Someone was standing at the door as she came in sight of her father’s house. It was Captain Despard himself, looking out. “Is that you, Lottie?” he called out, peering into the gloom. “Come in, come in; where have you been? You must not stay out again, making everybody anxious.” Then he came out a step or two from his door and spoke in a whisper: “You know what a woman’s tongue is,” he said; “they have a great deal to answer for; but when they get excited, what can stop them? You must try not to pay any attention; be sensible, and don’t mind—no more than I do,” Captain Despard said.
CHAPTER XXXV.
FAMILY DUTY: ACCORDING TO MRS. DESPARD.
There are some victories which feel very much like defeats. When Polly had scattered her adversaries on every side, driven forth Lottie and got rid of Law, and silenced Captain Despard—who sat in his room and heard everything but thought it wisest not to interfere—she retired upstairs to her drawing-room and celebrated her triumph by shedding torrents of tears. She had intended to make everybody very wretched, and she had done so; supposing, perhaps (though she did not really know what her motive was), that some pleasure would come to herself out of the discomfiture of the others. But pleasure rarely comes by that means, and when she had thus chased everybody out of her way, Polly threw herself down and burst forth into angry sobs and tears. It is not to be supposed that Captain Despard entertained any romantic illusions about his bride; he knew very well what Polly was. He had, as facts proved, been sufficiently fond of her to marry her, but he did not expect of her more than Polly could give, nor was he shocked to find that she had a temper and could give violent utterance to its vagaries; all this he had known very well before. Knowing it, however, he thought it wise to keep out of the way and not mix himself up in a fray with which evidently he had nothing to do. Had she gone a step further with Lottie it is possible that he might have interfered, for, after all, Lottie was his child; and though he might himself be hard upon her at times, there is generally a mingled sentiment of family pride and feeling which makes us unwilling to allow one who belongs to us to be roughly treated by a stranger. But when Law put himself in the breach, his father sat close and took no notice; he did not feel impelled to turn his wife’s batteries upon himself out of consideration for Law. Nor did it make any impression upon the Captain when he heard her angry sobs overhead. “She will come to if she is left to herself,” he said, and he did not allow himself to be disturbed. Polly, in her passion, threw herself on the carpet, leaning her head upon a chair. She had changed the room after her own fashion. She had lined the curtains with pink muslin, and fastened her crochet-work upon the chairs with bows of pink ribbon; she had covered the old piano with a painted cover, and adorned it with vases and paper flowers. She had made the faded little room which had seemed a fit home enough, in its grey and worn humility, for Lottie’s young beauty, into something that looked very much like a dressmaker’s ante-room, or that terrible chamber, “handsomely fitted up with toilet requisites,” where the victims of the photographic camera prepare for the ordeal. But the loveliness of her handiwork did not console Polly; she got no comfort out of the pink bows, nor even from the antimacassars—a point in which Lottie’s room was painfully deficient. She flung herself upon the carpet and sobbed. What was the use of being a lady, a Chevalier’s wife, and living here in the heart of the Abbey, if no one called upon her or took any notice of her? Polly was not of a patient nature; it did not occur to her even that there was still time for the courtesies she had set her heart upon gaining. She had looked every day for some one to come, and no one had ever come; no one had made any advances to her at the Abbey, which was the only place in which she could assert her position as a lady and a Chevalier’s wife. Even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who had risen from the ranks, who lived next door, who was not a bit better, nay, who was much less good than Polly to begin with (for what is a trooper’s wife? and she had been nothing but a trooper’s wife)—even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had passed the door as if she did not see it, and had waited outside till Miss Lottie came to her. Polly’s dreams had been very different. She had seen herself in imagination the admired of all admirers; she was by far the youngest of all the Chevaliers’ wives, and the gentlemen, at least, she was sure would rally round her. Women might be spiteful, but men always did justice to a woman when she was handsome and young. Was not that written in all the records? She expected that the ladies would be spiteful—that would be indeed a part of her triumph. They would be jealous of her superior attractions, of her youth, of her husband’s adoration of her; the old things would be in a flutter of alarm lest their old men should come within her influence. But Polly had felt pretty sure that the old gentlemen would admire her and rally round her. To make the women envious and the men enthusiastic, was not that always the way? certainly such was the course of events in the Family Herald. The heroine might have one friend devoted to her fortunes, a confidant more admiring, more faithful even than her lover; but all the rest of womankind was leagued against her. And so it had been in most of the novels Polly had read. But that neither men nor women should take any notice, that was a thing for which she was not prepared, and which she declared to herself she would not bear.
