CAPTAIN DESPARD put on his best coat after his return from the Abbey on the morning of Rollo’s departure. He brushed his hat with more than his usual care; he found, after much investigation, among what he called his papers, an ancient and shabby card-case: and thus equipped set forth on his solemn mission. He had a bit of red geranium in his button-hole which looked cheerful against the damp and gloom of the morning. Polly, looking out after him, thought her Captain a finished gentleman, and felt a swell of pride expand her bosom—of pride and of anxiety as well—for if, by good fortune, the Captain should succeed in his mission, then Polly felt that there would be a reasonable chance of getting “her house to herself.” Lottie’s proud withdrawal from all the concerns of the house had indeed given her step-mother a great deal less trouble than she had expected; but she could not escape from the idea of Lottie’s criticism; and the sight of the girl, sitting there, looking as if she knew better, though she never said anything, was to Polly as gall and wormwood. If she would have spoken, there would have been less harm. Mrs. Despard was always ready for a conflict of tongues, and knew that she was not likely to come off second best; but Lottie’s silence exasperated her; and it was the highest object of her desires to get her house to herself. Lottie was coming down the Dean’s Walk, calm, and relieved, and happy, after seeing her lover make his way down the Slopes, when the Captain turned towards the cloisters. Her heart gave a jump of irritation and excitement, followed by a gleam of angry pleasure. This mission, which was an insult to her and to Rollo alike, would be a failure, thank Heaven; but still it was a shame that it should ever have been undertaken. Oh, how unlike, she thought, the perfect trust and faith that was between them, to intrude this vulgar inquiry, this coarse interference, into the perfection of their love! It brought the tears to Lottie’s eyes to think how ready he was to throw prudence to the winds for her sake, to accept all the risks of life rather than leave her to suffer; the only question between them being whether it was right for her to accept such a sacrifice. Lottie did not think of the approval of his family as she ought to have done, and as for the approval of her own, though the secret vexed her a little, yet she was glad to escape from the noisy congratulations to which she would have been subjected, and her fathe r’s unctuous satisfaction had her prospects been known. A few days longer, and the new wife whose presence was an offence to Lottie would have her house to herself. The two, upon such opposite sides, used the very same words; Lottie, too, was thankful above measure that Mrs. Despard would have her house to herself. She calculated the days—Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; Friday was the day on which she was to meet him, in the afternoon, while all the world at St. Michael’s was at the afternoon service, and when the Signor, on the organ, which had been the accompaniment to all the story of their love, would be filling the wintry air with majestic and tender and solemn sound. She seemed to hear the pealing of that wonderful symphony, and Rollo’s voice against it, like a figure standing out against a noble background, telling her all he had done, and when and how the crowning event of their story was to be. Her heart was beating loudly, yet softly, in Lottie’s breast. Supreme expectation, yet satisfaction, an agitated calm, a pathetic happiness, feelings too exquisite in their kind to be without a touch of pain, filled all her being. The happiness she had most prized all her life was to have her ideal fulfilled in those she loved; and was it possible that any man could have more nobly done what a true lover should do, than Rollo was doing it? She was happy, in that he loved her above prudence and care and worldly advantage; but she was almost happier in that this generosity, this tender ardour, this quick and sudden action of the deliverer, was all that poet could have asked or imagination thought of. These were her fancies, poor girl; the fancies of a foolish, inexperienced creature, knowing nothing—and far enough from the truth that the charitable may forgive her, Heaven knows!
When she went in, Polly called her, with a certain imperiousness. She was on her way to her room, that sole bower of safety; but this Mrs. Despard had made up her mind not to allow. “You may show me those scales you were speaking of,” said Polly. “I daresay I’ll remember as soon as I see them. It will take up your attention, and it will take up my attention till your pa comes back. I’m that full of sympathy (though it can’t be said as you deserve it), that though I have nothing to do with it, I am just as anxious as you are.”
