AND what a problem it was with which Lottie Despard was thus left alone! The house was still, no one moving in it—nothing to distract her thoughts. Now and then a swell of music from the Abbey, where service was going on, swept in, filling the silence for a moment; but most of the inhabitants of the Lodges were at matins, and all was very still in the sunshine, the Dean’s Walk lying broad and quiet, with scarcely a shadow to break the light. Downstairs the little maid-of-all-work had closed the door of the kitchen, so that her proceedings were inaudible. And the Captain, as in duty bound, was in the Abbey, trolling forth the responses in a fine baritone, as he might have done had they been the chorus of a song. Lottie sat like a statue in the midst of this stillness, her eyes abstracted, her mind absorbed. What a problem to occupy her! Law, rustling over his books in his own room, grew frightened as he thought of her. She would break her heart; it would make her ill; it might almost kill her, he thought. She sat with her work dropped on her knee, her eyes fixed but not seeing anything; her mind—what could occupy it but one reflection? the sudden possibility of a breaking up of all her traditions, an end of her young life—a dismal sudden survey of the means of maintaining herself, and where she could go to in case this unthought-of catastrophe should occur at once. Poor desolate Lottie, motherless, friendless, with no one to consult in such an emergency, no one to fly to! What could be more terrible than to be brought face to face with such an appalling change, unwarned, unprepared? What was she to do? where was she to go? Worse than an orphan, penniless, homeless, what would become of her? No wonder if despair was paramount in the poor girl’s thoughts.
Well—but then despair was not paramount in her thoughts. She made a stand for a moment with wild panic before the sudden danger. What was it that was going to happen? Lottie gave a momentary gasp as a swimmer might do making the first plunge; and then, like the swimmer, lo! struck off with one quick movement into the sunshine and the smoothest gentle current. Change! the air was full of it, the world was full of it, the sky was beautiful with it, and her heart sprang to meet it. Do you think a girl of twenty on the verge of love, once left free to silence and musing, was likely to forget her own dreams in order to plunge into dark reveries as to what would happen to her if her father married again? Not Lottie, at least. She launched herself indeed on this subject, the corners of her mouth dropping, a gleam of panic in her eyes; but something caught her midway. Ah! it was like the touch of a magician’s wand. What did it matter to Lottie what might happen to other people; had not everything that was wonderful, everything that was beautiful, begun to happen to herself? She floated off insensibly into that delicious current of her own thoughts, losing herself in imaginary scenes and dialogues. She lost her look of terror without knowing it, a faint smile came upon her face, a faint colour, now heightening, now paling, went and came like breath. Sometimes she resumed her work, and her needle sped through her mending like the shuttle of the Fates; sometimes it dropped out of her hand altogether, and the work upon her knee. She lost count of time and of what she was doing. What was she doing? She was weaving a poem, a play, a romance, as she sat with her basket of stockings to darn. The mise en scène was varied, but the personages always the same; two personages—never any more; sometimes they only looked at each other, saying nothing; sometimes they talked for hours; and constantly in their talk they were approaching one subject, which something always occurred to postpone. This indefinite postponement of the explanation which, even in fiction, is a device which must be used sparingly, can be indulged in without stint in the private imagination, and Lottie in her romance took full advantage of this power. She approached the borders of her éclaircissement a hundred times, and evaded it with the most delicate skill, feeling by instinct the superior charm of the vague and undecided, and how love itself loses its variety, its infinite novelty, and delightfulness, when it has declared and acknowledged itself. Law, in his room with his big book, comforting himself under the confused and painful study to which the shock of last night’s suggestion had driven him by the idea that Lottie too must be as uncomfortable as himself, was as much mistaken as it was possible to imagine. His compunction and his satisfaction were equally thrown away. Still the feeling that he had startled her, and the hope that it would “do her good,” gave him a little consolation in his reading, such as it was. And how difficult it was to read with the sun shining outside, and little puffs of soft delicious air coming in at his open window, and laying hands upon him, who shall say? He was comforted to think that next door to him, Lottie, with her basket of clothes to mend, patching and darning, must be very much disturbed too; but it would have been hard upon Law had he known that she had escaped from all this, and was meanly and treacherously enjoying herself in private gardens of fancy. He had his Emma to be sure—but of her and the very well-known scenes that enclosed her, and all the matter-of-fact circumstances around, he felt no inclination to dream. He liked to have her by him, and for her sake submitted to the chatter of the workroom (which, on the whole, rather amused him in itself), and was quite willing to read the Family Herald aloud; but he did not dream of Emma as Lottie did of the incident which had happened in her career. It was true there was this fundamental difference between them, that Lottie’s romance alone had any margin of the unknown and mysterious in it. About Emma there was nothing that was mysterious or unknown.
