“Have I a strange look?” Lottie said. What ups and downs were hers!--the

other day so triumphant, and now again so cast down and discouraged. The

tears were standing in her eyes, but she looked at him bravely. “It does

not matter,” she said; “perhaps she does not mean it. It takes away my

heart, and then I have not any voice.”

“Oh, my love!” he whispered under his breath. “And I must put up with it

all. At the elm-tree, dear, to-night.”

“Oh, no, no!” she said.

“Why no no? it is not my fault. Dear, for pity----”

“What are you saying to Miss Despard, Rollo? I am jealous of you,

Lottie; my cousin never comes to my lessons. And, indeed, I wonder the

Signor allows it. It is very delightful for us, but how you can work,

really _work_ with such a train!” Augusta turned round and looked

severely at Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. “If I were the Signor I should not admit

one creature except your maid.”

But this was an indignity which mortal could not endure. The kind

Irishwoman rose to her feet as quickly as the low chair would permit.

“And sure, I agree with the lady,” she said. “Lottie, me love, I can

bear a deal for you, and I’ve stood your friend through thick and thin,

as all here knows. But come again to the Signor’s I won’t, not if you

were to go down on your knees--unless he gives his word of honour that

them that hasn’t a scrap of manners, them that don’t know how to behave

themselves, that whispers when you’re singing, and interrupts when

you’re speaking, will never be here again to insult you--at least not

when Mistress O’Shaughnessy’s here.”

Leaving this fine outburst of indignation to vibrate through the room,

Mrs. O’Shaughnessy turned upon her heel, and, grasping Lottie by the

arm, took the _pas_ from Augusta, and marched out with blazing eyes and

countenance flushed with war. “Ye can bring the music,” she said to old

Pick, who had been listening, and whose disappointment at Lottie’s

break-down was great, “and there’ll be a shilling for you. I’d scorn to

be beholden to one of them.” Rollo made an anxious attempt, but in vain,

to catch Lottie’s eyes as she was swept past him. But Lottie would not

return his glance. Augusta had done a great deal more execution with her

subtle tactics than Polly with hers--which, perhaps, were not more

brutal because they were so much less refined.

“What an odious woman!” Augusta cried; “walking out of the room before

_me_. But, Rollo, she was quite right, though she was so impudent. You

ought not to go there. Mamma says you want Lottie Despard for your new

opera. She would never do. She has a voice, but she doesn’t know how to

sing. A good audience would never put up with her.”

“That is all a mistake,” said Rollo; “it may be very well to know how to

sing, but it is much better to have a voice.”

“I could not have supposed you were so old-fashioned; never say that in

public if you want anyone to have any opinion of you. But even if you

are so sure of her you should keep away; you should not interfere with

her training. The fact is,” said Augusta, very seriously, “I am

dreadfully afraid you have got into some entanglement even now.”

“You are very kind,” said Rollo, smiling, “to take such care of me.”

“I wish I could take a great deal more care. I am almost sure you have

got into some entanglement, though, of course, you will say no. But,

Rollo, you know, you might as well hang yourself at once. You could

never hold up your head again. I don’t know what on earth would become

of you. Uncle Courtland would wash his hands of you, and what could any

of your friends do? It would be moral suicide,” said Augusta, with

solemnity. “I told you about young Jonquil, and the state he was in.

Rollo! that’s the most miserable thing that can happen to a man; other

things may go wrong, and mend again; your people may interpose, or a

hundred things may happen; but this sort of thing is without hope. Oh,

Rollo, take it to heart! There are many things a man may do that don’t

tell half so much against him. You would be poor, and everybody would

give you up. For goodness’ sake, Rollo, think of what I say.”

He gave her an answer which was not civil; and, as he went along by her

side to old Canon Skeffington’s, there suddenly gleamed across his mind

a recollection of the elm-tree on the Slopes, and all the sweetness of

the stolen hours which had passed there. And Lottie had said “No.” Why

should she have said “No?” It seemed to him that he cared for nothing

else so much as to know why for this first time she had refused to meet

him. Had she began to understand his proposition? had she found out what

it was he meant? Was she afraid of him, or indignant, or----? But she

had not looked indignant. Of all things in the world, there was nothing

he wanted so much as to know what Lottie meant by that refusal. Yet,

notwithstanding, he did take to heart what Augusta said.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ANOTHER CHANCE.

Mr. Ashford, the Minor Canon, had, anyone would have supposed, as

tranquil yet as pleasantly occupied a life as a man could have. He had

not very much of a clergyman’s work to do. There was no need for him to

harass himself about the poor, who are generally a burden upon the

shoulders or hung about the neck of the parish priest; he was free from

that weight which he had found himself unable to bear. He had only the

morning and evening prayers to think of, very rarely even a sermon. Most

clergymen like that part of their duties; they like to have it in their

power to instruct, to edify, or even to torture the community in

general, with perfect safety from any reprisals; but Ernest Ashford in

that, as in many other things, was an exception to the general rule in

his profession. He was not fond of sermons, and consequently it was a

very happy thing for him that so few were required of him. He was now

and then tormented by his pupils, which brought his life within the

ordinary conditions of humanity; otherwise, with his daily duty in the

beautiful Abbey, which was a delight to him, and the leisure of his

afternoons and evenings, and the landscape that lay under his window,

and the antique grace of his little house, and all his books, no

existence could have been more unruffled and happy. He was as far lifted

above those painful problems of common life which he could not solve,

and which had weighed upon him like personal burdens in the beginning of

his career, as his window was above the lovely sweep of country at the

foot of the hill. What had he to do but sing Handel, to read and to

muse, and to be content? These were the natural conditions of his life.

But it would appear that these conditions are not fit for perverse

humanity; for few indeed are the persons so happily exempt from ordinary

troubles who do not take advantage of every opportunity to drag

themselves into the arena and struggle like their neighbours. Mrs.

Ashford did this in what may be called the most wanton and unprovoked

way. What business had he to take any interest in Lottie Despard? She

was out of his sphere; the Abbey stood between them, a substantial

obstacle; and many things a great deal more important--social

differences, circumstances that tended to separate rather than to bring

together. And it was not even in the orthodox and regular way that he

had permitted this girl to trouble his life. He might have fallen in

love with her, seeing her so often in the Abbey (for Lottie’s looks were

remarkable enough to attract any man), and nobody could have found

fault. It is true, a great many people would have found fault, in all

likelihood people who had nothing to do with it and no right to

interfere, but who would, as a matter of course, have pitied the poor

man who had been beguiled, and indignantly denounced the designing girl;

but no one would have had any right to interfere. As a clergyman of the

Church of England Mr. Ashford had absolute freedom to fall in love if he

pleased, and to marry if he pleased, and nobody would have dared to say

a word. But he had not done this: he had not fallen in love, and he did

not think of marriage; but being himself too tranquil in his well-being,

without family cares or anxieties, perhaps out of the very forlornness

of his happiness, his attention had been fixed--was it upon the first

person he had encountered in the midst of a moral struggle harder, and

therefore nobler, than his own quiescent state? Perhaps this was all. He

could never be sure whether it was the girl fighting to keep her father

and brother out of the mire, fighting with them to make them as honest

and brave herself, or whether it was simply Lottie that interested him.

Possibly it was better not to enter into this question. She was the most

interesting person within his range. His brethren the Canons, Minor and

Major, were respectable or dignified clergymen, very much like the rest

of the profession. Within the Abbey precincts there was nobody with any

particular claim upon the sympathy of his fellows, or whose moral

position demanded special interest. The Uxbridges were anxious about

their son, who was a careless boy, not any better than Law; but then the

father and mother were quite enough to support that anxiety, and kept it

to themselves as much as possible. It was not a matter of life and

death, as in Law’s case, who had neither father nor mother to care what

became of him, but only Lottie--a creature who herself ought to have

been cared for and removed far from all such anxieties. Even the

deficiency in Lottie’s character--the pain with which she was brought to

see that she must herself adopt the profession which was within her

reach, and come out from the shelter of home and the menial work with

which she was contented, to earn money and make an independence for

herself--had given her a warmer hold upon the spectator, who, finding

himself unable to struggle against the world and himself, had withdrawn

from that combat, yet never could quite pardon himself for having

withdrawn. She, poor child, could not withdraw; she was compelled to

confront the thing she hated by sheer force of necessity, and had done

so--compelled, indeed, but only as those who can are compelled. Would

she have fled from the contemplation of want and pain as he had done?

Would she have allowed herself incapable to bear the consequences of the

duty set before her, whatever it might be? Sometimes Mr. Ashford would

ask himself this question: though what could be more ridiculous than the

idea that a girl of twenty could judge better than a man of

five-and-thirty? But he was interested in her by very reason of her

possession of qualities which he did not possess. He had given her good

advice, and she had taken it; but even while he gave it and pressed it

upon her he had been thinking what would she have said to his problems,

how would she have decided for him? All this increased his interest in

Lottie. He realised, almost more strongly than she did herself, all the

new difficulties that surrounded her; he divined her love, which pained

him not less than the other troublous circumstances in her lot, since he

could not imagine it possible that any good could come out of such a

connection. That Rollo Ridsdale would marry anyone but an heiress his

superior knowledge of the world forced him to doubt; he could not

believe in a real honest love, ending in a marriage, between the

Chevalier’s daughter and Lady Caroline’s nephew. And accordingly this,

which seemed to Lottie to turn her doubtful future into a certainty of

happiness, seemed to Mr. Ashford the worst of all the dangers in her

lot. It would be no amusement for her, as it would be for the other;

and what was to become of the girl with her father’s wife in possession

of her home and such a lover in possession of her heart? His

spectatorship got almost more than he could bear at times; nobody seemed

to see as he did, and he was the last person in the world who could

interfere to save her. Could anyone save her? He could not tell; he knew

no one who would take the office upon himself; but least of all could he

do it. He watched with interest which had grown into the profoundest

anxiety--an anxiety which in its turn was increased tenfold by the sense

that there was nothing which he could do.

Such were the feelings in his mind when the Signor joined him on his

homeward way after service on the afternoon when Mrs. Daventry had so

interrupted Lottie’s lesson. Augusta had sailed up the aisle and out by

the door in the cloisters which adjoined the Deanery, as they came out

of the room where all the surplices were hanging in their old presses,

and where the clergy robed themselves. The two men came out when the

rustle and flutter of the party of ladies were still in the air, and old

Wykeham looking after them with cynical criticism. The hassocks in the

aisles, which had been placed there for the convenience of the

overflowing congregations, too great for the Abbey choir, which crowded

every corner now and then, were all driven about like boats at sea by

the passage of these billows of trailing silk, and Wykeham had stooped

to put them back into their places. Stooping did not suit the old man,

and he could not do without his natural growl. “I wish they’d stick to

’em,” he said; “plenty of dirt sticks to ’em. They sweeps up the aisles

and saves us trouble; but I’d just like one o’ them heavy hassocks to

stick.”

“And so should I,” said the Signor under his breath. “They are

insufferable,” he said with vehemence as he emerged into the cloister.

“I have made up my mind I shall not allow any intrusion again.”

“Who are insufferable, and what is the intrusion you are going to

prevent?” said the Minor Canon with a smile.

“Ashford,” said the Signor with much heat, “I am not going to have you

come any more to Miss Despard’s lessons. Don’t say anything to me on the

subject; I know all about interest and so forth, but I can’t permit it.

It’s ruin to her, and it irritates me beyond bearing. Interest? if you

take any real interest in her you would see that nothing could be less

for her welfare, nothing more destructive of any chances she may

have----”

“My dear Rossinetti, I never was present at Miss Despard’s lesson but

once.”

“It was once too much, then,” the Signor cried. “The girl is getting

ruined. That woman, that Mrs. Daventry--you should have heard her

whispering behind our backs with her fan in front of her face, then

stopping a moment to say, ‘What a pretty song: how much you have

improved.’”

The Signor made an attempt to mimic Augusta, but he had no talent that

way, and the mincing tone to which he gave utterance was like nothing

that had ever been heard before. But if his imitation was bad his

disgust was quite genuine. He could not think of anything else; he

returned again and again to the subject as they went on.

