Within the Precincts

by Mrs. Oliphant

Mrs. Temple did not respond as her husband would have wished. Indeed this was very often the case; she had not his quick impulses nor his ready speech. She said with a sigh, “I almost think the Signor is right. I wish we could do what he says. I know a man who is very fond of her, who would be very suitable, who would be sure to make her happy. I think if I could marry her to him I would take the responsibility; but she will not see it in the same light.”

“Who is it? who is it?” Captain Temple said with lively curiosity. And when Mr. Ashford’s name was mentioned to him, after some protestations of incredulity, he could find nothing to say but a fretful “Do you want to be rid of Lottie?” He for his part did not want to be rid of her. She was delightful to the old man. She walked with him and sat with him, and though she had not sufficiently recovered to talk much to him, yet she listened to him while he talked, which did almost as well. The old Chevalier was more happy than he had been since his own child married and went away from him. Why should Lottie be married and carried away from him too, for no better reason than that a man could provide for her? This indeed was the weak point in Captain Temples armour. He could not provide for his adopted daughter; but he was angry when this was suggested to him. He had got a new interest, a new pleasure in life, and he did not like the idea of dying and losing it. Why should not he live for years and keep the shelter of a father’s roof over this girl, who was like his own?

As for the Minor Canon, it had only been when he took the girl home from her vigil on the Slopes that he allowed himself fully to confess the state of his feelings towards her. When he had drawn her hand within his arm and felt her light weight upon him, holding up by close clasping of his own, the soft arm which he held, the floodgates had opened. He knew very well by instinct and by observation that Lottie loved, not him, but another man. He felt very sure that what had happened had little to do with her stepmother but a great deal to do with her lover; and yet at that very moment, the most discouraging and hopeless, those gates opened and the stream flowed forth, and he no longer attempted any disguise either with himself or with Mrs. Temple, who saw through and through him. Law, whom nobody supposed to have any discrimination, had seen through and through him long ago. Law felt that it was not at all likely that any man would sacrifice so much money and trouble on his account; and indeed from the beginning of their acquaintance he had read in “old Ashford’s” eye an expression of weakness of which the astute youth was very willing to take advantage. When, however, Mr. Ashford himself gained this point of making no further resistance, and attempting no further concealment, the acknowledgment to himself of the new sentiment, little hopeful as it was, had brought him a sense of happiness and freedom. Love in his heart was sweet, even though it had no return. It made life other than it had ever been. It opened possibilities which to the middle-aged Minor Canon had all been closed before. Handel may be a consolation or even a delight; and pupils, though neither consolatory nor delightful, at least keep a man from the sense that his life is useless; but neither of these things make up the sum of human requirements, nor do they help to reveal the fin mot of that mortal enigma which is more hard to solve than all the knots of philosophy. It seemed to Mr. Ashford when he gave up all resistance, and let this flood of tenderness for one creature take possession of his heart, that a sudden illumination had been given to him, a light that cleared up many difficult matters, and made the whole world more clear. With this lantern in his hand he thought he might even go back to tread the darker ways of the world with more fortitude and calm. The miseries of the poor seemed to him more bearable, the burdens of humanity less overwhelming. Why? but he could not have told why. Perhaps because life itself was more worth having, more beautiful, more divine with love in it; a poor man, though he was starving, could not be so poor with that to keep him alive. He remembered in his early experiences, when he had fled from the horrible mystery of want and pain, to have seen that other presence which then he took no note of, in the poorest places—gleaming in the eyes of a woman, in a man’s rough face, which knew no other enlightenment. This, then, was what it was. In the sweetness of the heavenly discovery perhaps he went too far, and felt in it the interpretation and compensation of all. Naturally, a man who has found a new happiness does exalt it above the dimensions of any human possession. It made the Minor Canon feel his own life too sheltered and peaceful, it made of him a man among other men. It seemed to him now that he wanted to go and help his brothers who were suffering, whose suffering had appalled him, from whom he had fled in excess of pity.

But he did not say one word of his love to Lottie, except those vague words which have been recorded. What was the use? She knew it as he knew it; and what could it matter? After the first impulse of speech, which was for her sake rather than his—to comfort her wounded pride, her sense of humiliation, if nothing else, by the knowledge that she was priceless to another if rejected by one—no desire to speak was in his mind. He surrounded her with every care he was permitted to give, with a thousand unexpressed tendernesses, with a kind of ideal worship, such as was most likely to soothe her wounds and to please her, at least, with a sense that she was beloved. In this way the winter went slowly on. Law did not sail till the early spring, being detained by the Minor Canon as he would, if he could, have detained a ray of sunshine that warmed her. And thus Lottie was surrounded by all the fairest semblances of life.

