CHAPTER XXI.
SEARCHINGS OF HEART.
IT was not to be supposed that the visit of Rollo and his companion should pass unnoticed in so small a community as that of St. Michael’s, where everybody knew him, and in which he had all the importance naturally belonging to a member, so to speak, of the reigning family. Everybody noticed his appearance in the Abbey, and it soon became a matter of general talk that he was not at the Deanery, but had come down from town expressly for the service, returning by as early a train afterwards as the Sunday regulations of the railway allowed. What did he come for? Not to see his relations, which would have been a comprehensible reason for so brief a visit. He had been seen talking to somebody at the north door, and he had been seen following the Signor, in company with a large and brilliant person who wore more rings and studs and breloques than had ever been seen at St. Michael’s. Finally, this remarkable stranger, who was evidently a friend of the Signor as well as of Rollo, had been visible on the little green terrace outside Rossinetti’s sitting-room, smoking cigarettes and drinking claret-cup, and tilting up his chair upon two legs in a manner which suggested a tea-garden, critics said, more than a studious nook sheltered among the buttresses of the Abbey. Public opinion was instinctively unfavourable to Rollo’s companion; but what was the young prince, Lady Caroline’s nephew, doing there? Then the question arose, who was it to whom Rollo had been talking at the north door? All the Canons and their wives, and the ladies in the Lodges, and even the townspeople, when the story reached them, cried out “Impossible!” when they were told that it was Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. But that lady had no intention of concealing the honour done her. She published it, so to speak, on the housetops. She neglected no occasion of making her friends acquainted with all the particulars of the interview. “And who should it have been but me?” she said. “Is there e’er another one at St. Michael’s that knows as much of his family? Who was it but an uncle of his, or maybe it might be a cousin, that was in the regiment with us and O’Shaughnessy’s greatest friend? Many’s the good turn the Major’s done him; and, say the worst you can o’ the Ridsdales, it’s not ungrateful they are. It’s women that are little in their ways. What does a real gentleman care for our little quarrels and the visiting list at the Deanery? ‘When ye see me aunt,’ says he, ‘Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, ye’ll tell her——’ Sure he took it for certain that me Lady Caroline was a good neighbour, and would step in of an afternoon for her bit of talk and her cup o’ tea. ‘You’ll tell her,’ says he, ‘that I hadn’t time to go and see her.’ And, please God, I will do it when I’ve got the chance. If her ladyship forgets her manners, it shall ne’er be said that O’Shaughnessy’s wife was wanting in good breeding to a family the Major had such close connections with.”
“But do you really know—Mr. Ridsdale’s family?” said Lottie, after one of these brilliant addresses, somewhat bewildered by her recollection of what had passed. “And, sure, didn’t you hear me say so? Is it doubting me word you are?” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, with a twinkle in her eye. Lottie was bewildered—but it did not matter much. At this moment nothing seemed to matter very much. She had been dull, and she had been troubled by many things before the wonderful moment in which she had discovered Rollo close to her in the Abbey—much troubled, foreseeing with dismay the closing in around her of a network of new associations in which there could be nothing but pain and shame, and dull with a heavy depression of dulness which no ray of light in the present, no expectation in the future, seemed to brighten. Purcell’s hand held out to her, tenderly, yet half in pity, had been the only personal encouragement she had; and that had humbled her to the dust, even though she struggled with herself to do him justice. Her heart had been as heavy as lead. There had seemed to her nothing that was hopeful, nothing that was happy before her. Now all the heaviness had flown away. Why? Why, for no reason at all, because this young man, whom she supposed (without any warrant for the foolish idea) to love her, had come back for an hour or two; because he was coming back on a visit. The visit was not to her, nor had she probable share in the enjoyments to be provided for Lady Caroline’s nephew; and Lottie did not love him to make his very presence a delight to her. She did not love him—yet. This was the unexpressed feeling in her mind; but when a girl has got so far as this it may be supposed that the visit of the lover whom she does not love—yet, must fill her with a thousand delightful tremors. How could she doubt his sentiments? What was it that brought him back and back again to St. Michael’s? And to be led along that flowery way to the bower of bliss at the end of it, to be persuaded into love by all the flatteries and worship of a lover so delicately impassioned—could a girl’s imagination conceive anything more exquisite?—No, she was not in love—yet—— But there was no reason why she should not be, except the soft maidenly reluctance, the shy retreat before one who kept advancing, the instinct of coy resistance to an inevitable delight.