“The upper classes,” he said, “are famous for good manners. This is

their good manners: Two of them thrust themselves in for their amusement

to a place where a poor girl is working hard at art, and a man who has

spent most of his life in learning is trying to transmit his knowledge

to her. And the moment that girl begins singing _they_ begin their

loathsome chatter about Mr. this and My Lady that. Do not say anything

to me, Ashford; I tell you, you shall not come, you nor anyone else,

again.”

“Is she making progress?” said the Minor Canon.

“Progress? how could she, with that going on? No; sometimes she will

sing like an angel, sometimes like--anyone. It drives me wild! And then

our gracious patrons appear--Mr. Ridsdale (who ought to know better) and

Mrs. Daventry. I ought to know better too; I will defend my doors from

henceforth. To be sure, I did not mean that; _you_ may come if you

like.”

“And Mr. Ridsdale talked? How did she bear it?” said Mr. Ashford

nervously.

“It is I who will not bear it,” said the musician. “And these are people

who pretend to love music--pretend to know: it is insufferable. If she

ever becomes a great singer----”

“If? I thought you had no doubt.”

“How was I to know I should be intruded upon like this? Poor girl. I

think, after all, the best thing for her will be to marry my boy, John

Purcell, and live a quiet life.”

“Marry--Purcell?”

“Why not? He is a very good musician; he will live to make a great deal

of money: he has genius--positively genius. The best thing she could do

would be to marry him. She is too sensitive. Susceptibility belongs to

the artist temperament, but then it must be susceptibility within

control. Her voice flutters like a flame when the wind is blowing.

Sometimes it blows out altogether. And he loves her. She will do best to

marry my John.”

“You cannot have so little perception, Rossinetti. How can you entertain

such an idea for a moment? Purcell?”

“In what is he so inferior?” said the Signor with quiet gravity. “He is

young, not like you and me. That is a great deal. He is an excellent

musician, and he has a home to offer to her. I should advise it if she

would take my advice. It would not harm her in her career to marry a

musician, if finally she accepts her career. She has not accepted it

yet,” said the Signor with a sigh.

“Then all your certainty is coming to nothing,” said Mr. Ashford, “and

Ridsdale’s----”

“Ah, Ridsdale--that is what harms her. Something might be done if he

were out of the way. He is an influence that is too much for me. Either

she has heard of his new opera, and expects to have her place secured in

it, under his patronage, or else she hopes--something else.” The Signor

kept his eyes fixed upon his companion. He wanted to surprise Mr.

Ashford’s opinion without giving his own.

“Do you think,” said the Minor Canon indignantly, “even with the little

you know of her, that she is a girl to calculate upon having a place

secured to her, or upon anyone’s patronage?”

“Then she hopes for--something else; which is a great deal worse for her

happiness,” said the Signor. Then there was a pause. They had reached

Mr. Ashford’s door, but he did not ask his companion to go in. The

Signor paused, but he had not ended what he had to say: “With the

little I know of her”--he said--“do you know more?”

This was not an easy question to answer. He could not say, I have been

watching her for weeks; I know almost all that can be found out; but,

serious man as he was, Mr. Ashford was embarrassed. He cleared his

throat, and indeed even went through a fit of coughing to gain time.

“Her brother is my pupil,” he said at last, “and, unfortunately, he

likes better to talk than to work. I have heard a great deal about her.

I think I know enough to say that she would not hope--anything that she

had not been wooed and persuaded to believe in----”

“Then you think--you really suppose--you are so credulous, so optimist,

so romantic,” cried the Signor with a _crescendo_ of tone and

gesticulation--“you think that a man of the world, a man of society,

with no money, would marry--for love?”

The musician broke into a short laugh. “You should have heard them,” he

added after a dramatic pause, “this very day whispering, chuchotéing, in

my room while she was singing--talking--oh, don’t you know what about?

About girls who marry rich men while (they say) their hearts are

breaking for poor ones--about women using the most shameless arts to

entrap a rich man, and even playing devotion to a woman with money; and

the only one to be really pitied of all is the poor fellow, who has

followed his heart, who is poor, who lives at Kew, and has two babies in

a perambulator. I laugh at him myself,” said the Signor--“the fool, to

give up his club and society because he took it into his silly head to

love!”

“Rossinetti,” said the Minor Canon, “I know there are quantities of

these wretched stories about; but human nature is human nature, after

all, not the pitiful thing they make it out. I don’t believe they are

true.”

“What! after all the newspapers--the new branch of literature that has

sprung from them?” cried the Signor. Then he paused again and subsided.

“I am of your opinion,” he said. “The fire would come down from heaven

if it was true; but _they_ believe it: that is the curious thing. You

and I, we are not in society; we are charitable; we say human nature

never was so bad as that; but they believe it. Rollo Ridsdale would be

ashamed to behave like a man, as you and I would feel ourselves forced

to behave, as my boy John is burning to do.”

“You and I.” The Minor Canon scarcely knew how it was that he repeated

these words; they caught his ear and dropped from his lips before he was

aware.

The Signor looked at him with a smile which was half satire and a

little bit sympathy. He said, “That is what you are coming to, Ashford.

I see it in your eye.”

“You are speaking--folly,” said Mr. Ashford; then he added hastily, “I

have got one of my boys coming. I must go in.”

“Good-day,” said the other with his dark smile. He had penetrated the

secret thoughts that had not as yet taken any definite form in his

friend’s breast. Sometimes another eye sees more clearly than our own

what is coming uppermost in our minds--or at least its owner believes

so. The Signor was all the more likely to be right in this, that he had

no belief in the calm sentiment of “interest” as actuating a man not yet

too old for warmer feelings, in respect to a woman. He smiled

sardonically at Platonic affection--as most people indeed do, unless the

case is their own. He knew but one natural conclusion in such

circumstances, and settled that it would be so without more ado. And

such reasoning is sure in the majority of cases to be right, or to help

to make itself right by the mere suggestion. To be sure he took an

“interest”--a great interest--in Lottie himself; but that was in the way

of art.

Mr. Ashford had no boy coming that he knew of when he said this to

escape from the Signor; but, as sometimes happens, the expedient

justified itself, and he had scarcely seated himself in his study when

some one came up the oak staircase two or three steps at a time, and

knocked at his door. In answer to the “Come in,” which was said with

some impatience--for the Minor Canon had a great deal to think about,

and had just decided to subject himself to a cross-examination--who

should open the door but Law--Law, without any book under his arm, and

with a countenance much more awake and alive than on the occasions when

he carried that sign of study. “Can I speak to you?” Law said, casting a

glance round the room to see that no one else was there. He came in half

suspicious, but with serious meaning on his face. Then he came and

placed himself in the chair which stood between Mr. Ashford’s

writing-table and his bookcases. “I want to ask your advice,” he said.

“Well; I have done nothing else but give you my advice for some time

past, Law.”

“Yes--to work--I know. You have given me a great deal of that sort of

advice. What good is it, Mr. Ashford? I’ve gone on week after week, and

what will it ever come to? Well, I know what you are going to say. I

work, but I don’t work. I don’t care a bit about it. I haven’t got my

heart in it. It is quite true. But you can’t change your disposition;

you can’t change your nature.”

“Stop a little, Law. So far as work is concerned you often can, if you

will----”

“Ah, but there’s the rub,” said Law, looking his Mentor in the face. “I

don’t want to--that is the simple fact. I don’t feel that I’ve the least

desire to. I feel as if I won’t even when I know I ought. I think it’s

more honest now at last to tell you the real truth.”

“I think I knew it pretty well some time ago,” said the Minor Canon with

a smile. “It is a very common complaint. Even that can be got over with

an effort. Indeed, I am glad you have found it out. Perhaps even, you

know, it is not your brain at all but your will that is at fault.”

“Mr. Ashford,” said Law solemnly, “what is the good of talking? You know

and I know that I never could make anything of it if I were to work, as

we call it, till I was fifty. I never could pass any examination. They

would be fools indeed if they let me in. I am no real good for anything

like that. You know it well enough; why shouldn’t you say it? Here are

you and me alone--nobody to overhear us, nobody to be vexed. What is the

use of going on in the old way? I shall never do any good. You know it

just as well as I.”

“Law,” said Mr. Ashford, “I will not contradict you. I believe you are

right. If there was any other way of making your living I should say

you were right. Books are not your natural tools; but they open the door

to everything. The forest service, the telegraph service--all that sort

of thing would suit you.”

At this point Law got up with excitement, and began walking up and down

the room. “That is all very well,” he said. “Mr. Ashford, what is the

use of deceiving ourselves? I shall never get into any of these. I’ve

come to ask your advice once for all. I give up the books; I could only

waste more time, and I’ve wasted too much already. It has come to this:

I’ll emigrate or I’ll ’list. I don’t see how I’m to do that even, for

I’ve no money--not enough to take me to London, let alone Australia. Why

shouldn’t I do the other? It’s good enough; if there was a war it would

be good enough. Even garrison duty I shouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t hurt

_my_ pride,” the lad said with a sudden flush of colour that belied his

words; “and I might go away from here, so that it would not hurt _her_.

That’s all, Mr. Ashford,” he said with suppressed feeling. “Only

her--she’s the only one that cares; and if I went away from here she

would never know.”

“Has anything happened to drive you to a decision at once? Is there

anything new--anything----?”

“There is always something new,” said Law. “That woman has been to--to

the only place I ever cared to go--to shut the door against me. They

were her own friends too--at least people as good as--a great deal

better than she. She has been there to bully them on my account, to say

they are not to have me. Do you think I’ll stand that? What has she to

do with me?”

“It must be a great deal worse for your sister, Law.”

“Well, isn’t that what I say? Do you think I can stand by and see Lottie

bullied? Once she drove her out of the house. By Jove, if Lottie hadn’t

come home I’d have killed her. I shouldn’t have stopped to think; I

should have killed her,” said Law, whose own wrong had made him

desperate. “Do you think I can stand by and see Lottie bullied by that

woman? She’s brought it partly upon herself. She was too hard in the

house with her management both upon the governor and me. She meant it

well, but she was too hard. But still she’s Lottie, and I can’t see her

put upon. Do you think I am made of stone,” cried Law indignantly, “or

something worse than stone?”

“But if you were in Australia what better would she be? There you would

certainly be of no use to her.”

Law was momentarily staggered, but he recovered himself. “She would know

I was doing for myself,” he said, “which might mean something for her,

too, in time. I might send for her. At least,” said the lad, “she would

not have me on her hands; she would only have herself to think of; and

if she got on in her singing--the fact is, I can’t stand it, and one way

or other I must get away.”

“What would you do if you were in Australia, Law?”

“Hang it all!” said the young man, tears of vexation and despite

starting to his eyes, “a fellow must be good for something somewhere.

You can’t be useless all round; I’m strong enough. And here’s one thing

I’ve found out,” Law added with a laugh: “it doesn’t go against your

pride to do things in the Colonies which you durstn’t do here. You can

do--whatever you _can_ do out there. It doesn’t matter being a

gentleman. A gentleman can drive a cart or carry a load in Australia.

That is the kind of place for me. I’d do whatever turned up.”

Said Mr. Ashford suddenly, “I know a man out there----” and then he

paused. “Law, what would your sister do? There would be no one to stand

by her. Even you, you have not much in your power, but you are always

some one. You can give her a little sympathy. Even to feel that there

are two of you must be something.”

“Mr. Ashford,” said Law, “you will do her more good than I should. What

have I been to poor Lottie? Only a trouble. Two of us--no; I can’t take

even that to myself. I’ve worried her more than anything else. She would

be the first to thank you. You know a man----?”

“I know a man,” said the Minor Canon--“I had forgotten him till now--a

man who owes me a good turn; and I think he would pay it. If I were sure

you would really do your best, and not forget the claims she has upon

your kindness----”

“Would you like me to send for her as soon as I had a home for her?” Law

asked with fervour. There was a subdued twinkle in his eye, but yet he

was too much in earnest not to be ready to make any promise.

“That would be the right thing to do,” said the Minor Canon with

excessive gravity, “though perhaps the bush is not exactly the kind of

place to suit her. If you will promise to do your very best----”

“I will,” said the lad, “I will. I am desperate otherwise; you can see

for yourself, Mr. Ashford. Give me only an opening; give me anything

that I can work at. If I were to ’list I never should make much money by

that. There’s only just this one thing,” said Law: “If I had a friend to

go to, and a chance of employment, and would promise to pay it back, I

suppose I might get a loan somewhere--a loan on good interest,” he

continued, growing anxious and a little breathless--“perhaps from one of

those societies, or some old money-lender, or something--to take me

out?”