“I am not anxious,” Lottie said proudly; but she would not condescend to say more. She brought out an old music-book with easy lessons for a beginner, at which she had herself laboured in her childhood, and placed it before her scholar. The notes were like Hebrew and Greek to Polly, and she could not twist her fingers into the proper places; these fingers were not like a child’s pliable joints, and how to move each one separately was a problem which she could not master. She sat at the piano with the greatest seriousness, striking a note a minute, with much strain of the unaccustomed hand—and now and then looking up jealously to see if her instructress was laughing at her; but Lottie was too preoccupied to smile. She heard her father coming back in what she felt to be angry haste; and then, with her heart beating, listened to his step upon the stairs. At this Polly too was startled, and jumping up from her laborious exercise, snatched the old music-book from its place and opened it at random at another page.
“Me and Miss Lottie, we’ve been practising our duet,” she said. “La, Harry! is that you back so soon?”
“The fellow’s gone,” said Captain Despard, throwing down his hat and cane; that hat which had been brushed for nothing, which had not even overawed Mr. Jeremie, who gazed at him superciliously, holding the Deanery door half open, and not impressed at all by the fine manners of the Chevalier. “The fellow’s gone! He did not mean to go yesterday, that odious menial as good as confessed. He has heard I was coming, and he has fled. There could not be a worse sign. My poor child! Lottie!” said the Captain, suddenly catching a gleam of something like enjoyment in her eyes, “you do not mean to tell me that you were the traitor. You! Was it you told him? You may be a fool, but so great a fool as that couldn’t be!”
Lottie scorned to deny what she had done. She was too proud and too rash to think that she was betraying herself by the acknowledgment. She met her father’s eye with involuntary defiance. “You would not listen to me,” she said, “and I could not bear it. It was a disgrace; it was humbling me to the dust. I warned him you were coming——” As she spoke she suddenly perceived all that was involved in the confession, and grew crimson-red, and then pale.
“So, miss,” said Polly, “you’re nicely caught. Keeping company all this time, and never to say a word to nobody; but if I were your pa, you shouldn’t be let off like that. Was it for nothing but a bit of fun you’ve been going on with the gentleman? That’s carrying it a deal too far, that is. And when your pa takes it in hand to bring him to the point, you ups and tells him, and frightens him away! I’d just like to know—and, Harry, I’d have you to ask her—what she means by it? What do you mean by it, miss? Do you mean to live on here for ever, and eat us out of house and home? If you won’t work for your living, nor do anything to get an ’usband, I’d just like to know what you mean to do?”
“Hold your tongue,” said her husband. “Let her alone. It is I that must speak. Lottie, is it really true that you have betrayed your father? You have separated yourself from me and put yourself on the side of a villain!”
“Mr. Ridsdale is not a villain,” said Lottie, passionately. “What has he done? He has done nothing that can give you any right to interfere with him. I told him, because I would not have him interfered with. He has done nothing wrong.”
“He has trifled with my child’s affections,” said the Captain. “He has filled our minds with false expectations. By Jove, he had better not come in the way of Harry Despard, if that’s how he means to behave. I’ll horsewhip the fellow—I’ll kill him; I’ll show him up, if he were twenty times the Dean’s nephew. And you, girl, what can anyone say to you—never thinking of your own interest, or of what’s to become of you, as Mrs. Despard says?”
“Her own interest!” cried Polly. “Oh, she’ll take care of herself, never fear. She knows you won’t turn her to the door, Harry. You’re too soft, and they knows it. They’ll hang upon you and eat up everything you have, till you have the courage to tell them as you won’t put up with it. Oh, you needn’t turn upon me, Miss Lottie. As long as there was a chance of a good ’usband I never said a word; but when you goes and throws your chance away out of wilful pride, then I’m bound to speak. Your poor pa has not a penny, and all that he has he wants for himself; and I want my house to myself, Harry; you always promised I was to have my house to myself. I don’t want none of your grown-up daughters, as think themselves a deal better than me. I think I will go out of my mind with Miss Lottie’s lessons, and Mr. Law’s lessons, and all the rest. I never would have married you—you know I shouldn’t—if I hadn’t thought as I was to have my house to myself.”
