CHAPTER XXXV.
FAMILY DUTY: ACCORDING TO MRS. DESPARD.
There are some victories which feel very much like defeats. When Polly had scattered her adversaries on every side, driven forth Lottie and got rid of Law, and silenced Captain Despard—who sat in his room and heard everything but thought it wisest not to interfere—she retired upstairs to her drawing-room and celebrated her triumph by shedding torrents of tears. She had intended to make everybody very wretched, and she had done so; supposing, perhaps (though she did not really know what her motive was), that some pleasure would come to herself out of the discomfiture of the others. But pleasure rarely comes by that means, and when she had thus chased everybody out of her way, Polly threw herself down and burst forth into angry sobs and tears. It is not to be supposed that Captain Despard entertained any romantic illusions about his bride; he knew very well what Polly was. He had, as facts proved, been sufficiently fond of her to marry her, but he did not expect of her more than Polly could give, nor was he shocked to find that she had a temper and could give violent utterance to its vagaries; all this he had known very well before. Knowing it, however, he thought it wise to keep out of the way and not mix himself up in a fray with which evidently he had nothing to do. Had she gone a step further with Lottie it is possible that he might have interfered, for, after all, Lottie was his child; and though he might himself be hard upon her at times, there is generally a mingled sentiment of family pride and feeling which makes us unwilling to allow one who belongs to us to be roughly treated by a stranger. But when Law put himself in the breach, his father sat close and took no notice; he did not feel impelled to turn his wife’s batteries upon himself out of consideration for Law. Nor did it make any impression upon the Captain when he heard her angry sobs overhead. “She will come to if she is left to herself,” he said, and he did not allow himself to be disturbed. Polly, in her passion, threw herself on the carpet, leaning her head upon a chair. She had changed the room after her own fashion. She had lined the curtains with pink muslin, and fastened her crochet-work upon the chairs with bows of pink ribbon; she had covered the old piano with a painted cover, and adorned it with vases and paper flowers. She had made the faded little room which had seemed a fit home enough, in its grey and worn humility, for Lottie’s young beauty, into something that looked very much like a dressmaker’s ante-room, or that terrible chamber, “handsomely fitted up with toilet requisites,” where the victims of the photographic camera prepare for the ordeal. But the loveliness of her handiwork did not console Polly; she got no comfort out of the pink bows, nor even from the antimacassars—a point in which Lottie’s room was painfully deficient. She flung herself upon the carpet and sobbed. What was the use of being a lady, a Chevalier’s wife, and living here in the heart of the Abbey, if no one called upon her or took any notice of her? Polly was not of a patient nature; it did not occur to her even that there was still time for the courtesies she had set her heart upon gaining. She had looked every day for some one to come, and no one had ever come; no one had made any advances to her at the Abbey, which was the only place in which she could assert her position as a lady and a Chevalier’s wife. Even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, who had risen from the ranks, who lived next door, who was not a bit better, nay, who was much less good than Polly to begin with (for what is a trooper’s wife? and she had been nothing but a trooper’s wife)—even Mrs. O’Shaughnessy had passed the door as if she did not see it, and had waited outside till Miss Lottie came to her. Polly’s dreams had been very different. She had seen herself in imagination the admired of all admirers; she was by far the youngest of all the Chevaliers’ wives, and the gentlemen, at least, she was sure would rally round her. Women might be spiteful, but men always did justice to a woman when she was handsome and young. Was not that written in all the records? She expected that the ladies would be spiteful—that would be indeed a part of her triumph. They would be jealous of her superior attractions, of her youth, of her husband’s adoration of her; the old things would be in a flutter of alarm lest their old men should come within her influence. But Polly had felt pretty sure that the old gentlemen would admire her and rally round her. To make the women envious and the men enthusiastic, was not that always the way? certainly such was the course of events in the Family Herald. The heroine might have one friend devoted to her fortunes, a confidant more admiring, more faithful even than her lover; but all the rest of womankind was leagued against her. And so it had been in most of the novels Polly had read. But that neither men nor women should take any notice, that was a thing for which she was not prepared, and which she declared to herself she would not bear.
She had seen enough already from her windows to make her furious. She had seen Mrs. O’Shaughnessy ostentatiously waiting for Lottie, walking up and down outside, making signs to the girl upstairs. She had seen Captain Temple pass and repass, looking up at the same window. She had seen the greetings that met Lottie wherever she appeared. The Chevaliers and their wives had not always looked upon Miss Despard with such favourable eyes. They had thought her proud, and they had resented her pride; but now that Lottie was in trouble it was round her they had all rallied. It was the party at the Deanery, however, which had been the last drop in Polly’s cup. How was she to know that on the highest elevation she could reach as the lady of a Chevalier, she was still beneath the notice of Lady Caroline, and as far as ever from the heaven of the highest society? Polly did not know. The elevation to which she herself had risen was so immense in her own consciousness that there seemed no distinction of ranks above her. She thought, as Lottie had once thought, though from a different point of view, that gentlefolks were all one; that a gentleman’s wife, if not so rich or so grand, was still on a level with Lady Caroline herself, and within the circle which encompassed the Queen. “You can’t be no better than a gentleman,” Polly said to herself. You might, it was true, be a lord, which some people thought better, but even a lord was scarcely above an officer. All this glorious ambition, however, what was it going to end in? She watched the carriages going to the Deanery, and with still more furious feelings she watched Lottie in her white dress crossing the Dean’s Walk. And she left at home, at the window, neglected, left out, though she was Mrs. Despard, and the other nobody! Was it possible that it might be better even to be a dressmaker, forewoman in the workroom, acknowledged to have the best eye for cutting out, and to be the quickest worker of the lot, superior so far among her equals—than to be ignored and neglected and treated as the dust under their feet by a set of poor gentlefolks? Polly felt that she must wreak her vengeance on somebody.
When she had got her fit of crying over accordingly, she jumped up to her feet and hurried to her room to put on her “things.” It was her “best things” that she put on. Indeed, Polly had been wearing her best things every day with an extravagance which rather touched her conscience, though it delighted her fancy. She made herself very fine indeed that wintry afternoon, and pattered downstairs upon a pair of high heels which were more splendid than comfortable, and burst into the little room where Captain Despard sat attentive to all these sounds, and wondering what was coming next. Few people realise the advantage of a silly wife to a man who is not over wise. The Captain, though he had a high opinion of himself, was aware at the bottom of his heart that other people scarcely shared that sentiment. And to have a wife whom he was fond of, and whose acquisition flattered his vanity, and who was unmistakably, though clever enough, less clever, less instructed, than he was, gave him a sense of superiority which was very pleasant to him. He looked upon her follies with much more indulgence than he had ever felt for Lottie, who did not give him the same consolation.
“Well, what is it now?” he said, with a smile.