The Minor Canon laughed. “If this is what you are really set upon, and

you will do your best,” he said, “I will see your father, and you need

not trouble your mind about the interest. Perhaps we shall be able to

manage that.”

“Oh, Mr. Ashford, what a good fellow you are! what a good friend you

are!” cried Law, beaming with happiness. The tears once more came into

his eyes, and then there came a glow of suppressed malice and fun behind

that moisture. “Lottie will be more obliged even than I,” he said; “and

I could send for her as soon as I got settled out there.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

LOTTIE RESENTFUL.

Lottie was sadly disheartened by the events of that day. She came home

alike depressed and indignant, her heart and her pride equally wounded.

She had scarcely seen Rollo for the two intervening days, and the

meeting at the Signor’s had appeared to her before it came a piece of

happiness which was certain, and with which no one could interfere. He

would resist all attempts to wile him away for that afternoon, she was

sure; he would not disappoint her and take all her inspiration from her

again. Since that last meeting under the elm-tree she had been more full

of happy confidence in him than ever. His readiness and eagerness to

take her away at once, overcoming, as she thought, all the scruples and

prejudices of his class, in order to secure deliverance for her, had

filled her mind with that soft glow of gratitude which it is so sweet to

feel to those we love. The elation and buoyant sense of happiness in her

mind had floated her over all the lesser evils in her path. What did

they matter, what did anything matter, in comparison? She was

magnanimous, tolerant, ready to believe the best, unready to be

offended, because of this private solace of happiness in her bosom, but

all the more for those undoubting certainties she had felt the contrast

of the actual scene. She did not even think that Rollo might be innocent

of his cousin’s visit, or that he knew nothing of her coming till he had

walked unawares into the snare. Lottie did not know this. She saw him by

Augusta’s side, talking to her and listening to her. She was conscious

through all her being of the rustle of whispering behind her, which went

on in spite of her singing. She would not look at him to see what

piteous apologies he was making with his eyes, and when Mrs.

O’Shaughnessy in sudden wrath dragged her away Lottie was glad of the

sudden exit, the little demonstration of offence and independence of

which she herself might have failed to take the initiative. She went

home tingling with the wound, her nerves excited, her mind irritated.

She would not go to meet him, as he had asked her. She went home

instead, avoiding everybody, and shut herself up in her own room. She

was discouraged too and deeply annoyed with herself, because in the

presence of the unkindly critic who had been listening to her, Lottie

felt she had not done well. Generally her only care, her only thought,

was to please Rollo; but that day she would have wished for the

inspiring power that now and then came upon her, as when she had sung in

the Abbey not knowing of his presence. She would have liked to sing like

that, overawing Augusta and her whispering; but she had not done so. She

had failed while that semi-friend who was her enemy looked on. She felt,

with a subtle certainty beyond all need of proof, that Augusta was her

enemy. Augusta had at once suspected, though Rollo had said that she

would never suspect; and she wanted to make her cousin see how little

Lottie was his equal, how even in her best gifts she was nothing. It was

bitter to Lottie to think that she had done all she could to prove

Augusta right. Why was it that she could not sing then, as, two or three

times in her life, she had felt able to sing, confounding all who had

been unfavourable to her? Lottie chafed at the failure she had made. She

was angry with herself, and this made her more angry both with Augusta

and with him. In the heat of her self-resentment she began to sing over

her music softly to herself, noting where she had failed. Had the Signor

been within hearing how he would have rejoiced over that

self-instruction. Her friends had been so much mortified that it opened

her eyes to her own faults. She saw where she had been wrong. There is

no such stimulant of excellence as the sense of having done badly.

Lottie’s art education advanced under the sting of this failure as it

had never done before. She threw herself into it with fervour. As she

ran over the notes she seemed to hear the “sibilant s’s” behind her,

pursuing her, and the chance words she had caught. “Like him--she did

not care a straw for him.” “The old lady made it all up,” “and the

settlements were astonishing.” That and a great deal more Lottie’s

jealous ears had picked up, almost against her will, and the words

goaded her on like so many pricks. She thought she never could suffer it

to be possible that Augusta or any other fine lady should do less than

listen when she sang again.

While Lottie sat there cold in the wintry twilight (yet warm with

injured pride and mortification) till there was scarcely light enough to

see, humming over her music, Rollo, getting himself with difficulty free

of his cousin and all the visitors and commotion of the Deanery, rushed

up to the elm-tree, and spent a very uncomfortable moment there, waiting

in the cold, and wondering if it was possible that she would not come.

It did not occur to him that Lottie, always so acquiescent and

persuadable, could stand out now, especially as he was not really to

blame. He stood about under the elm, now and then taking a little walk

up and down to keep himself warm, watching the light steal out of the

wide landscape and everything darken round him, for half and hour and

more. No one was there; not an old Chevalier ventured upon a turn in

the dark, not a pair of lovers confronted the north wind. Rollo

shivered, though he was more warmly clad than Lottie would have been. He

walked up and down with an impatience that helped to keep him warm,

though with dismay that neutralised that livelier feeling. He had no

desire to lose his love in this way. It might be foolish to imperil his

comfort, his position, his very living, for her, but yet now at least

Rollo had no intention of throwing her away. He knew why she sang badly

that afternoon, and instead of alarming him this knowledge brought a

smile upon his face. Augusta had behaved like a woman without a heart,

and Lottie was no tame girl to bear whatever anyone pleased, but a

creature full of fire and spirit, not to be crushed by a fashionable

persecutor. Rollo felt it hard that he should wait in the cold, and be

disappointed after all; but he was not angry with Lottie. She had a

right to be displeased. He was all the more anxious not to lose her, not

to let her get free from him, that she had thus asserted herself. His

love, which had been a little blown about by those fashionable gales

that had been blowing round him, blazed up all the hotter for this

temporary restraint put upon it. She who had trusted him with such an

exquisite trust only the other evening, who had not in her innocence

seen anything but devotion in the sudden proposal into which (he

persuaded himself) only passion could have hurried him--her first

rebellion against him tightened the ties that bound him to her. Give her

up! it would be giving up heaven, throwing away the sweetest thing in

his life. He was cold, but his heart burned as he paced his little

round, facing the north wind and listening for every rustling sound

among the withered leaves that lay around him, thinking it might be her

step. The darkness, and the chill, and the solitude all seemed to show

him more clearly how sweet the intercourse had been which had made him

unconscious of either darkness or cold before. Augusta repeating her

endless monotonous stories of universal guile and selfishness had made

him half ashamed of his best feelings. He was ashamed now of her and her

influence, ashamed of having been made her tool for the humiliation of

his love. What a difference there was between them! Was there anyone

else in the world so tender, so pure, so exquisite in her love and

trust, as Lottie, the creature whose sensitive heart he had been made to

wound? When at last, discouraged and penitent, he turned homeward, Rollo

had the intention trembling in his mind of making Lottie the most

complete amends for everything that had ever been done to harm her. He

paused at the gates of the cloister, and looked across at the light in

her window with a yearning which surprised him. He seemed to have a

thousand things to say to her, and to be but half a being when he had

not her to confide in, to tell all his affairs to--although he had never

told her one of his affairs. This fact did not seem to affect his

longing. He went so far as to walk across the Dean’s Walk, to see what

he thought was her shadow on the blind. It was not Lottie’s shadow, but

Polly’s, who had taken her place; but this the lover did not know.

Meanwhile Lottie had been disturbed in her seclusion by a sharp knock at

her door. “Do you mean to stay there all night, Miss?” cried Polly’s

sharp voice. “You might pay me the compliment to keep me company now and

again as long as you stay in my house. If you think it is civil to stay

there, shut up in your room, and me all alone in the drawing-room, I

don’t. I can’t think where your hearts is, you two,” Polly went on, a

whimper breaking into the tone of offence with which she spoke. “To see

one as is not much older than yourself, and never did you no harm, and

not a soul to keep her company. Was it for that I give up all my own

folks, to come and sit dressed up in a corner because I’m Mrs. Despard,

and never see a soul?”

Lottie had opened her door before this speech was half done. She said

with a little alarm, “Please don’t speak so loud. We need not let the

maid in the kitchen know.”

“Do you think I care for the maid in the kitchen? She’s my servant. I’ll

make her know her place. Never one of them sort of folks takes any

freedom with me. I have always been known for one as allowed no

freedoms--no, nor no followers, nor perquisites, nor nothing of the

kind. They soon find out as I ain’t one to be turned round their finger.

Now you,” said Polly, leading the way into the little drawing-room,

“you’re one of the soft sort. I dare say they did what they liked with

you!”

“I don’t think so,” said Lottie, following. She put her music softly

down upon the old piano, which Polly had swathed in a cover, and the

changed aspect of the room moved her half to laughter, half to anger and

dismay.

“There are few as knows themselves,” said Polly. “That girl, that Mary

as you had, I couldn’t have put up with her for a day. Some folks never

sees when things is huggermugger, but I’m very particular. Your

Pa--dear, good, easy man--I dare say he’s put up with a deal; but to be

sure no better was to be expected, for you never had no training, I

suppose?”

Lottie was almost too much taken by surprise to reply--she, who had felt

that if there was one thing in the world she could do it was

house-keeping! The confusion that is produced in the mind by the sudden

perception of another’s opinion of us which is diametrically opposed to

our own seized her; otherwise she would have been roused to instant

wrath. This, which was something so entirely opposite to what she could

have expected, raised only a kind of ludicrous bewilderment in her mind.

“I--don’t know what you mean,” said Lottie. “Papa has not very much

money to give for house-keeping. Perhaps you are making a mistake.”

“Oh, it is likely that I should make a mistake! Do you think I don’t

know my own husband’s income? Do you think,” said Polly with scorn,

“that he has any secrets from _me_?”

Lottie was cold with her imprisonment in her fireless room. She drew her

little chair to the blazing fire and sat down by the side. Polly had

placed herself in the largest chair in the room, directly in front of

it. The fire was heaped up in the little grate, and blazed, being

largely supplied. It was very comfortable, but it went against the rules

of the economy which Lottie had strenuously prescribed to herself. “Papa

spends a great deal of money himself,” she said; “you will find that you

must be very sparing at home.”

“My dear,” said Polly in a tone of condescending patronage which brought

the colour to Lottie’s face, “I am not one as can be sparing at home.

Pinching ain’t my way. I couldn’t do it, not if I was to be made a

countess for it. Some folks can scrape and cut down and look after

everything, but it ain’t my nature. What I like is a free hand. Plenty

to eat and plenty to drink, and no stinting nowhere--that’s what will

always be the law in my house.”

Lottie made no reply. She felt that it was almost a failure from her

duty to put out her hands to the warmth of the too beautiful fire. Some

one would have to suffer for it. Her mind began to run over her own

budget of ways and means, to try, as had been her old habit, where she

could find something to cut off to make up for the extravagance. “These

coals burn very fast,” she said at last. “They are not a thrifty kind. I

used to have the----”

“I know,” said Polly, “you used to have slates and think it was

economy--poor child!--but the best for me: the best is always the

cheapest in the end. If anyone thinks as I will put up with seconds,

either coals or bread!--but since we’re on the subject of money,”

continued Polly, “I’ll tell you my mind, Miss, and I don’t mean it

unfriendly. The thing as eats up my husband’s money, it ain’t a bright

fire or a good dinner, as is his right to have; it’s your brother Law,

Miss, and you.”

“You have told me that before,” Lottie said, with a strenuous effort at

self-control.

“And I’ll tell it you again--and again--till it has its effect,” cried

Polly: “it’s true. I don’t mean to be unfriendly. I wonder how you can

live upon your Pa at your age. Why, long before I was your age I was

doing for myself. My Pa was very respectable, and everybody belonging to

us; but do you think I’d have stayed at home and eat up what the old

folks had for themselves? They’d have kept me and welcome, but I

wouldn’t hear of it. And do you mean to say,” said Polly, folding her

arms and fixing her eyes upon her step-daughter, “as you think yourself

better than me?”

Lottie returned the stare with glowing eyes, her lips falling apart from

very wonder. She gave a kind of gasp of bewilderment, but made no reply.