“My love,” said the Captain, deprecatingly, “you know it is not my fault. You know that if I could I would give you everything. I had very good reason to think——”
“Papa,” said Lottie, who had been standing by trembling, but less with fear than passionate disgust and anger, “do you agree in what she says?”
“Of course he agrees,” says Polly. “He hasn’t got any choice; he’s obliged to say the same as me. He promised me when I married him as you shouldn’t be long in my way. He told me as you was going to be married. One girl don’t like another girl for everlasting in her road; and you never took no trouble to make yourself agreeable, not even about the music. Harry, do you hear me? Speak up, and say the truth for once. Tell her if she goes on going against me and you, and all we do for her, like this, that you won’t have her here. ”
“My child,” said the Captain, who, to do him justice, was by no means happy in his task, “you see me in a difficult position, a most difficult position. What can I say? Mrs. Despard is right. When I married it was my opinion that you, too, would soon make a happy and brilliant marriage. How far that influenced me I need not say. I thought you would be established yourself, and able to help your brother and—and even myself. I’m disappointed, I cannot deny it; and if you have now, instead of fulfilling my expectations, done your best, your very best, to balk——”
The Captain hesitated and faltered, and tried to swagger, but in vain. He had the traditions of a gentleman lingering about him, and Lottie was his child, when all was said. He could not look at her, or meet her eyes; and Lottie, for her part, who could see nothing but from her own side of the question, who did not at all realise his, nor recognise any extenuating circumstances in the plea that he had thought her about to marry, so blazed upon him with lofty indignation as to have altogether consumed her father had he been weak enough to look at her. She did not even glance at Polly, who stood by, eager to rush into the fray.
“In that case,” she said, with a passionate solemnity, “you shall be satisfied, papa. A few days and you shall be satisfied. I will not ask any shelter from you after—a few days.”
Though it was happiness Lottie looked forward to, and there could no longer in this house be anything but pain and trouble for her, these words seemed to choke her. To leave her father’s house thus; to make the greatest of changes in her life, thus; all Lottie’s sense of what was fit and seemly was wounded beyond description. She turned away, listening to none of the questions which were showered upon her. “What did she mean? Where was she going? When did she intend to go? What was she thinking of?” To all these Lottie made no reply; she did not even wait to hear them, but swept away with something of the conscious stateliness of the injured, which it is so hard for youth to deny itself. Heaven knows her heart was full enough; yet there was in Lottie’s deportment, as she swept out of the room, perhaps a touch of the injured heroine, a suggestion of a tragedy queen.
She went into her own room, where she found consolation very speedily in such preparations for her departure as she could make. She took out her white muslin dress, the simple garment which was so associated with thoughts of Rollo, and spent an hour of painful yet pleasant consideration over it, wondering how it could be made to serve for Saturday. Such a marriage made the toilette of a bride impossible; but Lottie could not bear the thought of standing by her lover’s side, and pledging him her faith, in her poor little brown frock which she had worn all the winter past. She thought that, carefully pinned up under her cloak, she might wear this, her only white gown, to be a little like a bride. It had been washed, but it had not suffered much. The folds might be a little stiffer and less flowing than before they had undergone the indignity of starch; but still they were fresh and white, and Lottie did not think it would be noticed that the dress was not new. Perhaps it was more appropriate that in her poverty and desolation she should go to him in the gown she had worn, not in one made new and lovely, as if there were people who cared. “Nobody cares,” she said to herself, but without the usual depression which these words convey. She filled up the bodice of her little dress, which had been made open at the throat for evening use, and made it fit close. She put her pearl locket upon a bit of white ribbon. Doing this consoled her for the pangs she had borne. All the money she had of her own was one sovereign, which she had kept from the time of her mother’s death as a last supreme resource in case of emergency; surely she might use it now. Taking this precious coin from the little old purse in which it was put away, in the deepest corner of an old Indian box, purse and box and coin all coming from her mother, Lottie went out to make a few purchases. She was forlorn, but her heart was light. She went down to the great shop not far from the Abbey gates, of which St. Michael’s was proud, and bought some tulle and white ribbons. Poor child! her heart yearned for a little sprig of orange-blossom, but she did not venture to ask for anything that would betray her. It seemed to Lottie that she met everybody in the place as she went home with her little parcel in her hand. She met Mr. Ashford, for one, who was greatly surprised that she did not stop to speak to him about Law, and who was, indeed, to tell the truth, somewhat disappointed and chagrined that his liberality to his pupil had as yet met with no response except from that pupil himself. The Minor Canon looked at her wistfully; but Lottie, being full of her own thoughts, did nothing but smile in reply to his bow. Then she met Captain Temple, who, less shy, came to her side eagerly, complaining and upbraiding her that she had deserted him.