“I want you to come out with me,” Polly said. “I want to buy some things. My old muff is shabby, I couldn’t wear it in the Abbey. Though they’re a set of old frights and frumps, I don’t wish your wife to be looked down upon by them, Harry. I can see them looking at all my things, counting up what everything costs, and whispering behind my back. That old Mrs. Jones has trimmed her bonnet exactly like mine, though she looks as if she was too grand to see me. They ain’t above copying me, that’s one thing.”
“No wonder,” said the admiring husband; “for it is long since anything so young and so handsome has been among them before. Don’t they wish they could copy your face as well as your bonnet! that’s all.”
“Oh, get along!” said Polly, well pleased; “you’re always flattering. Come and buy me a muff. I don’t know what kind to get. Grebe is sweetly pretty and ermine is delicious, but sealskin, perhaps, is the most genteel; that always looks lady-like. Did you see Mrs. Daventry go by in her carriage? Ah!” Polly sighed; how could she help it? She was very fine in her blue silk, but Augusta was finer. “She has just come from France, you know, and then, of course, they are rich. She had on a velvet with sable that deep——! Ah! it’s hard to see folks that are no better than you with things that are so much better,” cried Polly; “but, after all, though velvet and sable are very nice, give me sealskin—that’s always lady-like. A sealskin jacket!—if I had that, I don’t think there is anything more I should wish for in the world.”
“Are they very dear?” said the Captain, with a sudden fit of liberality. He had a native love of buying, which is very general with impecunious persons, and at present was in a prodigal mood.
“Dear! Oh, not for the good they are,” said Polly. “You never want another winter mantle all your life. You’re set up. That makes them cheap in the end; but they cost a deal of money. I haven’t seen nobody with one in all the Abbey, except the Canon’s ladies.”
“Then you shall have one!” said Captain Despard. He looked like a prince, Polly thought, as he stood there glowing with generous purpose. The sound of the “O—Oh!” with which she received the offer rang through the Lodges. Such a shriek of pleasure had not been heard there since there had been Chevaliers in St. Michael’s. They went out together, all beaming, arm in arm, the bride clinging fondly to her husband, the Captain looking down with delighted protection upon his bride. This sight, which is so pretty in some cases, and calls forth, if much amusement, often a great deal of sympathy, roused anything but friendly feelings in the Lodges, where the good people were getting ready for the afternoon service. Old fool was the best name they had for the bridegroom, though he was not very old; and Polly was a grievance which the ladies could not tolerate. They looked after her from their windows with feelings which were far from Christian. It was a thing they ought not to have been exposed to. There should have been an appeal to the Queen, if the gentlemen had the least energy. “But even the Queen, bless her! could not keep a man from marrying,” the Warden said, deprecatingly. He did not like it any more than they did; but it is only when you are yourself of the executive that you know the difficulties of action; that is why the ladies are such critics—they have not got it to do.
Captain and Mrs. Captain Despard (Polly had got beautiful glazed cards printed stiff and strong with this title upon them) walked down to the best shop in St. Michael’s, which is a very good shop indeed; and there they bought a beautiful sealskin. Impossible to tell the pride, the happiness, the glory with which Polly acquired this new possession. She had not expected it. These were the days when sealskins were still a hope, a desire, an aspiration to the female mind, a property which elevated its possessor, and identified her among her peers. “That lady with the sealskin,” who would think of pointing out anybody by so general a description now? are they not even going out of fashion? But Polly, for one, could not realise the possibility that such a thing could ever happen. And she had not anticipated such a bliss; the happiness was doubled by being unforeseen. This, indeed, was a proof of the blessedness of being a married lady, of having bettered herself, of having married a gentleman. Her mind was in a confusion of delight. Nevertheless she did not forget that she had come out with another and quite distinct purpose. The fact that she had herself been so fortunate did not turn her from her mission. Was it not more her duty than ever to do everything that could be done for her husband’s family? When she had decided upon her sealskin, Polly began to shiver. She said, “It is a very cold day. I don’t know why it should be so cold so early in the year. Don’t you think it is very cold, Harry? I have come out without any wrap. Do you know I think I will put the sealskin on.” Why should not she? The proprietor of the shop accomplished the sale with a pang. He knew Captain Despard well enough and he knew Polly, and he trembled when he thought of his bill. But what could he be but civil? He put it on for her—though how any ordinary sealskin could have covered a bosom so swelling with pride and bliss it is hard to say. And the pair went out together as they came in, except that one was almost speechless with the proud consciousness of drawing all eyes. “It is not the appearance,” said Polly, “but it is so deliciously warm; there never was anything like it. And now I am set up. I shall not cost you any more for a winter cloak, not for years and years.” “I thought you said it was to last for ever,” said the Captain, equally delighted. They promenaded all the way down St. Michael’s Hill, the admired of all beholders. If the remarks that were made were not precisely such as Polly hoped, still there was no doubt that remarks were made by everybody, and that the sealskin had all the honour it deserved. Sometimes, indeed, there would be a bitter in the sweet, as when the Captain took off his hat with jaunty grace to some lady whom he knew. “Who is that?” Polly would ask sharply; but the ladies all hurried by, and never stopped to be introduced; and no man took off his hat to Polly. Even against this, however, the happiness that wrapped her round defended Mrs. Despard. And how the people stared!—people who had seen her going up and down with a little bundle of patterns on her way to her work, on her way to try on a dress—people in the shops, who had been her equals if not her superiors—to see them gazing out at her with big eyes, at her fine sealskin and her fine husband, that comforted her soul. She walked slowly, getting the full good of her triumph. But when she had got to the foot of the hill she dismissed her escort. “Now you may go,” she said; “you always had plenty to do in the old days. I don’t want you to say I tie you to my apron-string. You may go now.”
“This is a pretty way to dismiss your husband,” said Captain Despard; “and where are you going, may I ask, that you send me away?”
“Oh, I will tell you fast enough. I am not going anywhere you can disapprove of. I am going to see the girls,” said Polly, “that is all.”
“The girls! My love, you must recollect,” said Captain Despard with dignity, “that the girls, as you call them, are not fit companions for you.”
“You may trust me to know my place,” said Polly, “and to keep them in theirs. I should think you may trust me.”
Fortified by this assurance, the Captain left his lovely bride. He turned back to kiss his hand to her when he was half way up the hill, prolonging the sweet sorrow of the parting, and Polly blew him a kiss with infantine grace. It was “as good as a play.” “Lord, what fools they are!” said the fishmonger on the hill, who was a cynic! and the young ladies in the draper’s shop shook their heads at each other and said, “Poor gentleman!” with the profoundest commiseration.
When he had left her, Polly threw out her skirts and smoothed the fur of her lovely new coat with a caressing hand. She felt that she loved it. It was more entirely delightful than even her husband—a happiness without alloy. She walked very slowly, enjoying every step of the way. She gave a penny to the beggar at the corner in the fulness of her satisfaction. So far her happiness had evidently a fine moral influence on Polly; and she was going to pay a visit, which was also very kind, to “the girls” in the River Lane. She was not one to forget old friends. She sailed along in her pride and glory through the quarter where she was so well known, and curved her nostrils at the smells, and allowed disgust to steal over her face when her path was crossed by an unlovely figure. Polly flattered herself that she was a fine lady complete; and there was no doubt that the imitation was very good in the general, so long as you did not enter into details.