It was not likely, however, that these two young people in their two different rooms, Law gaping over his Virgil, and feeling his eyes wander after every fly that lighted on his book, and every bird that chirped in the deep foliage round the window; and Lottie with her needle and her scissors, thinking of everything in the world except what she was doing or what had just been told her, should be left undisturbed for long in these virtuous occupations. Very soon Law was stopped in the middle of a bigger yawn than usual by the sound of a step coming up the stairs, which distracted his not very seriously fixed attention—and Lottie woke up from the very middle of an imaginary conversation, to hear a mellow round voice calling her, as it came slowly panting upstairs. “Are you there then, Lottie, me honey? You’d never let me mount up to the top of the house, without telling me, if ye weren’t there?” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, like many of her country-folks, was half aware of the bull she was uttering, and there was a sound of laughter in her voice. Lottie, however, sat still, making no sign, holding her needle suspended in her fingers, reluctant to have her pleasant thoughts disturbed by any arrival. But while the brother and sister, each behind a closed door, thus paused and listened, the Captain (audibly) coming home from morning service, stepped in after Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and addressed the new-comer. “Lottie is in the drawing-room,” he said, “though she does not answer. I am just going out again when I’ve fetched something—but I must first see you upstairs;” and then there was an interval of talking on the stairs and the little landing-place. Lottie made no movement for her part. She sat amidst her darnings, and awaited what was coming, feeling that her time for dreams was over. Captain Despard came lightly up, three steps at a time, after Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had panted to the drawing-room door. He was jaunty and gay as ever, in his well-brushed coat with a rosebud in his button-hole. Few, very few, days were there on which Captain Despard appeared without a flower in his coat. He managed to get them even in winter, no one could tell how. Sometimes a flaming red leaf from the Virginia creeper, answered his purpose, but he was always jaunty, gay, decorated with something or other. He came in behind the large figure of their neighbour, holding out a glove with a hole in the finger reproachfully to Lottie. “See how my child neglects me,” he said. He liked to display himself even to Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and stood and talked to her while Lottie, with no very good grace, put down her darning and mended his glove.
“When I was a young fellow, my dear lady,” he said, “I never wanted for somebody to mend my glove; but a man can’t expect to be as interesting to his daughter as he was in another stage of life.”
“Oh, Captain, take me word,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “the likes of you will always be interesting to one or another. You won’t make me believe that ye find nobody but your daughter to do whatever ye ask them. Tell that—to another branch of the service, Captain Despard, me dear friend.”
“You do me a great deal too much honour,” he said with the laugh of flattered vanity; for he was not difficult in the way of compliments. “Alas, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who would pay any attention to an old married man, the father of a grown-up son and daughter, like me?”
“Sure, and you’re much to be pitied, so old as ye are, with one foot in the grave, Captain dear,” the old Irishwoman said; and they both laughed, she enjoying at once her joke, and the pleasure of seeing her victim’s pleased appreciation of the compliment; while he, conscious of being still irresistible, eyed himself in the little glass over the mantelpiece, and was quite unaware of the lurking demon of good-humoured malice and ridicule in her eyes.
“Not so bad as that perhaps,” he said, “but bad enough. A man grows old fast in this kind of life. Matins every morning by cockcrow, to a man accustomed to take his ease, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. The Major grumbles, I make no doubt, as well as I.”