“I never see you,” said the old man, “and my wife says the same, who takes so much interest in you. We hope, my dear,” he said, kind yet half vexed with her, “that all is going better—going well now?”
“Indeed it is not, Captain Temple,” Lottie said, tears coming suddenly to her eyes. She could not but wonder what he would think of her if he knew—if he would disapprove of her; and this sudden thought brought a look of anxiety and sudden emotion into her face.
“My poor child!” cried the old Chevalier. The ready moisture sprang to his eyes also. “Lottie,” he said, “my wife takes a great interest in you; she would be very fond of you if she knew you better. Come to us, my dear, and we will take care of you.” He said it with the fervour of uncertainty, for he was not sure, after all, how far he could calculate on his wife, and this gave a tremulous heat to his proposition.
But Lottie shook her head and smiled, though the tears were in her eyes. Oh, if she only dared to tell him what was the deliverance which was so near! He went with her to her door, repeating to her this offer of service.
“You might be like our own child,” he said. “My wife cannot talk of it—but she would be very fond of you, my dear, when she knew you. If things go on badly, you will come to us?—say you will come to us, Lottie.”
And while these words were in her ears, old Mrs. Dalrymple came out to her door, to ask if Lottie would not come in, if she would come to tea—if she would stay with them for a day or two.
“It is only next door, to be sure; but it would be a change,” the old lady said. The ladies in the Lodges had forgiven her for her foolish pride, and for the notice the great people had taken of her, and for all the signs of discontent that Lottie had shown on her first coming to the Abbey. Now that the girl was in trouble they were all good to her, compassionate of her forlorn condition, and making common cause with her against the infliction of the stepmother, who was an insult to every one of them. There was not one Chevalier’s wife who was not personally insulted, outraged in her most tender feelings, by the intrusion of Polly, and this quickened their sympathies to the poor girl, who was the most cruelly injured of all.
When Mrs. O’Shaughnessy saw the little group at her neighbour’s door, she too came out. “It’s her own fault, my dear lady, if she ever eats a meal there,” said Mrs. O’Shaughnessy; “me and the Major, we are both as fond of her as if she was our own.”
Lottie stood amongst them and cried softly, taking care that her tears did not drop upon the little parcel with the tulle, which was connected with still dearer hopes.
“I don’t deserve that you should all be so good to me,” she said. And indeed it was true; for Lottie had been very haughty in her time to the kind people who forgave her in her trouble.
Thus it was that she shared the dinner of the good O’Shaughnessys, and only went home in the afternoon, after Polly and the Captain had been seen to go out; when Lottie shut herself up in her room, and with much excitement began the “confection” for which she had bought the materials. It is needless to say that with so little money as she had ever had, Lottie had learnt, tant bien que mal, to make most of her own articles of apparel. How she had sighed to have her dresses come home all complete from the dressmaker’s, like Augusta Huntington’s! but as sighing did no good, Lottie had fitted herself with her gowns, and trimmed her little straw hats, and the occasional bonnet which she permitted herself for going to church in, since ever she was able to use her needle and her scissors. She had never, however, made anything so ambitious as the little tulle bonnet which she meant to be married in. She would have preferred a veil, could anyone doubt? but with no better tiring-room than the waiting-room at the railway, how was she to put herself into a veil? She had to give up that idea with a sigh. But, her pale cheeks glowing with two roses, and her blue eyes lighted up with the fires of invention, she sat all the afternoon, with her door locked, making that bonnet. If she but had a little sprig of orange-blossom to mark what it meant! but here Lottie’s courage failed her. That she could not venture to buy.