She had seen enough already from her windows to make her furious. She had seen Mrs. O’Shaughnessy ostentatiously waiting for Lottie, walking up and down outside, making signs to the girl upstairs. She had seen Captain Temple pass and repass, looking up at the same window. She had seen the greetings that met Lottie wherever she appeared. The Chevaliers and their wives had not always looked upon Miss Despard with such favourable eyes. They had thought her proud, and they had resented her pride; but now that Lottie was in trouble it was round her they had all rallied. It was the party at the Deanery, however, which had been the last drop in Polly’s cup. How was she to know that on the highest elevation she could reach as the lady of a Chevalier, she was still beneath the notice of Lady Caroline, and as far as ever from the heaven of the highest society? Polly did not know. The elevation to which she herself had risen was so immense in her own consciousness that there seemed no distinction of ranks above her. She thought, as Lottie had once thought, though from a different point of view, that gentlefolks were all one; that a gentleman’s wife, if not so rich or so grand, was still on a level with Lady Caroline herself, and within the circle which encompassed the Queen. “You can’t be no better than a gentleman,” Polly said to herself. You might, it was true, be a lord, which some people thought better, but even a lord was scarcely above an officer. All this glorious ambition, however, what was it going to end in? She watched the carriages going to the Deanery, and with still more furious feelings she watched Lottie in her white dress crossing the Dean’s Walk. And she left at home, at the window, neglected, left out, though she was Mrs. Despard, and the other nobody! Was it possible that it might be better even to be a dressmaker, forewoman in the workroom, acknowledged to have the best eye for cutting out, and to be the quickest worker of the lot, superior so far among her equals—than to be ignored and neglected and treated as the dust under their feet by a set of poor gentlefolks? Polly felt that she must wreak her vengeance on somebody.
When she had got her fit of crying over accordingly, she jumped up to her feet and hurried to her room to put on her “things.” It was her “best things” that she put on. Indeed, Polly had been wearing her best things every day with an extravagance which rather touched her conscience, though it delighted her fancy. She made herself very fine indeed that wintry afternoon, and pattered downstairs upon a pair of high heels which were more splendid than comfortable, and burst into the little room where Captain Despard sat attentive to all these sounds, and wondering what was coming next. Few people realise the advantage of a silly wife to a man who is not over wise. The Captain, though he had a high opinion of himself, was aware at the bottom of his heart that other people scarcely shared that sentiment. And to have a wife whom he was fond of, and whose acquisition flattered his vanity, and who was unmistakably, though clever enough, less clever, less instructed, than he was, gave him a sense of superiority which was very pleasant to him. He looked upon her follies with much more indulgence than he had ever felt for Lottie, who did not give him the same consolation.
“Well, what is it now?” he said, with a smile.
“I want you to come out with me,” Polly said. “I want to buy some things. My old muff is shabby, I couldn’t wear it in the Abbey. Though they’re a set of old frights and frumps, I don’t wish your wife to be looked down upon by them, Harry. I can see them looking at all my things, counting up what everything costs, and whispering behind my back. That old Mrs. Jones has trimmed her bonnet exactly like mine, though she looks as if she was too grand to see me. They ain’t above copying me, that’s one thing.”
“No wonder,” said the admiring husband; “for it is long since anything so young and so handsome has been among them before. Don’t they wish they could copy your face as well as your bonnet! that’s all.”
“Oh, get along!” said Polly, well pleased; “you’re always flattering. Come and buy me a muff. I don’t know what kind to get. Grebe is sweetly pretty and ermine is delicious, but sealskin, perhaps, is the most genteel; that always looks lady-like. Did you see Mrs. Daventry go by in her carriage? Ah!” Polly sighed; how could she help it? She was very fine in her blue silk, but Augusta was finer. “She has just come from France, you know, and then, of course, they are rich. She had on a velvet with sable that deep——! Ah! it’s hard to see folks that are no better than you with things that are so much better,” cried Polly; “but, after all, though velvet and sable are very nice, give me sealskin—that’s always lady-like. A sealskin jacket!—if I had that, I don’t think there is anything more I should wish for in the world.”
“Are they very dear?” said the Captain, with a sudden fit of liberality. He had a native love of buying, which is very general with impecunious persons, and at present was in a prodigal mood.