At the entrance of the River Lane, however, she ceased to stand upon ceremony with herself. She picked up her skirts and went on at a more business-like rate of speed. Some one was coming up against the light, which by this time of the afternoon came chiefly from the west, someone with his shoulders up to his ears, who took off his hat to Polly, and pleased her until she perceived that it was only Law. “You here!” she said: and as she looked at him the moral influence of the sealskin almost vanished. Thus she went in state to visit the scenes in which so much of her previous life had passed. But a new sentiment was in Polly’s eyes. She felt that she had a duty to do—a duty which was superior to benevolence. She pushed open the green swing door with a delicious sense of the difference. The girls were talking fast and loud when she opened the door, discussing some subject or other with all the natural chatter of the workroom. There was a pause when the sound of her heels and the rustle of her silk was heard—a hush ran round the table. How well Polly knew what it meant! “They will think it is a customer,” she said to herself; and never customer swept in more majestically. They were all at work when she entered, as if they did not know what it was to chatter, and Ellen rose respectfully at the first appearance of the lady.
“Mother is upstairs, ma’am, but I can take any orders,” she said; and then with a shriek cried out “Polly!”
“Polly!” echoed all the girls.
Here was a visitor indeed. They got up and made a circle round her, examining her and all she “had on.” “In a sealskin!” ’Liza and Kate cried in a breath, with an admiration which amounted to awe. One of them even put forth her hand to stroke it in her enthusiasm. For an instant Polly allowed this fervour of admiration to have its way. Then she said, languidly—
“Give me a chair, please, and send Mrs. Welting to me. I wish to speak to Mrs. Welting. I am sorry to interrupt your work, young ladies—it is Mrs. Welting I want to see.”
“But, Polly!” the girls cried all together. They were too much startled to know what to say. They stood gaping in a circle round her.
“I thought you had come to see us like a friend—like what you used to be.”
“And weren’t we all just glad to see you again, Polly—and quite the lady!” cried another. They would not take their dismissal at the first word.
“Young ladies,” said Polly, “I’ve not come in any bad spirit. I don’t deny as I’ve passed many a day here. My family (though always far above the dressmaking) was not well off, and I shall always be thankful to think as I did my best for them. But now that I’m married, in a different position,” said Polly, “though always ready to stand your friend, when you want a friend, or to recommend you among the Abbey ladies, you can’t think as I can go on with you like you were in my own sphere. Where there’s no equality there can’t be no friendship. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind opening a window? It’s rather early to put on my sealskin, but one never knows at this time of the year—and I’m ’eated with my walk. Send Mrs. Welting to me, please.”
There was a great commotion among the girls. The two passive ones stood with open mouth, struck dumb by this magnificence.
“Lor!” cried Kate, finding no other word that could express her emotion.
Emma, though she was the youngest, was the most vehement of all. “I know what she’s come for. She’s come to make mischief,” cried Emma. “I wouldn’t fetch mother. I wouldn’t go a step. Let her speak straight out what she’s got to say.”
“There’s reason in everything,” said Ellen. “You mayn’t mean to keep us up like friends. Just as you like, I’m sure; none of us is wanting to keep it up; but mother takes no hand in the business, and that you know as well as me.”
“Send Mrs. Welting to me,” cried Polly, waving her hand majestically. She did not condescend to any further reply. She leant back on her chair and unfastened her beloved mantle at the throat. Then she 5 got out a laced handkerchief and fanned herself. “Me that thought it was so cold,” Polly remarked to herself, “and it’s like summer!” She did not pay any further attention to the young women, who consulted together with great indignation and excitement at a little distance.
“What can she have to say to mother? I wouldn’t call mother, not if she was to sit there for a week,” said Emma, who had a presentiment as to the subject of the visit.
“Lord! just look at her in her sealskin,” interrupted Kate, who could think of nothing else.
But Ellen, who was the serious one, paused and hesitated. “We can’t tell what it may be—and if it turned out to be a job, or something she had got us from some of the Abbey ladies! She’s not bad natured,” said Ellen, full of doubts.
All this time Polly waved her handkerchief about, with its edge of lace, fanning herself. She looked at no one—she was too much elevated above all the associations of the place to deign to take any notice. Had not she always been above it? With her disengaged hand she smoothed the fur of her sealskin, rubbing it knowingly upward. She was altogether unconscious of their talk and discussion. What could they have in common with Mrs. Despard? To see her, if any of her former associates had been cool enough to notice it, was still “as good as a play.”
The upshot was, that while the others, with much ostentation of dragging their seats to the other end of the table, sat down and resumed their work with as much appearance of calm as possible, Ellen ran upstairs in obedience to her own more prudent suggestions, and reappeared shortly with her mother, a large, comely woman, who, not knowing who the visitor was, was a little expectant, hoping for a very good order—a trousseau, or perhaps mourning. “Or it might be the apartments,” Mrs. Welting said. And when she entered the workroom she made the lady a curtsey, then cried out, as her daughters had done, “Why, bless my heart, Polly! The idea of taking me in like this, you saucy things,” she cried, turning, laughing, upon the girls. But she did not get any response from these indignant young women, nor from Polly, who made no reply to her salutation, but sat still, delicately fanning herself.
Mrs. Welting stood between the two opposed parties, wondering what was the matter. Since Polly was here, she could have come only in friendship. “I’m sure I’m very glad to see you,” she said, “and looking so well and so ’andsome. And what a lovely sealskin you’ve got on!”
“Mrs. Welting,” said Polly, with great dignity, taking no notice of these friendly remarks, “I asked for you because I’ve something to say that is very particular. You don’t take much charge of the business, but it is you as one must turn to about the girls. Mrs. Welting, you mayn’t know, but there’s goings on here as always gave me a deal of annoyance. And now I’ve come to tell you they must be put a stop to. I never could endure such goings on, and I mean to put a stop to them now.”
“Lord bless us!” said Mrs. Welting. She was really alarmed. She gave a glance round upon her girls, all bursting with self-defence, and made them a sign to be silent. Then she turned to her visitor with a mixture of anxiety and defiance. “Speak up, Polly,” she said; “nobody shall say as I won’t listen, if there’s anything against my girls; but speak up, for you’ve gone too far to stop now.”
“How hot it is, to be sure!” said Mrs. Despard, “in this close bit of a place. I wish someone would open a window. I can’t think how I could have put up with it so long. And I wonder what my ’usband would say if he heard me spoke to like that? I thought you would have the sense to understand that I’ve come here for your good. It wasn’t to put myself on an equality with folks like you, working for your living. I don’t want to be stuck up, but a lady must draw the line somewhere. Mrs. Welting, I don’t suppose you know it—you ain’t often in the workroom—it would be a deal better if you was. There’s gentlemen comes here, till the place is known all over the town; and there is one young gentleman as I take a deal of interest in as makes me and his papa very uneasy all along of coming here——”
“Gentlemen! coming here!” cried Mrs. Welting, looking round upon her daughters with mingled anger and dismay.