“Sure it’s nothing half as bad as morning parade. That’s what O’Shaughnessy says; and he never was used to his ease, Captain. I took better care of him than that. But, Lottie, me honey, here we’re talking of ourselves, and it’s you I’ve come to hear about. How many hearts did ye break? how many scalps have ye got, as we used to say in Canada? It wasn’t for nothing ye put on your finery, and those roses in your hair. The Captain, he’s the one for a flower in his coat; you’re his own daughter, Miss Lottie dear.”
“Were you out last night, my child?” said Captain Despard, taking his glove from Lottie’s hand. “Ah, at the Deanery. I hope my friend the Dean is well, and my Lady Caroline? Lady Caroline was once a very fine woman, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, though you would not think it. The Courtlands were neighbours of ours in our better days, and knew all our connections; and Lady Caroline has always been kind to Lottie. I do not think it necessary to provide any chaperon for her when she goes there. It is in society that a girl feels the want of a mother; but where Lady Caroline is, Lottie can feel at home.”
“Fancy that now,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “how a body may be deceived! I never knew ye were among old friends, Captain. What a comfort to you—till you find somebody that will be a nice chaperon for your dear girl!”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, that would be a satisfaction; but where could I find one that would satisfy me after Lottie’s dear mother, who was a pearl of a woman? Good-morning to you, my dear lady; I must be going,” he said, kissing the fingers of the mended glove. And he went out of the room humming a tune, which, indeed, was as much a distinction of Captain Despard as the flower in his coat. He was always cheerful, whatever happened. His daughter looked up from her work, following him with her eyes, and Law, shut up in his room next door, stopped reading (which indeed he was very glad to do), and listened to the light carol of the Captain’s favourite air and his jaunty step as he went downstairs. No lurch in that step now, but a happy confidence and cheerful ring upon the pavement when he got outside, keeping time surely not only to the tune, but to the Captain’s genial and virtuous thoughts. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy looked after him without the cloud which was on his children’s faces. She laughed. “Then, sure, it does one’s heart good,” she said, “to see a man as pleased with himself as me friend the Captain. And Lottie, me darlin’, speaking of that, there’s a word I have to say to you. Ye heard what I said and ye heard what he said about a chaperon—though, bless the child, it’s not much use, so far as I can see, that you have for a chaperon——”
“No use at all,” cried Lottie, “and don’t say anything about it, please. Papa talks; but nobody pays any attention to him,” she exclaimed, with a flush of shame.
“If he’d stop at talking! but Lottie, me dear, when a man at his age gets women in his head, there’s no telling what is to come of it. I wouldn’t vex ye, me dear, but there’s gossip about—that the Captain has thoughts——”
“Oh, never mind what gossip there is about! there’s gossip about everything——”
“And that’s true, me honey. There’s your own self. They tell me a dozen stories. It’s married ye’re going to be (and that’s natural); and there’s them that uphold it’s not marriage at all, but music, or maybe the stage even, which is what I never would have thought likely——”
Lottie had risen to her feet, her eyes sparkling, her face crimson with excitement. “Wherever you hear it, please, please say it is a lie. I—on the stage! Oh, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, could you believe such a thing? I would rather die!”
“Dying’s a strong step to take, me dear. I wouldn’t go that length, Lottie; but at your age, and with your pretty looks, and all the world before ye, it’s not the thing I would advise. I don’t say but there are chances for a pretty girl that’s well conducted——”
“Mrs. O’Shaughnessy! do you dare to speak to me so?” said Lottie with crimson cheeks, her eyes blazing through indignant tears. Well conducted! the insult went to her very soul. But this was beyond the perception of her companion.
“Just so, me, dear,” she said. “There was Miss O’Neil, that was a great star in my time, and another stage lady that married the Earl of——, one of the English earls. I forget his title. Lords and baronets and that sort of people are thrown in their way, and sometimes a pretty girl that minds what she is about, or even a plain girl that is clever, comes in for something that would never—— Who is that, Lottie? Me dear, look out of the window, and tell me who it is.”
