
The little shabby room, the bread and butter, and Law’s slouching figure
manipulating the lamp--these, at least, were accessories which she had
no desire to see.
“Bother the thing!” said Law, “I can’t get it to burn. Here, Lottie! you
can manage them. Oh! if you like to sit in the dark, I don’t mind. Were
your fine people disagreeable? I always told you they wanted nothing
but that you should sing for them and amuse them. They don’t care a rap
for _you_!”
Lottie took no notice of this speech. She withdrew her hand from her
face, but still kept her eyes half-closed, unwilling to be roused out of
her dream.
“They’re all as selfish as old bears,” said Law; “most people are, for
that matter. They never think of you; you’ve got to look after yourself;
it’s their own pleasure they’re thinking of. What can you expect from
strangers when a man that pretends to be one’s own father----?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Lottie, slowly waking, with a
feeling of disgust and impatience, out of her finer fancies. She could
not keep some shade of scorn and annoyance from her face.
“You needn’t put on those supercilious looks; you’ll suffer as much from
it as I shall, or perhaps more, for a man can always do for himself,”
said Law; “but you--you’ll find the difference. Lottie,” he continued,
forgetting resentment in this common evil, and sinking his voice, “he’s
down there at the old place again.”
“What old place?”
As soon as his complaining voice became familiar, Lottie closed her eyes
again, longing to resume her own thoughts.
“Oh! the old place. Why, down there; you know--the place where---- I
say!” cried Law, suddenly growing red, and perceiving the betrayal of
himself as well as of his father which was imminent. “Never mind where
it is; it’s where that sharp one, Polly Featherstone, works.”
Lottie was completely awakened now; she looked up, half-bewildered, from
the dispersing mists. “Of whom are you talking?” she cried. “Law, what
people have you got among--who are they? You frighten me! Who is it you
are talking of?”
“There’s no harm in them,” cried Law, colouring more and more. “What do
you mean? Do you think they’re---- I don’t know what you mean; they’re
as good as we are,” he added sullenly, walking away with his hands in
his pockets out of the revelations of the lamp. Dim and low as it was,
it disclosed, he was aware, an uncomfortable glow of colour on his face.
“I don’t know who _they_ may be,” said Lottie, severe, yet blushing too;
“I don’t want to know! But, oh, Law! you that are so young, my only
brother, why should you know people I couldn’t know? Why should you be
ashamed of anyone you go to see?”
“I was not talking of people _I_ go to see; I wish you wouldn’t be so
absurd; I’m talking of the governor,” said Law, speaking very fast;
“he’s there, I tell you, a man of his time of life, sitting among a lot
of girls, talking away fifteen to the dozen. He might find some other
way of meeting her if he must meet her!” cried Law, his own grievance
breaking out in spite of him. “What has he got to do there among a pack
of girls? it’s disgraceful at his age!”
Law was very sore, angry, and disappointed. He had gone to his usual
resort in the evening, and had seen his father there before him, and had
been obliged to retire discomfited, with a jibe from Emma to intensify
his trouble. “The Captain’s twice the man you are!” the little
dressmaker had said; “he ain’t afraid of nobody.” Poor Law had gone away
after this, and strolled despondently along the river-side. He did not
know what to do with himself. Lottie was at the Deanery; he was shut out
of his usual refuge, and he had nowhere to go. Though he had no money,
he jumped into a boat and rowed himself dismally about the river,
dropping down below the bridge to where he could see the lighted windows
of the workroom. There he lingered about, nobody seeing or taking any
notice of him. When he approached the bank, he could even hear the sound
of their voices, the laughter with which they received the Captain’s
witticisms. A little wit went a long way in that complaisant circle. He
could make out Captain Despard’s shadow against the window, never still
for a moment, moving up and down, amusing the girls with songs, jokes,
pieces of buffoonery. Law despised these devices; but, oh! how he envied
the skill of the actor. He hung about the river in his boat till it got
quite dark, almost run into sometimes by other boats, indifferent to
everything but this lighted interior, which he could see, though nobody
in it could see him. And when he was tired of this forlorn amusement he
came home, finding the house very empty and desolate. He tried to work,
but how was it possible to work under the sting of such a recollection?
The only thing he could do was to wait for Lottie, to pour forth his
complaint to her, to hope that she might perhaps find some remedy for
this intolerable wrong. It did not occur to him that to betray his
father was also to betray himself, and that Lottie might feel as little
sympathy for him as he did for Captain Despard. This fact flashed upon
him now when it was too late.
