Bel. Whither shall I fly?
Where hide me and my miseries together?
Where’s now the Roman constancy I boasted?
Sunk into trembling fears and desperation.
Jaf. Mercy! Kind Heaven has surely endless stores
Hoarded for thee, of blessings yet untasted.
—Otway.
So Lotte Clinton began the world afresh. Her prospects were newer and brighter. Since she had been flung abruptly and rudely upon the hard world, she had not known such true comfort and happiness as she now enjoyed. The death of her parents, within a few days of each other, had left her and her brother—her senior only some fifteen months—utterly destitute. The disinterested charity of a neighbouring humble tradesman, who had known something of the family in better times, not only provided the expenses of the double funeral, but paused not until it had placed the boy in a lawyer’s office, and the girl at a milliner’s, as an apprentice for three years in the house.
In those three years, Lotte had been trained to exist with as few hours nightly sleep as it was possible for her young nature to sustain without actually sinking under it. But she had acquired the whole mystery of cap-makings and some little knowledge of dressmaking.
When the term of her apprenticeship expired, she went through the routine of day work until her skill, and the known power she had of working long after midnight, and rising with the sun, enabled her to ask for, and to obtain, her work at home.
The advantages afforded her by this arrangement were, that she saved the time occupied in passing to and from her place of business, and she was spared exposure to insult on her nightly return to her humble lodging.
When our tale opened, she was occupied in making those pretty blonde, flowered fronts, worn by ladies as the inner adornment of their bonnets. For making up these, she was paid at the rate of sixpence-halfpenny, sevenpence-halfpenny, and for some eight-pence-halfpenny per dozen. At this miserable pay she had to rise with the dawn, and work until past the hour of midnight, to earn even a scanty pittance-Many a fair creature, consulting her mirror, has, with gratified pride, observed the becoming properties of the small and pretty addition to her head-dress; but how very few have reflected that their own efforts to procure it as cheaply as possible have helped to hurry many a poor exhausted careworn sister into the crowded paths of sin, or into a pauper grave!
Lotte was rapid with her needle, and was full of self-sacrifice, that she might be self-dependent. She possessed great powers of endurance, and, to preserve her independence, she taxed those powers to the utmost. No one but herself knew what privations she had undergone. No one but herself could tell of the hardships she had faced, struggled with, without a despairing sigh, and had surmounted—until the cruel circumstances succeeding the fire had ruthlessly dragged from her all hope.
Now her trials and her miseries seemed to have vanished. She had not to work so hard, for she was far better paid, and if her old habit of early rising still adhered to her, she laid her pretty, happy face upon her soft pillow at least an hour before midnight.
Her furniture was all her own, too, now; to the kind liberality of Flora Wilton she was indebted for that, and she had, at least, a sovereign by her for an emergency. She had begun to deposit in a Savings Bank already. She had a plan daintily conceived, which involved a fair amount of poetical justice. She had indomitable perseverance, and, if events unforeseen and uncontrollable did not occur, she fully resolved to carry it out. Her room—her one room, for she had only one—was a little picture, so clean, so tidy, so prettily arranged it was. There was her table with its two flaps, so that if she felt lonely and somewhat disposed to turn with liberal hand her economy aside it would accommodate a visitor—ay, actually company.
Then, in addition to her neat set of chairs, there was a sofa, which, by a marvel of mechanical ingenuity was converted at night into a pretty little bedstead. There was upon the floor a neat-patterned carpet. Upon the flowered walls a picture or two, not of much value, but they added to the liveliness of the room.
She had, too, a charming little canary, such a dear tiltle “dick,” which chirruped and sang to her all the long day, looking at her every now and then, and calling “sweet” to her with as knowing an expression in his little bright eye, as if he were that young smart though anky grocer himself round the corner, who never served her with sugar but he gazed upon her as if, like the genuine “barley,” he was a “sweetness long drawn out.”
There were flowers in the window. She was very fond of flowers. She could not afford the more expensive kinds, but as it was, she delighted in tending her geraniums, her mignionette, her fuchsias, and her trained convolvuli.
Altogether, in her eyes, her room was an earthly Paradise. She almost sighed with too much happiness as at times she lifted up her eyes from her work to gaze around.
“Oh, if Charley could only see me here, how happy he would be!” she would often say to herself; and then she would pray with earnest fervour that he might soon be restored to her.