In this way the days glided on till Friday came. Lottie packed up the things she cared for—the few books, the little trifling possessions of no value, which yet were dear to her to be removed afterwards, and put up her little bonnet (bonnets were worn very small, the fashion books said) in a tiny parcel which she could carry in her hand. Thus all her preparations were made. When she was not in her room making these last arrangements, she was out of doors—in the Abbey or on the Slopes—or with the friends who sought her so kindly, and gave her such meals as she would accept, and would have given her a great many more, overwhelmed her, indeed, with eating and drinking if she would have consented. To some of these Lottie allowed herself the privilege of saying that it was only for a few days she should remain in her father’s house. She would not tell where she was going; to friends—yes, certainly to friends; but she would not say any more. This gave great relief to the minds of the Chevaliers generally, except to Captain Temple, who did not like it. The announcement even drew from him something like a reproach to his wife.
“If you had come forward—if you had gone to her when she was in trouble,” he said, “we might have had a child again to comfort us.” The old Captain was sadly put out, and did nothing but roam about all the day restless and lamenting. He went to the Signor’s to hear what Lottie thought would be her last lesson, and thus bemoaned himself.
“Going away!” the Signor said in great surprise; and Lottie sang so well that day that the musician felt the desertion doubly. She sang fitfully but finely, saying to herself all the time, “To-morrow—to-morrow!” and taking her leave, as she supposed, joyfully, regretfully of Art. That day Lottie thought nothing whatever about Art. Her spirit was moved to its very depths. To-morrow the man whom she loved was coming to take her away from all that was petty, all that was unlovely in her life. From the hardness of fate, from the unkindness of her family, from the house that was desecrated, from the existence which was not made sweet by any love—he was coming to deliver her. The air was all excitement, all agitation, to Lottie. It was not so much that she was glad—happiness was in it, and trouble, and regret, and agitation, made up by all these together. It was life in its strongest strain, tingling, throbbing, at the highest pressure. The earth was elastic under her feet, the whole world was full of this which was about to happen; and how she sang! Those lessons of hers were as a drama to the Signor, but he did not understand this art. He had understood the struggle she made to get hold of her powers on the day when Rollo was not there, and Lottie had made a proud, forlorn attempt to devote herself to Song, as Song; he had understood the confusion and bewildered discouragement of the day when Mrs. Daventry assisted at the lesson; but this time the Signor was puzzled. There was nothing to excite her, only Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Captain Temple, listeners who cared nothing for art, but only for Lottie; yet how she sang! He made her a little solemn compliment, almost for the first time.
“Miss Despard,” he said, “you change from lesson to lesson—it is always another voice I hear; but this is the one I should like to retain; this is the one that shows what wonderful progress we have made.”
Lottie smiled in a way which nearly won the Signor’s steady heart. A golden dazzlement of light got into her eyes, as if the slanting afternoon sun was in them. She did not speak, but she gave him her hand—a thing which was very rare with Lottie. The Signor was flattered and touched; but he would not have been so flattered had he known that she was saying to herself, “It is the last time—it is the last!”
Mr. Ashford met the party coming out, and walked with them along the north side of the Abbey and through the cloisters. He could not make out why Lottie said nothing to him about her brother. To tell the truth, he wanted to have something for his money, and it did not seem that he was likely to get anything. He said to her at last, abruptly, “I hope you think Law is likely to do well, Miss Despard?”
“Law?” she said, looking up with wondering eyes.
He was so confounded by her look of bewilderment that he did not say anything more.
