“If he’d stop at talking! but Lottie, me dear, when a man at his age gets women in his head, there’s no telling what is to come of it. I wouldn’t vex ye, me dear, but there’s gossip about—that the Captain has thoughts——”
“Oh, never mind what gossip there is about! there’s gossip about everything——”
“And that’s true, me honey. There’s your own self. They tell me a dozen stories. It’s married ye’re going to be (and that’s natural); and there’s them that uphold it’s not marriage at all, but music, or maybe the stage even, which is what I never would have thought likely——”
Lottie had risen to her feet, her eyes sparkling, her face crimson with excitement. “Wherever you hear it, please, please say it is a lie. I—on the stage! Oh, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, could you believe such a thing? I would rather die!”
“Dying’s a strong step to take, me dear. I wouldn’t go that length, Lottie; but at your age, and with your pretty looks, and all the world before ye, it’s not the thing I would advise. I don’t say but there are chances for a pretty girl that’s well conducted——”
“Mrs. O’Shaughnessy! do you dare to speak to me so?” said Lottie with crimson cheeks, her eyes blazing through indignant tears. Well conducted! the insult went to her very soul. But this was beyond the perception of her companion.
“Just so, me, dear,” she said. “There was Miss O’Neil, that was a great star in my time, and another stage lady that married the Earl of——, one of the English earls. I forget his title. Lords and baronets and that sort of people are thrown in their way, and sometimes a pretty girl that minds what she is about, or even a plain girl that is clever, comes in for something that would never—— Who is that, Lottie? Me dear, look out of the window, and tell me who it is.”
Lottie did not say a word; she gasped with pain and indignation, standing erect in the middle of the room. How it made the blood boil in her veins to have the triumphs of the “stage-ladies” thus held up before her! She did not care who was coming. In her fantastical self-elevation, a sort of princess in her own sight, who was there here who would understand Lottie’s “position” or her feelings? What was the use even of standing up for herself where everybody would laugh at her? There was no one in the Chevaliers’ Lodges who could render her justice. They would all think that to “catch” an earl or a Sir William was enough to content any girl’s ambition. So long as she was well conducted! To be well conducted, is not that the highest praise that can be given to anyone? Yet it made Lottie’s blood boil in her veins.
While she stood thus flushed and angry, the door was suddenly pushed open by the untrained “girl,” who was all that the household boasted in the shape of a servant. “She’s here, sir,” this homely usher said; and lo, suddenly, into the little room where sat Mrs. O’Shaughnessy taking up half the space, and where Lottie stood in all the excitement and glow of passion, there walked Rollo Ridsdale, like a hero of romance, more perfect in costume, appearance, and manner, more courteous and easy, more graceful and gracious, than anything that had ever appeared within that lower sphere. The Captain was jaunty and shabby-genteel, yet even he sometimes dazzled innocent people with his grand air; but Mr. Ridsdale was all that the Captain only pretended to be, and the very sight of him was a revelation. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, sitting with her knees apart and her hands laid out upon her capacious lap, opened her mouth and gazed at him as if he had been an angel straight from the skies. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy knew him, as she knew every one who came within the Abbey precincts. She was aware of every visit he paid to his aunt, and saw him from her window every time he passed up and down the Dean’s Walk, and she had the most intimate acquaintance with all his connections, and knew his exact place in the Courtland family, and even that there had been vicissitudes in his life more than generally fall to the lot of young men of exalted position. And, if it did her good even to see him from her window, and pleased her to be able to point him out as the Honourable Rollo Ridsdale, it may be imagined what her feelings were, when she found herself suddenly under the same roof with him, in the same room with him. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy sat and stared, devouring his honourable figure with her eyes, with a vague sensation of delight and grandeur taking possession of her soul.
“You must pardon my intrusion at such an early hour, Miss Despard,” he said. “I wanted your maid to ask if I might come in, and I did not know she was ushering me into your very presence. But I have my credentials with me. I bear a note from Lady Caroline, which she charged me to support with my prayers.”