Lottie did not say a word; she gasped with pain and indignation, standing erect in the middle of the room. How it made the blood boil in her veins to have the triumphs of the “stage-ladies” thus held up before her! She did not care who was coming. In her fantastical self-elevation, a sort of princess in her own sight, who was there here who would understand Lottie’s “position” or her feelings? What was the use even of standing up for herself where everybody would laugh at her? There was no one in the Chevaliers’ Lodges who could render her justice. They would all think that to “catch” an earl or a Sir William was enough to content any girl’s ambition. So long as she was well conducted! To be well conducted, is not that the highest praise that can be given to anyone? Yet it made Lottie’s blood boil in her veins.
While she stood thus flushed and angry, the door was suddenly pushed open by the untrained “girl,” who was all that the household boasted in the shape of a servant. “She’s here, sir,” this homely usher said; and lo, suddenly, into the little room where sat Mrs. O’Shaughnessy taking up half the space, and where Lottie stood in all the excitement and glow of passion, there walked Rollo Ridsdale, like a hero of romance, more perfect in costume, appearance, and manner, more courteous and easy, more graceful and gracious, than anything that had ever appeared within that lower sphere. The Captain was jaunty and shabby-genteel, yet even he sometimes dazzled innocent people with his grand air; but Mr. Ridsdale was all that the Captain only pretended to be, and the very sight of him was a revelation. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, sitting with her knees apart and her hands laid out upon her capacious lap, opened her mouth and gazed at him as if he had been an angel straight from the skies. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy knew him, as she knew every one who came within the Abbey precincts. She was aware of every visit he paid to his aunt, and saw him from her window every time he passed up and down the Dean’s Walk, and she had the most intimate acquaintance with all his connections, and knew his exact place in the Courtland family, and even that there had been vicissitudes in his life more than generally fall to the lot of young men of exalted position. And, if it did her good even to see him from her window, and pleased her to be able to point him out as the Honourable Rollo Ridsdale, it may be imagined what her feelings were, when she found herself suddenly under the same roof with him, in the same room with him. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy sat and stared, devouring his honourable figure with her eyes, with a vague sensation of delight and grandeur taking possession of her soul.
“You must pardon my intrusion at such an early hour, Miss Despard,” he said. “I wanted your maid to ask if I might come in, and I did not know she was ushering me into your very presence. But I have my credentials with me. I bear a note from Lady Caroline, which she charged me to support with my prayers.”
The passion melted out of Lottie’s countenance. Her eyes softened—the very lines of her figure, all proud and erect and vehement, melted too as if by a spell—the flush of anger on her cheek changed to a rose-red of gentler feeling. The transformation was exactly what the most accomplished actress would have desired to make, with the eye of an able manager inspecting her possibilities. “I beg your pardon,” she said instinctively, with a sudden sense of guilt. It shocked her to be found so full of passion, so out of harmony with the melodious visitor who was in perfect tune and keeping with the sweet morning, and in whose presence all the vulgarities about seemed doubly vulgar. She felt humble, yet not humiliated. Here was at last one who would understand her, who would do her justice. She looked round to find a seat for him, confused, not knowing what to say.
“May I come here?” said Rollo, pushing forward for her the little chair from which she had evidently risen, and placing himself upon the narrow window-seat with his back to the light. “But let me give up my credentials first. My aunt is—what shall I say?—a little indolent, Miss Despard. Dear Aunt Caroline, it is an unkind word—shall I say she is not fond of action? Pardon if it is I who have acted as secretary. I do so constantly now that Augusta is away.”
“Lottie,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, as Lottie, confused, took the note from his hand, and the chair he offered; “me dear!—you have not presented me to your friend.”
Rollo got up instantly and bowed, as Lottie faltered forth his name (“A real bow,” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy said after; “sure you never get the like but in the upper classes”), while she herself, not to be outdone, rose too, and extended a warm hand—(“What does the woman expect me to do with her hand?” was Mr. Ridsdale’s alarmed commentary on his side).
