Within the Precincts

by Mrs. Oliphant

The Despard family became a great centre of interest to many people both within and without the Abbey precincts at this period of their history. Without any doing, so to speak, of theirs, Fate mixed them up both with the great and the small, so that their proceedings moved a great many circles of thought and feeling beyond that in which they themselves stood. We have said without any doing of theirs—but this, perhaps, is true only in respect to Lottie, who took no steps consciously to produce the rapprochement which had taken place so strangely between the heaven of the Deanery and the earth of the Lodges. She had not done anything to recommend herself to Lady Caroline or Lady Caroline’s nephew. And yet with both she had become an important “factor,” to use a fashionable term, in the immediate concerns of life. The Captain was not so innocent of purpose in the commotion he had begun to make. But still he had not calculated upon the interest that would be excited by his proceedings. The community at St. Michael’s was quiet and had little to rouse its interest. Sometimes a Canon would be translated to a higher and a better stall—sometimes an old Chevalier would die and be replaced by another veteran not much less old than he—sometimes a son would “go wrong” and create a great deal of whispered communication and shaking of heads. At the present time there were no daughters to marry except Lottie, so that the pleasanter strain of possibility was little thought of. All this made it very inspiring, very agitating to the dwellers round the Abbey, when a family within the precincts gave them so much to think about. A girl likely to make a very good match in a romantic way: a man likely to make a very bad one, in a way which might have been quite as romantic had it not been on the wrong side, such as would debase, not exalt his class; these two probabilities coming together had a great effect upon the popular mind. In the Chevaliers’ Lodges there was very little else talked about. Captain Temple, the most respected of all the Chevaliers, could not keep still, so excited was he. He had spoken to “the father,” he told his wife, to put him on his guard, and to show him how necessary it was to take proper care of his child. That was all he could do: but he could not content himself with thus doing what he could. He paced about his little sitting-room, disturbing Mrs. Temple at her wool-work. She was not like her husband. She was a still, composed, almost stern woman, with a passionate heart, to which she gave very little expression. She could not talk of her daughter as Captain Temple could. The remembrance of the years during which her child was separated from her was terrible to her. When her husband talked as he was accustomed to do of this great grief of theirs, she never stopped him, but she herself was dumb. She closed all her windows, as it were, and retired into a fortress of silent anguish, out of which no cry came; but she listened to him all the same. This was what she did now, though it pained her to hear of this other girl who stood between life and death, between good and evil, as once her child had stood. She would have helped Lottie with all her heart, but she could not bear to hear her talked of—though this was precisely what she had to bear.

“I told him it was his duty to look after his daughter,” said Captain Temple, pacing—three steps one way, four the other—about the room. “But he won’t—you will see he won’t. A beautiful girl, far too good for him, a girl who deserves a better fate. She puts me in mind of our own dear girl, Lucy. I have told you so before.”

To this Mrs. Temple made no reply. He had told her so a great many times before. She selected a new shade of her Berlin wool, and set her elbow rigidly against the arm of her chair, that she might thread her needle without trembling, but she made no reply.

“She puts me constantly in mind of her. The way she holds her head, and her walk, and—— I beg your pardon, my dear. I know you don’t like this kind of talk; but if you knew how I seem to see her wherever I go—wherever I go! I wonder if she is permitted to come and walk by her old father’s side, God bless her. Ah! well, it was Despard’s daughter we were talking of. To think he should have this girl who takes no care of her—and we to whom ours was everything!”

The poor woman made a spasmodic movement, and turned her eyes upon him dumbly. She could not bear it. The needle fell out of her hands, and she stooped to hunt for it on the carpet. She would not stop him to whom it was so great a relief to talk; but it was death to her.

“But I told him,” said Captain Temple. “I showed him his duty, Lucy. I told him he ought to be thankful he had such a daughter to watch over. And what more could I do? I set the whole thing before him. There was nothing more that I could do?”

“Then you must be satisfied, William, and perhaps it will have some effect; we must wait and see,” said Mrs. Temple, coming to the surface again with her needle, which she had found, in her hand. She managed to get it threaded this time with great exertion, while her husband set off again upon his restricted promenade, shaking his white head. Captain Temple, it may be recollected, had not said so much to Captain Despard as he thought he had said—but if he had said everything that man could say it is not probable that it would have made much difference. The kind old Chevalier shook his white head. His eyes were full of moisture and his heart of tenderness. He did not feel willing to wait and see, as his wife suggested. He wanted to do something there and then for Lottie, to go to her and warn her, to keep watch at her door, and prevent the entrance of the wolf—anything, he did not mind what it was so long as he could secure her safety.

The other subject was discussed that same evening in another and very different scene, when Mrs. Purcell, the Signor’s housekeeper, asked her old fellow-servant, Pickering, what news there was in the precincts, and if anything was stirring. It was the most delicious moment for a gossip, when tea was over in the kitchen, and dinner upstairs, and twilight was beginning to drop over the country, bringing quiet and coolness after the blaze of the day. Mrs. Purcell sat by the open window, which was cut in the very boundary wall of the Abbey precincts, as in the side of a precipice. It was not safe for anyone of uncertain nerves to look straight down upon the slope of St. Michael’s Hill, on which the walls were founded, and on the steep street winding below. But Mrs. Purcell had her nerves in the most steady and well-regulated condition. She was not afraid to sit at the head of the precipice, and even to look out and look down when the shop windows began to be lighted. She liked to see the lights coming out below. It was cheerful and felt like “company” when she sat alone. Old Pickering had just come in after an errand into the town. He was the man-servant, while she was the housekeeper, but the work of the establishment was chiefly done by a sturdy young woman who was under the orders of both.

“News—I don’t know much about news,” said old Pick. “It wants young folks to make news; and there ain’t many of that sort about here.”

“Dear!” said Mrs. Purcell (but it must not be supposed that this exclamation meant any special expression of affection to old Pickering). “There’s heaps of young folks! There’s the Signor, and there’s my John——”