“To be sure. Oh, that’s all very fine about being a gentleman’s daughter. We know pretty well what that means, and so does everybody. I wonder, Lottie, you that have some sense, how you could be so silly? He must have laughed.”
“Oh, hold your tongue, Law! I suppose they think nothing counts but money. When you are poor you are always insulted. I should not care for money, not for itself, not for the gold and silver,” said Lottie; “nor even so very much for the nice things that one could buy; but, oh, to be above people’s remarks, to be known for what you are, not looked down upon, not insulted——”
“It depends upon what you call being insulted,” said Law; “if any man had said that to me, I should have thought him next to an angel. What is insulting about it? If you like money (and who doesn’t like money?) why there’s the easiest way in the world of getting it. Sing! I’d sing my head off,” said Law, “if that was all that was wanted. And you sing for pleasure; you like singing! I can’t tell what you are thinking of. If I had known you were so good as that—but one never thinks much of one’s own sister, somehow,” the youth added, with easy frankness. He was so much excited, however, that he left his tea, and strode up and down the room (three paces and a half, that was all the size of it) repeating “by Jove!” to himself. “If you mean not to do it, you had better not let him know you could do it,” he announced, after an interval. Never in his life before had the easy-going young man been so moved. “It’s untold the money they make,” he said.
As for Lottie, her whole being was in a ferment. She looked at her brother with a gasp of pain. The bread and butter had no charms for her on that night of emotion. She took up her basket which was full of things to mend, and sat down in the window, speechless with vague passion, pain, discontentment. Lottie was not a wise or enlightened young woman. She had not even taken the stamp of her age as many people do who are not enlightened. She had never learned that it was desirable that women should have professions like men. Her thoughts ran entirely in the old-fashioned groove, and it seemed to her that for “a gentleman’s daughter” to work for her living, to be known publicly to work for her living, was a social degradation beyond words to express. It implied—what did it not imply? That the family were reduced to the lowest level of poverty; but that was a small part of it—that the men were useless, worthless, without pride or honour; that they had no friends, no means of saving themselves from this betrayal of all the secrets of pride. These were the foolish feelings in her mind. Gentlemen’s daughters were governesses sometimes she had heard, and Lottie pitied the poor girls (orphans—they were always orphans, and thus set aside from the general rule), with an ache of compassion in her heart; but it was her private impression that this was a stigma never to be wiped off, a stain, not upon the girl, but upon her family who could permit such a sacrifice. Lottie’s view of sacrifice was one which is rarely expressed, but which exists not the less among women and all other persons from whom sacrifices are demanded. Could Alcestis have the same respect after for the man who could let her die for him? Could she go on living by his side and think just the same of him as if he had borne his own burden instead of shuffling it off upon her shoulders? The ancients did not trouble themselves with such questions, but it is a peculiarity of the modern mind that it does. And Lottie, though her point of view was very old-fashioned, still looked at it in this modern way. When Law, whom it was impossible to stir up to any interest in his own work, became so excited over the thought of a possible profession for her, she looked at him with something of the feeling with which Isabella contemplated the caitiff brother in his prison who would have bought his life by her shame. What! would he be “made a man” in such a way? would he buy idleness and ease for himself by exposing her to a life unworthy of “a gentleman’s daughter”? She knew he was lazy, careless, and loved his own gratification; but it hurt her to her very heart to think so poorly of Law, who was the only being in the world whom she had ever been able to love heartily as belonging to herself.
Let it not be thought, however, that any unwillingness to work for Law, to make any sacrifice for him, was at the bottom of this disappointment in him. She was ready to have worked her fingers to the bone, indoors, in the privacy of the family, for her father and brother. She did not care what menial offices she did for them. Their “position” demanded the presence of a servant of some kind in the house, but Lottie was not afraid of work. She could sweep and dust; she could cook; she could mend with the most notable of housewives, and sang at her work, and liked her people all the better because of what she had to do for them in the course of nature. That was altogether different; there was no shame to a lady in doing this, no exposure of the family. And Lottie was not of the kind of woman who requires personal service from men. She was quite willing to serve them, to wait upon them if necessary, to take that as her share of the work of life; but to work publicly for her living, what was that but to proclaim to all the world that they were incapable, that they were indifferent to their duties, that there was no faith to be put in them? If Law had leaped up in wrath, if he had said, “No, it is my place to work; I will work; no one shall say that my sister had to earn her living,” how happy, how proud Lottie would have been! That was the ideal for a man. It was what she would do herself if she was in his place; and, oh, if she could but put herself in his place, and do what Law would not do! oh, if she could but put herself, a bit of herself, into him, to quicken the sluggish blood in his veins! When Law, having exhausted all that was to be said on the subject, went out (and where did he go when he went out?), Lottie sat at the window and darned and darned till the light failed her. She ploughed furrows with her needle in the forefinger of her left hand; but that did not hurt her. Oh, if she could but move them, inspire them, force them to do their duty, or at the worst do it for them, so that the world might suppose it was they who were doing it! That was the aspiration in her heart; and how hopeless it was! “Oh, if I could put some of me into him!” Lottie thought, as many a helpless soul has thought before her. But to move out from the shadow of the house, and betray its nakedness, and take the burden visibly on herself, that was what Lottie felt she would rather die than do.