“I’m proud to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. “Me husband the Major was once a great friend of an uncle of yours, Mr. Ridsdale—or maybe it was a cousin; when we were out in Canada, in the Hundred and Fiftieth—the Honourable Mr. Green; they were together in musketry practice, and me Major had the pleasure of being of a great deal of use to the gentleman. Many a time he’s told me of it; and when we came here, sure it was a pleasure to find out that me Lady Caroline was aunt—or maybe it was cousin to an old friend. I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy continued, shaking him warmly by the hand, which she had held all this time. Mr. Ridsdale kept bowing at intervals, and had done all that he could, without positive rudeness, to get himself free.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “I have cousins and uncles and that sort of thing scattered through the earth in every regiment under the sun; and very bad soldiers, I don’t doubt, always wanting somebody to look after them. I am sure Major O’Shaughnessy was very kind. Won’t you sit down?”
“It wasn’t to make a brag of his kindness—not a bit of that—but he is a kind man and a good man, Mr. Ridsdale, though I say it that shouldn’t. I have been married to me Major these forty years, and if anyone knows it I ought to be the one to know.”
“Undoubtedly, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. I for one am most ready to take the fact on your word.”
“And you’d be in the right of it. A man’s wife, that’s the best judge of his character. Whatever another may say, she’s the one that knows; and if she says too much, one way or the other, sure it’s on herself it falls. But, maybe you’re not interested, Mr. Ridsdale, in an old woman’s opinions?”
“I am very much interested, I assure you,” said Rollo, always polite. He kept an eye upon Lottie reading her note, but he listened to her friend (if this was her friend) with as much attention, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy always remembered, as if she had been a duchess at the least.
Meanwhile Lottie read the note, which purported to come from Lady Caroline, and had a wavering C. Huntington at the bottom of the page, which was her genuine autograph. The warmth of the appeal, however, to her dear Miss Despard, to take pity on the dulness of the Deanery and come in “quietly” that evening for a little music, was not in any way Lady Caroline’s. She had consented indeed to permit herself to be sung to on Rollo’s strenuous representation of the pleasure it had given her. “You know, Aunt Caroline, you enjoyed it,” he had said; and “Yes, I know I enjoyed it,” Lady Caroline, much wavering, had replied. It would not have been creditable not to have enjoyed what was evidently such very good singing; but it was not she who wrote of the dulness of the Deanery nor who used such arguments to induce her dear Miss Despard to come. Lottie’s countenance bending over the note glowed with pleasure as Mrs. O’Shaughnessy kept up the conversation. Even with those girls who think they believe that the admiration of men is all they care for, the approbation of a woman above their own rank is always a more touching and more thorough triumph than any admiration of men. And Lottie, though she was so proud, was all humility in this respect; that Lady Caroline should thus take her up, and encourage her, praise her, invite her, went to her very heart. She almost cried over the kind words. She raised her face all softened and glowing with happiness to the anxious messenger who was listening to Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, and as their eyes met a sudden smile of such responsive pleasure and satisfaction came to Rollo’s face as translated Lottie back into the very paradise of her dreams.
“I can’t say, me dear sir,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “that things are just exactly as we wish here, or as we thought we had a right to look for. The Major and me, we’ve been used to a deal of fine company. Wherever we’ve gone, was it in Canada, was it the Channel Islands, was it at the depôt of the regiment, we’ve always been called upon by the best. But here, sure the position is not what we were led to expect. Money is all that most people are thinking of. There’s the society in the town would jump at us. But that does not count, Mr. Ridsdale, you know, that does not count; for to us in Her Majesty’s service, that have always been accustomed to the best——”
“Surely, surely, I quite understand; and you have a right to the best. Miss Despard,” said the ambassador, “I hope you are considering what Lady Caroline says, and will not disappoint our hopes. Last night was triumph, but this will be enjoyment. You, who must know what talent Miss Despard has—I appeal to you, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy—I am sure from your kind looks that we will have your aid.”
