Lottie had proceeded more than half of her way to Axe before her mind could realize her strange position, and the difficulties in which it must involve her. Her first thought had been of her father, her next of her young mistress; but every step that Lottie now took seemed to open to her a new complication of troubles. She had lost her place, and how could she expect to find a new one while she was utterly unable to explain why she had so suddenly left the last? What should she say to Mr. Eardley, who had taken such fatherly care to provide for her welfare? Poor Lottie became so utterly perplexed by her troubles, her first secret weighed on her frank honest nature as such an intolerable chain, that she could hardly think of physical weariness or discomfort, though the distance to Axe was long to be traversed by a fasting girl; and ere Lottie came in sight of the quaint little town, a shower which wet her clothes through and through.
The world was beginning to show signs of being astir as Lottie entered the High Street of Axe; tradesmen’s boys were taking down their shutters, the milkmaid was passing with her pails; the rain had ceased, and the clear morning sun was gleaming on the windows of the houses.
“Why, Lottie Stone, what ever brings you here at this ’ere hour of the day?” exclaimed Mrs. Green, the cobbler’s stout wife, over whose little shop Deborah had her lodging.
Lottie muttered something, she knew not what, as she hurried through the shop. She ran up the steep dark staircase, and entered the room of her mother, whom she found in bonnet and shawl, with an old carpet-bag in her hand, as if about to set out on a journey. Deborah started at the unexpected entrance of her daughter, all wet with the rain, and flushed with excitement and the fatigue of a long, weary walk.
“O mother, here, here’s for father!” exclaimed Lottie, eagerly holding out the five sovereigns which Mr. Gritton had given her.
“It is from God!” cried Deborah; “He has sent it—praise be to His goodness! Lottie, I’ve scarce a minute to tell you of it, for I must be off to catch the train, but I’m a-going to Southampton myself.”
“To Southampton!” echoed Lottie in surprise.
“Yes; there was another letter yesterday, not from my poor Abner, but from his landlord: your father’s worse again—very ill; I’ve been a-borrowing, and begging, and scraping, and I’ve just got money enough for the journey; but these here five pounds have come as a blessing from Heaven! Mrs. Green has promised to do the ironing, and to tidy up things while I’m away—”
“She need do nothing; I’m here, I’ve left my place,” said Lottie.
“Left your place!” exclaimed Deborah, dropping on the table the five gold pieces which her daughter had brought.
“Left your place!” repeated Mrs. Green, who had followed Lottie up the stairs, and who now turned a very inquisitive look on the money which had so unexpectedly and unaccountably been added to her neighbour’s little store.
Mrs. Stone had no time for questioning, though Lottie’s few words had laid a fresh burden of care on her grief-worn spirit. On Mrs. Green’s informing her that “she’d better be off sharp, or she’d miss the train,” Deborah caught up her money and her carpet-bag, bade a hurried good-bye to her daughter and her son, and hastened off to the station. Mrs. Green remained in the little room, determined, as she said to herself, “to get to the bottom of the business.”
“I say, Lottie,” she observed to the weary girl, who was taking off her wet bonnet and cloak, “was it you as brought them ’ere sovereigns to your mother?”
“Yes,” said the unsuspicious Lottie, wishing heartily that the stout landlady would go and leave her to rest and collect her thoughts.
“You’ve hardly earned ’em yet as wages, I take it.” The shrewd, sharp, questioning look of the woman put the young girl on her guard.
“How did you manage to get them, eh?” pursued Mrs. Green, peering into the face of Lottie with an expression of suspicion which covered that face in a moment with a scarlet flush of indignation.
“I can’t tell you—what is it to you?—I got them honestly, you may be sure of that,” stammered forth Lottie, as she pushed back the black hair from her heated cheeks.
“Did your master give ’em to you? he’s not the kind of man for that sort of thing, or the world does him injustice.”
“Mrs. Green, would you be so kind as to leave us for a little,” said Lottie desperately; “I am very, very, very tired, and—;” she knew not how to finish her sentence.
The cobbler’s wife did not seem in the least inclined to go. She shook her head gravely, looked hard at the girl, and then shook her head again. “Better be open at once, Lottie Stone, you know I’m your friend; I know all about your father, poor man! If you’ve been a bit tempted, and—”
LOTTIE AND MRS. GREEN.
“The money is honestly mine—every penny of it—how dare you say such things?” exclaimed the indignant girl.
“Well, then, you’ve only to tell the simple truth how you came by it; there’s nothing to flare up about,” said Mrs. Green, putting her stout arms akimbo.
“I’m not going to tell nothing; I want to be left quiet,” cried Lottie, who felt much inclined to burst into a passion of tears; while her simple brother looked on in surprise, rubbing his shock of hair, as he was wont to do when perplexed.