Into this delicate world of happiness, in which there was nothing real, but all imagination, Lottie was delivered over that bright Sunday. She had no defence against it, and she did not wish to have any. She gave herself up to the dream. After that interval of heaviness, of darkness, when there was no pleasant delusion to support her, and life, with all its difficulties and dangers, became so real, confronting her at every point, what an escape it was for Lottie to find herself again under the dreamy skies of that fool’s paradise! It was the Garden of Eden to her. She thought it was the true world, and the other the false one. The vague terror and disgust with which her father’s new plans filled her mind floated away like a mist; and, as for Law, what so easy as to carry him with her into the better world where she was going? Her mind in a moment was lightened of its load. She had left home heavily; she went back scarcely able to keep from singing in the excess of her light-heartedness, more lifted above earth than if any positive good had come to her. So long as the good is coming, and exists in the imagination only, how much more entrancing is it than anything real that ever can be ours!
The same event, however, which had so much effect upon Lottie acted upon her family too in a manner for which she was far from being prepared. Captain Despard came in as much elated visibly as she was in her heart. There had been but little intercourse among them since the evening when the Captain had made those inquiries about Rollo, which Lottie resented so deeply. The storm had blown over, and she had nominally forgiven Law for going over to the enemy’s side; but Lottie’s heart had been shut even against her brother since that night. He had forsaken her, and she had not been able to pass over his desertion of her cause. However, her heart had softened with her happiness, and she made his tea for him now more genially than she had done for weeks before. They seated themselves round the table with, perhaps, less constraint than usual—a result due to the smiling aspect of the Captain as well as to the softened sentiment in Lottie’s heart. Once upon a time a family tea was a favourite feature in English literature, from Cowper down to Dickens, not to speak of the more exclusively domestic fiction of which it is the chosen banquet. A great deal has been said of this nondescript (and indigestible) meal. But perhaps there must be a drawing of the curtains, a wheeling-in of the sofa, a suggestion of warmth and comfort in contradistinction to storms and chills outside, as in the Opium-eater’s picture of his cottage, to carry out the ideal—circumstances altogether wanting to the tea of the Despards, which was eaten (passez-moi le mot, for is it not the bread-and-butter that makes the meal?) in the warmest hour of an August afternoon. The window, indeed, was open, and the Dean’s Walk, by which the townspeople were coming and going in considerable numbers, as they always did on Sunday, was visible with its gay groups, and the prospect outside was more agreeable than the meal within. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, next door, had loosed her cap-strings, and fanned herself at intervals as she sipped her tea. “It’s hot, but sure it cools you after,” she was saying to her Major. The Despards, however, were not fat, and did not show the heat like their neighbours. Law sat at the table and pegged away resolutely at his bread-and-butter, having nothing to take his mind off his food, and no very exciting prospect of supper to sustain him. But the Captain took his tea daintily, as one who had heard of a roast fowl and sausages to be ready by nine o’clock, and was, therefore, more or less indifferent to the bread-and-butter. He patted Lottie on the shoulder as she gave him his tea.
“My child,” he said, “I was wrong the other day. It is not every man that would own it so frankly; but I have always been a candid man, though it has damaged me often. When I am in the wrong I am bound to confess it. Take my hand, Lottie, my love. I made a mistake.”
Lottie looked at him surprised. He had taken her hand and held it, shaking it, half-playfully, in his own.
“My love,” he said, “you are not so candid as your poor father. You will get on all the better in the world. I withdraw everything I said, Lottie. All is going well; all is for the best. I make no doubt you can manage your own affairs a great deal better than I. ”
“What is it you mean, papa?”
“We will say no more, my child. I give you free command over yourself. That was a fine anthem this afternoon, and I have no doubt those were well repaid who came from a distance to hear it. Don’t you think so, Lottie? Many people come from a great distance to hear the service in the Abbey, and no doubt the Signor made it known that there was to be such a good anthem to-day.”
Lottie did not make any reply. She looked at him with mingled wonder and impatience. What did he mean? It had not occurred to her to connect Rollo with the anthem, but she perceived by the look on her father’s face that something which would be displeasing to her was in his mind.
“What’s the row?” said Law. “Who was there? I thought it was always the same old lot.”