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Polly; “let them contradict me if they dare. He comes here mostly every day. One of the girls is that silly as to think he’s after her. After her! I hope as he has more sense; he knows what’s what a deal too well for that. He takes his fun out of them—that is what he does. But you may think yourself what kind of feelings his family has—the Captain and me. That’s the one that encourages him most,” Mrs. Despard added, pointing out Emma with her finger. “She is always enticing the poor boy to come here.”
“Oh, you dreadful, false, wicked story!” cried Emma, flushed and crying. “Oh, mother, it ain’t nothing of the kind! It was she as brought him first. She didn’t mind who came when she was here. She said it was no harm, it was only a bit of fun. We was always against it—at least Ellen was,” added the culprit, bursting forth into sobs and tears.
“Yes, I always was,” said Ellen, demurely—it was not in human nature not to claim the palm of superior virtue—“but it was not Emma, it was Polly that began. I’ve heard her argue as it was no harm. She was the first with the Captain, and then when young Mr. Despard——”
“I am not going to sit here, and listen to abuse of my family,” said Polly, rising. “I wouldn’t have mentioned no names, for I can’t abide to have one as belongs to me made a talk about in a place like this. I came to give you a warning, ma’am, not these hardened things. It isn’t for nothing a lady in my position comes down to the River Lane. I’ve got my beautiful silk all in a muddle, and blacks upon a white bonnet is ruination. I did it for your sake, Mrs. Welting, for I’ve always had a respect for you. And now I’ve done my Christian duty,” said Polly, with vehemence, shaking the dust from her blue silk. “There’s them that talk about it, like that little Methody Ellen, but there ain’t many that do it. But don’t let anybody suppose,” she cried, growing hotter and hotter, “that I mean to do it any more! If you let him come here after this, I won’t show you any mercy—we’ll have the law of you, my ’usband and I. There’s laws against artful girls as entice poor innocent young men. Don’t you go for to think,” cried Mrs. Despard, sweeping out while they all gazed after her, speechless, “because I’ve once done my Christian duty that I’m going to do it any more!”
We will not attempt to describe the commotion that followed—the reproaches, the tears, the fury of the girls betrayed, of which none was more hot than that of Ellen, who had to stand and hear herself called a Methody—she who was conscious of being an Anglican and a Catholic without blemish, and capable of anything in the world before Dissent.
Polly sailed up the hill, triumphant in that consciousness of having done her duty as a Christian, but equally determined not to do it any more; and what with the consciousness of this noble performance, and what with the sealskin, found it in her power to be almost agreeable to her step-daughter, when the Captain, who, after all, was Lottie’s father, and did not like the idea that his girl should be banished from his house, had met her and brought her in.
“She has not had the careful bringing-up that you have had, my child,” the Captain said. “She hasn’t had your advantages. You must have a little patience with her, for my sake.” Captain Despard had always been irresistible when he asked tenderly, with his head on one side, and an insinuating roll in his voice, that anything should be done for his sake.
Lottie, who was happy in the sense of her lover’s readiness to sacrifice everything for her sake (as she thought), and to whom the whole world seemed fairer in consequence, yielded without any struggle; while Polly, on her part, put on her most gracious looks.
“If you take every word I say for serious,” said Polly, “I don’t know whatever I shall do. I never was used to have my words took up hasty like that. I say a deal of naughtiness that I don’t mean—don’t I, Harry? You and me would never have come together, should we, if you’d always gone and taken me at my word?” And so the reconciliation was effected, and things went on as before. There was no similar occurrence in respect to Law, whose looks at Polly were murderous; but, then, Law had no delicacy of sentiment, and, whatever had happened, would have come into his meals all the same.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
FAMILY DUTY: BY A FINER ARTIST.
Rollo did not come away from the strange excitement of that interview on the Slopes with the same feelings which filled the mind of Lottie. The first intense sensation of shame with which he had realised the villany of the proposal which Lottie did not understand soon changed into a different sentiment. He had felt its guilt, its treacherous cruelty, under the guise of devotion, far more bitterly and intensely than as if she had understood and denounced him; and the relief of his escape from an indignation and horror which must have been as overwhelming as the confidence, had made him feel how great a danger he had run, and how terrible to him, as well as to her, would have been the discovery of his base intention. How could he ever think that Lottie, proud, and pure, and fearless of evil as she was, could have fallen into such a snare! He felt himself a fool as well as a villain; perceiving, too, by the light of fact, what he would not have understood in theory, that the very uncomprehension of innocence makes guilt contemptible as well as terrible. If she could have understood him, he would scarcely have felt so mean, so miserable, so poor a creature as he did now; not even a gay and fine betrayer, but a pitiful cheat and would-be criminal, false to everything that nature trusts in. Rollo had not been irreproachable hitherto; but such sins as he had indulged in had been done among those who were sinners like himself, among people who had a cynical comprehension of the worth of promises and the value of vows. He had never tried that rôle of the seducer before; and the fact that his own shame and horror were real made them all the more hard to bear. Shame, however, of this bitter kind is not an improving influence. Soon it began to turn to anger equally bitter. He tried to think that Lottie was partly to blame, that she had “led him on,” that he never would have gone so far but for “encouragement” from her. Even it flashed across his mind that she was not so unconscious as she appeared, but had pretended ignorance in order to rivet her chains upon him, and force him to the more honourable way which was so much more for her interest. He tried to force this idea into his own mind, which was not sufficiently depraved to receive it; but yet it was not long before he was angry, irritated against the girl who would not understand him, and sore with the humiliation she had inflicted unawares.