A third time Mrs. Green shook her head; solemnly, ominously she shook it. “Well,” she muttered, “if girls will behave like that, after all the schooling, and praying, and preaching, and—;” the rest of the observation was unheard by the Stones, as their landlady had left the room as she uttered it, slamming the door behind her. Lottie knew by her manner that the cobbler’s wife was offended; and was convinced that within an hour the story of the five sovereigns would be spread all over Axe, as was already that of Abner’s arrival at Southampton, Deborah, in her efforts to procure money for her journey, having found it impossible to obey her husband’s injunction of secrecy.
“Lottie, how did you get all that money?” asked her brother, as soon as Mrs. Green’s heavy clumping step was heard descending the stair.
“Oh, don’t you be a-worritting me too, Steady!” exclaimed Lottie, calling the lad by a name which Arthur Madden had given to him in the class, and which had clung to him, from its appropriateness, till it had almost superseded his own.
Steady was not wont to “worrit” any one, and least of all the sister to whose brighter intelligence he had habitually looked up through his clouded boyhood, and whom he heartily loved. He was easily silenced, but not easily relieved. He sat down by the casement to his usual occupation of cutting pegs, but ever and anon a heavy sigh came from the poor youth’s breast.
“You’re troubled about father?” asked Lottie, who was laying out the rough-dried linen which she was about to iron for her mother.
“I warn’t a-thinking of father, but of that money,” replied the lad, in his slow, measured drawl: he had difficulty in putting even the most simple thought into words.
“Steady, surely you know me, you can trust me!” cried Lottie, with a swelling heart.
“I does trust you,” said the lad emphatically, “but other folk won’t;” and with another sigh he relapsed into silence.
Very sadly Lottie pursued her occupation of ironing. “Oh,” thought she, “I wish that I could smooth away all these difficulties, as I press down the creases out of this linen! Father ill—Mr. Arthur dying—mother away—and then this dreadful, dreadful promise! Oh, that I never had made it!”
“Here’s Mr. Eardley a-coming,” said young Stone, looking out of the window.
For the first time the sound of her pastor’s name was unwelcome to Lottie, for the first time in her life she dreaded an interview with the clergyman. What could she say to him, how explain to him what must appear so mysterious and strange?
Mr. Eardley crossed the road, and did not, as Lottie earnestly hoped, pass the door of the cobbler’s shop. She heard his foot on the stair, his tap at the door of the room. Lottie laid down her iron, courtesied on the entrance of the clergyman, and remained with her eyes fixed on the ground, her fingers nervously twitching the linen which lay on the table beside her. She was not sufficiently collected to think of offering her pastor a chair.
“Lottie, I am sorry to hear that you have left your place,” said Mr. Eardley. “You seemed to be so happy and contented when I spoke to you last Sunday, that I hoped that you would remain for many years at the Lodge, and become in time a valuable servant.” Mr. Eardley’s address was fatherly and kind, but Lottie’s only reply was in the big tears which rolled slowly down her flushed cheeks.
“Come, my child, speak frankly to one who has your true welfare at heart. Did you displease your lady? or had you some little difference with your fellow-servant?”
Mr. Eardley paused for an answer, but no answer came.
“O Lottie, speak out!” cried her brother, who had a child-like faith in the wisdom as well as the kindness of their pastor.
Mr. Eardley was both perplexed and distressed by the strange reserve shown by one whose disposition he had hitherto found clear as daylight. He had heard in an exaggerated form the story of the money which Lottie had brought from Wildwaste, and very painful suspicions began to arise in his mind. Yet the clergyman shrank at first from saying a word that might appear like a charge of dishonesty against one whose character had hitherto been without a stain.
“What did your lady say to your leaving her?”
“Nothing,” was trembling upon the lips of the girl, but Lottie pressed them together, and kept silent. She was aware that if by answering questions she were led into telling anything, she would gradually be drawn into telling all; it was only by preserving silence that she could possibly preserve the secret which she had solemnly promised to keep.
“Lottie, why don’t you speak?” cried Steady in real distress.
“Miss Gritton appears to be so gentle and kind,” pursued the clergyman.
“She’s an angel! I’d die for her!” interrupted Lottie, fairly breaking down, and bursting into a fit of loud sobbing.
“Do you not think that, if you have displeased her, she might be persuaded to overlook a fault, and take you back?” suggested Mr. Eardley, glad that at least the girl’s obstinate silence was broken.
“I can’t go back!” sobbed Lottie.
“And wherefore not?” inquired Mr. Eardley.
“Lottie, do, do speak,” pleaded her brother.
