CHAPTER XI.
ANOTHER EVENING AT THE DEANERY.
MR. RIDSDALE had perhaps never touched, and rarely heard, anything so bad as the old cracked piano which Lottie had inherited from her mother, and which was of the square form now obsolete, of a kind which brokers (the only dealers in the article) consider very convenient, as combining the character of a piano and a sideboard. Very often had Lottie’s piano served the purpose of a sideboard, but it was too far gone to be injured—nothing could make it worse. Nevertheless Mr. Ridsdale played the accompaniments upon it, without a word, to Lottie’s admiration and wonder, for he seemed to be able to draw forth at his fingers’ ends a volume of sound which she did not suppose to be within the power of the old instrument. He had brought several songs with him, being fully minded to hear her that morning, whatever obstacles might be in the way. But it so happened that there were no obstacles whatever in the way; and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was of the greatest service as audience. With the true talent of a manager, Mr. Ridsdale addressed himself to the subjugation of his public. He placed before Lottie the song from “Marta,” to which, hearing it thus named, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy prepared herself to listen with a certain amiable scorn. “Ah, we shall have you crying in five minutes,” he said. “Is it me you’re meaning?” she cried in high scorn. But the fact was that when the melting notes of “The Last Rose of Summer” came forth from Lottie’s lips, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was altogether taken by surprise, and carried out Rollo’s prophecy to the letter by weeping abundantly. There was much of Mr. Ridsdale’s music which Lottie could not sing—indeed, it would have been wonderful if she had been able to do so, as he had brought with him the finest morceaux of a dozen operas, and Lottie’s musical education had been of the slightest. But he so praised, and flattered, and encouraged her, that she went on from song to song at his bidding, making the best attempt at them that was possible, while Mrs. O’Shaughnessy sat by and listened. Her presence there was of the utmost consequence to them. It at once converted Rollo’s visit into something allowable and natural, and it gave him a pretence for beginning what was really an examination into Lottie’s powers and compass, at once of voice and of intelligence. Lottie, innocent of any scheme, or of any motive he could have, save simple pleasure in her singing, exerted herself to please him with the same mixture of gratitude and happy prepossession with which she had thought of him for so long. If she could give a little pleasure to him who had given her his love and his heart (for what less could it be that he had given her?), it was her part, she thought, to do so. She felt that she owed him everything she could do for him, to recompense him for that gift which he had given her unawares. So she stood by him in a soft humility, not careful that she was showing her own ignorance, thinking only of pleasing him. What did it matter, if he were pleased, whether she attained the highest excellence? She said sweetly, “I know I cannot do it, but if you wish it I will try,” and attempted feats which in other circumstances would have appalled her. And the fact was, that thus forgetting herself, and thinking only of pleasing him, Lottie sang better than she had ever done in her life, better even than she had done in the Deanery on the previous night. She committed a thousand faults, but these faults were as nothing in comparison with the melody of her voice and the purity of her taste. Rollo became like one inspired. All the enthusiasm of an amateur, and all the zeal of an enterprising manager, were in him. The old piano rolled out notes of which in its own self it was quite incapable under his rapid fingers. He seemed to see her with all London before her, at her feet, and he (so to speak) at once the discoverer and the possessor of this new star. No wonder the old piano grew ecstatic under his touch; he who had gone through so many vicissitudes, who had made so many failures; at last it seemed evident to him that his fortune was made. Unfortunately (though that he forgot for the moment) he had felt his fortune to be made on several occasions before.
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy gave a great many nods and smiles when at last he went away. “I say nothing, me dear, but I have my eyesight,” she said, “and a blind man could see what’s in the wind. So that is how it is, Lottie, me darling? Well, well! I always said you were the prettiest girl that had been in the Lodges this many a year. I don’t envy ye, me love, your rise in the world. And I hope, Lottie, when ye’re me lady, ye’ll not forget your old friends.”
“How should I ever be my lady?” said Lottie; “indeed, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, I don’t know what you mean.”