Other influences, too, came in to break the purer spell of honourable love under which Rollo, to his own surprise, had so entirely fallen. With the return of Augusta and her husband, the world seemed to have come back and seized him. Even the society of Augusta, of itself, had an immediate influence, breaking up the magic of the seclusion in which he had been content to live. Lady Caroline was not a woman who could be called unworldly, but she was passive, and did not take any initiative even in the way of gossip. She liked to hear it; there came a little gleam of interest to her eyes when the stories of the great world were brought to her, when she was told who was going to marry who, and by what schemes and artifices the marriage had been brought about; and who had most frequently and boldly broken the marriage vow, and by whom it had been most politely eluded; and how everybody lived and cheated, and nothing was as it seemed; and all that is done for money, and that is done for pleasure, in that busy, small, narrow-minded village society—which is the world. But though she loved to hear, she could not begin; for, unless people told her what was going on, how, she sometimes asked piteously, was she to know? As for the Dean, he was not in the habit of it any more than his wife, though when he went to town he would bring down invariably a piece of news from his club—of somebody’s appointment, or somebody’s good luck, or somebody’s wedding. “Now, why can’t you go and do likewise?” he would say to Rollo. But all this was mild and secondary in comparison with Augusta, who brought the very air of what Mr. Jenkins calls the Upper Ten into the Deanery, perfuming all the rooms and all the meals with stories of fortunes won and lost, of squabbles, ministerial and domestic, of marriages and dinners alike “arranged,” and all the wonderful dessous des cartes and behind the scenes with which so many people are acquainted in fashionable life. Who so well as Augusta knew that when the Duke of Mannering gave up his governorship, it was not from any political reason, but because the life he led was such that the place was far too hot to hold him, and Government was only too glad to send out Algy Fairfax, though he was only a younger son, and had no particular interest, simply to smooth things down? And what a lucky thing it was for Algy to be there just at the right moment, when there was nobody else handy, and just when Lord Arthur was there, who had got him to explain matters to his elder brother, and knew what he could do! It was what old Lady Fairfax had been scheming for all her life, just as she had been scheming to catch young Snellgrove for Mina. Of course she had succeeded. Mina was almost distracted, everybody knew. It was she who had that affair with Lord Colbrookdale, and now everybody said she was wildly in love with Reginald Fane, her cousin; but she might just as well be in love with St. Paul’s, for he had not a penny, and she was to be married directly. Did you hear about her settlements? They were simply ridiculous. But that old woman was wonderful. There was nothing she did not think of, and everything she wanted she got. And then there was that story about poor young Jonquil, of the War Department, who married somebody quite out of the question, a poor clergyman’s daughter, or something of that sort, without a penny (though he might have had the rich Miss Windsor Brown for the asking, people said), and of the dreadful end he had come to, living down in some horrid weedy little cottage about Kew, and wheeling out two babies in a perambulator. All these tales, and a thousand more, Augusta told, filling the Deanery with a shameful train of people, all doing something they did not want to do, or forcing others to do it, or following their pleasure through every law, human and divine. Lady Caroline sat in her easy-chair (she was not allowed to put up her feet except in the evening, after dinner, when Augusta was at home), and listened with half-closed eyes, but unfailing attention. “I knew his father very well,” she would say now and then, or “his mother was a great friend of mine.” As for Rollo, he knew all the people of whom these stories were told. He had seen the things beginning of which his cousin knew all the conclusions, and what went on behind the scenes, and thus he was carried back after the idyll of the last six weeks to his own proper world. He began to feel that there was no world but that, that nothing else could make up for the want of it; and a shudder ran over him when he thought of Jonquil’s fate. Augusta, for her part, did not conceal her surprise to find him at the Deanery. “What is Rollo doing here?” she said to her mother.
“I am sure, my dear, I do not know. He seems to like it, and we are very glad to have him,” Lady Caroline replied. But that did not satisfy Mrs. Daventry’s curiosity. What could a young man of fashion, a man of the world, do here?
“I wonder what he is after,” she said; “I wonder what his object can be. It can’t be only your society and papa’s. I should just like to know what he is up to. He is not a fool, to have gone and got entangled somehow. I wonder what he can mean by it!” Augusta cried; but her mother could give her no idea. Lady Caroline thought it was natural enough.
“I don’t see that it is so strange,” she said. “Autumn is a terrible time. To sleep in a strange bed night after night, and never settle down anywhere! Rollo likes to be comfortable; and then there is this Miss Despard. You have heard about Miss Despard?”
“What about Miss Despard?” Augusta said, pricking up her ears.
“She is to be the prima donna,” said Lady Caroline. “He thinks she will make his fortune. He has always got some wild scheme in his head. He used to annoy me very much to have her here——”
“And did you have her here?” cried Augusta, roused into sudden excitement. “Oh, why didn’t I know of it! I thought there must be some reason! Lottie Despard! And were you obliged to have her here, mamma? What a bore it must have been for you!”
“I did not like it, my dear,” her ladyship said. But after a while she added, conscience compelling her, “She sang very nicely, Augusta; she has a pretty voice.”
“She has plenty of voice, but she cannot sing a note,” said Augusta, with vehemence, who was herself, without any voice to speak of, a very well-trained musician. She would not say any more to frighten Lady Caroline, but she took her measures without delay. And the result of Augusta’s enquires was that Rollo found his feet entangled in a web of engagements which separated him from Lottie. But though he was sore and angry, he had not given up Lottie, nor had he any intention so to do. When, however, the day came for Lottie’s next lesson, Mrs. Daventry herself did the Signor the honour of calling upon him just before his pupil appeared. “You know the interest I always took in Lottie. Please let me stay. We have so many musical friends in town that I am sure I can be of use to her,” Mrs. Daventry said; and the consequence was that when Lottie and her companion entered the Signor’s sitting-room, the great chair between the fire and the window in which Mrs. O’Shaughnessy usually placed herself was found to be already occupied by the much greater lady, whose sudden appearance in this cordial little company put everybody out. Augusta sat leaning back in the big chair, holding a screen between her cheek and the fire, her fine Paris bonnet, her furs, and her velvet making a great appearance against the dark wall, and her smiles and courtesy confounding every individual of the familiar party. She was more refined, far less objectionable than Polly, and did her spiriting in a very different way; but there could be little doubt that the fine artist was also the most effectual. She put the entire party out, from the least to the greatest, though the sweetest of smiles was on her face. Even the Signor was not himself with this gracious personage superintending his exertions. He was a good English Tory, of the most orthodox sentiments; but he was at the same time an impatient Italian, of despotic tastes, and did not easily tolerate the position of second in his own house. Rollo, who had determined to be present, whatever happened, but who, by a refinement of cruelty, did not know his cousin was coming, came in with all the ease of habit, and had already betrayed the fact of his constant attendance at these strange lessons, when Augusta called to him, covering him with confusion. “We shall be quite a family party,” she said. “I’m so glad you take an interest in poor Lottie too.” Rollo could not but ask himself what was the meaning of this sudden friendliness and interest; but he was obliged to place himself by her side when she called him. And when Lottie came in, at whom he did not dare to look, his position became very uncomfortable. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, finding her seat occupied, and herself compelled to take a lower place, sat down on a chair near the door, with wrath which made her countenance flame. She had stood up in the room a minute before she seated herself, looking round for a more comfortable place, and had greeted Mr. Ridsdale joyously as an old friend. But even Rollo, usually so polite, who never saw her without doing his very best to make himself agreeable, even he never attempted to introduce her to his cousin, and the good woman sat down accordingly, against the wall, silent and fuming, while Augusta took the chief place. The stranger in the midst of them turned the whole party upside down. Even Purcell was so occupied by the conversation that was kept up in whispers by Augusta, in her corner, even during the singing, that he missed to turn the leaves at the proper moment. Augusta knew very well what she was doing. She had a respect for the Signor, but she had higher purposes in hand. She kept Rollo by her side, and kept up a conversation with him through all, which was, like her usual conversation, deeply pervaded by the essence of society and “the Upper Ten.” She kept it up in a whisper when Lottie began to sing. “Don’t you think she is handsome? She is a little like Lady Augustus Donjon about the eyes—don’t you think so? Oh, I never told you that good story about the Augustus Donjons,” said Mrs. Daventry; and she told her story, all through the song, half audible.