The poor girl was in bitter distress. A false idea of honour has led many a duellist to face the fire of an enemy, but never did the most nervous spirit more shrink from such an ordeal than did that of the little servant-maid from that which she now had to pass through. Influenced by the highest sense of honour—conscientious respect for a promise—Lottie stood the mark of questions, each of which seemed to strike her in the tenderest part. She had more than filial reverence for her pastor: to stand well in his favour, to do credit to his care, had been one of the highest objects of her ambition; to grieve, displease, disappoint him, was misery to which she could hardly have believed it possible that she should ever be exposed. Mr. Eardley, on his part, found the interview very painful. He had regarded Lottie Stone as one of the most promising girls under his pastoral charge; she was so simple-minded, affectionate, and pious; he could have trusted her with money uncounted; were she to prove ungrateful and unworthy, in whom could he henceforth trust? The clergyman was very patient and tender, but he was also very faithful. For more than an hour he stood in that little room, plying the silent, miserable girl with questions that put her to the torture, appealing to her reason, her affections, her conscience; exhorting, reproving, entreating—doing all that lay in his power to overcome her inexplicable reserve. Mr Eardley saw that Lottie’s character, that most precious of earthly possessions, was at stake; that if she continued silent, a merciless world would believe the worst. He explained this again and again; and Lottie, in anguish of soul, felt how true was every word which he uttered. And yet, had she not promised before God? was it not better to endure suspicions than to incur sin? Not all the efforts of her pastor, backed by the entreaties of her simple-hearted brother, could force the poor girl from the position to which conscience had fastened her, like a baited creature fixed to the stake.
At length, disappointed and disheartened, Mr. Eardley took his leave, promising, however, soon to return. Lottie wrung her hands in silent misery as she heard the door close behind him. “There,” she thought, “goes the kindest, most generous of friends, wearied out at last, and thinking me an ungrateful and wicked girl. Oh, I could have borne anything better than this!”
Lottie was not to have even a breathing-space of relief. Not five minutes after the departure of Mr. Eardley, the baronet’s carriage drove up to the door of the cobbler’s shop, with Isa and her cousin within. Its approach was announced to Lottie by her brother’s exclamation, “Here comes your mistress a-looking arter ye now!”
“I think all this will drive me mad!” cried Lottie, pressing both her hands to her burning temples.
Isa had been much surprised, and even alarmed, on being informed by Hannah at an early hour that morning that “that there girl Lottie” had “run away without saying a word to nobody; taken her bundle, and gone clean off.” Isa could in no way account for the sudden departure of her young servant, except by imagining that she had taken offence at something, and that perhaps something wild and gipsy-like in her nature corresponded with her somewhat gipsy-like appearance.
“To go without saying a word to me, kind and indulgent as I ever have been, seems so strange, so ungrateful,” observed Isa to her brother, when she mentioned to him at breakfast a fact of which he had had much earlier notice than herself.
“No accounting for the vagaries of a raw, untutored village rustic,” observed Gaspar, applying to his snuff-box; and he was ungenerous enough to add, in order to cover his own confusion, “You had better count up the spoons.”
“I could answer for Lottie’s honesty,” said Isa.
So could Gaspar Gritton, for he had seen it put to the proof; he had seen the “raw, untutored village rustic” withstand a temptation under which he, an educated man, calling himself a gentleman, had basely succumbed. But Gaspar felt himself placed in a position of difficulty. He would probably have at once told his sister all the circumstances connected with Lottie’s dismissal, had it not been for Isa’s having spoken to him on the subject of the Orissa. Gaspar shrank from avowing to one who, as he knew, suspected his honesty, that he actually had a large sum of money concealed in a vault.
“What could have induced the girl to take such a step?” said Isa, following the current of her own thoughts. “Hannah is as much in the dark as ourselves.”
“Really,” observed Gaspar peevishly, “the subject is not worth the trouble of considering. Such an insignificant cipher may go, or stay, or hang herself; it matters not the turn of a straw to us.”
A feeling of indignation swelled the heart of Isa, and it cost her an effort to give it no outward expression. Isa was not one of those who regard the humbler members of a household as mere pieces of furniture, to be discarded when faulty, or neglected when worn out, without a thought or a care. She looked upon them as fellow-Christians and fellow-immortals, over whom the position of master or mistress gives an influence for which an account must one day be rendered. Added to this, Lottie’s simplicity, warmth of heart, and the knowledge of her early trials, had engaged in her behalf the kindly interest of her young mistress. Isa’s anxiety on account of her run-away servant was not only a matter of conscience, but a matter of feeling also.
After some minutes of silence, Isa exclaimed, as if she had suddenly found a clue for which she had been searching, “It must have been your words to her yesterday evening.”
“What words do you mean?” asked Gaspar.
“You said that she must have been drinking. Such a sentence, though lightly spoken, would wound her deeply, for she would think it an allusion to the well-known vice of her father, whom, poor child, she loves so dearly.”
“Really,” observed Mr. Gritton, with a short, harsh laugh, “we must be careful now-a-days where we blow thistle-down, lest it should wound some sensitive maid-of-all-work!” He was not sorry that Isa should suggest some cause for Lottie’s sudden flight that was remote from the real one.
“I cannot rest till I know all, and have seen the poor girl,” thought Isa; “I will go over to the Castle at once, and ask Edith to take me in the carriage to Axe.”