Lottie had not risen from her seat, but as she sat there, everything
round seemed to waver about her, then settle down again in a sudden
revelation of mean, and small, and paltry life, such as she had scarcely
ever realised before. Not only the lofty heaven into which the music had
carried her rolled away like a scroll, but the other world, which was
beautiful also of its kind, from which she had fled, which had seemed
too poor to remain in, after the preceding ecstasy, departed as with a
glimmer of wings; and she found herself awaking in a life where
everything was squalid and poor, where she alone, with despairing
efforts, tried to prop up the house that it might not fall into
dishonoured dust. She had borne with a kind of contemptuous equanimity
Law’s first story about her father. Let him marry again! she had said;
if he could secure the thing he called his happiness in such a way, let
him do it. The idea had filled her with a high scorn. She had not
thought of herself nor of the effect it might have upon her, but had
risen superior to it with lofty contempt, and put it from her mind. But
this was different. With all her high notions of gentility, and all her
longings after a more splendid sphere, this sudden revelation of a
sphere meaner, lower still, struck Lottie with a sudden pang. A pack of
girls! what kind of girls could those be of whom Law spoke? Her blood
rushed to her face scorching her with shame. She who scorned the
Chevaliers and their belongings! She who had “kept her distance” from
her own class, was it possible that she was to be dragged down lower,
lower, to shame itself? Her voice was choked in her throat. She did not
feel able to speak. She could only cry out to him, clasping her hands,
“Don’t tell me any more--oh, don’t tell me any more----”
“Hillo!” said the lad, “what is the matter with you? Don’t tell you any
more? You will soon know a great deal more if you don’t do something to
put a stop to it. There ought to be a law against it. A man’s children
ought to be able to put a stop to it. I told you before, Lottie, if you
don’t exert yourself and do something----”
“Oh,” she said, rising to her feet, “what can I do? Can I put honour
into you, and goodness, and make you what I want you to be? Oh, if I
could, Law! I would give you my blood out of my veins if I could. But I
can’t put me into you,” she said, wringing her hands--“and you expect me
to listen to stories--about people I ought not to hear of--about
women--Oh, Law, Law, how dare you speak so to me?”
“Hold hard!” said Law, “you don’t know what you are speaking of. The
girls are as good girls as you are--” his own cheeks flushed with
indignant shame as he spoke. “You are just like what they say of women.
You are always thinking of something bad. What are you after all, Lottie
Despard? A poor shabby Captain’s daughter! You make your own gowns and
they make other people’s. I don’t see such a dreadful difference in
that.”
Lottie was overpowered by all the different sensations that succeeded
each other in her. She felt herself swept by what felt like repeated
waves of trouble--shame to hear of these people among whom both her
father and brother found their pleasure, shame to have thought more
badly of them than they deserved, shame to have betrayed to Law her
knowledge that there were women existing of whom to speak was a shame.
She sank down upon the sofa again trembling and agitated, relieved yet
not relieved. “Law,” she said faintly, “we are poor enough ourselves, I
know. But even if we don’t do much credit to our birth, is it not
dreadful to be content with that, to go down lower, to make ourselves
nothing at all?”
“It is not my fault,” said Law, a little moved, “nor yours neither. I am
very sorry for you, Lottie; for you’ve got such a high mind--it will go
hardest with you. As for me, I’ve got no dignity to stand on, and if he
drives me to it, I shall simply ’list--that’s what I shall do.”
“’List!” Lottie gazed at him pathetically. She was no longer angry, as
she had been when he spoke of this before. “You are out of your senses,
Law! You, a _gentleman_!”
“A gentleman!” he said bitterly, “much good it does me. It might,
perhaps, be of some use if we were rich, if we belonged to some great
family which nobody could mistake; but the kind of gentlefolks we
are!--nobody knowing anything about us, except through what _he_ pleases
to do and say. I tell you, if the worst comes to the worst, I will go
straight off to the first sergeant I see, and take the shilling. In the
Guards there’s many a better gentleman than I am, and I’m tall enough
for the Guards,” he said, looking down with a little complacence on his
own long limbs. The look struck Lottie with a thrill of terror and pain.