Meanwhile, in the soft evening, various people were promenading up and down between the Abbey church and the lodges of the Chevaliers. Some of the old Chevaliers themselves were out, with their wives hanging on their arms. Either there would be two old gentlemen together, with the wife of one by his side, or two ladies with a white-haired old gallant walking along beside them, talking of various things, perhaps of politics when there were two men, and of any signs of war that might be on the horizon; and if two were women, of the wedding, and how Lady Caroline took the marriage of her only daughter. The Signor was practising in the Abbey, and the great tones of the organ came rolling forth in a splendour of softened sound over the slope with its slowly strolling groups. Some of the townspeople were there too, not mixing with the others, for the Signor’s practising nights were known. The moon began to climb after a while behind the Chevaliers’ lodges, and throw a soft whiteness of broad light upon all the pinnacles of the Abbey; and Lottie dropped her work on her knee, unable to see any longer. When the moon rose, she was thrown into shade, and could watch the people with the light in their faces at her ease. And by and by her attention was caught by two single figures which passed several times, coming from different directions, and quite distinct from each other. They both looked up at her window each time they passed, calling forth her curiosity, her scorn, her laughter, finally her interest. Watching them she forgot the immediate presence of her own annoyances. One was the young musician Purcell, at whom Lottie had secretly laughed for a long time past, at his longing looks and the way in which the vicissitudes of her countenance would reflect themselves in his face. But the other she could not for a long time make out. It was not till, seeing no one, he stood still for a full half-minute in the light of the moon, and looked up at her, that she recognised him—and then Lottie’s heart gave a jump. It was young Rollo Ridsdale, Lady Caroline’s nephew, the best man at the wedding; and what could he want here?
CHAPTER IV.
LADY CAROLINE.
Lady Caroline was in the drawing-room at the Deanery alone. Now that her daughter was married this was no unusual circumstance. It was late in the summer evening, after dinner, and she lay on a great square sofa so placed that the view from the large window was dimly visible from it, had she cared for the view. As a matter of fact, at no hour of the twenty-four, however bright or tempting it might be, did Lady Caroline care much for the view; but still, when a room is artistically arranged, such a possibility cannot be altogether kept out of consideration. This evening, however, there was no light to see anything by. The room was dark, nothing distinctly visible in it but the great broad Elizabethan window which filled one end. The upper part of this window was filled with old painted glass in silvery tinted quarries, soft greys and yellows, surrounding the golden and ruby glories of several blazons of arms, and drawing the eye irresistibly with the delight of radiant colour; underneath opened the great plain all dim and wide, a suggestion of boundless air and distance rather than a landscape, while in the room itself nothing was distinct but here and there a glimmer of reflection from a mirror breaking the long line of the walls. Nor was its only occupant very distinguishable as she reclined upon her sofa in absolute stillness and tranquillity. The lace on her head and about her throat showed faintly white in the corner, that was all. Perhaps if the mind could have been seen as well as the body, Lady Caroline’s individual soul, such as it was, would have told for little more amid the still life around: a something vaguely different from the chairs and softly cushioned sofas, a little more than one of the dim mirrors, a little less than a picture, was this human creature to whom all the rest belonged. She had lived irreproachably on the earth for a number of years (though not for nearly so many years as the most of her furniture), and fulfilled all her functions very much as they did, honestly holding together, affording a temporary place of repose occasionally, convenient for household meals, and ordinary domestic necessities. Perhaps now and then Lady Caroline conferred something of the same kind of solace and support which is given to the weary by a nice warm soft easy-chair, comfortably cushioned and covered; but that was about the highest use of which she was capable. She was waiting now quite tranquilly till it pleased the servants to bring her lights. They were in no hurry, and she was in no hurry. She never did anything, so that it was immaterial whether her room was lighted early or late, and on the whole she liked this dim interval between the active daylight, when people were always in motion, and the lamps, which suggested work, or a book, or something of the sort. Lady Caroline, though she had not very much mind, had a conscience, and knew that it was not quite right for a responsible creature to be without employment; therefore she made certain efforts to fulfil the object of her existence by keeping a serious volume on the table beside her, and putting in a few stitches now and then in a piece of wool-work. But at this hour there was no possibility for the most anxious conscience to speak, and Lady Caroline’s was not anxious, only correct, not troubling itself with any burden beyond what was necessary. It may be supposed, perhaps, that she was sad, passing this twilight quite alone, so soon after the marriage and departure of her only daughter; but this would have been a mistake, for Lady Caroline was not sad. Of course she missed Augusta. There was no one now to wake her up when she dozed, as now and then happened, in a warm afternoon after luncheon; and, as a matter of fact, one or two visitors had actually been ushered into the drawing-room while her head was drooping upon her right shoulder, and her cap a little awry. But at this tranquil hour in the dark, when nobody expected anything of her, neither without nor within—neither conscience, nor the Dean, nor society—it cannot be said that any distressful recollection of Augusta mingled with her thoughts. Nor, indeed, had she any thoughts to mingle it with, which was perhaps the reason. She was very comfortable in the corner of her sofa, with nothing to disturb her. Had Jarvis her maid been at hand to tell her what was going on in the precincts, or any bit of gossip that might have floated upward from the town, it would probably have added a little more flavour to her content; but even that flavour was not necessary to her, and she was quite happy as she was.
Some one came into the room as she lay in this pleasant quiet. She thought it was Jeremie coming to light the candles, and said nothing; but it was not so dignified a person as Mr. Jeremie, the Dean’s butler, who was generally taken for one of the Canons by visitors unacquainted with the place. This was indeed a shirt-front as dazzling as Jeremie’s which came into the soft gloom, but the owner of it was younger and taller, with a lighter step and less solemn demeanour. He gave a glance round the room to see if anyone was visible, then advanced steadily with the ease of an habitue among the sofas and tables. “Are you here, Aunt Caroline?” he said. “Oh, you are there! Shall I ring for lights? it must be dull sitting all by yourself in the dark.”
“If you please, my dear,” said Lady Caroline, who, having no will of her own to speak of, never set it in opposition to anybody else’s; answering a question as she did thus promptly, there was no occasion at the same time to answer a mere remark.