“I don’t suppose as you’ll say so,” said Polly; “and why shouldn’t you

think of your family as I did of mine? You mightn’t be able to work as I

did, but there’s always things you could do to save your Pa a little

money. There’s lessons. There’s nothing ungenteel in lessons. I am not

one as would be hard upon a girl just starting in the world. You’ve got

your room here, that don’t cost you nothing; and what’s a daily

governess’s work? Nothing to speak of--two or three hours’ teaching (or

you might as well call it playing), and your dinner with the children,

and mostly with the lady of the house--and all the comforts of ’ome

after, just as if you wasn’t out in the world at all; a deal different

from sitting at your needle, working, working, as I’ve done, from

morning to night.”

“But I don’t know anything,” said Lottie. “I almost think you are quite

right. Perhaps it is all true; it doesn’t matter nowadays, and ladies

ought to work as well as men. But--I don’t know anything.” A half-smile

came over her face. Notwithstanding that she was angry with Rollo,

still--he who would have carried her away on the spot rather than that

she should bear the shadow of a humiliation at home--was it likely----?

Lottie’s mind suddenly leaped out of its anger and resentment with a

sudden rebound. He did not deserve that she should be so angry with him.

Was it his fault? and in forgiving him her temper and her heart got

suddenly right again, and all was well. She even woke to a little

amusement in the consciousness that Polly was advising her for her good.

The extravagant coals, the extravagant meals, would soon bring their own

punishment; and though Lottie could not quite free herself from

irritation on these points, yet she was amused by the thought of all

this good advice.

“That’s nonsense,” said Polly promptly. “Now here’s a way you could

begin at once, and it would be practice for you, and it would show at

least that you was willing. I’ve been very careless,” she said, getting

up from her chair and opening the old piano. She had to push off the

cover first, and the noise and commotion of this complicated movement

filled Lottie with alarm. “I’ve done as a many young ladies do before

they see how silly it is. I’ve left off my music. You mayn’t believe it,

but it’s true. I can’t tell even if I know my notes,” said Polly,

jauntily but clumsily placing her hands upon the keyboard and letting

one finger fall heavily here and there like a hammer. “I don’t remember

a bit. It’s just like a great silly, isn’t it? But you never think when

you are young, when your head’s full of your young man and all that sort

of thing. It’s when you’ve settled down, and got married, and have time

to think, that you find it out.”

Polly was a great deal less careful of her language as she became

accustomed to her new surroundings. She was fully herself by this time,

and at her ease. She sat down before the piano and ran her finger along

the notes. “It’s scandalous,” she said. “We’re taught when we’re young,

and then we thinks no more of it. Now, Miss, if you was willing to do

something for your living, if you was really well disposed and wanted to

make a return, you might just look up some of your old lesson-books and

begin with me. I’d soon pick up,” said Polly, making a run of sound up

and down the keys with the back of her fingers, and thinking it

beautiful; “it would come back to me in two or three lessons. You

needn’t explain nothing about it; we might just say as we were learning

some duets together. It would all come back to me if you would take a

little trouble; and I shouldn’t forget it. I never forget it when

anyone’s of use to me.”

“But,” cried Lottie, who had been vainly endeavouring to break in, “I

cannot play.”

“Cannot play!” Polly turned round upon the piano-stool with a

countenance of horror. Even to turn round upon that stool was something

delightful to her, like a lady in a book, like one of the heroines in

the _Family Herald_; but this intimation chilled the current of her

blood.

“No--only two or three little things, and that chiefly by ear. I never

learned as I ought. I hated it; and I was scarcely ever taught, only

by--someone who did not know much,” said Lottie with a compunction in

her mind. Only by someone who did not know much--This was her mother,

poor soul, whom Polly had replaced. Lottie’s heart swelled as she spoke.

Poor, kind, silly mamma! she had not known very much; but it seemed

cruel to allow it in the presence of her supplanter.

“Goodness--gracious--me!” said Polly. She said each word separately, as

if she were telling beads. She cast at Lottie a glance of sovereign

contempt. “You to set up for being a lady,” she cried, “and can’t _play

the piano_! I never heard of such a thing in all my born days.”

If she had claimed not to be able to work, Polly could have understood

it; but if there is a badge of ladyhood, or even a pretence at ladyhood,

in the world, is it not this? She was horrified; it felt like a coming

down in the world even to Polly herself.

Again Lottie did not make any reply. She was simple enough to be half

ashamed of herself and half angry at the criticism which for the first

time touched her; for it was a fact that she was ignorant, and a

shameful fact. She could not defend, but she would not excuse herself.

As for Polly, there was in her a mingling of triumph and regret.

“I _am_ surprised,” she said. “I thought one who pretended to be a lady

ought at least to know that much. And you ought to be a lady, I am sure,

if ever anyone was, for your Pa is a perfect gentleman. Dear, dear--if

you can’t play the piano, goodness gracious, what have you been doing

all your life? That was the one thing I thought was sure--and you are

musical, for I’ve heard as you could sing. If it’s only that you won’t

take any trouble to oblige,” said Polly angrily, “say it out. Oh, it

won’t be no surprise to me. I’ve seen it in your face already--say it

out!”

“I have told you nothing but the truth,” said Lottie. “I am sorry for

it. I can sing--a little--but I can’t play.”

“It’s just the same as if you said you could write but couldn’t read,”

said Polly; “but I’ve always been told as I’ve a nice voice. It ain’t

your loud kind, that you could hear from this to the Abbey, but

sweet--at least so folks say. You can teach me to sing if you like,” she

said, after a pause. “I never learned singing. One will do as well as

the other, and easier too.”

This was a still more desperate suggestion. Lottie quailed before the

task that was offered to her. “I can show you the scales,” she said

doubtfully; “that is the beginning of everything; but singing is harder

to teach than playing. The Signor thinks I don’t know anything. They say

I have a voice, but that I don’t know how to sing.”

“The fact is,” cried Polly, shutting down the piano with a loud bang and

jar which made the whole instrument thrill, and snapped an old

attenuated chord which went out of existence with a creak and a groan,

“the fact is, you don’t want to do nothing for me. You don’t think me

good enough for you. I am only your father’s wife, and one as has a

claim upon your respect, and deserves to have the best you can do. If it

was one of your fine ladies as don’t care a brass farthing for you--oh,

you’d sing and you’d play the piano safe enough: but you’ve set your

mind against me. I seen it the first day I came here--and since then the

life you’ve led me! Never a civil word--never a pleasant look; yes and

no, with never a turn of your head; you think a deal of yourself. And

you needn’t suppose I care--not I--not one bit; but you shan’t stand up

to my face and refuse whatever I ask you. You’ll have to do what I tell

you or you’ll have to go.”

“I will go,” said Lottie in a low voice. She thought of Rollo’s sudden

proposal, of the good people whom he said he would take her to, of the

sudden relief and hope, the peace and ease that were involved. Ought she

not to take him at his word? For the moment she thought she would do so.

She would let him know that she was ready, ready to go anywhere, only to

escape from this. How foolish she had been to be angry with Rollo--he

who wanted nothing better than to deliver her at a stroke, to carry her

away into happiness. Her heart softened with a great gush of tenderness.

She would yield to him; why should she not yield to him? She might think

that he ought to marry his wife from her father’s house, but he had not

seemed to think so. He thought of nothing but to deliver her from this

humiliation--and what would it matter to him? a poor Chevalier’s house

or a poor quiet lodging, what would it matter? She would go. She would

do as Rollo said.

“You will go?” cried Polly; “and where will you go? Who have you got to

take you in? People ain’t so fond of you. A woman as can do nothing for

herself, who wants her? and isn’t even obliging. Oh, you are going to

your room again, to be sulky there? But I tell you I won’t have it. You

shall sit where the family sits or you shall go out of the place

altogether. And you’ll come to your meals like other people, and you’ll

mix with them as is there, and not set up your white face, as if you

were better than all the world. You’re not so grand as you think you

are, Miss Lottie Despard. If it comes to that I’m a Despard as well as

you; and I’m a married woman, with an ’usband to work for me--an

’usband,” cried Polly, “as doesn’t require to work for me, as has enough

to keep me like a lady--if it wasn’t that he has a set of lazy grown-up

children as won’t do nothing for themselves, but eat us out of ’ouse and

’ome!”

Was it possible that this humiliation had come to Lottie--to Lottie of

all people--she who had felt that the well-being of the house hung upon

her, and that she alone stood between her family and utter downfall? She

sat still, not even attempting now to escape, her ears tingling, her

heart beating. It was incredible that it was she, her very self, Lottie,

who was bearing this. It must be a dream; it was impossible that it

could be true.

And thus Lottie sat the whole of the evening, too proud to withdraw, and

bore the brunt of a long series of attacks, which were interrupted,

indeed, by the supper, to which Polly had to give some personal care,

and by Captain Despard’s entrance and Law’s. Polly told her story to her

husband with indignant vehemence. “I asked her,” she said, “to help me a

bit with my music--I know you’re fond of music, Harry--and I thought

we’d learn up some duets or something, her and me, to please you; and

she says she can’t play the piano! and, then, not to show no offence, I

said as singing would do just as well, and then she says she can’t

sing!” The Captain received this statement with much caressing of his

wife and smoothing of her ruffled plumes. He said, “Lottie, another time

you’ll pay more attention,” with a severe aspect; and not even Law had a

word to say in her defence. As to Law, indeed, he was very much

preoccupied with his own affairs; his eyes were shining, his face full

of secret importance and meaning. Lottie saw that he was eager to catch

her eye, but she did not understand the telegraphic communications he

addressed to her. Nor did she understand him much better when he pulled

her sleeve and whispered, “I am going to Australia,” when the tedious

evening was over. Law’s career had fallen out of her thoughts in the

troubles of those few weeks past. She had even ceased to ask how he was

getting on, or take any interest in his books; she remembered this with

a pang when she found herself at last safe in the shelter of her room.

She had given up one part of her natural duty when the other was taken

from her. Australia? What could he mean? She thought she would question

him to-morrow; but to-morrow brought her another series of petty

struggles, and once more concentrated her mind upon her own affairs.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LOTTIE SUBDUED.

“I waited half an hour. I was not very happy,” said Rollo. “It is never

cold when you are here, but last night the wind went through and through

me. That is the consequence of being alone. And you, my Lottie, had you

no compunctions? Could you make yourself happy without any thought of

the poor fellow freezing under the elm-tree?”

“Happy!” Lottie cried. She was happy now. Last night she had been alone,

no one in the world caring what became of her; now she felt safe, as if

the world held nothing but friends; but she shivered, notwithstanding

her lover’s supporting arm.

“Not happy then? Does it not answer, darling? Can you endure the woman?

Is she better than at first? I like her,” said Rollo, “for you know it

was her arrival which opened your heart to me--which broke the

ice--which brought us together. I shall always feel charitably towards

her for that.”

Lottie shivered again. “No, it is not because of the cold,” she said. “I

do not suppose you could understand if I were to tell you. Home! I have

not any home!” cried the girl. “I was thinking--if it was really true

what you said the other night--if it would make no difference to you,

Rollo, to take your wife out of some poor little lodging instead of out

of her father’s house--are you sure you would not mind?” she said,

looking wistfully, anxiously into his face. In the waning light all he

could see distinctly was this wistful dilation of her eyes, gazing

intently to read, before he could utter it, his answer in his face. “I

could manage to live somehow,” she went on, tremulously. “Though I

cannot give lessons, I can work, very well. I think I am almost sure I

could get work. No; I would not take money from you; I could not,

Rollo:--not until--no, no; that would be quite impossible; rather stay

here and bear it all than that. But if really, truly, to marry a poor

girl, living in a poor little room, working for her bread, would not

make any difference to you----. Oh, I know, I know it is not what ought

to be--even here, even at home, I am not equal to you. You ought to have

some one a great deal better off--a great deal higher in the world. But

if you would not think it--discreditable; if you would not be

ashamed---- oh, Rollo,” she cried, “I cannot bear it! it is impossible

to bear it!--I would ask you to do what you offered and take me away!”

It is impossible to describe the feelings with which Rollo listened to

these unexpected words. To see a bird walk into the snare must awake

compunctions in the most experienced trapper. The same sensation does

not attend a sudden fall; but the sight of an innocent creature going

calmly into the death set before it, as if into safety and shelter--a

man must be hard indeed to see that unmoved. And Rollo was no villain.

