“I don’t know what you mean,” cried Lottie. Fortunately for her, he had thought her a child up to the time of their migration to St. Michael’s, and she had been subjected to very little advice of this description. But, though she gazed at him with wondering eyes, she knew very well by the instinct of horror and repulsion in her mind what he meant. It gave her a shock of pain and shame which ran like electricity to her very finger points. “I think you must be making a mistake,” she said. “I scarcely know Mr. Ridsdale at all. He has called here twice—on business—for Lady Caroline—and now he has gone away.”
“Gone away!” the Captain said, his face lengthening with disappointment and dismay; “gone away! then you’re a fool—a greater fool than I thought you. What’s to become of you, do you ever ask yourself? Good lord, what a chance to throw away! One of the Courtland family—a fellow with a turn for music—that you could have turned round your little finger! And to let him go away! By George,” said the Captain, making a stride towards her, and clenching his fist in the energy of his disapproval, “I don’t believe you’re any child of mine. Clever—you think you’re clever? and so did your mother, poor woman! but you’re an idiot, that is what you are—an idiot! to let such a chance slip through your fingers. Good lord! to think such a fool should be a child of mine!”
Lottie stood her ground firmly. She was not afraid of the clenched fist, nor even of the angry voice and eyes, which were more genuine. If there was a slight tremor in her, it was of her own excited nerves. She made no reply; if she had spoken, what could she have done but express her own passionate loathing for his advice, and for his disapproval, and perhaps even for himself? for she had not been brought up to reverence the faulty father, whose evil qualities her mother had discussed in Lottie’s presence as long as she could remember. There had not been any illusion in his children’s eyes after their babyhood, in respect to Captain Despard, and perhaps in the present emergency this was well. She stood and met his fury, pale, but more disdainful than desperate. It was no more than she would have expected of him had she ever thought of the emergency at all.
Law had heard the sound of the battle from afar; he heard his father’s voice raised, and the sound of the stroke upon the table with which he had emphasised one of his sentences. It was a god-send to the unenthusiastic student to be disturbed by anything, and he came in sauntering with his hands in his pockets, partly with the intention of taking Lottie’s part, partly for the sake of “the fun,” whatever it might be. “What’s the row?” he asked. He had slippers on, and shuffled along heavily, and his coat was very old and smelt of tobacco, though that was a luxury in which Law could indulge but sparingly. He had his hands in his pockets, and his hair was well rubbed in all directions by the efforts he had made over his unbeloved books. Thus it was but a slovenly angel that came to Lottie’s aid. He stopped the yawn which his “reading” had brought on, and looked at the belligerents with some hope of amusement. “I say, don’t bully Lottie,” he exclaimed, but not with any fervour. He would not have allowed anyone to lay a finger upon her, but a little bullying, such as she administered to him daily, that perhaps would do Lottie no harm. However, he was there in her defence if things should come to any extremity. She was of his faction, and he of hers; but yet he thought a little bullying of the kind she gave so liberally might do Lottie no harm.
“Go away, Law; it is no matter; it is nothing. Papa was only communicating some of his ideas—forcibly,” said Lottie, with a smile of defiance; but as there was always a fear in her mind lest these two should get into collision, she added hastily, “Law, I don’t want you—go away.”
“He can stay,” said the Captain. “I have something to say to you both. Look here. I thought in the first place that she had hit off something for herself,” he said, turning half round to his son. “I thought she had caught that fellow, that Ridsdale; from what I had heard, I thought that was certain—that there would be no difficulty on that side.”
The Captain had left his original ground. Instead of reproaching Lottie, in which he was strong, he was in the act of disclosing his own intentions, and this was much less certain ground. He looked at Law, and he wavered. Big lout! he knew a great deal too much already. Captain Despard looked at Law as at a possible rival, a being who had been thrust into his way. The workroom had no secrets from Law.
“I think the governor’s right there,” said Law confidentially; “he’s a big fish, but he’s all right if you give him time.”
A gleam of sudden fury blazed over Lottie’s face. She, too, clenched her hands passionately. She stamped her foot upon the floor. “How dare you?” she said, “how dare you insult me in my own home, you two men? Oh, yes, I know who you are—my father and my brother, my father and my brother! the two who ought to protect a girl and take care of her! Oh! is it not enough to make one hate, and loathe and despise—!” said Lottie, dashing her white clenched hand into the air. Tears that seemed to burn her came rushing from her eyes. She looked at them with wild indignation and rage, in which there was still a certain appeal. How could they, how could they shame a girl so? They looked at her for a moment in this rage, which was so impotent and so pitiful, and then they gave a simultaneous laugh. When an exhibition of passionate feeling does not overawe, it amuses. It is so ludicrous to see a creature crying out, weeping, suffering for some trifle which would not in the least affect ourselves. Lottie was struck dumb by this laugh. She gave a startled look up at them through those hot seas of salt scalding tears that were in her eyes.
“What a fool you are making of yourself!” said the Captain. “Women are the greatest fools there are on this earth, always with some high-flown rubbish or other in their stupid heads. Your own home! and who made it your home, I should like to know? I don’t say you hadn’t a right to shelter when you were a little thing; but that’s long out of the question. A girl of twenty ought to be thinking about getting herself a real home of her own. How are you going to do it? that’s the question. You are not going to stay here to be a burden upon me all your life; and what do you mean to do?”