As yet she had not had a visitor. Flora was away in the country. Hal Vivian she had expected to call, if only to say, “How do you do?” but he had never been, and Mrs. Bantom—who had promised to return the visit, which Lotte, full of gratitude and thankfulness to her for her motherly kindness in her distress, had paid—had not yet put in an appearance. Several times when a loud ring came to “her” bell, she ran with a light step and a beating heart down the stairs to answer the door, expecting to see some loved face reward her hopeful anticipations, but it was only “the milk,” or a boy to bring her a fresh supply of work, and take away that which she had done. She would return up to her room with just a little bit of a sigh, and take refuge once more in the sanguine belief that some one would come to see her, and that before long.
She little dreamed all this while that there was “some one” on the look-out to find her—one who was fully as anxious to become a visitor to her as she could be to receive one.
She was all unconscious that her round, attractive face had won the heart of “the heir of the haughty Grahame”—that is, so much of the article as he possessed. Alas! too, like many others of his sex, as far as woman was concerned, his heart greatly resembled a garden-grown cabbage, luxuriant in leaf, but without the solid centre, which was necessary to make it of value to the possessor.
She had no inkling that while she longed for some face, bearing a kind expression, to come shining through her doorway, that a suitor for her—love—was roaming through the more retired of the west-end streets, examining apartments to let, making kind inquiries after imaginary persons of impatient landladies, in the strong hope, that he should at last “come shining through the doorway” to her, as though by the most charming accident in the world.
But this swain was not successful. Something more than the reverse, for he pursued his investigation in a manner so peculiar that in several cases he was suspected of being after the time-piece, or any stray purse or plate, instead of the lodgings; and was, consequently, answered with abruptness, not permitted to be left by himself for an instant, and was shown to the door with all possible speed. In other instances, he was imagined to be an individual shrinking from an interview with sharp and urgent creditors, whose claims he could not liquidate. In nearly every case, he was considered impertinently inquisitive, and received monosyllables in reply, but not in satisfaction of the object of his questions, as that formed precisely the point upon which the interrogated joined issue with him, especially if the lady with diminished resources who let apartments to help out her income, or who had “more room than she wanted,” happened to have a daughter old enough to be thought of by young men—and to think of them. Then Malcolm Grahame observed, as he questioned, the elderly landlady’s face redden, her brow contract, her lips purse up, her eyes brighten, and her conversational powers stricken with a sudden frost; and he found himself gradually backed, inch by inch, down the stairs, along the passage too narrow mostly to be dignified with the name of a hall, until he was fairly in the street, and then the door was slammed in his face.
“Cursedly rude,” thought he: “devilish odd, too, they should treat a person of my standing and appearance in such a beastly fashion.”
The more his imagination dwelt upon Lotte, the more infatuated he grew; the difficulties thrown in his path, in his endeavour to discover her, served but to add to the flame already kindled; and thus much time that ought to have been passed at Oxford was spent in wandering through whole streets of unlet apartments to find one who had no idea of his existence, and who, as soon as his identity was established, would think about him pretty much as she had done before, that is to say—not at all.
A recent effort of Lotte’s handicraft had been purchased by a lady of title in Belgravia; and, requiring other articles of attire for her “budding sprigs,” she desired that the person, young or old, who had made the articles she had purchased, and was much pleased with, should, upon a certain evening, after dinner, wait upon her to take her instructions. Delighted with the taste exhibited in the things she had bought, the lady concluded that the same excellent fancy would be displayed by the young person in whatever was made under her own directions; in fact, that by such a mode of procedure the very best results would be produced. She was, therefore, very particular in requesting the presence of the actual workwoman.
Her wishes were conveyed to Lotte, and she, glad of a little change, readily assented to attend upon the lady, resolving to make, by allowing herself plenty of time, something more than a mere walk of her journey.
So she tied on the prettiest of little bonnets—we must tell the truth—so as to cover only half her head and to hide that graceful turn in her neck, which, without shawl or bonnet, commanded the admiration of any person with half an eye for beauty of form, and she donned her dove-coloured mantle, which fell so gracefully from her shoulders, giving a tantalising suggestion of the small, well-shaped waist it concealed from view, but not from the imagination; and she drew on gradually, with a woman’s patience and perseverance in those matters, the small deep-green kid gloves, and then she seized her little morocco handkerchief-box hung it on her arm, and sallied forth.