“And so it is generally the same old lot. We don’t vary; but when pretty girls like Lottie say their prayers regularly heaven sends somebody to hear them. Oh, yes; there is always somebody sent to hear them. But you are quite right to allow nothing to be said about it, my child,” said the Captain. “Not a word, on the honour of a gentleman. Your feelings shall be respected. But it may be a comfort to you, my love, to feel that whatever happens your father is behind you, Lottie—knows and approves. My dear, I say no more. ”
“By Jove! What is it?” cried Law.
“It is nothing to you,” said his father. “But look here, Law. See that you don’t go out all over the place and leave your sister by herself, without anyone to take care of her. My engagements I can’t always give up, but don’t let me hear that there’s nobody to walk across the road with Lottie when she’s asked out.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Law. “I thought they’d had enough of you at the Deanery, Lottie. That’s going to begin again, then, I suppose?”
“I am not invited to the Deanery,” said Lottie, with as much state and solemnity as she could summon up, though she trembled; “neither is it going to begin again. There is no occasion for troubling Law or you either. I always have taken care of myself hitherto, and I suppose I shall do it till the end.”
“You need not get on your high horse, my child,” said Captain Despard, blandly. “Don’t suppose that I will interfere; but it will be a consolation to you to remember that your father is watching over you, and that his heart goes with you,” he added, with an unctuous roll in his voice. He laid his hand for a moment on her head, and said, “Bless you, my love,” before he turned away. The Captain’s emotion was great; it almost brought the tears to his manly eyes.
“What is the row?” said Law, when his father had gone. Law’s attention had been fully occupied during the service with his own affairs, and he did not know of the reappearance of Rollo. “One would think he was going to cry over you, Lottie. What have you done? Engagements! he has always got some engagement or other. I never knew a fellow with such a lot of friends—I shouldn’t wonder if he was going to sup somewhere to-night. I wonder what they can see in him,” said Law, with a sigh.
“Law, are you going out too?”
“Oh, I suppose so; there is nothing to do in the house. What do you suppose a fellow can do? Reading is slow work; and, besides, it’s Sunday, and it’s wrong to work on Sunday. I shall go out and look round a bit, and see if I can see anyone I know.”
“Do you ever think, I wonder,” said Lottie—“papa and you—that if it is so dull for you in the house, it must sometimes be a little dull for me?”
She was not in the habit of making such appeals, but to-night there was courage and a sense of emancipation in her which made her strong.
“You? Oh, well, I don’t know—you are a girl,” said Law, “and girls are used to it. I don’t know what you would do if you wanted to have a little fun, eh? I dare say you don’t know yourself. Yes, I shouldn’t wonder if it was dull; but what can anyone do? It’s nature, I suppose,” said Law. “There isn’t any fun for girls, as there is for us. Well, is there? How should I know? ”
But there was “fun” for Emma and her sisters of the workroom, Law reminded himself with a compunction. “I’ll tell you what, Lottie,” he said hastily; “you must just do as other girls do. You must get some one to walk with you, and talk, and all that, you know. There’s nothing else to be done; and you might have plenty. There’s that singing fellow, that young Purcell; they say he’s in love with you. Well, he’s better than nobody; and you could give him the sack as soon as you saw somebody you liked better. I thought at one time that Ridsdale——”
“I think, Law,” said Lottie, “you had better go out for your walk.”
He laughed. He was half-pleased to have roused and vexed her, yet half-sorry too. Poor Lottie! Now that she was abandoned by her grand admirer and all her fine friends, it must be dull for her, staying in the house by herself; but then what could he do, or anyone? It was nature. Nature, perhaps, might be to blame for not providing “fun” for girls, but it was not for Law to set nature right. When he had got his hat, however, and brushed his hair before going out, he came back and looked at Lottie with a compunction. He could not give up meeting Emma in order to take his sister for a walk, though, indeed, this idea actually did glance across his mind as a rueful possibility. No, he could not go; he had promised Emma to meet her in the woods, and he must keep his word. But he was very sorry for Lottie. What a pity she had not some one of her own—Purcell, if nobody better! and then, when the right one came, she might throw him off. But Law did not dare to repeat his advice to this effect. He went and looked at her remorsefully. Lottie had seated herself upstairs in the little drawing-room; she was leaning her elbow on the ledge of the little deep window, and her head upon her hand. The attitude was pensive; and Law could not help thinking that to be a girl, and sit there all alone looking out of a window instead of roaming about as he did, would be something very terrible. The contrast chilled him and made him momentarily ashamed of himself. But then he reflected that there were a great many people passing up and down, and that he had often heard people say it was amusing to sit at a window. Very likely Lottie thought so; probably, on the whole, she liked that better than going out. This must be the case, he persuaded himself, or else she would have been sure to manage to get some companion; therefore he said nothing to her, but went downstairs very quietly and let himself out softly, not making any noise with the door. Law had a very pleasant walk with Emma under the trees, and enjoyed himself, but occasionally there would pass a shadow over him as he thought of Lottie sitting at the window in the little still house all alone.