His heart gave one wild leap again, as it had done when, in the hurrying

of passion, not with deliberation (as he had always been comforted to

think), he had laid that snare. The thrill of his hairbreadth escape

from her horror and loathing, the leap of sudden, horrified delight to

find her in his power all at once, by her own act and deed, transported

him for the moment with almost uncontrollable power; and then this

sudden passion in his mind was met by the stream, the torrent, of a more

generous impulse, a nobler passion, which carried everything before it.

A man may trap his prey with guile, he may take advantage of the

half-willingness of a frail resistance; but to turn to shame the perfect

and tender confidence of innocence, who but a villain could do that? and

Rollo was no villain. He grasped her almost convulsively in his arms as

she spoke; he tried to interrupt her, the words surging, almost

incoherent, to his lips. “Lottie! my Lottie!” he cried, “this is not how

it must be. Do you think I will let you go to live alone, to work, as

you say?” He took her hand hastily, and kissed the little cold fingers

with lips that trembled. “No, my love, my darling, not that--but I will

go to town to-morrow and settle how we can be married--at once, without

an hour’s delay. Oh, yes, it is possible, dear--quite possible. It is

the only thing to do. Why, why did I not think of it before? I will go

and settle everything, and get the licence. That is the way. My darling,

you must not say a word. You had made up your mind to marry me some

time, and why not to-morrow--next day--as soon as I can settle? What

should we wait for? who should we think of except ourselves? And I want

you, my love; and you, thank heaven, Lottie, have need of me.”

He held her close to him, in a grasp which was almost fierce--fierce in

the strain of virtue and honour, in which his own nature, with all its

easy principles and vacillations, was caught too. He wanted to be off

and do it at once, without losing a moment, lest his heart should fail.

He would do it, whatever might oppose. She should never know that less

worthy thoughts had been in his mind. She should find that her trust was

not vain. His blood ran in his veins like a tumultuous river, and his

heart beat so that Lottie herself was overawed by the commotion as he

held her against it. She was half frightened by his vehemence and tried

to speak, but he would not let her at first. “No,” he said, “no, you

must not say anything. You must not oppose me. It must be done first,

and then we can think of it after. There is nothing against it, and

everything in its favour. You must not say a word but Yes,” he cried.

“But, Rollo, Rollo, let me speak. It might be good for me, but would it

not be wrong for you? Oh, let me speak! Am I so selfish that I would

make you take a sudden resolution, perhaps very foolish, perhaps very

imprudent, for my sake? Rollo, Rollo, don’t! I will bear anything. It

would be wrong for you to do this.”

“No; not wrong, but right--not wrong, but right,” he cried, bewildering

her with his vehemence. Lottie’s own heart was stirred, but not like

this. She wondered and was troubled, even in the delight of the thought

that everything in the world was as nothing to him in comparison with

his love for herself.

“But, Rollo,” she cried again, trembling in his grasp, “if this is

really possible--if it is not wrong--why should you go to London to do

it? It would be quite as easy here----”

“Lottie, you will sacrifice something for me, will you not?” he said.

“If it were done here, all would be public; it would be spoken of

everywhere; and I want it to be quiet. I have not much money. You will

make this sacrifice for me, dear----”

“Oh,” said Lottie, compunctious, “I wish I had said nothing about it; I

wish I had not disturbed you with my paltry little troubles. Do not

think of them any more. I can bear anything when I know you are thinking

of me. It was only yesterday when--when all seemed uncertain, that it

seemed more than I could bear.”

“And it is more than you ought to bear,” he said. “No, I am glad that

you told me. We will go away, Lottie--to Italy, to the sunshine, to the

country of music, where you will learn best of all--we will go away from

the very church door.”

And then he told her how it could be done. To-morrow he would go and

settle everything. His plans all took form with lightning speed, though

he had never thought of them till now. There would be many things to do;

but in three days from that time he would meet her in the same place,

and tell her all the arrangements he had made:--and the next morning

after that (“Saturday is a lucky day,” he said) they would go to town,

if not together, yet by the same train--and go to the church, where he

would have arranged everything. Rollo Ridsdale was an adventurer born.

He was used to changing the conditions of his life in a moment, in the

twinkling of an eye. But it all seemed a dream to Lottie--not one of her

usual waking dreams, but a dream of the night, with no possibility in

it, which would dissolve into the mists presently and leave nothing but

a happy recollection. She acquiesced in everything, being too much taken

by surprise to oppose a plan in which he was so vehement.

“May I tell Law?” she asked, always in her dream, not feeling as if

there was any reality in the idea she suggested. And he said No at

first, but afterwards half relented, and it was agreed that on Friday

everything was to be decided, but nothing done till then. Thus, though

they had met without a thought that this stolen interview would be more

decisive than any other of the same kind, they parted with a decision

that concerned their entire lives.

They walked closer together after this, in the safe gloom of the

darkness, till they had again reached the door of the cloisters which

led to the Deanery. No one was about, and Rollo was full of restless

excitement. He would not hear what she said about prudence, and walked

across with her to her own door. There was not a creature to be seen up

or down; the lamps flickered in the cold wind, and all the population

had gone in to the comfort of warm rooms and blazing fires. He kissed

her hand tenderly as he took leave of her.

“Till Friday,” he said.

Lottie went in, still in her dream, walking, she thought, in her sleep.

She hoped this sleep would last for ever--that it might not be rashly

disturbed by waking, or even by that which would be almost as bad as

waking--_coming true_. She could scarcely feel that she wanted it to

come true; it was enough as it was, a bewildering happiness that tingled

to the very ends of her fingers, that made her feel as if she were

walking on air. She went softly upstairs, caring for nothing but to get

to her room, where, though it was dark and cold, she could still go on

with this wonderful vision. That seemed all she wanted. But, alas!

something very different was in store for Lottie. As she went with soft

steps up the stairs the door of the little drawing-room was suddenly

opened, letting out a warm stream of ruddy light. Then a sound of

laughter reached her ears, and Polly’s voice----

“Come in, come in; we are waiting for you; we are both here,” with

another gay outburst.

Lottie came to herself, and to all the disagreeable realities of her

life, with a start of pain. She had to obey, though nothing could be

more disagreeable to her. She went in with dazzled eyes into the room

full of firelight. She remembered now that she had remarked outside that

no lamp was lighted, and had supposed with relief that Mrs. Despard was

out. But Mrs. Despard had not been out. She had been lurking in the

ruddy gloom near the window, her husband by her side. They greeted

Lottie with another laugh, as she came in with her pale, astonished face

within the circle of the fire.

“So that’s how you spend your afternoons, miss, as I never could think

where you were,” cried Polly; “but why didn’t you bring in your beau

with you? I’d have given him his tea and a nice leg of a goose, as

comfortable as could be.”

“My child,” said the Captain on his side, “I congratulate you. I’ve been

expecting something of this kind for a long time. I’ve had my eye upon

you. But why didn’t you bring Mr. Ridsdale in, as Mrs. Despard says?”

Lottie felt as if she had been turned into stone. She stood all dark in

her winter dress, the firelight playing upon her, and seeking in vain to

catch at some possibility of reflection. She had not even a button that

would give back the light. And she had not a word to say.

“Come, come, you need not be so put out,” said the Captain, not

unkindly. “We saw you coming; and very proper of Mr. Ridsdale not to

leave you at the Deanery, but to see you home to your own door. You

thought no one was paying any attention--but I hope,” Captain Despard

added, “that I think more than that of my child. I don’t doubt from what

I saw, Lottie, that you understand each other; and why hasn’t he come

before now to speak to me? You might have known that such a suitor would

not be received unfavourably. Happy myself,” said the Captain, throwing

out his chest, “would I have put any obstacle between you and your

happiness, my dear?”

“I did not think--I did not know--I think--you are mistaken,” Lottie

faltered, not knowing what to say.

“Mistaken, indeed! Oh, we’ve gone through all that too lately to be

mistaken, haven’t we, Harry?” cried Mrs. Despard. “We know all about it.

You couldn’t come to those as would understand you better. Don’t be

frightened; you haven’t been found out in anything wrong. If that was

wrong I’ve a deal to answer for,” Polly cried, laughing. “I should think

you must be frozen with cold after wandering about on them Slopes, or

wherever you have been. How foolish young people are, to be sure,

getting their deaths of cold. We never were as foolish as that, were we,

Harry? Come and warm yourself, you silly girl. You needn’t be afraid of

him or me.”

Amid their laughter, however, Lottie managed to get away, to take off

her hat, and to try as best she could to realise this new phase of the

situation. What her father had said was very reasonable. Why had not

Rollo come, as the Captain said? How that would have simplified

everything, made everything legitimate! She sighed, not able to

understand her lover, feeling that for once her father was right; but

Rollo had said that this could not be, that it would be necessary to

keep everything quiet. Her dream of happiness was disturbed. Dreams are

better, so much better, than reality. In them there is never any jar

with fact and necessity; they can adapt themselves to everything, fit

themselves into every new development. But now that she was fully awoke

it was less easy to steer her way through all the obstacles. Rollo’s

reluctance to declare himself, and her father’s right to know, and the

pain of leaving her home in a clandestine way, all rushed upon her,

dispersing her happiness to the winds. She had felt that to awake would

be to lose the sweetness which had wrapped her about; and now the rude

encounter with the world had come, and Lottie felt that even with that

prospect of happiness before her it was difficult to bear what she would

have to bear;--Polly’s innuendoes and, worse still, Polly’s sympathy,

and the questions of her father appalled her as she looked forward to

them. During this strange courtship of hers, so perplexed and mixed up

as it was with her music and the “career” which they all, even Rollo,

had tried to force upon her (though surely there need be no more of that

_now_), and the changes that had taken place at home, Lottie had almost

lost herself. She was no longer the high-spirited girl, full of energy

and strength, who had reigned over this little house and dragged Law’s

heavy bulk along through so many difficulties. She had dreamed so much,

and taken refuge so completely from the troubles of her position in

those dreams, that now she seemed to have lost her own characteristics,

and had no vigour to sustain her when she had actual difficulties to

face. She tried to recall herself to herself as she smoothed her hair,

which had been blown about by the breeze. From the beginning she had

been pained by Rollo’s reserve, though she had persuaded herself it was

natural enough; but now, in this new, strange revolution of affairs--a

revolution caused entirely, she said to herself, by her father’s own

proceedings--what could she do but stand firm on her own side? She would

not betray the great purpose in hand. She would still her own heart, and

keep her composure, and not allow any agitation or any irritation to

wrest from her the secret which Rollo desired to keep. To smooth her

ruffled hair was not generally a long process with Lottie; but it was

more difficult to arrange her agitated thoughts, and there had been

various calls for her from below, where the others had gone for their

evening meal, before she was ready to follow.

Finally Law was sent upstairs with an urgent demand for her presence.

“They’ve gone to tea,” said Law, knocking at her door; and then he

added, in a low tone, “Open, Lottie. I want to speak to you. I have got

lots to say to you.”

She heard him, but she did not attach any meaning to his words. What he

said to her on the night before had left no definite impression on her

mind. Law had lost his sister, who thought of him above all. In the

midst of a pressing crisis in our own individual life, which of us has

time to think of others? She was afraid to talk to Law, afraid to betray

herself. Love made Lottie selfish and self-absorbed, a consequence just

as apt to follow as any other. She was afraid of betraying herself to

him; her mind was too full of this wonderful revolution in her own life

to be able to take in Law’s desire, on his side, not to know about her,

but to expound himself. She came out upon him hastily, and brushed past

him, saying, “I am ready.” She did not think of Law, not even when he

followed her, grumbling and murmuring--“I told you I wanted to speak to

you.” How difficult it is to realise the wants of another when one’s

heart is full of one’s own concerns! Neither brother nor sister had room

in their minds for anything but the momentous event in their respective

lives which was coming; but Law was aggrieved, for he had always

hitherto possessed Lottie’s sympathy as a chattel of his own.

Polly and the Captain were seated at table when the two younger members

of the family went in, and never had Captain Despard been more dignified

or genial. “Lottie, my child, a bit of the breast,” he said--“a delicate

bit just fit for a lady. I’ve saved it up for you, though you are late.

You are very late; but for once in a way we will make allowances,

especially as Mrs. Despard is not offended, but takes your side.”