The fairest semblances! How often they collect about those who can derive no advantage from them! A good man loved her, but Lottie could not accept his love; the kindest domestic shelter was given to her, but she had no right to it—she was not the daughter of these kind people, and they would not make her their servant as she had asked them to do. Musing in her own mind over all that lay about her, this seemed the only true standing ground that she could hope for. Now that she wanted a way of living, a real occupation, her voice had failed her and she could not sing; now that she had the doors of marriage opened before her, her heart was too sick even to contemplate that possibility; now that she had a home where she was beloved, it was not her home but the house of a stranger. To all this she had no right. If they would let her be their servant, that would be true; if Mr. Ashford would see that she was not worth loving, that would be true; if she could take up the trade she had despised, in that there would be an honest refuge. All these things were out of her reach. She said nothing about the thoughts in her heart, but they burned within her; and nobody understood them, except perhaps Mr. Ashford, to whom she never confided them. Law thought her very well off indeed, and declared frankly that he would leave England with an easy mind: “You are one that will always fall on your feet,” he said, with perfect satisfaction. Captain Despard even, who had at first resented the new arrangement of affairs, came at last in his finest manner and made very pretty speeches to Captain Temple and his wife. “If, as I understand, my daughter’s society is a real pleasure to you,” he said, “I am always glad when I or mine can be of use to my neighbours, and certainly, my dear Madam, she shall stay. Indeed, in the present state of my domestic circumstances,” he added, with a wave of his hand, not perceiving Captain Temple’s angry eagerness to speak, which his wife subdued with a supplicating gesture, “I will not conceal from you that it is an ease to my mind to know that Lottie is among the friends of her own choice. My wife and she,” Captain Despard said, with a little shrug of his shoulders—“we all know what ladies are, and that occasionally unpleasantnesses will occur—my wife and she have not got on together.” Thus Lottie was left by those who belonged to her. And when she retired to the room that was her own in the new home—which was so like the little room in the old, but so much more dainty, with everything in it that the old people could think of to make her comfortable, and all the little decorations which a mother invents for her child, Lottie would stand in the midst of these evidences of love and kindness, and ask herself what she could do—she had never been so well off in her life, what could she do? She had “no claim” upon the Temples, as the Signor said, “no right” to their kindness. The Captain’s niece, who lived in St. Michael’s, looked at the interloper, as the nearest relative of a foolish old couple who were wasting their means upon a stranger might be excused for looking. What was she doing but living on their charity? What could she do? Oh, that she had now the voice which she had cared so little for when she had it! How strange, how strange it all seemed to her now! She had, she said to herself, a trade, an honest trade in her hands, and she had not cared for it, had struggled against its exercise, had not wished to qualify herself for its use; and now it was lost to her. This was the only thing that was Lottie’s fault; the other strange paradoxes about her had come without any doing of hers. But the result of all was that, with love and kindness on every side, she had no place that belonged to her, no right to anything. After the kind people who were so good to her had gone to their rest, the girl would sit and think over this problem. What was she to do? To be obliged to think of this did her good; it took her mind away from the wounds of her heart, it brought in new objects—new thoughts. She could not dwell for ever, as a disengaged mind might have done, amid the ruined temples and palaces of her love; she could not sink to the ground, and conclude, as in happier circumstances a broken-hearted girl might have been tempted to do, that all was over. On the contrary, life not being over, nor any end procurable by means of hers, an entire world of new difficulties and troubles was brought in which Lottie had to meet, and, as she might, find a solution for.

On the day before Law’s departure, which had been so often delayed, she went back to her father’s house, under her brother’s guardianship, to take away the few little possessions which remained there. Law had been a very faithful guardian of Lottie’s little belongings. There was nothing that Polly would have liked better than to enter and rummage through her step-daughter’s things, searching for secrets through all the little drawers and boxes which Lottie had taken a girlish pleasure in keeping in good order. But Law had stood up like a dragon for his sister’s property; and Captain Despard, who sometimes put himself on Lottie’s side, by a certain esprit de famille against the wife, who, after all, was an alien and not one of them, supported Law. Thus the men of her family, though they had not hesitated to treat her carelessly and even harshly themselves, yet made a certain stand against the interference of any other. It was a day in early April when Lottie reluctantly went into her father’s house on this errand. Polly was out; the house was vacant and quiet as when it had been her own, and it is not to be described with what a yearning the girl looked at the shabby furniture, the old piano, the faded rooms in which she had spent many a troubled and many a dull day, and beat her wings against the bars of her cage, and wished for a hundred things which were never to be hers. The reader knows how far Lottie had been from being happy: but yet she thought she had been happy, and that nothing better could have been desired than to be the household Providence, and “take care,” as she called it, of her father and brother. All that was over. She could not bear to go into the little drawing-room, where he had visited her, where she had lived in such a world of dreams. Her heart beat as she went up the old stairs. She was far better off with the Temples, who could not pet or serve her enough; yet with what a yearning she came into the house which had once been hers, but in which now there was no place for her! In her own room, thanks to Law’s care, she found everything as she had left it; and it is not to be told what anguish filled Lottie’s breast as she looked at her little white dress, all carefully prepared for the event which was never to happen, and the little box with the bonnet which she had made in such sweet agitation and tumult of heart. And there was the pearl locket upon its white ribbon, her sole ornament. She gathered these things together and carried them, not letting even Law touch them, to her new home. She could not speak as she went up and shut herself in her room. A little fire was burning there, a luxury unknown to Lottie in the days when she was her own mistress, and no one cared how chilly she might be. Then with old Lear’s “climbing sorrow” in her throat, she undid the little bit of maidenly finery for which she had so much wanted a sprig of orange blossom. It was a nothing, a little knot of tulle and ribbon—a piece of vanity not worthy a thought; so any moralist would have said who had seen Lottie stand speechless, tearless, a great sob in her throat, with the poor little bonnet in her hand. A bonnet, there is nothing tragic in that. She put it upon her fire and watched the light stuff flame and fall into sudden ashes. It was the affair of a moment; but those hopes, those prospects of which it had been the token, her life itself, with all that was beautiful in it, seemed ended too.