“Well,” she thought, with a smile and a suppressed sigh, “if no one has been to pay me a visit, it consoles me to think I have a visit to pay.”
Now she had not left her residence more than a few minutes, when Hal Vivian, with grave and thoughtful face, called at her residence to see her, and to have a quiet talk with her upon a subject of interest to her and of moment to himself. He was vexed to find that she was out; but, on learning that she had gone to Eaton Square, he said it was probable he might walk in that direction, and, in all likelihood, he should see her; he therefore declined to leave a message.
Perhaps an hour had elapsed, when Miss Clinton’s bell again gave forth a loud peal. This time there appeared at the door two young men, one of whom inquired for Lotte with great earnestness; he displayed much disappointment when told that, though the young lady for whom he inquired certainly lived there, that she was not within. When, however, it was made known to him whither she had gone, he, with his friend, at once departed in quest of her.
Now, as though visits were to fall on Lotte as thick as hail during her absence, Mr. Bantom, spruced up and decorated with a tall shirt collar, so that his wife laughed until she absolutely wept, as she walked round and surveyed him, when dressed, presented himself at her abode for admission.
But he had been observed by a policeman to hang round the door for at least five minutes before he selected the bell-handle he intended to manipulate upon, and when apparently he had made up his mind, he pulled it out with such tenderness, that it was only at the fourth effort a slight “ting” ensued. He had allowed about three minutes to elapse between each pull, a quarter of-an-hour was therefore very nearly consumed before the door was opened to him. The policeman having little on his mind and nothing to do but to crack nuts, lessened gradually the distance between himself and Bantom, until he stood at his shoulder. When Lotte’s landlady threw wide the entrance to her mansion, she almost fainted at beholding the strange man she had seen a short time previously walking slowly up and down opposite her house, seeming to examine it with the eye of a practised burglar, picking out its most vulnerable part, and with him a policeman. A variety of horrible suggestions presented themselves to her, and she gasped for breath without being able to utter a word.
Bantom looked slightly bewildered by the unexpected appearance of the policeman at his elbow; he was at a loss to conceive his object in pausing there, and waited for him to state his business to the housekeeper. The policeman, who was no artist in his profession, urged by a sense of duty and a presentiment that Bantom was animated by a hope of plunder, also remained silent to hear what Bantom had to say for himself; for a minute, therefore, the three gazed upon each other without speaking.
The landlady broke ground by faintly demanding to what remarkable event she might attribute the honour of this most unlooked-for visit; whereupon Mr. Bantom gracefully resigned to X 94 the privilege of speaking first, a privilege which was immediately accepted, and used in directing a series of sharp interrogatories addressed to Mr. Bantom, every one of which he replied to with skilful evasion. The officer, at length declared himself extremely dissatisfied with the result of his examination, and requested Mr. Bantom to accompany him to the station-house, in order that he might give more satisfactory explanations concerning himself to the inspector on duty. To this proposition, Mr. Bantom emphatically declined to accede; he declared it a violation of the liberty of the subject, to which he would not submit; and as X 94 endeavoured to enforce his suggestion, a collision ensued.
Lotte’s landlady, when she saw the policeman’s hand upon Bantom’s collar, and Bantom’s hand upon the policeman’s belt, and the two commence to revolve with frightful rapidity, thought it prudent to take no further part in the interview. She therefore retired, closed her door, bolted it, and put the chain up. She ascended to the room above, and peeped over a blind to ascertain what followed her departure. She heard a great shuffling of feet upon the pavement, and the roar of many voices. There were frequent heavy bumps at the street door, as of human bodies swung violently against it, the knocker rapped at these times, untouched by mortal hand; then the uproar increased, grew, swelled into a mighty sound, and at last she saw the heels of Mr. Bantom quivering in the air, waving above the shoulders of five policemen, who were bearing him off in triumph to that audience with the inspector at the station-house, suggested in the first instance by X 94, but which Bantom had so obstinately refused to attend.
All this while Lotte was on her way to Eaton Square, She paused occasionally to look in at the shops—the drapers’ and the milliners’ commanding the largest portion of her attention; though at the time Mr. Bantom was doing desperate battle against such unequal odds, she was steadfastly regarding a large variety of pipes in a tobacconist’s window, with the intention of one day selecting one, and making him a present of it.
She went on and reached Hyde Park. She struck across towards the Serpentine.