Next day dawned bright and fair, as it ought. A fair, clear, sunny winter’s day—not a leaf, even of those few that hung upon the ends of the boughs, stirring—not a cloud. Earth in such a day seems hanging suspended in the bright sphere, not certain yet whether she will turn back again to the careless summer, or go through her winter spell of storm duty. Lottie had all her preparations made; her dress ready to put on in the morning; her little bonnet done up in a parcel incredibly small, a veil looped about it; and the great cloak, a homely waterproof, which was to cover her from head to foot, and conceal her finery, hung out all ready. Everything ready—nothing now to be done but to meet him on the Slopes, and to hear how all had been settled, and arrange for the final meeting on the wedding morning. Even her railway fare, so many shillings, was put ready. She would not let him pay even that for her until she belonged to him. She went out with the dreamy sweetness of the approaching climax in her eyes when the last rays of the sunset were catching all the Abbey pinnacles. She scarcely saw the path over which her light feet skimmed. The people who passed her glided like the people in a dream; the absorbing sweet agitation of happiness and fear, and hope and content, was in all her veins; her eyes were suffused with light as eyes get suffused with tears—an indescribable elation and alarm, sweet panic, yet calm, was in her breast. Mr. Ashford met her going along, swift and light, and with that air of abstraction from everything around her. She did not see him, nor anyone; but she remembered after, that she had seen him, and the very turn of the road where he made a half pause to speak to her, which she had not taken any notice of. In this soft rapture Lottie went to the corner of the bench under the elm-tree. It was too early, but she placed herself there to wait till he should come to her. This was the place where he was certain to come. By-and-by she would hear his step, skimming too, almost as light and quick as her own—or hear him vaulting over the low wall from the Deanery—or perhaps, to attract less notice, coming up the winding way from the Slopes. Where she sat was within reach of all the three. It was a little chilly now that the sun had gone down, but Lottie did not feel it. She sat down with a smile of happy anticipation on her face, hearing the Abbey bells in the clear frosty air, and then the bursting forth of the organ and all the strains of the music. These filled up her thoughts for the time, and it was not till the larger volume of sound of the voluntary put Lottie in mind of the length of time she had waited, that she woke up to think of the possibility that something might have detained her lover. It was strange that he should be so late. The light was waning, and the sounds about were eerie; the wind that had lain so still all day woke up, and wandered chilly among the bare shrubberies, tossing off the late leaves. She shivered a little with the cold and the waiting. Why did not he come? the hour of stillness was passing fast, the organ pealing, the light fading moment by moment. Why was not Rollo here?
At last there was a step. It was not light and quick like his step; but something might have happened to make it sound differently—something in the air, or something in him, some gravity of movement befitting the importance of the occasion. So anxiety beguiles itself, trying to believe what it wishes. The step came nearer, and Lottie roused herself, a little alarmed, wondering if anything (she could not tell what) could have happened to him—and looked round. A figure—a man coming her way—her heart jumped into her throat, then sank down, down, with a flutter of fright and pain. It was not Rollo—but what then? it might be only some chance passer-by, not having anything to do with her and him. Another moment, and she waited with an agonised hope that he was passing along without taking any notice, and that he had indeed nothing at all to do with her. But the steady step came on—nearer, nearer. She raised her head, she opened her eyes that had been veiled in such sweet dreams, with a wideness of fear and horror. What could he have to do with her? What had he come to tell her? The man came up to her straight, without any hesitation. He said, “Are you Miss Despard, ma’am? I was sent to give you this from my lord.”
My lord—who was my lord? She took it with a gasp of terror. It was not Rollo that was my lord. The man, a middle-aged, respectable servant, gave her a look of grave pity and went away. Lottie sat still for a moment with the letter in her hand, thinking with wild impatience that the sound of those heavy departing steps would prevent her from hearing Rollo’s light ones when he came. My lord—who was my lord? Suddenly an idea seized upon her. The light was almost gone. She tore the letter open, and read it by the faint chill shining of the skies, though it was almost too dark to see.