There were soldiers enough about St. Michael’s to make her keenly and
instantly aware how perfectly their life, as it appeared to her, would
chime in with Law’s habits. They seemed to Lottie to be always lounging
about the streets stretching their long limbs, expanding their broad
chests in the sight of all the serving maidens, visible in their red
coats wherever the idle congregated, wherever there was any commotion
going on. She perceived in a moment, as by a flash of lightning, that
nothing could be more congenial to Law. What work might lie behind, what
difficulties of subordination, tyrannies of hours and places,
distasteful occupations--Lottie knew nothing about. She saw in her
brother’s complacent glance, a something of kin to the swagger of the
tall fellows in their red jackets, spreading themselves out before
admiring nursemaids. Law would do that too. She could not persuade
herself that there was anything in him above the swagger, superior to
the admiration of the maids. A keen sense of humiliation, and the sharp
impatience of a proud spirit, unable to inspire those most near to it
with anything of its own pride and energy, came into her mind. “You do
not mind being a gentleman--you do not care,” she cried. “Oh, I know you
are not like me! But how will you like being under orders, Law, never
having your freedom, never able to do what you please, or to go anywhere
without leave? That is how soldiers live. They are slaves; they have to
obey, always to obey. You could not do anything because you wanted to do
it--you could not spend an evening at home--Oh,” she cried with a
sudden stamp of her foot in impatience with herself, “that is not what I
mean to say; for what would you care for coming home? But you could not
go to that place--that delightful place--that you and papa prefer to
home. I know you don’t care for home,” said Lottie. “Oh, it is a
compliment, a great compliment to me!”
And, being overwrought and worn out with agitation, she suddenly broke
down and fell a-crying, not so much that she felt the slight and the
pang of being neglected, but because all these agitations had been too
much for her, and she felt for the moment that she could bear no more.
At the sight of her tears sudden remorse came over Law. He went to her
side and stood over her, touching her shoulder with his hand. “Don’t
cry, Lottie,” he said, with compunction. And then, after a moment, “It
isn’t for you; you’re always jolly and kind. I don’t mind what I say to
you; you might know everything I do if you liked. But home, you know,
home’s not what a fellow cares for. Oh, yes! I care for it in a way--I
care for you; but except you, what is there, Lottie? And I can’t always
be talking to you, can I? A fellow wants a little more than that. So do
you; you want more than me. If I had come into the drawing-room this
morning and strummed on the piano, what would you have done? Sent me off
or boxed my ears if I’d have let you. But that fellow Ridsdale comes
and you like it. You needn’t say no; I am certain you liked it. But
brother and sister, you know that’s not so amusing! Come, Lottie, you
know that as well as I.”
“I don’t know it, it is not true!” Lottie cried, with a haste and
emphasis which she herself felt to be unnecessary. “But what has that to
do with the matter? Allow that you do not care for your home, Law; but
is it necessary to go off and separate yourself from your family, to
give up your position, everything? I will tell you what we will do. We
will go to Mr. Ashford, and he will let us know honestly what he
thinks--what you are fit for. All examinations are not so hard; there
must be something that you could do.”
Law made a wry face, but he did not contradict his sister. “I wish he
would cut me out with a pair of scissors and make me fit somewhere,” he
said, with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he added, almost caressingly,
“Take your supper, Lottie; you’re tired, and you want something; I have
had mine. And you have not told me a word about to-night. Why did you
come in so early? How are you and Ridsdale getting on? Oh! what’s the
good of making a fuss about it? Do you think I can’t see as plain as
porridge what _that_ means?”
“What what means?” cried Lottie, springing from her seat with such
passionate energy as half frightened the lad. “How dare you, Law? Do you
think I am one of the girls you are used to? How dare you speak to me
so?”
“Why should you make such a fuss about it?” cried Law, laughing, yet
retreating. “If there is nothing between you and Ridsdale, what does the
fellow want loafing about here? Lottie! I say, mind what you’re doing. I
don’t mind taking your advice sometimes, but I won’t be bullied by you.”
“You had better go to bed, Law!” said Lottie, with dignified contempt.
After all the agitations of the evening it was hard to be brought down
again to the merest vulgarities of gossip like this. She paid no more
attention to her brother, but gathered together her shawl, her gloves,
the shabby little fan which had been her mother’s, and put out the lamp,
leaving him to find his way to his room as he could. She was too
indignant for words. He thought her no better than the dressmaker-girls
he had spoken of, to be addressed with vulgar stupid raillery such as no
doubt they liked. This was the best Lottie had to look for in her own
home. She swept out, throwing the train of her long white skirt from her
hand with a movement which would have delighted Rollo, and went away to
the darkness and stillness of her own little chamber, with scarcely an
answer to the “Good-night” which Law flung at her as he shuffled away.
She sat down on her little bed in the dark without lighting her candle;
it was her self-imposed duty to watch there till she heard her father’s
entrance. And there, notwithstanding her stately withdrawal, poor
Lottie, overcome, sobbed and cried. She had nobody to turn to, nor
anything to console her, except the silence and pitying darkness which
hid her girlish weakness even from herself.