CHAPTER XXIII.
GOOD ADVICE.
“Oh, he did not say much,” Law replied to Lottie’s questioning when he went home in the afternoon. “He was very jolly—asked me to stay, and gave me lunch. How they live, those fellows! Cutlets, and cold grouse, and pâté de foie gras—something like. You girls think you know about housekeeping; you only know how to pinch and scrape, that’s all.”
Lottie did not reply, as she well might, that pâtés de foie gras were not bought off such allowances as hers; she answered rather with feminine heat, as little to the purpose as her brother’s taunt, “As if it mattered what we ate! If you had grouse or if you had bread-and-cheese, what difference does it make? You care for such mean things, and nothing at all about your character or your living. What did Mr. Ashford say?”
“My character?” said Law. “I’ve done nothing wrong. As for my living, I’m sure I don’t know how that’s to be got, neither does he. He thinks I should emigrate or go into the army—just what I think myself. He’s very jolly; a kind of man that knows what you mean, and don’t just go off on his own notions. I think,” said Law, “that he thinks it very queer of you, when you could set me up quite comfortably, either in the army or abroad, not to do it. He did not say much, but I could see that he thought it very queer.”
“I—could set you up—what is it you mean, Law?” Lottie was too much surprised at first to understand. “How could I set you up?” she went on, faltering. “You don’t mean that you told Mr. Ashford about—— Oh, Law, you are cruel. Do you want to bring us down to the dust, and leave us no honour, no reputation at all? First thinking to enlist as a common soldier, and then—me!”
“Well, then you. Why not you as well as me, Lottie? You’ve just as good a right to work as I have; you’re the eldest. If I am to be bullied for not reading, which I hate, why should you refuse to sing, which you like? Why, you’re always squalling all over the place, even when there’s nobody to hear you—you could make a very good living by it; and what’s more,” said Law, with great gravity, “be of all the use in the world to me.”
“How could I be of use to you?” said Lottie, dropping her work upon her knee and looking up at him with wondering eyes. This was a point of view which had not struck her before, but she had begun to perceive that her indignation was wasted, and that it was she only in her family who had any idea that a girl should be spared anything. “Law,” she said piteously, “do you think it is because I don’t want to work? Am I ever done working? You do a little in the morning, but I am at it all the day. Do you think Mary could keep the house as it is and do everything?”
“Pshaw!” answered Law, “anybody could do that.”
Lottie was not meek by nature, and it was all she could do to restrain her rising temper. “Mary has wages, and I have none,” she said. “I don’t mind the work; but if there is one difference between the common people and gentlefolk, it is that girls who are ladies are not sent out to work. It is for men to work out in the world, and for women to work at home. Would you like everybody to be able to pay a shilling and go and see your sister? Oh, Law, it is for you as much as for me that I am speaking. Everybody free to stare and to talk, and I standing there before them all, to sing whatever they told me, and to be cheered, perhaps, and people clapping their hands at me—at me, your sister, a girl—— Law! you would not have it; I know you could not bear it. You would rush and pull me away, and cover me with a cloak, and hide me from those horrible people’s eyes.”
“Indeed I should do nothing of the sort,” said Law; “I’d clap you too—I should like it. If they were hissing it would be a different matter. Besides, you know, you could change your name. They all change their names. You might be Miss Smith, which would hurt nobody. Come, now, if you are going to be reasonable, Lottie, and discuss the matter—why, your great friend Miss Huntington sang at a concert once—not for any good, not to be paid for it—only to make an exhibition of herself (and she was not much to look at either). Don’t you remember? It would be nothing worse than that, and heaps of ladies do that. Then it is quite clear you must do something, and what else would you like to do?”