The sky was blue, clear, and serene; the air was balmy, and the soft turf green and smooth. The throngs moving to and fro, in carriages and on foot, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, made the scene busy and lively, and she tripped on, full of joyful tenderness and freshened spirits, light and free as a bird.
The route she had determined to pursue lay along the path on the banks of the Serpentine river, over the bridge, and so towards Knightsbridge. As she went on, she admired the gay equipages, and the superb dresses of the fair high-bred creatures borne in them, and no touch of envy mingled with her admiration. Glad of heart herself, she was delighted to see how smiling and happy every one appeared—with what a light, elastic step each one seemed to move, and how deliciously the breeze wafted to her ear the unsaddened ring of childish laughter, when suddenly she came upon the boat-house of the Humane Society.
It stood in the gloomy shadow of a cluster of trees upon the bank; near to it was moored a boat, in which lay at rest the formidable looking-instrument employed to rescue the drowning, or to bring up from the cold depths of the river, the dead.
A cold thrill ran through her frame as she gazed upon it, and she hastened on. The hue of the still river, before so blue and sparkling in its ripples, now seemed to change—to become leaden and motionless. She remembered the dark night when, with cold, sinking heart, she hurried to leap from an arched height into a river’s chill and fatal embrace, that she might there end in a wakeless sleep, her sorrow and her despair.
She remembered the sudden grip of her wrist, the gentle voice in her ear, and the infinite mercy of the great and good God who had saved her in the very moment of committing a mortal sin.
A throng of tears gushed into her eyes. She murmured a prayer of thankfulness to Him for His beneficence to her, and a blessing on Hal for his interposition.
While the soft words of gratefulness yet stirred her quivering lips, her tearful eyes fell upon the pale features of a young, beautiful, and elegantly dressed lady, who was passing beneath a group of trees, seemingly desirous of screening herself from public gaze, and evidently affected with the deepest sadness. Oh! that terrible expression of despair upon her pallid face—that aspect of blank, hopeless woe-begone desolation, which the most accomplished mime or the vilest cheat could never simulate—how sure and perfect an index is it of the utter misery crushing the prostrated heart of those whose countenances bear its fearful impress!
Lotte recognised it. Instantly she felt that so she must have looked when her wretchedness had reached its culminating point. Her easily-awakened sympathy, prompted her to speak to the young lady; but as she advanced with this purpose, she perceived that the object of her interest, observing her, hastily retreated, and hurried away in the direction of Kensington Gardens.
She gazed wistfully after her, and felt impelled to follow, for she knew there was an aching heart beating against a prison grate from which it longed to escape. She would, with earnest fervour, have done her best to pour consolation into the dull ear of the strange lady, and, as far as she could, have softened the anguish of her racked soul, but the young and evidently high-born girl moved so quickly away, that she was beyond the reach of her voice in less than a minute after she detected that she had attracted attention.
Lotte, therefore, proceeded upon her mission, was received with magnificent condescension by the stately mistress of the splendid mansion to whom she had been accredited, endured much patronage as she took her instructions, was honoured with a glass of wine and a piece of cake after her walk, permitted to retire at the proper moment, was winked at by the footman who conducted her out, and who thought her “a jewced nice gal,” and found herself in the square, uncertain which route to take on her return to her own dear little paradise of a room.
Her decision was formed for her. She had been unable to chase from her brain a vision of the pale woe-smitten face she had seen in the park. It haunted her from the moment the reality faded from her sight; it settled before her, the large eyes gazing upon her own sadly and steadfastly, while she listened to details of juvenile dress; it grew brighter and more vivid when alone in the deepening twilight, and it seemed to glow with brighter aspect as she turned herself to retrace her steps through the park again, and pass the spot where she had seen the wan features, which she had an indistinct, undefined impression she had known under happier circumstances.
“I should, perhaps, be less anxious about her,” she thought, “but for that ugly, death-scented water.” She shuddered. “God preserve her from seeking rashly such a grave as that!”
She pressed on towards the spot where she had encountered the young lady, who had so strongly and so strangely excited her interest. On reaching it, she was scarcely surprised to discern, in the murky obscurity occasioned by the umbrageous foliage of many trees, whose branches intertwined, a shadowy phantom like a female, pacing agitatedly on the narrow pathway beneath.
Lotte glided noiselessly up to her, for she knew that she now beheld the same young creature she had before seen, though her mental agony, expressed by her excited movements, appeared to have increased in intensity since she had quitted her. As Lotte gained her side, she heard with a sharp pang her choking sob of acute misery. She saw her wring her hands in despairing agony, and then Lotte placed her lingers lightly upon her shoulder.