“No, me honey, the likes of you never do, till the right moment comes,” said the old lady, going down the narrow stairs. She kissed her hand to Lottie, who looked after her from the window as she appeared on the pavement outside, and, with her bonnet-strings flying loose, turned in at her own door. Her face was covered with smiles and her mind full of a new interest. She could not refrain from going into the Major’s little den, and telling him. “Nonsense!” the Major said, incredulously; “one of your mare’s-nests.” “Sure it was a great deal better than a mare, it was turtle-doves made the nest I’m thinking of,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy; and she took off her bonnet and seated herself at her window, from which she inspected the world with a new warmth of interest, determined not to lose a single incident in this new fairy tale.
Law came out of his room, where he had been “reading,” when Mrs. O’Shaughnessy went away. “What has all this shrieking been about,” said Law, “and thumping on that old beast of a piano? You are always at a fellow about reading, and when he does read you disturb him with your noise. How do you think I could get on with all that miauling going on? Who has been here?”
“Mr. Ridsdale has been here,” said Lottie demurely. “He brought me a note from Lady Caroline, and I am going again to the Deanery to-night.”
Law whistled a long whew—ew! “Again, to-night! she’d better ask you to go and live there,” said the astounded boy; and he said no more about his interrupted reading, but put his big book philosophically away; for who could begin to read again after all the disturbances of the morning, and after such a piece of news as this?
Lottie dressed herself with more care than ever that evening. She began to wish for ornaments, and to realise how few her decorations were; the little pearl locket was so small, and her arms seemed so bare without any bracelets. However, she made herself little bands of black velvet, and got the maid to fasten them on. She had never cared much for ornaments before. And she spent a much longer time than usual over the arrangement of her hair. Above all she wanted to look like a lady, to show that, though their choice of her was above what could have been expected, it was not above the level of what she was used to. Their choice of her—that was how it seemed to Lottie. The young lover had chosen, as it is fit the lover should do; but Lady Caroline had ratified his selection, and Lottie, proud yet entirely humble in the tender humility born of gratitude, wanted to show that she could do credit to their choice. She read the note which purported to be Lady Caroline’s over and over again; how kind it was! Lady Caroline’s manner perhaps was not quite so kind. People could not control their manner. The kindest heart was often belied, Lottie was aware, by a stiffness, an awkwardness, perhaps only a shyness, which disguised their best intentions. But the very idea of asking her was kind, and the letter was so kind that she made up her mind never again to mistake Lady Caroline. She had a difficulty in expressing herself, no doubt. She was indolent perhaps. At her age and in her position it was not wonderful if one got indolent; but in her heart she was kind. This Lottie repeated to herself as she put the roses in her hair. In her heart Lady Caroline was kind; the girl felt sure that she could never mistake her, never be disappointed in her again. And in this spirit she tripped across the Dean’s Walk, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy watching from her window. It was almost dark, but it was not one of the Signer’s nights for practice, and only a few of the inhabitants of the Abbey Precincts were enjoying the air on the Terrace pavement. They all saw her as she came out in the twilight with her uncovered head. Law had gone out, and there was nobody to go with her this time to the Deanery door. But Lottie had no difficulty in finding an escort: as she came out, looking round her shyly to watch for a quiet moment when no one was about, Captain Temple came forward, who lived two doors off, and was passing as she came to the little garden gate. He was the preux chevalier of all the Chevaliers. He came forward with a fatherly smile upon his kind face. “You are looking for some one to go with you,” he said; “your father has gone out. I saw him. Let me take his place.”
“Oh, thanks! I am going to the Deanery. I thought Law would have waited for me.”
“Law, like others of his age, has his own concerns to think of,” said Captain Temple, “but I am used to this kind of work. You have heard of my girl, Miss Despard?”
“Yes, Captain Temple——.” Lottie, touched suddenly in the sympathetic sentiment of her own beginning life, looked up at him with wistful eyes.
“She was a pretty creature, like yourself, my dear. My wife and I often talk of you, and think you like her. She was lost to us before she went out of the world, and I think it broke her heart—as well as ours. Take care of the damp grass with your little white shoes.”
“Oh, Captain Temple, do not come with me,” said Lottie, with tears in her eyes. “I can go very well alone. It is too hard upon you.”