“Wasn’t it good?” Augusta said; and then, “That is such a pretty song; and, Lottie, you are so improved, I should never have known it to be the same voice. Yes, wasn’t it good, Rollo? Augustus Donjon is always the first to laugh himself, and even the children have got it in the nursery. She is such a jolly woman, she never minds. What are we going to have next? Oh, that will be very nice!” said Augusta.
Was it wonderful that Purcell should lose the place? The young fellow did all he could to stop the fine lady with furious glances; and the Signor, though his back was turned to her, felt the whisper and the indignity run through every nerve of him. Even in his back you could see, Purcell thought, how horribly annoyed he was. His sensitive shoulders winced and shuddered, his elbows jerked. He could not attend to his accompaniment, he could not attend to his pupil. In the very midst of a song he said aloud, distracted by the s’s of a whisper which was louder than usual, “This must never happen again.” As for Lottie, she did not know what she was doing. She sang—because it was the hour for her lesson, because she found herself standing there by the side of the Signor’s piano—but not for any other reason. She had neither inspiration, nor had she that nascent sense that Art might perhaps console for other losses which she had once felt when Rollo was away. She was distracted by the whispering behind her, from which she could not withdraw her attention. Why did he listen? Why did he allow Augusta to draw him into unfaithfulness to her? And yet, how could he help it? Was it not all Augusta’s fault? But with whomsoever the fault lay, Lottie was the victim. Her voice could not be got out. And the reader knows that Augusta was right—that this poor girl, though she had the voice of an angel, did not as yet know how to sing, and had no science to neutralise the impressions made upon her which took away all her heart and her voice. She went on making a brave fight; but when once the Signor faltered in his accompaniment, and said loud out, “This must never happen again,” and when Purcell forgot to turn the page, what is it to be supposed Lottie could do, who was not the tenth part of a musician such as they were? She faltered, she went wrong. Tune she could not help keeping, it was in her nature: even her wrong notes were never out of harmony; but in time she went wildly floundering, not even kept right by the Signor. Even that did not matter very much, seeing that none of these people, who generally were so critical, so censorious, so ready to be hard upon her out of pure anxiety for her, were in a state of mind to perceive the mistakes she was making. And it was only vaguely that Lottie herself was aware of them. Her whole attention was attracted in spite of herself by the whispering in the corner.
“Oh, thank you so much!” Augusta broke forth, when she came to the end. “What a charming bit that is! It is Schubert, of course, but I don’t know it. The time was a little odd, but the melody was beautiful.”
“You know my weakness,” said the Signor stiffly, turning round. “I cannot answer for myself when people are talking. I am capable of doing anything that is wrong.”
“Oh! I remember,” cried Mrs. Daventry; “you used to be very stern with all our little societies. Not a word were we allowed to say. We all thought it hard, but of course it was better for us in the long run. And are you as tyrannical as ever, Signor?”
“Not so tyrannical since ladies come here, and carry on their charming conversation all the same. I only wish I could have profited by it. It seemed amusing and instructive. If I were not unhappily one of those poor creatures who can only do one thing at a time——”
“Oh, Signor, how very severe you are!” said Augusta. “I was only telling my cousin some old stories which I am sure you must have heard weeks ago. You know the Donjons? No! Oh, I thought everybody knew the Augustus Donjons! They go everywhere; they have friends in music and friends in art, and you meet all sorts of people at their house. Lottie, when you are a great singer, I hope you will remember me, and send me cards now and then for one of your concerts. There are so many things going on now, and all so expensive, that people in our circumstances really can’t do everything. Spencer has stalls where we go when there is anything particular; but I assure you, now-a-days, one can no more afford a box at the opera——! You know, Signor; but I daresay your friends always find you places somewhere.”
“That is true. If everything else fails, a friend of mine who plays second violin will lend me his instrument,” said the Signor, “or a box-keeper now and then will be glad of an evening’s holiday. They are blasés, these people. They do not care if Patti sings. They will rather have a holiday and go to a music-hall.”
Augusta looked at her cousin, puzzled. She did not see the irony. After all, she thought, there was not, perhaps, so very much difference between a musician and those perfectly gentlemanlike people who showed you to your box or your stall. She had often thought how nice they looked. The Signor saw her bewilderment, and added, with a smile—“You have never recognised me in my borrowed part?”
“Oh, Signor!—certainly not. I never meant to say anything that would suggest—to imply anything that might——indeed, I hope you will not think I have been indiscreet,” cried Augusta. “But, Rollo, we must go, we must certainly go. I told mamma you would come with me to see the old Skeffingtons. Spencer is away, and I must return their call. Signor, I do hope you will forgive me. I meant nothing that was disagreeable. I am sure we are all put to worse straits than that, in order to get a little amusement without ruining ourselves. Oh, Rollo, please come away!”
Rollo had snatched an instant as Lottie gathered her music together. “It is not my fault,” he said. “She never lets me alone. I did not know she was coming here to-day. Do not put on that strange look.”
“Have I a strange look?” Lottie said. What ups and downs were hers!—the other day so triumphant, and now again so cast down and discouraged. The tears were standing in her eyes, but she looked at him bravely. “It does not matter,” she said; “perhaps she does not mean it. It takes away my heart, and then I have not any voice.”
“Oh, my love!” he whispered under his breath. “And I must put up with it all. At the elm-tree, dear, to-night.”
“Oh, no, no!” she said.
“Why no no? it is not my fault. Dear, for pity——”
“What are you saying to Miss Despard, Rollo? I am jealous of you, Lottie; my cousin never comes to my lessons. And, indeed, I wonder the Signor allows it. It is very delightful for us, but how you can work, really work with such a train!” Augusta turned round and looked severely at Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. “If I were the Signor I should not admit one creature except your maid.”
But this was an indignity which mortal could not endure. The kind Irishwoman rose to her feet as quickly as the low chair would permit. “And sure, I agree with the lady,” she said. “Lottie, me love, I can bear a deal for you, and I’ve stood your friend through thick and thin, as all here knows. But come again to the Signor’s I won’t, not if you were to go down on your knees—unless he gives his word of honour that them that hasn’t a scrap of manners, them that don’t know how to behave themselves, that whispers when you’re singing, and interrupts when you’re speaking, will never be here again to insult you—at least not when Mistress O’Shaughnessy’s here.”
Leaving this fine outburst of indignation to vibrate through the room, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy turned upon her heel, and, grasping Lottie by the arm, took the pas from Augusta, and marched out with blazing eyes and countenance flushed with war. “Ye can bring the music,” she said to old Pick, who had been listening, and whose disappointment at Lottie’s break-down was great, “and there’ll be a shilling for you. I’d scorn to be beholden to one of them.” Rollo made an anxious attempt, but in vain, to catch Lottie’s eyes as she was swept past him. But Lottie would not return his glance. Augusta had done a great deal more execution with her subtle tactics than Polly with hers—which, perhaps, were not more brutal because they were so much less refined.
