“It is not my fault,” said Law, a little moved, “nor yours neither. I am very sorry for you, Lottie; for you’ve got such a high mind—it will go hardest with you. As for me, I’ve got no dignity to stand on, and if he drives me to it, I shall simply ’list—that’s what I shall do.”
“’List!” Lottie gazed at him pathetically. She was no longer angry, as she had been when he spoke of this before. “You are out of your senses, Law! You, a gentleman!”
“A gentleman!” he said bitterly, “much good it does me. It might, perhaps, be of some use if we were rich, if we belonged to some great family which nobody could mistake; but the kind of gentlefolks we are!—nobody knowing anything about us, except through what he pleases to do and say. I tell you, if the worst comes to the worst, I will go straight off to the first sergeant I see, and take the shilling. In the Guards there’s many a better gentleman than I am, and I’m tall enough for the Guards,” he said, looking down with a little complacence on his own long limbs. The look struck Lottie with a thrill of terror and pain. There were soldiers enough about St. Michael’s to make her keenly and instantly aware how perfectly their life, as it appeared to her, would chime in with Law’s habits. They seemed to Lottie to be always lounging about the streets stretching their long limbs, expanding their broad chests in the sight of all the serving maidens, visible in their red coats wherever the idle congregated, wherever there was any commotion going on. She perceived in a moment, as by a flash of lightning, that nothing could be more congenial to Law. What work might lie behind, what difficulties of subordination, tyrannies of hours and places, distasteful occupations—Lottie knew nothing about. She saw in her brother’s complacent glance, a something of kin to the swagger of the tall fellows in their red jackets, spreading themselves out before admiring nursemaids. Law would do that too. She could not persuade herself that there was anything in him above the swagger, superior to the admiration of the maids. A keen sense of humiliation, and the sharp impatience of a proud spirit, unable to inspire those most near to it with anything of its own pride and energy, came into her mind. “You do not mind being a gentleman—you do not care,” she cried. “Oh, I know you are not like me! But how will you like being under orders, Law, never having your freedom, never able to do what you please, or to go anywhere without leave? That is how soldiers live. They are slaves; they have to obey, always to obey. You could not do anything because you wanted to do it—you could not spend an evening at home—Oh,” she cried with a sudden stamp of her foot in impatience with herself, “that is not what I mean to say; for what would you care for coming home? But you could not go to that place—that delightful place—that you and papa prefer to home. I know you don’t care for home,” said Lottie. “Oh, it is a compliment, a great compliment to me!”
And, being overwrought and worn out with agitation, she suddenly broke down and fell a-crying, not so much that she felt the slight and the pang of being neglected, but because all these agitations had been too much for her, and she felt for the moment that she could bear no more.
At the sight of her tears sudden remorse came over Law. He went to her side and stood over her, touching her shoulder with his hand. “Don’t cry, Lottie,” he said, with compunction. And then, after a moment, “It isn’t for you; you’re always jolly and kind. I don’t mind what I say to you; you might know everything I do if you liked. But home, you know, home’s not what a fellow cares for. Oh, yes! I care for it in a way—I care for you; but except you, what is there, Lottie? And I can’t always be talking to you, can I? A fellow wants a little more than that. So do you; you want more than me. If I had come into the drawing-room this morning and strummed on the piano, what would you have done? Sent me off or boxed my ears if I’d have let you. But that fellow Ridsdale comes and you like it. You needn’t say no; I am certain you liked it. But brother and sister, you know that’s not so amusing! Come, Lottie, you know that as well as I.”
“I don’t know it, it is not true!” Lottie cried, with a haste and emphasis which she herself felt to be unnecessary. “But what has that to do with the matter? Allow that you do not care for your home, Law; but is it necessary to go off and separate yourself from your family, to give up your position, everything? I will tell you what we will do. We will go to Mr. Ashford, and he will let us know honestly what he thinks—what you are fit for. All examinations are not so hard; there must be something that you could do.”
Law made a wry face, but he did not contradict his sister. “I wish he would cut me out with a pair of scissors and make me fit somewhere,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he added, almost caressingly, “Take your supper, Lottie; you’re tired, and you want something; I have had mine. And you have not told me a word about to-night. Why did you come in so early? How are you and Ridsdale getting on? Oh! what’s the good of making a fuss about it? Do you think I can’t see as plain as porridge what that means?”
“What what means?” cried Lottie, springing from her seat with such passionate energy as half frightened the lad. “How dare you, Law? Do you think I am one of the girls you are used to? How dare you speak to me so?”
“Why should you make such a fuss about it?” cried Law, laughing, yet retreating. “If there is nothing between you and Ridsdale, what does the fellow want loafing about here? Lottie! I say, mind what you’re doing. I don’t mind taking your advice sometimes, but I won’t be bullied by you.”
“You had better go to bed, Law!” said Lottie, with dignified contempt. After all the agitations of the evening it was hard to be brought down again to the merest vulgarities of gossip like this. She paid no more attention to her brother, but gathered together her shawl, her gloves, the shabby little fan which had been her mother’s, and put out the lamp, leaving him to find his way to his room as he could. She was too indignant for words. He thought her no better than the dressmaker-girls he had spoken of, to be addressed with vulgar stupid raillery such as no doubt they liked. This was the best Lottie had to look for in her own home. She swept out, throwing the train of her long white skirt from her hand with a movement which would have delighted Rollo, and went away to the darkness and stillness of her own little chamber, with scarcely an answer to the “Good-night” which Law flung at her as he shuffled away. She sat down on her little bed in the dark without lighting her candle; it was her self-imposed duty to watch there till she heard her father’s entrance. And there, notwithstanding her stately withdrawal, poor Lottie, overcome, sobbed and cried. She had nobody to turn to, nor anything to console her, except the silence and pitying darkness which hid her girlish weakness even from herself.