“No—I like it, my dear. My wife cannot talk of it, but I like to talk of it. You must take care not to marry anyone that will carry you quite away from your father’s house.”
“As if that would matter! as if papa would care!” Lottie said in her heart, with a half pity, half envy, of Captain Temple’s lost daughter; but this was but a superficial feeling in comparison with the great compassion she had for him. The old Chevalier took her across the road as tenderly and carefully as if even her little white shoes were worth caring for. There was a moist brightness about his eyes as he looked at her pretty figure. “The roses are just what you ought to wear,” he said. “And whenever you want anyone to take care of you in this way, send for me; I shall like to do it. Shall I come back for you in case your father should be late?”
“Oh, Captain Temple, papa never minds! but it is quite easy to get back,” she said, thinking that perhaps this time he——
“I think it is always best that a young lady should have her own attendant, and not depend on anyone to see her home,” said the old Captain. And he rang the bell at the Deanery door, and took off his hat, with a smile which almost made Lottie forget Lady Caroline. She went into the drawing-room accordingly much less timidly than she had ever done before, and no longer felt any fear of Mr. Jeremie, who admitted her, though he was a much more imposing person than Captain Temple. This shade of another life which had come over her seemed to protect Lottie, and strengthen her mind. The drawing-room was vaguely lighted with clusters of candles here and there, and at first she saw nobody, nor was there any indication held out to her that the mistress of the house was in the room, except the solemn tone of Jeremie’s voice announcing her. Lottie thought Lady Caroline had not come in from the dining-room, and strayed about looking at the books and ornaments on the tables. She even began to hum an air quietly to herself, by way of keeping up her own courage, and it was not till she had almost taken her seat unawares on Lady Caroline’s dress, extended on the sofa, that she became aware that she was not alone. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried out in a sudden panic. “I thought there was no one in the room.” Lady Caroline made no remark at all, except to say “How do you do, Miss Despard?” That was what she had made up her mind to say, feeling it to be quite enough for the occasion—and Lady Caroline did not easily change her mind when it was once made up. She thought it very impertinent of the girl to come in and look at the photographs on the tables, and even to take the liberty of singing, but there was no calculating what these sort of people might do. She had nearly sat down on Lady Caroline’s feet! “This is what I put up with for Rollo,” the poor lady said to herself; and it seemed to her that a great deal of gratitude from Rollo was certainly her due. She did not move, nor did she ask Miss Despard to sit down; but Lottie, half in fright, dropped into a chair very near the strange piece of still life on the sofa. The girl had been very much frightened to see her, and for a moment was speechless with the horror of it. Nearly to sit down upon Lady Caroline! and a moment of silence ensued. Lady Caroline did not feel in the least inclined to begin a conversation. She had permitted the young woman to be invited, and she had said “How do you do, Miss Despard?” and she did not know what more could be expected from her. So they sat close together in the large, half-visible, dimly-illuminated room, with the large window open to the night, and said nothing to each other. Lottie, who was the visitor, was embarrassed, but Lady Caroline was not embarrassed. She felt no more need to speak than did the table with the photographs upon it which Lottie had stopped to look at. As for Lottie, she bore it as long as she could, the stillness of the room, the flicker of the candles, the dash and fall of a moth now and then flying across the lights, and the immovable figure on the sofa with its feet tucked up, and floods of beautiful rich silk enveloping them. A strange sense that Lady Caroline was not living at all, that it was only the picture of a woman that was laid out on the sofa came over her. In her nervousness she began to tremble, then felt inclined to laugh. At last it became evident to Lottie that to speak was a necessity, to break the spell which might otherwise stupefy her senses too.
“It is a beautiful night,” was all she managed to say; could anything be more feeble? but Lady Caroline gave no reply. She made the usual little movement of her eyelids, which meant an assent; indeed it was not a remark which required reply. And the silence fell on them again as bad as ever. The night air blew in, the moths whirled about the candles, dashed against the globe of the lamp, dropped on the floor with fatal infinitesimal booms of tragic downfall; and Lady Caroline lay on the sofa, with eyes directed to vacancy, looking at nothing. Lottie, with the roses in her hair, and so much life tingling in her, could not endure it. She wanted to go and shake the vision on the sofa, she wanted to cry out and make some noise or other to save herself from the spell. At last, when she could keep silence no longer, she jumped up, throwing over a small screen which stood near in her vehemence of action. “Shall I sing you something, Lady Caroline?” she said.