“What an odious woman!” Augusta cried; “walking out of the room before me. But, Rollo, she was quite right, though she was so impudent. You ought not to go there. Mamma says you want Lottie Despard for your new opera. She would never do. She has a voice, but she doesn’t know how to sing. A good audience would never put up with her.”
“That is all a mistake,” said Rollo; “it may be very well to know how to sing, but it is much better to have a voice.”
“I could not have supposed you were so old-fashioned; never say that in public if you want anyone to have any opinion of you. But even if you are so sure of her you should keep away; you should not interfere with her training. The fact is,” said Augusta, very seriously, “I am dreadfully afraid you have got into some entanglement even now.”
“You are very kind,” said Rollo, smiling, “to take such care of me.”
“I wish I could take a great deal more care. I am almost sure you have got into some entanglement, though, of course, you will say no. But, Rollo, you know, you might as well hang yourself at once. You could never hold up your head again. I don’t know what on earth would become of you. Uncle Courtland would wash his hands of you, and what could any of your friends do? It would be moral suicide,” said Augusta, with solemnity. “I told you about young Jonquil, and the state he was in. Rollo! that’s the most miserable thing that can happen to a man; other things may go wrong, and mend again; your people may interpose, or a hundred things may happen; but this sort of thing is without hope. Oh, Rollo, take it to heart! There are many things a man may do that don’t tell half so much against him. You would be poor, and everybody would give you up. For goodness’ sake, Rollo, think of what I say.”
He gave her an answer which was not civil; and, as he went along by her side to old Canon Skeffington’s, there suddenly gleamed across his mind a recollection of the elm-tree on the Slopes, and all the sweetness of the stolen hours which had passed there. And Lottie had said “No.” Why should she have said “No?” It seemed to him that he cared for nothing else so much as to know why for this first time she had refused to meet him. Had she began to understand his proposition? had she found out what it was he meant? Was she afraid of him, or indignant, or——? But she had not looked indignant. Of all things in the world, there was nothing he wanted so much as to know what Lottie meant by that refusal. Yet, notwithstanding, he did take to heart what Augusta said.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ANOTHER CHANCE.
Mr. Ashford, the Minor Canon, had, anyone would have supposed, as tranquil yet as pleasantly occupied a life as a man could have. He had not very much of a clergyman’s work to do. There was no need for him to harass himself about the poor, who are generally a burden upon the shoulders or hung about the neck of the parish priest; he was free from that weight which he had found himself unable to bear. He had only the morning and evening prayers to think of, very rarely even a sermon. Most clergymen like that part of their duties; they like to have it in their power to instruct, to edify, or even to torture the community in general, with perfect safety from any reprisals; but Ernest Ashford in that, as in many other things, was an exception to the general rule in his profession. He was not fond of sermons, and consequently it was a very happy thing for him that so few were required of him. He was now and then tormented by his pupils, which brought his life within the ordinary conditions of humanity; otherwise, with his daily duty in the beautiful Abbey, which was a delight to him, and the leisure of his afternoons and evenings, and the landscape that lay under his window, and the antique grace of his little house, and all his books, no existence could have been more unruffled and happy. He was as far lifted above those painful problems of common life which he could not solve, and which had weighed upon him like personal burdens in the beginning of his career, as his window was above the lovely sweep of country at the foot of the hill. What had he to do but sing Handel, to read and to muse, and to be content? These were the natural conditions of his life.
But it would appear that these conditions are not fit for perverse humanity; for few indeed are the persons so happily exempt from ordinary troubles who do not take advantage of every opportunity to drag themselves into the arena and struggle like their neighbours. Mrs. Ashford did this in what may be called the most wanton and unprovoked way. What business had he to take any interest in Lottie Despard? She was out of his sphere; the Abbey stood between them, a substantial obstacle; and many things a great deal more important—social differences, circumstances that tended to separate rather than to bring together. And it was not even in the orthodox and regular way that he had permitted this girl to trouble his life. He might have fallen in love with her, seeing her so often in the Abbey (for Lottie’s looks were remarkable enough to attract any man), and nobody could have found fault. It is true, a great many people would have found fault, in all likelihood people who had nothing to do with it and no right to interfere, but who would, as a matter of course, have pitied the poor man who had been beguiled, and indignantly denounced the designing girl; but no one would have had any right to interfere. As a clergyman of the Church of England Mr. Ashford had absolute freedom to fall in love if he pleased, and to marry if he pleased, and nobody would have dared to say a word. But he had not done this: he had not fallen in love, and he did not think of marriage; but being himself too tranquil in his well-being, without family cares or anxieties, perhaps out of the very forlornness of his happiness, his attention had been fixed—was it upon the first person he had encountered in the midst of a moral struggle harder, and therefore nobler, than his own quiescent state? Perhaps this was all. He could never be sure whether it was the girl fighting to keep her father and brother out of the mire, fighting with them to make them as honest and brave herself, or whether it was simply Lottie that interested him. Possibly it was better not to enter into this question. She was the most interesting person within his range. His brethren the Canons, Minor and Major, were respectable or dignified clergymen, very much like the rest of the profession. Within the Abbey precincts there was nobody with any particular claim upon the sympathy of his fellows, or whose moral position demanded special interest. The Uxbridges were anxious about their son, who was a careless boy, not any better than Law; but then the father and mother were quite enough to support that anxiety, and kept it to themselves as much as possible. It was not a matter of life and death, as in Law’s case, who had neither father nor mother to care what became of him, but only Lottie—a creature who herself ought to have been cared for and removed far from all such anxieties. Even the deficiency in Lottie’s character—the pain with which she was brought to see that she must herself adopt the profession which was within her reach, and come out from the shelter of home and the menial work with which she was contented, to earn money and make an independence for herself—had given her a warmer hold upon the spectator, who, finding himself unable to struggle against the world and himself, had withdrawn from that combat, yet never could quite pardon himself for having withdrawn. She, poor child, could not withdraw; she was compelled to confront the thing she hated by sheer force of necessity, and had done so—compelled, indeed, but only as those who can are compelled. Would she have fled from the contemplation of want and pain as he had done? Would she have allowed herself incapable to bear the consequences of the duty set before her, whatever it might be? Sometimes Mr. Ashford would ask himself this question: though what could be more ridiculous than the idea that a girl of twenty could judge better than a man of five-and-thirty? But he was interested in her by very reason of her possession of qualities which he did not possess. He had given her good advice, and she had taken it; but even while he gave it and pressed it upon her he had been thinking what would she have said to his problems, how would she have decided for him? All this increased his interest in Lottie. He realised, almost more strongly than she did herself, all the new difficulties that surrounded her; he divined her love, which pained him not less than the other troublous circumstances in her lot, since he could not imagine it possible that any good could come out of such a connection. That Rollo Ridsdale would marry anyone but an heiress his superior knowledge of the world forced him to doubt; he could not believe in a real honest love, ending in a marriage, between the Chevalier’s daughter and Lady Caroline’s nephew. And accordingly this, which seemed to Lottie to turn her doubtful future into a certainty of happiness, seemed to Mr. Ashford the worst of all the dangers in her lot. It would be no amusement for her, as it would be for the other; and what was to become of the girl with her father’s wife in possession of her home and such a lover in possession of her heart? His spectatorship got almost more than he could bear at times; nobody seemed to see as he did, and he was the last person in the world who could interfere to save her. Could anyone save her? He could not tell; he knew no one who would take the office upon himself; but least of all could he do it. He watched with interest which had grown into the profoundest anxiety—an anxiety which in its turn was increased tenfold by the sense that there was nothing which he could do.