“Oh, _I_ know,” said Polly, “I am not one as is hard upon natural

feelings. Pride I can’t abide, nor stuck-up ways, but when it comes to

keeping company----”

“Is anyone keeping company with Lottie?” said Law, looking up fiercely;

and then the elder pair laughed.

“But, my love, it is not a phrase that is used in good society,” the

Captain said.

“Oh, bother good society!” said Polly. She was in an exuberant mood, and

beyond the influence of that little topdressing of too transparent

pretence with which occasionally she attempted to impose upon her

step-children. Lottie, in whose mind indignation and disgust gradually

overcame the previous self-absorption, listened to every word, unable to

escape from the chatter she hated, with that keen interest of dislike

and impatience which is more enthralling than affection; but she

scarcely ventured to raise her eyes, and kept herself rigidly on her

guard lest any rash word should betray her. It was not till the meal was

over that she was brought to actual proof. Then her father detained her

as she was about to escape. Law, more impatient than ever with the

pressure of his own affairs, which it seemed impossible to find any

opportunity of confiding to his sister, had got up at once and gone out.

The Captain threw out his chest majestically and waved his hand as

Lottie was about to follow.

“My child, I have got something to say to you,” he said.

Mrs. Despard was standing by the fire, warming herself with frank ease,

with a good ankle well displayed. Lottie, on her way to the door,

unwillingly arrested, stood still because she could not help it. But the

Captain occupied with majesty his seat at the foot of the table between

his wife and his daughter. “My love,” he said, with his favourite

gesture, throwing back his well-developed shoulders, “I have every faith

in my daughter, and Mr. Ridsdale is in every way quite satisfactory.

Your family is as good as his, but my Lord Courtland’s son is not one to

be turned away from any door; and as you have no fortune, Lottie, I

should not be exacting as to settlements. I suppose he knows that you

have no fortune, my dear?”

“La, Harry!” said Polly from the side of the fire, “how should he think

she had a fortune? Fortunes don’t grow on every tree. And how do you

know as he has got _that_ far? A young man may keep company with a girl

for long enough, and yet never go as far as _that_.”

“You must allow me to know best, my love,” said the Captain. “I hope he

is not trifling with my girl’s affections. If he is he has Harry Despard

to deal with, I’d have him to know. By Jove, if I thought _that_!”

“I dare say it’s nothing but keeping company,” said Polly, holding up

her foot to the fire. “Taking a walk together, or a talk; there’s

nothing wrong in that. She wants her bit of fun as well as other girls.

I’m not the one to stand up for Miss Lottie, for it’s not what she’d do

for me; but if it’s only her bit of fun you shouldn’t be hard upon her,

Harry; if my pa had hauled me up for that----”

Lottie could not bear it any longer. “Do you wish me to stay,” she said,

“papa? can you wish me to stay?” The Captain looked from his wife in her

easy attitude to his daughter, pale with indignation and horror.

“My love,” he said, with mild remonstrance, “there are different ways of

speaking in different spheres. Lottie is an only daughter, and has been

very carefully brought up. But, my child,” the Captain added, turning to

Lottie, “you must not be neglected now. I will make it my business

to-morrow to see Mr. Ridsdale, to ascertain what his intentions are.

Your interests shall not suffer from any carelessness.”

“Papa,” cried Lottie in despair, “you will not do anything so cruel; you

could not treat me so! Wait--only wait--a few days--three or four days!”

Polly was so much interested that she let her dress drop over her ankles

and turned round. “Don’t you see,” she said, “that she feels he’s coming

to the point without any bother? That’s always a deal the best way. It

can’t do no harm, as I can see, to wait for three or four days.”

“By Jove, but it will, though,” said Captain Despard with sudden

impatience, “all the harm in the world. You’ll allow me to understand my

own business. It is clearly time for a man to interfere. I shall see Mr.

Ridsdale to-morrow, if all the women in the world were to try their

skill and hold me back. Hold your tongue, Mrs. Despard; be quiet,

Lottie. When a man is a husband and a father he is the best judge of his

own duties. It is now my time to interfere.”

Polly was really concerned; she had a fellow feeling for the girl whose

rights were thus interfered with. “Don’t you mind,” she said, turning to

Lottie with a half-audible whisper. “If he’s coming to the point himself

it won’t do no harm, and if he ain’t it will give him a push, and let

him see what’s expected of him. I ain’t one for interfering myself, but

if you can’t help it you must just put up with it; and I don’t think,

after all, it will do so very much harm.”

Now Lottie ought to have been grateful for this well-intentioned and

amiable remark, but she was not. On the contrary, her anger rose more

wildly against the stranger who thus attempted to console her, than it

did against her father, whose sudden resolution was so painful to her.

She gave Polly a look of wrath, and, forgetting even civility, darted

out of the room and upstairs in vehement resentment. Polly was not so

much angry as amazed to the point of consternation. She gasped for the

breath which was taken away by Lottie’s sudden flight. “Well!” she

exclaimed, “that’s manners, that is! that’s what you call being brought

up careful! A young unmarried girl, as is nothing and nobody, rushing

out of a room like that before a married lady and her Pa’s wife!”

Lottie, however, was in a passion of alarm, which drove everything else

out of her head. Of all things that seemed to her most to be avoided, a

meeting between her father and Rollo at this crisis was the worst. She

left her room no more that evening, but sat and pondered what she could

do to avert the danger. True, without a meeting between them it would be

impossible that her love should have its legitimate sanction, and that

the beginning of her new life should be honest and straightforward, as

it ought. But partly because she had schooled herself to think (by way

of excusing Rollo’s silence) that a meeting between him and her father

would only make him less respectful of the Captain’s pretensions and the

“family” which Lottie still with forlorn faith believed in, and partly

because the visit of a father to ask a lover’s “intentions” was perhaps

the very last way in which a beginning of intercourse could be agreeably

established, it seemed to Lottie that she would do anything in the world

to prevent this meeting. With this view she wrote one little note and

then another to warn Rollo--writing with cold fingers but a beating

heart, hot with anxiety and trouble, upon the corner of her little

dressing-table--for there was no room for any other convenience of a

table in the small, old-fashioned chamber. But when she had at last

achieved a composition of one which seemed to express feebly yet

sufficiently what she wanted to say, the question arose, How was it to

get to Rollo? She had no one to send. She dared not trust it to Law, for

that would involve an explanation, and there was no one else at Lottie’s

command. A thought of Captain Temple floated across her mind; but how

could she employ him upon such an errand, which would involve a still

more difficult explanation? At last she burnt regretfully by the flame

of her candle the very last of these effusions, and decided that she

must trust to the chances of the morrow. She had promised to be at the

elm-tree in the morning to bid Rollo good-by. She must manage, then, to

get him to go away before matins were over and her father free. But it

was with an anxious heart that Lottie, when her candle burned out, crept

cold and troubled to bed, chilled to the bone, yet with a brow which

burned and throbbed with excitement. Law did not come in till after she

had fallen asleep. Law, whom she had watched over so anxiously, was, at

this crisis of Lottie’s personal history and his own, left entirely to

himself.

In the morning she managed to run out immediately after breakfast, just

as the air began to vibrate with the Abbey bells, and, after some

anxious waiting under the elm, at last, to her great relief, saw Rollo

coming. Lottie was not able to disguise her anxiety or her desire for

his departure. “Never mind speaking to me,” she said. “Do not waste

time. Oh, Rollo, forgive me--no, it is not to get rid of you,” she

cried, and then she told him the incident of last night.

Rollo’s eyes gave forth a gleam of disgust when he heard of the chance

of being stopped by Captain Despard to enquire his “intentions.” He

laughed, and Lottie thought instinctively that this was a sound of

merriment which she would never wish to hear again. But his face

brightened as he turned to Lottie, who was so anxious to save him from

this ordeal. “My faithful Lottie!” he said, pressing her close to him.

There was nobody stirring in the winterly morning; but yet day requires

more reserve than the early darkness of night.

“But go, go, Rollo. I want you to be gone before they are out of the

Abbey,” she cried, breathless.

“My dear love--my only love,” he said, holding both her hands in his.

“Oh, Rollo, is it not only for a day or two? You are so serious, you

frighten me--but go, go, that you may not meet anyone,” she said.

“Yes, it is only for a day or two, my darling,” he replied. “On Friday,

my Lottie, at five under this tree. You won’t fail me?”

“Never,” she said, with her blue eyes full of sweet tears. And then they

kissed in the eye of day, all the silent world looking on.

“No,” he said, with fervour--“never; you will never fail me; you will

always be true.”

And so they parted, she watching jealously while he took his way, not by

the common road, but down the windings of the Slopes, that he might be

safe, that no one might annoy him. “Till Friday!” he called to her in

the silence, waving his hand as he turned the corner out of her sight.

She drew a long breath of relief when she saw him emerge alone farther

down upon the road that led to the railway. The Signor was only then

beginning the voluntary, and Captain Despard evidently could not ask

Rollo Ridsdale his “intentions” that day. Lottie waved her hand to her

lover, though he was too far off to see her, and said to herself, “Till

Friday,” with a sudden realisation all of these words implied--another

life, a new heaven and a new earth; love, and tenderness, and worship

instead of the careless use and wont of the family; to be first instead

of last; to be happy and at rest instead of tormented at everybody’s

caprice; to be with Rollo, who loved her, always, for ever and ever,

with no more risk of losing him or being forgotten. Her heart overflowed

with sweetness, her eyes with soft tears of joy. Out of that enchanted

land she went back for a little while into common life, but not in any

common way. The sunshine, which had been slow to shine, broke out over

the Dean’s Walk as she emerged from under the shadow of the trees; the

path was cleared for her; the music pealed out from the Abbey.

Unconsciously her steps fell into a kind of stately movement, keeping

time. In her blessedness she moved softly on towards the shadow of the

house in which she had now but a few days to live--like a princess

walking to her coronation, like a martyr to her agony. Who could tell in

which of the two the best similitude lay?

CHAPTER XL.

THE EFFECT OF GOOD FORTUNE: LAW.

Law had left Mr. Ashford, not knowing, as the vulgar have it, if he

stood on his head or his heels. He had somewhat despised the Minor

Canon, not only as a clergyman and an instructor, intending to put

something into Law’s luckless brains, yet without force enough to do it

effectually, but as a man, much too mild and gentle to make any head

against the deceitfulness of mankind, and all those guiles and pretences

in which an unwilling student like Law knows himself so much more

profoundly informed than any of his pastors and teachers can be. The

sense of superiority with which such a youth, learned in all manner of

“dodges” and devices for eluding work, contemplates the innocent senior

who has faith in his excuses, was strong in Law’s mind towards his last

tutor, who was so much less knowing than any of the others, that he had

taken him “for nothing,” without even the pay which his earlier

instructor, Mr. Langton, had been supposed to receive: supposed--for

Captain Despard was paymaster, and he was not any more to be trusted to

for recollecting quarter-day than Law was to be trusted to for doing his

work. But Mr. Ashford had never said anything about pay. He had taken

Law for his sister’s sake, “for love,” as the young man said lightly;

taken him as an experiment, to see what could be made of him, and kept

him on without a word on either side of remuneration. This curious

conduct, which might have made the pupil grateful, had no such result,

but filled him instead with a more entire contempt for the intellects of

his benefactor. It is easy, in the estimation of young men like Law, to

be learned and wise in book-learning, yet a “stupid” in life; and if

anything could have made this fact more clear, it would have been the

irregularity of the business transaction as between a non-paying pupil

and a “coach” who gave just as much attention to him as if he had been

an important source of revenue. “What a soft he must be! What a stupid

he is,” had been Law’s standing reflection. But he had liked all the

same the object of his scorn, and had felt “old Ashford” to be “very

jolly,” notwithstanding his foolish believingness, and still more

foolish indifference to his own profit. It was this which had made him

go to the Minor Canon with such a frankness of appeal--but he had not

been in the least prepared for the reply he received. It took away his

breath. Though it was a superlative proof of the same “softness” which

had made Mr. Ashford receive a pupil who paid him nothing, the dazzled

youth could no longer regard it with contempt. Though he was tolerably

fortified against invasions of emotion, there was something in this

which penetrated to his heart. Suddenly, in a moment, to be lifted out

of his dull struggle with books which he could not understand, and

hopeless anticipation of an ordeal he could never pass, and to have the

desire of his heart given to him, without any trouble of his, without

price or reward, was all very wonderful to Law. At first he could not

believe it. To think “old Ashford” was joking--to think that a man so

impractical did not put the ordinary meaning into his words--this was

the first natural explanation; but when the Minor Canon’s first

recollection that “he knew a man” brightened into the prospect of money

to pay the young emigrant’s passage, and an actual beginning of his

career, Law did not know, as we have said, whether he was standing upon

solid ground or floating in the air. The happiness was almost too much

for him. He went up to London next day by Mr. Ashford’s suggestion, and,

at his cost, to learn all particulars about the voyage, but kept his own

secret until it had gained so much of solid foundation as the actual

sight of a ship which was bound for Australia, a printed account of the

times of sailing, and fares, and an outfitter’s list of indispensables,

could give; then, still dazzled by the sudden fulfilment of his wishes,

but feeling his own importance, and the seriousness of his position as a

future emigrant, Law had endeavoured to find an opportunity of

communicating the great news to Lottie, but had failed, as has been

seen. And having thus failed, and seeing in her none of the eager desire

to know what he was about, which he thought would have been natural in

circumstances so profoundly interesting, Law got up from the table and

went out with a certain sense of injury in his mind. He saw there was

“something up” in respect to his sister herself, but he did not take

very much interest in that. Yet he thought it curiously selfish of her,

almost incomprehensibly selfish, to ask no question, show no concern in

what was happening to him. He had said, “I am going to Australia!” but

had he said, “I am going to play football,” she could not have taken it

more calmly; and she had never asked a question since. What funny

creatures women are, one time so anxious about you, another time caring

nothing, Law said to himself; but he was not at all conscious that it

might have been natural for him too to take some interest in Lottie’s

affairs. He did not. It was some rubbish, he supposed, about that fellow

Ridsdale. He thought of the whole business with contempt. Far more

important, beyond all comparison, were those affairs which were his

own.