But indeed, for that evening at least, Lottie was not much to be pitied. She had her dreams to fall back upon. She had what is absolutely necessary to happiness—not only something to look back to, but something to look forward to. That is the true secret of bliss—something that is coming. With that to support us can we not bear anything? After a while, no doubt, Lottie felt, as she had often felt before, that it was dull. There was not a sound in the little house; everybody was out except herself; and it was Sunday, and she could not get her needlework to occupy her hands and help on her thoughts. As the brightness waned slowly away, and the softness of the evening lights and then the dimness of the approaching dark stole on, Lottie had a great longing to get out of doors; but she could not go and leave the house, for even the maid was out, having her Sunday walk with her young man. It was astonishing how many girls had gone wandering past the window, each with her young man. Not much wonder, perhaps, that Law had suggested this sole way of a little “fun” for a girl. Poor Law! he did not know any better; he did not mean any harm. She laughed now at the suggestion which had made her angry at the time, for to-night Lottie could afford to laugh. But when she heard the maid-servant come in, Lottie, wearied with her long vigil, and longing for a breath of cool air after the confinement of the house, agreed with herself that there would be no harm in taking one little turn upon the slopes. The townspeople had mostly gone. Now and then a couple of the old Chevaliers would come strolling homeward, having taken a longer walk in the calm of the Sunday evening than their usual turn on the Slopes. Captain Temple and his wife had gone by arm-in-arm. Perhaps they had been down to the evening service in the town, perhaps only out for a walk, like everybody else. Gradually the strangers were disappearing; the people that belonged to the Precincts were now almost the only people about, and there was no harm in taking a little walk alone; but it was not a thing Lottie cared much to do. With a legitimate errand she would go anywhere; but for a walk! The girl was shy, and full of all those natural conventional reluctances which cannot be got out of women; but she could not stay in any longer. She went out with a little blue shawl folded like a scarf—as was the fashion of the time—over her shoulders, and flitted quickly along the Dean’s Walk to the slopes. All was sweet in the soft darkness and in the evening dews, the grass moist, the trees or the sky sometimes distilling a palpable dewdrop, the air coming softly over all those miles of country to touch with the tenderest salutation Lottie’s cheek. She looked out upon the little town nestling at the foot of the hill with all its twinkling lights, and upon the stars that shone over the long glimmer of the river, which showed here and there, through all the valley, pale openings of light in the dark country. How sweet and still it was! The openness of the horizon, the distance, was the thing that did Lottie good. She cast her eyes to the very farthest limit of the world that lay within her sight and drew a long breath. Perhaps it was this that caught the attention of some one who was passing. Lottie had seated herself in a corner under a tree, and she did not see this wayfarer, who was behind her; and the reader knows that she did not sigh for sorrow, but only to relieve a bosom which was very full of fanciful anticipations, hopes, and dreams. It was not likely, however, that Mr. Ashford would know that. He too was taking his evening walk; and when he heard the sigh in which so many tender and delicious fancies exhaled into the air, he thought—who could wonder?—that it was somebody in trouble; and, drawing a little nearer to see if he could help, as was the nature of the man, found to his great surprise—as she, too, startled, turned round her face upon him—that it was Lottie Despard who was occupying the seat which was his favourite seat also. They both said “I beg your pardon” simultaneously, though it would be hard to tell why.
“I think I have seen you here before,” he said. “You like this time of the evening, Miss Despard, like myself—and this view?”
“Yes,” said Lottie; “but I have been sitting indoors all the afternoon, and got tired of it at last. I did not like to come out all by myself; but I thought no one would see me now.”
“Surely you may come here in all safety by yourself.” The Minor Canon had too much good breeding to suggest any need of a companion or any pity for the girl left alone. Then he said suddenly, “This is an admirable chance for me. The first time we met, Miss Despard, you mentioned something about which you wished to consult me——”
“Ah!” cried Lottie, coming back out of her dreams. Yes, she had wanted to consult him, and the opportunity must not be neglected. “It was about Law, Mr. Ashford. Law—his name is Lawrence, you know, my brother; he is a great boy, almost a man—more than eighteen. But I am afraid he is very backward. I want him so very much to stand his examination. It seems that nothing—nothing can be done without that now.”