Such were the feelings in his mind when the Signor joined him on his homeward way after service on the afternoon when Mrs. Daventry had so interrupted Lottie’s lesson. Augusta had sailed up the aisle and out by the door in the cloisters which adjoined the Deanery, as they came out of the room where all the surplices were hanging in their old presses, and where the clergy robed themselves. The two men came out when the rustle and flutter of the party of ladies were still in the air, and old Wykeham looking after them with cynical criticism. The hassocks in the aisles, which had been placed there for the convenience of the overflowing congregations, too great for the Abbey choir, which crowded every corner now and then, were all driven about like boats at sea by the passage of these billows of trailing silk, and Wykeham had stooped to put them back into their places. Stooping did not suit the old man, and he could not do without his natural growl. “I wish they’d stick to ’em,” he said; “plenty of dirt sticks to ’em. They sweeps up the aisles and saves us trouble; but I’d just like one o’ them heavy hassocks to stick.”
“And so should I,” said the Signor under his breath. “They are insufferable,” he said with vehemence as he emerged into the cloister. “I have made up my mind I shall not allow any intrusion again.”
“Who are insufferable, and what is the intrusion you are going to prevent?” said the Minor Canon with a smile.
“Ashford,” said the Signor with much heat, “I am not going to have you come any more to Miss Despard’s lessons. Don’t say anything to me on the subject; I know all about interest and so forth, but I can’t permit it. It’s ruin to her, and it irritates me beyond bearing. Interest? if you take any real interest in her you would see that nothing could be less for her welfare, nothing more destructive of any chances she may have——”
“My dear Rossinetti, I never was present at Miss Despard’s lesson but once.”
“It was once too much, then,” the Signor cried. “The girl is getting ruined. That woman, that Mrs. Daventry—you should have heard her whispering behind our backs with her fan in front of her face, then stopping a moment to say, ‘What a pretty song: how much you have improved.’”
The Signor made an attempt to mimic Augusta, but he had no talent that way, and the mincing tone to which he gave utterance was like nothing that had ever been heard before. But if his imitation was bad his disgust was quite genuine. He could not think of anything else; he returned again and again to the subject as they went on.
“The upper classes,” he said, “are famous for good manners. This is their good manners: Two of them thrust themselves in for their amusement to a place where a poor girl is working hard at art, and a man who has spent most of his life in learning is trying to transmit his knowledge to her. And the moment that girl begins singing they begin their loathsome chatter about Mr. this and My Lady that. Do not say anything to me, Ashford; I tell you, you shall not come, you nor anyone else, again.”
“Is she making progress?” said the Minor Canon.
“Progress? how could she, with that going on? No; sometimes she will sing like an angel, sometimes like—anyone. It drives me wild! And then our gracious patrons appear—Mr. Ridsdale (who ought to know better) and Mrs. Daventry. I ought to know better too; I will defend my doors from henceforth. To be sure, I did not mean that; you may come if you like.”
“And Mr. Ridsdale talked? How did she bear it?” said Mr. Ashford nervously.
“It is I who will not bear it,” said the musician. “And these are people who pretend to love music—pretend to know: it is insufferable. If she ever becomes a great singer——”
“If? I thought you had no doubt.”
“How was I to know I should be intruded upon like this? Poor girl. I think, after all, the best thing for her will be to marry my boy, John Purcell, and live a quiet life.”
“Marry—Purcell?”
“Why not? He is a very good musician; he will live to make a great deal of money: he has genius—positively genius. The best thing she could do would be to marry him. She is too sensitive. Susceptibility belongs to the artist temperament, but then it must be susceptibility within control. Her voice flutters like a flame when the wind is blowing. Sometimes it blows out altogether. And he loves her. She will do best to marry my John.”
“You cannot have so little perception, Rossinetti. How can you entertain such an idea for a moment? Purcell?”
“In what is he so inferior?” said the Signor with quiet gravity. “He is young, not like you and me. That is a great deal. He is an excellent musician, and he has a home to offer to her. I should advise it if she would take my advice. It would not harm her in her career to marry a musician, if finally she accepts her career. She has not accepted it yet,” said the Signor with a sigh.
“Then all your certainty is coming to nothing,” said Mr. Ashford, “and Ridsdale’s——”
“Ah, Ridsdale—that is what harms her. Something might be done if he were out of the way. He is an influence that is too much for me. Either she has heard of his new opera, and expects to have her place secured in it, under his patronage, or else she hopes—something else.” The Signor kept his eyes fixed upon his companion. He wanted to surprise Mr. Ashford’s opinion without giving his own.
“Do you think,” said the Minor Canon indignantly, “even with the little you know of her, that she is a girl to calculate upon having a place secured to her, or upon anyone’s patronage?”
“Then she hopes for—something else; which is a great deal worse for her happiness,” said the Signor. Then there was a pause. They had reached Mr. Ashford’s door, but he did not ask his companion to go in. The Signor paused, but he had not ended what he had to say: “With the little I know of her”—he said—“do you know more?”
This was not an easy question to answer. He could not say, I have been watching her for weeks; I know almost all that can be found out; but, serious man as he was, Mr. Ashford was embarrassed. He cleared his throat, and indeed even went through a fit of coughing to gain time. “Her brother is my pupil,” he said at last, “and, unfortunately, he likes better to talk than to work. I have heard a great deal about her. I think I know enough to say that she would not hope—anything that she had not been wooed and persuaded to believe in——”
“Then you think—you really suppose—you are so credulous, so optimist, so romantic,” cried the Signor with a crescendo of tone and gesticulation—“you think that a man of the world, a man of society, with no money, would marry—for love?”
The musician broke into a short laugh. “You should have heard them,” he added after a dramatic pause, “this very day whispering, chuchotéing, in my room while she was singing—talking—oh, don’t you know what about? About girls who marry rich men while (they say) their hearts are breaking for poor ones—about women using the most shameless arts to entrap a rich man, and even playing devotion to a woman with money; and the only one to be really pitied of all is the poor fellow, who has followed his heart, who is poor, who lives at Kew, and has two babies in a perambulator. I laugh at him myself,” said the Signor—“the fool, to give up his club and society because he took it into his silly head to love!”
“Rossinetti,” said the Minor Canon, “I know there are quantities of these wretched stories about; but human nature is human nature, after all, not the pitiful thing they make it out. I don’t believe they are true.”