Law laughed again, but it was not a pleasant laugh; and he grasped the hand which his father held out to him with a desire to crush it, if he could, which was natural enough. Law thought it a joke, it is true; but he was angry at bottom, though amused on the surface. And he did hurt his father’s somewhat flabby, unworking hand. The Captain, however, would not complain. He was glad even to be met with a semblance of cordiality at such a moment. He helped Law largely to the beef, in the satisfaction of this family union, and this was a sign of anxiety which Law did not despise.
“Oh, and I assure you I mean to be a mother to you,” said Polly. “It shan’t be said now that you haven’t anyone to look after you. I mean to look after you. I am not at all satisfied with some of your goings on. A gentleman shouldn’t make too free with them that are beneath him. Yes, yes, Harry, darling; it’s too early to begin on that point; but he shall know my mind, and I mean to look after him. Now this is what I call comfortable,” said Mrs. Despard, looking round with a beaming smile; “quite a family party, and quite a nice tea; though the beef’s dry to my taste (but I never was one for cold victuals), and everybody satisfied——”
“Lottie,” said the Captain, looking up from his beef with some sternness, “you seem the only exception. Don’t you think, my child, when you see everybody so happy, that you might find a word to say?”
“Oh, don’t hurry her,” said Polly; “we’ve took her by surprise. I told you not to, but you would. We’ll have a nice long talk to-morrow, when she gives me over the housekeeping; and when she sees as I mean to act like a mother, why things will come right between her and me.”
The Despards were not highly educated people, but yet a shiver ran through them when Polly, unconscious, said, “We’ve took her by surprise.” The Captain even shrank a little, and took a great deal too much mustard, and made himself cough; while Law, in spite of himself, laughed, looking across the table to the place where Lottie sat. Lottie noticed it the least of all. She heard every word they all said, and remembered every word, the most trifling; but at the moment she scarcely distinguished the meaning of them. She said, “I think, papa, if you don’t mind, I will go to my room. I am rather tired; and perhaps I had better give some orders to Mary.”
“Oh, never mind; never mind about Mary, if it’s on my account. I shall look after her myself,” said Polly. “What’s good enough for the Captain is good enough for me; at least, till I settle it my own way, you know. I don’t want to give any trouble at all, till I can settle things my own way.”
“It is not I that have to be consulted,” said Captain Despard; “but if you are going to sit sulky and not say a word, I don’t see—what do you think, my pet?—that it matters whether you go or stay——”
“Oh, don’t mind me, Miss,” said Polly. She could not look Miss Despard in the face and call her Lottie, knowing, however she might consent to waive her own rights, that Miss Despard was still Miss Despard, whatever Polly might do. Not a thing on her that was worth five shillings, not a brooch even; nothing like a bracelet; a bit of a cotton frock, no more; but she was still Miss Despard, and unapproachable. Polly, with her bracelets on each wrist, rings twinkling on her hands as she took her supper, in a blue silk, and knowing herself to be an officer’s lady—Mrs. Captain Despard—with all this, could not speak to her husband’s daughter except as Miss. She could not understand it, but still it was so.
The little crooked hall was full of boxes when Lottie came out; and Mary stood among them, wondering how she was to get them upstairs. Perhaps she had been listening a little at the door, for Mary’s consternation was as great as Lottie’s. “Do you think, Miss, it’s real and true? Do you think as she’s married, sure? Mother wouldn’t let me stay a day if there was anything wrong, and I don’t know as I’ll stay anyhow,” Mary said.
“Wrong? what could be wrong?” said Lottie. She was less educated in knowledge of this kind than the little maid-of-all-work. It troubled her to see the boxes littering the hall, but she could not carry them upstairs. For a moment the impulse to do it, or, at least, to help Mary in doing it, came into her mind; but, on second thoughts, she refrained. What had she to do with this new-comer into the house, who was not even a visitor, who had come to remain? Lottie went upstairs without saying any more. She went first into the little faded drawing-room, where there was no light except that which came from the window and the lamp in the Dean’s Walk. It was not beautiful. She had never had any money to decorate it, to make it what it might have been, nor pretty furniture to put into it. But she sat down on her favourite little chair, in the dark, and felt as if she had gone to sit by somebody that was dead, who had been a dear friend. How friendly and quiet the little room had been! giving her a centre for her life, a refuge for her thoughts. But all that was over. She had never known before that she had liked it or thought of it much; but now, all at once, what a gentle and pleasant shelter it had been! As Lottie thought of everything, the tears came silently and bitterly into her eyes. She herself had been ungrateful, unkind to the little old house, the venerable old place, the kind people. They had all been kind to her. She had visited her own disappointment upon them, scorning the neighbours because they were less stately than she expected them to be; visiting upon them her own discontent with her position, her own disappointment in being less important than she expected. Lottie was hard upon herself, for she had not been unkind to anyone, but was, on the contrary, a favourite with her neighbours—the only girl in the place, and allowed by the old people to have a right to whims and fancies. Now, in the face of this strange, incomprehensible misfortune, she felt the difference. Her quiet old room! where kind voices had spoken to her, where he had come, saying such words as made her heart beat; where she had sung to him, and received those tender applauses which had been like treasure to Lottie. She seemed to see a series of past scenes like pictures rising before her. Not often had Rollo been there—yet two or three times; and Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, with her mellow brogue, and Mr. Ashford, and even the stately person of the Dean himself. She had been at home here, to receive them, whoever came. The room had never been invaded by anything that was unfriendly or unpleasing. Now—what was it that woman said of changes—making it look nice? Lottie had not understood the words when they were said, but they came back upon her now.