The lady turned, with a low, smothered shriek, to see who had touched her, but on finding that it was a young female, a stranger, she drew herself up haughtily, and said, in a low, grating voice—“What do you want with me?”
Lotte quietly took a firm hold of her elegant mantle, and then replied, in an earnest tone—
“Pardon me! you are smitten by some terrible grief.”
“Well!” replied the young lady, coldly, as Lotte paused.
“Oh, do not repel me!” she cried, fervidly; “pray do not. I am aware it may appear intrusive and rude in me to trespass upon your sorrow”——
“You are right; it is both rude and intrusive. Leave me!” interrupted the young lady, a little vehemently, endeavouring at the same time, to remove her mantle from Lotte’s grasp, but she retained her hold, and continued in urgent tones—
“As Heaven is my witness, I am animated by no common motives! You are a lady: I am humble. Grief knows no distinction: the human heart is susceptible of misery, though a diadem may glitter upon the brow of its possessor. The rich are not exempt from its blight, even though it be the common inheritance of the poor. I have been destitute, am poor”——
The young lady turned her unbending head away, still cold and stern. By a rapid movement, she drew a purse from the pocket of her dress; and, offering it to Lotte, said, almost harshly—
“Take it and leave me!”
“Oh, madam! madam!” cried Lotte, passionately, “do not misconstrue me. You are a woman, as I am; we are both equal in the eyes of the Creator. He gave us our lives to hold in trust—not to fling wildly away, and rush unbidden into His dread presence.”
The startling energy of Lotte’s tones caused the young lady to recede a pace, and mutter something which was inaudible.
Lotte, in her excitement, changed her grip from the mantle to the wrist of the young creature she was addressing.
“Look there!” she cried, in a low tone, but with a terrible emphasis. She pointed to the dark, sluggish, leaden-hued mass of water, stretching east and west.
“Look upon that dark vaporous river, the graveyard of the madly despairing. I stood upon the brink of a river mightier and blacker than that before you; upon its very edge I stood, prepared to spring into its deadly depths, because I was friendless, homeless, hopeless—do you mark me?”
The haughty girl cowered.
“I do,” she murmured.
“As with a bitter wail of sorrowing distraction, even such as now burst from your lips, I was about to leap out of life, I was seized by the wrist, as I now seize you, and by a friend. To shame me from my dreadful purpose, God had sent to me a friend, as—as he now sends me to you.”
She fell upon her knees, and clasped the hands of the young lady.
“Oh! believe that, though humble, I can and will do all within my power to serve you, to console you, to soothe the dreadful anguish which urges you to crime beyond redemption.”
“Nothing can console or soothe me,” hoarsely replied the young lady. “Let me free; I have nothing more to do with life.”
“But it has with you. Oh! it has with you,” urged Lotte, vehemently; “a glimmering light there is to penetrate the foulest vault of sin and despair. Have but faith in me, and I will show you, though it be as a star shining afar, the beacon of hope burning steadily. Perhaps you have not yet tested the value of sincere friendship; perhaps you know not what peace may be won by pouring your sorrows in a tenderly attentive ear, or confiding your fears, your worst forebodings—even your sins—for alas! we are all more or less tainted—to a sympathising breast.”
The young lady squeezed Lotte’s hands spasmodically.
“I never had such a friend—I know not what it means,” she said, her lips quivering with emotion.
“Let me he such a one to you,” exclaimed Lotte, with intense eagerness—“humble, but truthful. Come, let us away from this dark, lonely place. Come with me for so long as you will. I live by myself—quite, quite alone. No one visits me, for I am humble—very humble, but oh! I am happy now, and I will strive to bring back peacefulness and calm to your poor disturbed heart. I will not ask you one word about the past. I will not seek for your confidence, but will act always as though I possessed it. Your station, it is evident, is far higher than mine, but you can think me a foster sister—though still, in all tenderness of affection and loving service, a sister.”
She felt the limbs of the young stranger tremble She saw that she shook like an aspen from head to foot, and she rose up to catch her in her arms, for she knew that she yearned to fall within them and weep—weep long and bitterly.
At length Lotte, whose eye from time to time rested painfully upon the still, almost mist-hidden river, passed her arm gently round the waist of the young lady, and drew her softly away.