“His examination—for what?”
“Oh, Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, “for anything! I don’t mind what it is. I thought, perhaps, if you would take him it would make him see the good of working. We are—poor; I need not make any fuss about saying that; here we are all poor; and if I could but see Law in an office earning his living, I think,” cried Lottie, with the solemnity of a martyr, “I think I should not care what happened. That was all. I wanted him to come to you, that you might tell us what he would be fit for.”
“He would make a good soldier,” said Mr. Ashford, smiling; “though there is an examination for that too.”
“There are examinations for everything, I think,” said Lottie, shaking her head mournfully; “that is the dreadful thing; and you see, Mr. Ashford, we are poor. He has not a penny; he must work for his living; and how is he to get started? That is what I am always saying. But what is the use of speaking? You know what boys are. Perhaps if I had been able to insist upon it years ago—but then I was very young too. I had no sense, any more than Law.”
The Minor Canon was greatly touched. The evening dew got into his eyes—he stood by her in the soft summer darkness, wondering. He was a great deal older than Lottie—old enough to be her father, he said to himself; but he had no one to give him this keen, impatient anxiety, this insight into what boys are. “Was there no one but you to insist upon it?” he said, in spite of himself.
“Well,” said Lottie meditatively, “do gentlemen—generally—take much trouble about what boys are doing? I suppose they have got other things to think of.”
“You have not much opinion of men, Miss Despard,” said the Minor Canon, with a half-laugh.
“Oh, indeed I have!” cried Lottie. “Why do you say that? I was not thinking about men—but only—— And then boys themselves, Mr. Ashford; you know what they are. Oh! I think sometimes if I could put some of me into him. But you can’t do that. You may talk, and you may coax, and you may scold, and try every way—but what does it matter? If a boy won’t do anything, what is to be done with him? That is why I wanted so much, so very much, to bring him to you.”
“Miss Despard,” said the Minor Canon, “you may trust me that if there is anything I can do for him I will do it. As it happens, I am precisely in want of some one to—to do the same work as another pupil I have. That would be no additional trouble to me, and would not cost anything. Don’t you see? Let him come to me to-morrow and begin.”
“Oh, Mr. Ashford,” said Lottie, “I knew by your face you were kind—but how very, very good you are! But then,” she added sorrowfully, “most likely he could not do the same work as your other pupil. I am afraid he is very backward. If I were to tell you what he is doing you might know. He is reading Virgil—a book about as big as himself,” she said, with a little laugh, that was very near crying. “Won’t you sit down here?”
“Virgil is precisely the book my other pupil is doing,” said Mr. Ashford, laughing too, very tenderly, at her small joke, poor child! while she made room for him anxiously on the bench. There they sat together for a minute in silence—all alone, as it might be, in the world, nothing but darkness round them, faint streaks of light upon the horizon, distant twinkles of stars above and homely lamps below. The man’s heart softened strangely within him over this creature, who, for all the pleasure she had, came out here, and apologised to him for coming alone. She who, neglected by everybody, had it in her to push forward the big lout of a brother into worthy life, putting all her delicate strength to that labour of Hercules—he felt himself getting quite foolish, moved beyond all his experiences of emotion, as, at her eager invitation, he sat down there by her side.
And as he did so other voices and steps became audible among the trees of somebody coming that way. Lottie had turned to him, and was about to say something, when the sound of the approaching voices reached them. He could see her start—then draw herself erect, close into the corner of the bench. The voices were loudly pitched, and attempted no concealment.
“La, Captain, how dark it is! Let’s go home; mother will be looking for us,” said one.
“My dear Polly,” said the other—and though Mr. Ashford did not know Captain Despard, he divined the whole story in a moment as the pair brushed past arm-in-arm—“my dear Polly, your home will be very close at hand next time I bring you here.”
Lottie said nothing—her heart jumped up into her throat, beating so violently that she could not speak. And to the Minor Canon the whole family story seemed to roll out like the veiled landscape before him as he looked compassionately at the girl sitting speechless by his side, while her father and his companion, all unconscious in the darkness, brushed against her, sitting there unseen under the shadowy trees.