Within the Precincts

by Mrs. Oliphant

Law had been living a busy life at the time of this crisis and climax of his sister’s existence. He had spent day after day in London, lost in that dangerous and unaccustomed delight of spending money, which is only tasted in its full flavour by those who are little accustomed to have any money to spend. Law was tempted by a hundred things which would have been no temptation at all to more experienced travellers—miracles of convenience and cheapness, calculated to smooth the path of the emigrant, but which were apt, on being bought, to turn out both worthless and expensive—and many a day the young fellow came home penitent and troubled, though he started every morning with an ever-renewed confidence in his own wisdom. Lottie’s sudden illness had checked these preparations in mid-career. He had lost the ship in which he meant to have made his voyage, and though he bore the delay with Christian resignation, it was hard to keep from thinking sometimes that Lottie could not have chosen a worse moment for being ill—a little later, or a little earlier, neither would have mattered half so much—but at the very moment when he was about to sail! However, he allowed impartially that it was not his sister’s fault, and did not deny her his sympathy. Law, however, had never been satisfied about the cause of her illness. He did not know why she should have sat out on the Slopes all night. Polly—he refused the idea that it was Polly. Mrs. Despard was bad enough, but not so bad as that; nor did Lottie care enough for the intruder to allow herself to be driven out in this way. But Law kept this conviction to himself, and outwardly accepted the story, not even asking any explanation from his sister. Whatever was the real reason, it was no doubt the same cause which kept her from listening to him when he had tried to tell her of the new step in his own career, and the unexpected liberality of the Minor Canon. “If it had but been he!” Law said to himself—for indeed he, who knew the value of money, never entertained any doubt as to Mr. Ashford’s meaning in befriending him; he was a great deal more clear about this than Mr. Ashford himself.

He lost his passage by the ship with which he had originally intended to go. It was a great disappointment, but what could he do? He could not start off for the Antipodes when his sister might be dying. And as for his own affairs, they had not come to any satisfactory settlement. Instead of saying yes or no to his question to her, Emma, when he had seen her, had done everything a girl could do to make him change his intention. To make him change his intention!—the very idea of this filled him with fierce scorn. It was quite simple that she should make up her mind to leave everything she cared for, for love of him; but that he should change his purpose for love of her, was an idea so absurd that Law laughed at the simplicity of it. As well expect the Abbey tower to turn round with the wind as the weathercock did; but yet Law did not object to stroll down to the River Lane in the evenings, when he had nothing else to do, sometimes finding admission to the workroom when the mother was out of the way, demanding to know what was Emma’s decision, and smiling at her entreaties. She cried, clasping her hands with much natural eloquence, while she tried to persuade him; but Law laughed.

“Are you coming with me?” he said—he gave no answer to the other suggestion—and by this time he had fully made up his mind that she did not mean to come, and was not very sorry. He had done his duty by her—he had not been false, nor separated himself from old friends when prosperity came; no one could say that of him. But still he was not sorry to make his start alone—to go out to the new world unencumbered. Nevertheless, though they both knew this was how it would end, it still amused Law in his unoccupied evenings to do his little love-making at the corner of the River Lane, by the light of the dull lamp, and it pleased Emma to be made love to. They availed themselves of this diversion of the moment, though it often led to trouble, and sometimes to tears; and Emma for her part suffered many scoldings in consequence. The game, it is to be supposed, was worth the candle, though it was nothing but a game after all.

On the day after Mrs. Daventry’s visit, Lottie sent for her brother. He found her no longer a languid invalid, but with a fire of fervid energy in her eyes.

“Law,” she said, “I want you to tell me what you are going to do. You told me once, and I did not pay any attention—I had other—other things in my mind. Tell me now, Law.”

Then he told her all that had happened, and all he had been doing. “It was your sense, Lottie, after all,” he said. “You were always the one that had the sense. Who would have thought when I went to old Ashford to be coached, that he would come forward like this, and set me up for life? Nor he wouldn’t have done that much either,” Law added, with a laugh, “but for you!”

“Law,” cried Lottie, with that fire in her eyes, “this was what we wanted all the time, though we did not know it. It was always an office I was thinking of—and that I would be your housekeeper—your servant if we were too poor to keep a servant; but this is far better. Now we are free—we have only each other in the world. When must we go?”

“We!” cried Law, completely taken aback. He looked at her with dismay. “You don’t mean you are coming? You don’t suppose I—can take you.”

“Yes,” she cried, “yes,” with strange vehemence. “Were we not always to be together? I never thought otherwise—that was always what I meant—until——”

“Ah,” said Law, “that is just it—until! When you’re very young,” he continued, with great seriousness, “you think like that—yes, you think like that. A sister comes natural—you’ve always been used to her; but then, Lottie, you know as well as I do that don’t last.”