And when he went out, a little angry, irritated, but full of excitement

and elation, and eager to find somebody who would take due interest in

the story of his good fortune, where could Law’s footsteps stray but to

the place where they had turned so often in his idleness and

hopelessness? He had gone once before since the visit of Polly, and had

been confronted by Mrs. Welting, now established in the workroom, to the

confusion of all the little schemes of amusement by which the girls had

solaced the tedium of their lives. “Mother” had been glad enough to be

allowed to look after her house in quiet, and the rest of the family,

without troubling herself about her girls. But the sharp prick of

Polly’s denunciation had given Mrs. Welting new ideas of her duty. Would

she let it be said by an artful creature like that, who had done the

same thing herself, as _her_ daughters were laying themselves out to

catch a gentleman? Not for all the world! She would not have a girl of

hers marry a gentleman, not for anything, Mrs. Welting said. She forbade

the little expeditions they were in the habit of making in turns for

thread and buttons. She would not allow even the _Family Herald_. She

scolded “for nothing at all,” resenting her compulsory attendance there,

and banishment from her domestic concerns. The workroom was quite

changed. There was no jollity in it, no visitors, not half so much

chatter as had been carried on gaily while Polly was paramount. “She

took all the good herself, but she never could bear seeing anyone else

happy,” Emma said, who was doubly aggrieved. And it could not be said

that the work improved under this discipline. The moment altogether was

not happy; and when Law, by dint of wandering about the windows, and

whistling various airs known to the workroom, made his presence known,

Emma, when her mother withdrew, as she did perforce as the evening got

on, and it became necessary to look after the family supper, the younger

children, and her lodgers--came cautiously out to meet him, with a cloak

about her shoulders. “I haven’t got a moment to stay,” Emma said.

“Mother would take off my head if she found me out!” Yet she suffered

herself to be drawn a few steps from the door, and round the corner to

the riverside, where, on this wintry evening, there was nobody about,

and the river itself in the darkness was only discernible by the white

swell and foam round the piers of the bridge, by which it rushed on its

headlong passage to the weir. Here, now going, now coming, a few wary

steps at a time, awaiting a possible warning from the window of the

lighted workroom, the two wandered in the damp darkness, and Emma,

opening large eyes of astonishment, heard of all that was about to

happen. “Old Ashford has behaved like a brick,” Law said. “He is going

to give me introductions to people he knows, and he means to give me my

passage-money too, and something to begin upon!”

“Lor!” cried Emma, “what is it for? Is he going to marry your sister?”

Her attention was awakened, but she did not think she had anything to do

with it; she was so much afraid of not hearing any possible tap on the

window, or not having time to run home before her absence was

discovered.

“Now look here, Emma,” said Law. He did not speak with any enthusiasm of

tenderness, but calmly, as having something serious to propose. “If I go

away, you know, it’s for life; it’s not gone to-day and back to-morrow,

like a soldier ordered off to the Colonies. I’m going to make my living,

and my fortune, if I can, and settle there for life. No, nobody’s

knocking at the window. Can’t you give me your attention for a moment? I

tell you, if I go, it’s for life.”

“Lor!” said Emma, startled. “You don’t mean to say as you’ve come to say

good-bye, Mr. Law? and you as always said you were so true. But I do

believe none of you young men ever remembers nor thinks what he’s been

saying,” she added with a half whimper. A lover’s desertion is never a

pleasant thing in any condition of life.

“It’s just because of that I’m here,” said Law, sturdily. “I remember

all I’ve ever said. I’ve come to put it to you, Emma, straightforward.

I am going away, as I tell you, for life. Will you come with me? that’s

the question. There is not very much to spare, and there’s the outfit to

get, but it will go hard if I can’t draw old Ashford for your

passage-money,” said the grateful recipient of the Minor Canon’s bounty;

“and it would be a new start and a new life, and I’d do the best I could

for you. Emma, you must make up your mind quick, for there isn’t much

time. The boat sails--well, I can’t exactly tell you when she sails; but

in a fortnight or so----”

“A fortnight!” Emma cried, with a sense of dismay.

“Yes. We needn’t have a very grand wedding, need we? Emigrants must be

careful both of their money and their time.”

“Emigrants? I don’t know what you mean by emigrants--it don’t sound

much,” said the girl, with a cloud upon her face.

“No, it is not very fine. It means people that are going to settle far

away, on the other side of the world. Australia is--I don’t know how

many thousand miles away.”

“Can you go there by land?” said Emma. “You needn’t laugh--how was I to

know? Oh, I can’t abide going in a ship.”

“That’s a pity, for you can’t go in anything else. But it’s a fine big

ship, and every care taken. Look here, Emma, you must make up your mind.

Will you go?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Emma; “I can’t tell; how long would you be in

the ship? It isn’t what I ever expected,” she said in a plaintive voice.

“A hurry, and a fuss, and then a long sea-voyage. Oh, I don’t think I

should like it, Mr. Law.”

“The question is, do you like me?” said Law, with a little thrill in his

deep yet boyish bass. “You couldn’t like the parting and all that--it

wouldn’t be natural; but do you like _me_ well enough to put up with it?

I don’t want you to do anything you don’t like, but when I go it will be

for good, and you must just make up your mind which you like best--to go

with me, though there’s a good deal of trouble, or to stay at home, and

good-bye to me for ever.”

At this, Emma began to cry. “Oh, I shouldn’t like to say good-bye for

ever,” she said; “I always hated saying good-bye. I don’t know what to

do; it would be good-bye to mother, and Ellen, and them all. And never

to come back again would be awful! I shouldn’t mind if it was for a year

or two years, but never to come back--I don’t know what to do.”

“We might come home on a visit, if we got very rich,” said Law, “or we

might have some of the others out to see us.”

“Oh, for a visit!” said Emma. “But they’d miss me dreadful in the

workroom. Oh, I wish I knew what to say.”

“You must choose for yourself--you must please yourself,” said Law, a

little piqued by the girl’s many doubts; then he softened again. “You

know, Emma,” he said, “when a girl gets married it’s very seldom she has

her own people near her, and I don’t know that it’s a good thing when

she has. People say, at least, husband and wife ought to be enough for

each other. And, supposing it was only to London, it would still be away

from them.”

“Oh, but it would be different,” cried Emma; “if one could come back now

and again, and see them all; but to live always hundreds of thousands of

miles away.”

“Not hundreds of thousands; but a long voyage that takes months----”

“Months!” Emma uttered a cry. “Too far to have mother if you were ill,”

she said, casting her mind over the eventualities of the future; “too

far, a deal too far for a trip to see one. I don’t think it would be

nice at all. Mr. Law, couldn’t you, oh, couldn’t you stop at home?”

“Perhaps you’d tell me what I should do if I stayed at home,” said Law,

not without a touch of contempt. “It’s more than I can tell. No, I can’t

stay at home. There is nothing I could do here. It is Australia or

nothing, Emma; you must make up your mind to that.”

“Oh, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay in London; there are always

places to be got there; you might look in the papers and see. Mother

used to get the _Times_ from the public-house, a penny an hour, when

Willie was out of a place. Did you ever answer any advertisement, or

try--really try?”

“All that is nothing to the purpose,” said Law, with some impatience.

“The advertisements may be all very well, but I know nothing about them.

I am going to Australia whether or not. I’ve quite made up my mind. Now

the thing is, will you come too?”

Emma did not know what answer to make. The going away was appalling, but

to lose her gentleman-lover, though he was banished from the workroom,

was a great humiliation. Then she could not but feel that there was a

certain excitement and importance in the idea of preparing for a sudden

voyage, and being married at seventeen, the first of the family. But

when she thought of the sea and the ship, and the separation from

everything, Emma’s strength of mind gave way. She could not do that. The

end was that, driven back and forward between the two, she at last

faltered forth a desire to consult “Mother” before deciding. Law, though

he was contemptuous of this weakness, yet could not say anything

against it. Perhaps it was necessary that a girl should own such a

subjection. “If you do, I can tell you beforehand what she will say,” he

cried. “Then Ellen; I’ll ask Ellen,” said Emma. “Oh, I can’t settle it

out of my own head.” And then the girl started, hearing the signal on

the window, and fled from him, breathless. “Mother’s come to shut up,”

she said. Law walked away, not without satisfaction, when this end had

been attained. He was more anxious to have the question settled than he

was anxious to have Emma. Indeed, he was not at all blind to the fact

that he was too young to marry, and that there were disadvantages in

hampering himself even in Australia with such a permanent companion.

Then, too, all that he could hope for from Mr. Ashford was enough for

his own outfit and passage, and he did not see how hers was to be

managed. But, still, Law had been “keeping company” with Emma for some

time, and he acknowledged the duties of that condition according to the

interpretation put upon it in the order to which Emma belonged. Clearly,

when good fortune came to a young man who was keeping company with a

young woman, it was right that he should offer her a share of it. If she

did not accept it, so much the better; he would have done what honour

required without any further trouble. As Law walked up the hill again,

he reflected that on the whole it would be much better if he were

allowed to go to Australia alone. No one could know how things would

turn out. Perhaps the man Mr. Ashford knew might be of little use,

perhaps he might have to go from one place to another; or he might not

succeed at first; or many things might happen which would make a wife an

undesirable burden. He could not but hope that things might so arrange

themselves as that Emma should drop back into her natural sphere in the

workroom, and he be left free. Poor little Emma! if this were the case,

he would buy her a locket as a keepsake off Mr. Ashford’s money, and

take leave of her with comfort. But in the other case, if she should

make up her mind to go with him, Law was ready to accept the

alternative. His good fortune put him doubly on his honour. He would

prefer to be free, yet, if he were held to it, he was prepared to do his

duty. He would not let her perceive that he did not want her. But, on

the whole, he would be much better satisfied if “Mother” interfered.

Having disposed of this matter, Law began to think of his outfit, which

was very important, wondering, by the way, if Emma went, whether her

family would provide hers? but yet keeping this question, as uncertain,

quite in the background. He recalled to himself the list he had got in

his pocket, with its dozens of shirts and socks, with no small

satisfaction. Was it possible that he could become the owner of all

that? The thought of becoming the owner of a wife he took calmly, hoping

he might still avoid the necessity; but to have such a wardrobe was

exciting and delightful. He determined to get Lottie to show him how to

mend a hole and sew on a button. To think that Lottie knew nothing about

his plans, and had never asked him what he meant, bewildered him when he

thought of it. What could be “up” in respect to her? Something like

anxiety crossed Law’s mind; at least, it was something as much like

anxiety as he was capable of--a mingling of surprise and indignation;

for were not his affairs a great deal more important than anything

affecting herself could be? This was the idea of both. Law was going to

Australia, but Lottie was going to be married, a still more important

event! and each felt that in heaven and earth no other such absorbing

interest existed. It must be said, however, for Lottie, that Law’s

whispered communication counted for nothing with her, since she knew no

way in which it could be possible. Wild hopes that came to nothing had

gleamed across his firmament before. How could he go to Australia? As

easy to say that he was going to the moon; and in this way it took no

hold upon her mind; while he, for his part, had no clue whatever to the

disturbing influence in Lottie’s thoughts.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE EFFECT OF GOOD FORTUNE: ROLLO.