“Is it to go and sing for them again, Lottie, me dear?” said the old lady in an undertone. “That’s just what I don’t like, Mr. Ridsdale—excuse me if I speak my mind free—me Lady Caroline and his reverence the Dean, they’re ready enough to take an advantage, and make their own use of the Chevaliers’——”
“Do I need to write a note?” said Lottie, interrupting hastily to prevent the completion of a speech which seemed to threaten the very foundations of her happiness. “Perhaps it would be more polite to write a note.” She looked at him with a little anxiety, for the thought passed through her mind that she had no pretty paper like this, with a pretty monogram and “The Deanery, St. Michael’s,” printed on its creamy glaze, and even that she did not write a pretty hand that would do her credit; and, going further, that she would not know how to begin, whether she should be familiar, and venture upon saying, “Dear Lady Caroline,” which seemed rather presumptuous, calling an old lady by her Christian name—or——
“I need not trouble you to write. I am sure you mean to say yes, Miss Despard, which is almost more than I dared hope. Yes is all we want, and I shall be so happy to carry it——”
“Yes is easy said,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy; “a great deal easier than no. Oh, me dear, I don’t object to your going; not a bit; only I take an interest in ye, and ye must not make yourself too cheap. Know her talent, Mr. Ridsdale? sure I can’t say that I do. I know herself, and a better girl, saving for a bit of temper, don’t exist. But a girl is the better of a spark of temper, and that’s just what you’ve got, me dear Lottie. No; I don’t know her talent. She has a voice for singing, that I know well; for to hear her and Rowley when she’s having her lesson, sure it’s enough to give a deaf person the ear-ache. But that’s the most that I know.”
“Then, Miss Despard,” said Rollo, springing to his feet; “if your—friend is in this condition of doubt, it is impossible she can ever have heard you; will you not gratify me and convince her by singing something now? I know it is horrible impertinence on my part, so recent an acquaintance. But—no, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, you never can have heard her. I have some songs here that I know you would sing to perfection. I deserve to be ordered out of the house for my presumption. I know it; but——” and he clasped his hands and fixed supplicating eyes upon Lottie, who, blushing, trembling, frightened, and happy, did not know how to meet those eyes.
“Sure he’ll be down on his knees next,” cried Mrs. O’Shaughnessy delighted; “and you wouldn’t have the heart to deny the gentleman when he begs so pretty. I’ll not say but what I’ve heard her, and heard her many a time, but maybe the change of the circumstances and the want of Rowley will make a difference. Come, Lottie, me darling, don’t wait for pressing, but give us a song, and let us be done with it. If it was a good song you would sing, and not one of those sacred pieces that make me feel myself in the Abbey—where we all are, saving your presence, often enough——”
“I have a song here that will please you, I know,” said Rollo. “We shall have you crying in two minutes. You don’t know, my dear Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, what a glorious organ you are talking of.”
“Organ! that’s the Abbey all over; but, praised be Heaven, there’s no organ here, only an old cracked piano——”
“Oh, indeed,” cried Lottie. “It is not fit to play on, and I don’t think I can sing at sight; and—I know I can’t play an accompaniment.”
“That shall be my happy office,” he said, looking at her with those eyes that dazzled Lottie. They were not dazzling by nature, but he put a great deal of meaning into them, and Lottie, foolish Lottie, innocently deceived, put a great deal more. Her eyes sank beneath this look. She could scarcely keep the tears from coming into them, tears of confused pleasure and wonder and happiness; and she could not refuse him what he asked. He opened the wretched old piano, worn out and jingling, and out of tune as it was. And Mrs. O’Shaughnessy put her knees a little more apart, and threw her bonnet-strings over her shoulders, and spread out her warm hands in her lap. There was a little good-humoured cynicism in her face. She did not expect to enjoy the singing, but all her faculties were moved by the hint, the scent, of a flirtation; and that she was prepared to enjoy to the full.