Lady Caroline was startled by the fall of the screen. She watched till it was picked up, actually looking at Lottie, which was some advance; then she said, “If you please, Miss Despard,” in her calm tones. And Lottie, half out of herself, made a dash at the grand piano, though she knew she could not play. She struck a chord or two, trembling all over, and began to sing. This time she did not feel the neglect or unkindness of the way in which she was treated. It was a totally different sensation. A touch of panic, a touch of amusement was in it. She was afraid that she might be petrified too if she did nothing to break the spell. But as she began to sing, with a quaver in her voice, and a little shiver of nervous chilliness in her person, the door opened, and voices, half discerned figures of men, life and movement, came pouring in. Lottie came to an abrupt stop in the middle of a bar.
“This will never do,” said the suave Dean: “you make too much noise, Rollo. You have frightened Miss Despard in the middle of her song.”
Then Rollo came forward into the light spot round the piano, looking very pale; he was a good deal more frightened than Lottie was. Could it be possible that she had made a false note? He was in an agony of horror and alarm. “I—make a noise!” he said; “my dear uncle!” He looked at her with appealing eyes full of anguish. “You were not—singing, Miss Despard? I am sure you were not singing, only trying the piano.”
“I thought it would perhaps—amuse Lady Caroline.” Lottie did not know what she had done that was wrong. The Signor wore an air of trouble too. Only Mr. Ashford’s face, looking at her, as one followed another into the light, reassured her. She turned to him with a little anxiety. “I cannot play; it is quite true; perhaps I ought not to have touched the piano,” she said.
“You were startled,” said the Minor Canon, kindly. “Your voice fluttered like those candles in the draught.” The others still looked terribly serious, and did not speak.
“And I sang false,” said Lottie; “I heard myself. It was terrible; but I thought I was stiffening into stone,” she said, in an undertone, and she gave an alarmed look at Lady Caroline on the sofa. This restored the spirits of the others spectators, who looked at each other relieved.
“Thank Heaven, she knew it,” Rollo whispered to the Signor; “it was fright, pure fright—and my aunt——”
“What else did you suppose it was?” answered in the same tone, but with some scorn, the Signor.
“Miss Despard, don’t think you are to be permitted to accompany yourself,” said Rollo. “Here are two of us waiting your pleasure. Signor, I will not pretend to interfere when you are there. May we have again that song you were so good——?”
“Ah, pardon me,” he cried coming close to her to get the music. “I do not want to lose a minute. I have been on thorns this half-hour. I ought to have been here waiting ready to receive you, as you ought to be received.”
“Oh, it did not matter,” said Lottie, confused. “I am sorry I cannot play. I wanted—to try—to amuse Lady Caroline.”
By this time the Signor had arranged the music on the piano and began to play. The Dean had gone off to the other end of the room, where the evening paper, the last edition, had been laid awaiting him on a little table on which stood a reading-lamp. The green shade of the lamp concentrated the light upon the paper, and the white hands of the reader, and his long limbs and his little table, making a new picture in the large dim room. On the opposite side sat Lady Caroline, who had withdrawn her feet hastily from the sofa, and sat bolt upright as a tribute to the presence of “the gentlemen.” These two pieces of still life appeared to Lottie vaguely through the partial gloom. The master and mistress of the house were paying no attention to the visitors. Such visitors as these were not of sufficient importance to be company, or to disturb their entertainers in the usual habits of their evening. Lady Caroline, indeed, seldom allowed herself to be disturbed by anyone. She put down her feet for the sake of her own dignity, but she did not feel called upon to make any further sacrifice. And as for Lottie, she was not happy among these three men. She shrank from Rollo, who was eyeing her with an anxiety which she could not understand, and longed for Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, or, indeed, any woman to stand by her. Her heart sank, and she shivered again with that chill which is of the nerves and fancy. The Dean with his rustling paper, and Lady Caroline with her vacant eyes, were at the other end of the room, and Lottie felt isolated, separated, cast upon the tender mercies of the three connoisseurs, a girl with no woman near to stand by her. It seemed to her for the moment as if she must sink into the floor altogether, or else turn and fly.