The night after that decisive talk upon the Slopes was a trying one for

Rollo Ridsdale. He went home with the fumes of his resolution in his

mind. Now the die was cast. Whatever prudence might say against it, the

decision was made, and his life settled for him, partly by

circumstances, but much more by his personal will and deed. And he did

not regret what he had done. It was a tremendous risk to run; but he had

confidence that Lottie’s voice was as good as a fortune, and that in the

long run there would be nothing really imprudent in it. Of course it

must be kept entirely “quiet.” No indiscreet announcements in the

newspapers, no unnecessary publicity must be given to the marriage.

Whosoever was absolutely concerned should know; but for the general

public, what did it matter to them whether the bond which bound a man of

fashion to a celebrated singer was legitimate or not? Lottie would not

wish for society, she would not feel the want of society, and

particularly in the interval, while she was still not a celebrated

singer, it was specially necessary that all should be kept “quiet.” He

would take her to Italy, and it would be not at all needful to introduce

any stray acquaintance who might happen to turn up, to his wife. In

short, there was no occasion for introducing anyone to her. Lottie would

not want anything. She would be content with himself. Poor darling! what

wonderful trust there was in her! By this time he was able to half-laugh

at his own guilty intention, which she had so completely extinguished by

her inability to understand it, her perfect acceptance of it as all that

was honourable and tender. He was going to do the right thing

now--certainly the right thing, without any mistake about it; but still

that it should be made to look like the wrong thing, was the idea in

Rollo’s mind. He would take her to Italy and train her for her future

career; but neither at the present time nor in the future would it be

necessary to put the dots upon the i’s in respect to her position. As

for Lottie, he knew very well that she, having no doubt about her

position, would not insist upon any publication of it. It would never

once occur to her that there was any possibility of being misconstrued.

With these thoughts in his mind, Rollo dressed very hastily for dinner,

as he had lingered with Lottie to the last moment. And as it happened,

this was the very evening which Augusta chose for discussing openly the

subject to which she had, without speaking of it, already devoted all

her powers of research since she had arrived at home. In the evening

after dinner Rollo was the only one of the gentlemen who came into the

drawing-room. Augusta’s husband was an inoffensive and silent man, with

what are called “refined tastes.” For one thing he was in a mild way an

antiquary. He did not enter very much into his wife’s life, nor she into

his. She was fashionable, he had refined tastes; they were perfectly

good friends; and though not yet married six months, followed each their

own way. Spencer Daventry had gone to his father-in-law’s study

accordingly, to investigate some rare books, and his wife was in the

drawing-room alone--that is, not exactly alone, for Lady Caroline was

“on the sofa.” When Lady Caroline was on the sofa she did not trouble

anybody much, and even the coming in of the lamps had not disturbed her.

She had “just closed her eyes.” Her dress was carefully drawn over her

feet by Mrs. Daventry’s care, and a wadded _couvre-pied_ in crimson

satin laid over them. Augusta liked to see to every little decorum, and

would have thought the toe of her mother’s innocent shoe an improper

revelation. Perhaps it was by her orders that Mr. Daventry had not come

in. There was no company that evening, and when Rollo entered the

drawing-room, he saw at once that he had fallen into a trap. Augusta

sat on a comfortable chair by the fire, with a small table near her and

a lamp upon it. The other lights were far away, candles twinkling in the

distance on the piano, and here and there against the walls: but only

this one spot by the fire in warm and full light; and a vacant chair

stood invitingly on the other side of Augusta’s table. No more snug

arrangement for a _tête-à-tête_ could have been, for Lady Caroline was

nothing but a bit of still life--more still almost than the rest of the

furniture. Augusta looked up as her cousin came in, with a smile.

“Alone?” she said; “then come here, Rollo, and let us have a talk.”

Rollo would not have been Rollo if he had felt any repugnance to this

amusement. Needless to say that in their boy and girl days there had

been passages of something they were pleased to call love between the

cousins; and equally needless to add that all this had long been over,

both being far too sensible (though one had been led astray by Lottie,

to his own consternation and confusion) to think of any serious

conclusion to such a youthful folly. Rollo sat down with mingled

pleasure and alarm. He liked a confidential talk with any woman; but in

this case he was not without fear.

And his fears were thoroughly well founded as it turned out. After a

few preliminaries about nothing at all, Augusta suddenly plunged into

her subject.

“I am very glad,” she said, “to have a chance of speaking to you, by

ourselves. Mamma does not pay any attention; it is quite the same as if

she were not there. You know I’ve always taken a great interest in you,

Rollo. We are cousins, and we are very old friends--more like brother

and sister.”

“I demur to the brother and sister; but as old friends as memory can

go,” said he; “and very happy to be permitted all the privileges of a

cousin--with such a good fellow as Daventry added on.”

“Oh, yes. Spencer’s very nice,” said she. “He takes very kindly to my

people; but it is not about Spencer I want to talk to you, Rollo, but

about yourself.”

“That’s so much the better,” said Rollo; “for I might not have liked

bridal raptures, not being able, you know, Augusta, quite to forget----”

“Oh, that’s all nonsense,” said Augusta, with the faintest of blushes;

“bridal fiddlesticks! People in the world keep clear of all that

nonsense, heaven be praised. No, Rollo, it’s about yourself. I am very

anxious about you.”

“Angelic cousin!--but there is no cause for anxiety that I know of in

me.”

“Oh, yes, Rollo, there is great cause of anxiety. I must speak to you

quite frankly. When I was married you had never seen Lottie Despard----”

“Miss Despard!” He repeated the name in a surprised tone and with eyes

full of astonishment. He was glad of the opportunity of looking to the

buckles of his armour and preparing for the onset; and therefore he made

the surprise of the exclamation as telling as he could. “What can she

have to do with your anxiety?” he said.

“Yes, Lottie Despard. Oh, she has a great deal to do with it. Rollo, how

can you think that any good can come of such a flirtation either to you

or the girl?”

“Flirtation, Augusta?”

“Yes, flirtation, or something worse. Why do you always go to her

lessons? Oh, I know you always go. She can’t sing a bit, poor thing; and

it only fills her poor heart with vanity and nonsense; and you meet her

when you walk out. Don’t contradict me, please. Should I say so, if I

had not made quite sure? I know the view you men take of honour. You

think when a girl is concerned you are bound to deny everything. So you

may be sure I did not say it till I had made quite sure. Now, Rollo, I

ask you what can possibly come of anything of this kind? Of course you

only mean to amuse yourself; and of course it is the girl’s fault if she

gets herself talked about; for she must know as well as I do that there

can be nothing in it; but for all that----”

“You take away my breath,” said Rollo; “you seem to know so much better

than I do the things that have happened or are happening to myself.”

“I do,” said Augusta, “for I have been thinking about it, and you have

not. You have just done what was pleasant at the moment, and never taken

any thought. You are doing a great deal of harm to Lottie, poor thing,

filling her head with silly fancies, and turning her against people of

her own class. And suppose some really _nice_ girl were to turn up, some

one with money, what would she think of you, dangling for ever after a

young woman who is not even in society? I am taking it for granted that

it is only a silly flirtation: for as for anything worse,” said Augusta,

with severity, “it cannot be supposed for a moment that _I_ could speak

to you of that; but you know very well, Rollo, a man of the world, like

you, how very dreadful, how fatal all those sort of entanglements are,

even when you don’t look at them from a high moral point of view.”

“You make me out a pretty character,” said Rollo, with an angry smile.

“I never knew I was a Lovelace till now.”

“Oh, all you men are the same,” said Augusta, “if women will let you.

Women have themselves to thank when anything happens, for it is of ten

times more importance to them than it is to you. A man is none the worse

for things that would ruin a girl for ever. But, still, you are not in a

position to be careless of what people say. You have not a penny, Rollo;

and I don’t believe in your opera. The only way in which you will ever

have anything is by a suitable marriage. Suppose that any of your

relations were to find a really nice person for you, and you were to

spoil it all by a folly like this! That is how I look at it. To ruin

yourself for a girl’s pretty face! and her voice--when she can’t sing a

note!”

“Am I to infer that you have got a nice person for me?” said Rollo,

furious inwardly, yet keeping his temper, and turning the conversation

in this direction by way of diverting it from more dangerous subjects.

And then Augusta (drawing somewhat upon her imagination, it must be

allowed) told him of a very nice person indeed. Rollo listened, by way

of securing his escape; but by and by he got slightly interested, in

spite of himself. This really nice girl was coming to the Deanery for

two or three days. She had a hundred thousand pounds. She had heard of

Rollo Ridsdale, and already “took an interest” in him. It was perhaps

partly fiction, for the visit of this golden girl to the Deanery was not

by any means settled--but yet there was in it a germ of fact. “It is an

opportunity that never may occur again,” Augusta said, like a shop that

is selling off. And indeed it was a sale which she would have greatly

liked to negotiate, though Rollo was less the buyer than the piece of

goods of which sale was to be made.

A hundred thousand pounds! He could not help thinking of it later in the

evening, when he smoked his cigar, and as he went to bed. His affairs

seemed to him to be managed by some malign and tricky spirit. Just at

this moment, when he was pledged to the most imprudent marriage that

could be conceived, was it not just his luck that fate should take the

opportunity of dangling such a prize before him? A hundred thousand

pounds! Why was it not Lottie that had this money? or why, as she had no

money, had she been thrown in his way? To be sure she had a voice, which

was as good as a fortune, but not equal to a hundred thousand pounds.

However, he said to himself, there was no help for it now. All this

happened before the brief interview on the hill, which sent him off to

town before the hour he intended, and which proved to him, over and over

again, her trust in him, which was beyond anything he had ever dreamed

of. That she should guard him even from her father, that she should

believe in him, to the disdain of every safeguard which the vulgar mind

relied on, astonished, confounded, and impressed his mind beyond

description. To deceive her would be the easiest thing in the world,

but, at the same time, would it not be the most impossible thing, the

last that any man not a villain could do? And there was besides a

glimmering perception in Rollo’s mind that deception would only be

practicable up to a certain point, and that the scorn and horror and

indignation with which Lottie would turn upon the criminal who had

intended shame to her, would be something as much unlike the ordinary

rage of a wronged woman as her trust was beyond the ordinary suspicious

smoothness of ordinary belief. Shame and she had nothing to do with each

other. She might die in the agony of the discovery, but first her eyes,

her lips, the passion of her indignant purity would slay. With a deep

regret he thought of the easier tie. Augusta’s words had been those of a

silly woman when she spoke of fatal entanglements. On the contrary,

marriage was the fatal thing. The other--what harm would it have done?

None to Lottie in her career; no one would have thought any the worse of

her. People would be sure to suppose that something of the kind had

occurred in a singer’s life, whether it was true or not. It would have

done her no harm; and it would not have done Rollo any harm. To think of

it as fatal was the greatest folly. On the contrary, they would have

been of use to each other now, and after they would each have been free

to consult their own interests. He could not help thinking very

regretfully of this so easy, agreeable expedient, which would have been

anything but fatal. To be sure, this was not, as Augusta said, a high

moral point of view; but Rollo did not pretend to be a moralist. All

these thoughts poured through his mind again as he went to London, with

the full intention of getting a license for his marriage, and making all

the arrangements which would bind Lottie to him as his wife. He was

obliged to do this; he could not help himself. Much rather would he have

done anything else--taken the other alternative--but it was not

possible. There was but this one thing to do--a thing which put it

entirely out of his power for ever and ever to consider the claims of

any really nice person with a hundred thousand pounds at her disposal.

Rollo did not pretend to himself that he took the decisive step with any

satisfaction. He was no triumphant bridegroom; but he was a true lover,

and not a villain, and regretfully but steadfastly he gave himself up to

what he had to do.