Then she sat down for the hundredth time and confronted the waste of darkness that was her life. What was she to do? Perhaps it was the final ending of her dream, symbolised by the destruction of that bit of tulle and ribbon, which moved her. For the first time her dreamy self-questions took a different tone. She asked herself, not what am I to do? but something more definite. Law was going away the next day, the only being except her father to whom she had any right, on whom she had any claim—going away in comfort, in high hope, as much as she could have desired for him. By whose doing? She had given up the care of Law, selfishly absorbed in her own hopes; and who was it who had taken her place and done the thing which Lottie had only wished and longed to do? She seemed to see him standing before her, with tenderness beyond words in his eyes. Always her good angel: how often he had interposed to help her!—from that early time at the Deanery when she had sung false in her agitation, and he had covered the error and beguiled her into the divine song which at that very moment she could hear thrilling all the air, pealing from the Abbey. Was it because this happened to be the afternoon anthem that she thought of that simple beginning of the Minor Canon’s benefits? Never since had he failed her; though of all the people upon whom Lottie had no claim, he it was on whom she had the least claim. He had saved Law from his aimless idleness, and it was he who had awakened herself out of the miserable dream that had almost cost her her life. How could she repay him for all he had done for her? In one way, one only way. She shuddered, then stilled herself, and faced the thought with all the courage she had left. Marry him! If he would have her, if he wanted her, why should not she marry him? She trembled as the words came into her mind. It was not she that said them; something seemed to say them in her mind, without any will of hers. So good a man, so kind. Did it matter so much whether she liked it, whether she did not like it, so long as it pleased him? Perhaps this was not the right way in which such a calculation ought to be made, but Lottie did not think of that. At all times it had been easier for her to think of others than of herself. Only once had she pleased herself, and no good had come of it. Her heart began to beat with a heroic impulse. She was not worth his having, she whom everyone had cast off; but if he thought so? She shuddered, yet her heart rose high in her bosom. She would do her best, she would be a good wife, that would be within her power. She would serve him humbly, that he might forgive her for not loving him. She rose up to her feet unconsciously as this great resolution came upon her mind.

“Lottie,” said Law at her door, “the service is over, and the Signor is practising. Come over to the Abbey with me. I’d like to wander about the old place a little the last night I am here. Come, it’ll be something to think of,” said Law, more moved than he liked to show, “when we’re thousands of miles separate over the sea.”

Lottie did not wait to be asked again. She hurried to him, glad to be thus delivered from the thoughts that were getting too much for her. Long, long months had passed since the brother and sister had gone to church together, their close vicinity to the Abbey and its frequent services had broken up the old childish Sunday habits. And it was not going to church in the ordinary way, but only roaming through to the silent beautiful place all deserted, with the organ pealing through its silence. Law’s heart was touched, though he was too successful and prosperous now to be easily moved. He strayed about the majestic stillness of the nave with tears in his eyes, thinking—this time to-morrow! This time to-morrow he would probably be prosaically ill or prosaically comfortable, and thinking little of what he left. But for the moment it seemed to Law that when he once was gone, his heart would turn like that of any poet, to the sweet friends to whom that day he had said farewell.

The Abbey was altogether still except for the music. No one was about; the last ray of the westerly sun had got in among the canopy work over the stalls, and tangled itself there. Underneath the shadows of the evening were creeping dimly, and through the great vault the organ pealed. What bursts of wonderful sound, what glories in the highest, what quiverings of praise unspeakable! Lottie raised her face unawares to the gallery from which that music came. How her life had gone along with it, shaping itself to that high accompaniment! It had run through everything, delight and misery alike, good and evil. Her heart was moved already, and trembling under the touch of new impulses, resolutions, emotions. She stood still unawares, with her face turned that way, a new light coming upon it; once more the music got into her soul. With her head raised, her arms falling by her side, her heart going upwards in an ecstasy of sudden feeling, she stood spell-bound. She did not hear—how should she?—a whisper in the organ-loft, a noiseless change of music, nor see the anxious faces looking out upon her from among the fretwork of the carved screen. The torrent of sound changed; it breathed into a celestial softness of sorrow and hope; tears dropped liquid like a falling of rain; a counter stream of melody burst forth. Lottie did not know what she was doing, the spell upon her was broken. “I know that my Redeemer liveth:” she lifted up her voice and sang.