It was Mr. Ashford again who came to Lottie’s aid. “Play something else first,” he said softly to the Signor, disregarding the anxious looks of Rollo, who had placed himself on a chair at a little distance, so that he might be able to see the singer and stop any false note that might be coming before it appeared. The others were both kind and clever, kinder than the man whom Lottie thought her lover, and whose anxiety for the moment took all thought from him, and more clever too. The Signor began to play Handel, the serious noble music with which Lottie had grown familiar in the Abbey, and soon Mr. Ashford stepped in and sang in his beautiful melodious voice. Then the strain changed, preluding a song which the most angelic of the choristers had sung that morning. The Minor Canon put the music into Lottie’s hands. “Begin here,” he whispered. She knew it by ear and by heart, and the paper trembled in her hands; but they made her forget herself, and she began, her voice thrilling and trembling, awe and wonder taking possession of her. She had heard it often, but she had never realised what it was till, all human, womanish, shivering with excitement and emotion, she began to sing. It did not seem her own doing at all. The dim drawing-room, with the Dean reading the paper, the men in their evening coats, the glimmering reflection of herself which she caught in the long mirror, in her simple decorations, the roses trembling in her hair, all seemed horribly inappropriate, almost profane, to Lottie. And the music shook in her hands, and the notes, instead of remaining steadily before her eyes, where she could read them, took wings to themselves and floated about, now here, now there, sometimes gleaming upon her, sometimes eluding her. Yet she sang, she could not tell how, forgetting everything, though she saw and felt everything, in a passion, in an inspiration, penetrated through and through by the music and the poetry, and the sacredness, above her and all of them. “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Oh, how did she dare to sing it, how could those commonplace walls enclose it, those men stand and listen as if it was her they were listening to? By and by the Dean laid down his paper. Rollo, in the background, gazing on her at first in pale anxiety, then with vexed disapproval (for what did he want with Handel?), came nearer and nearer, his face catching some reflection of hers as she went on. And when Lottie ended, in a rapture she could not explain or understand, they all came pressing round her, dim and blurred figures in her confused eyes. But the girl was too greatly strained to bear their approach or hear what they said. She broke away from them, and rushed, scarcely knowing what she did, to Lady Caroline’s side. Lady Caroline herself was roused. She made room for the trembling creature, and Lottie threw herself into the corner of the capacious sofa and covered her face with her hands.
But when she came to herself she would not sing any more. A mixture of guilt and exultation was in her mind. “I ought not to have sung it. I am not good enough to sing it. I never thought what it meant till now,” she said trembling. “Oh, I hope you will forgive me. I never knew what it meant before.”
“Forgive you!” said the Dean. “We don’t know how to thank you, Miss Despard.” He was the person who ought to know what it meant if anybody did. And when he had thus spoken he went back to his paper, a trifle displeased by the fuss she made; as if she could have any new revelation of the meaning of a thing which, if not absolutely written for St. Michael’s, as good as belonged to the choir, which belonged to the Dean and Chapter! There was a certain presumption involved in Lottie’s humility. He went back to his reading-lamp, and finished the article which had been interrupted by her really beautiful rendering of a very fine solo. It was really beautiful; he would not for a moment deny that. But if Miss Despard turned out to be excitable, and gave herself airs, like a real prima donna! Heaven be praised, the little chorister boys never had any nerves, but sang whatever was set before them, without thinking what was meant, the Dean said to himself. And it would be difficult to describe Rollo Ridsdale’s disappointment. He sat down in a low chair by the side of the sofa, and talked to her in a whisper. “I understand you,” he said; “it is like coming down from the heaven of heavens, where you have carried us. But the other spheres are celestial too. Miss Despard, I shall drop down into sheer earth to-morrow. I am going away. I shall lose the happiness of hearing you altogether. Will you not have pity upon me, and lead me a little way into the earthly paradise?” But even these prayers did not move Lottie. She was too much shaken and disturbed out of the unconscious calm of her being for anything more.