She was yet sobbing, but she made no resistance.
Lotte’s earnest sincerity had subdued her haughty pride; it had found its way to her heart and to her reason. It suddenly and unexpectedly offered a future where before all had been blank obscurity; it opened up to her a store of womanly sympathy and service, which until now she had credited, but not found; and what weighed much with her, it offered her with life a secret seclusion, for that was now as needful to her as life itself; and so she accepted the new position, as though she had suffered herself to be persuaded and had yielded.
Yet she thought, as she went on, clinging to Lotte’s supporting arm—
“If this is to be humble, how large the price paid by rank to become ignorant of human worth!”
The group of trees and the leaden river were left behind, and the two young creatures, upon whom the shadows of Fate had successively so darkly fallen, moved into the open space, slowly pursuing the pathway leading towards the glaring lights of Oxford Street.
Soph. Permit me, sir, to pass.
Con. Not till you hear of your good fortune, my dear. You have attracted, in one moment, what hundreds of your sex have twinkled their eyes for whole years in vain—my notice. I will bring you into the world myself; your fortune’s made.
Soph. Sir, this kind of conversation is new to me. I insist upon passing.
Con. When we fellows of superior class show ourselves, the women throw themselves at us; pick and choose is the way; and happy is she we deign to catch in our arms.
[Attempts to lay hold of her.
Soph. (Bursts into tears.) Unheard of assurance! What do you seer in me to encourage such insolence? or is it the very baseness of you nature that insults a woman because she has no protection?
Tru. (Advances between them.) Protection is not so distant as you imagined.
—C. Dibdin, Jun.
Lotte’s heart, out of its own sore struggles, had been schooled to compassionate deeply and tenderly the afflictions and trials of others, especially of her own sex. She had no thought, in taking to her bosom this poor heart-crushed wanderer, of the responsibility she was entailing upon herself. The cold suggestions of worldly prudence, and the heartless promptings of mincing propriety had no trumpet-tongued voice loud enough to reach her ear. She saw only that one, lonely, helpless, pressed, as she had been, ruthlessly by a mad despair upon the brink of an awful abyss, would spring into its unfathomable depths, if she stretched not forth her hand to hold her back. She paused not in her impulse to save this young, forlorn, desolate woman—to ask in what, why, or how she had erred, or to reflect whether she was destitute, even though elegantly dressed, and, if so, that her noble purpose of restoring her, if possible, back to the sunny paths of ife, could only be accomplished by many a personal sacrifice.
No; not one selfish thought mingled itself with her sympathy; her own initiation into suffering had stimulated her, unbiassed by any personal consideration, to rescue one placed in a like peril to that in which she had stood, and she was prepared to conduct the young stranger to her own abode without further inquiry—without stipulation or condition.
“Imprudent! rash! inconsiderate!” cries rigid Decorum—“Yet a blessed sample of pure human compassion!” exclaims old single-hearted, but, alas! too often abused Philanthropy.
The young stranger read human nature by instinct, rather than by experience. She felt assured that the girl who had pleaded with her so passionately against the commission of her meditated sin, was sincere, truthful, and trustworthy, and she resolved to place confidence in her. She had been struck by the words, “I live by myself quite, quite alone—no one visits me, for I am humble.” Upon them had followed the promise of the tender, affectionate, loving services of a sister, and those words had conjured up before her eyes a young, loving, anxious face—that of one whose gentle heart would break if she came to know that the tenant of the sick couch she had so patiently watched had perished by the terrible crime of self-murder. Then she found it impossible to resist the earnest pleadings of her new found friend, and she yielded her will up to her with some vague notion that she should be conducted to a quiet retired place, where her friends—search for her as they might—would never discover her.
They proceeded slowly along the path stretching across the park, Lotte alone sustaining the conversation which she knew how to shape, so as not to jar upon the feelings of her companion. She tried, also, so to arrange her discourse as to give some knowledge of her occupation and style of life, that the young lady might have a just notion of the new home she was going to, and how it was supported.
Lotte spoke hopefully and cheerfully of the future, even though she extracted not a sound, not even a monosyllable, in reply; but she was not disconcerted at this, for she knew, by sad experience, the heart of the young mourner upon her arm was too full for speech. The increasing darkness spreading over the wide, treeless expanse, contrasted by the distant lights, made the surrounding place seem drear, and caused Lotte—who was not much more courageous, when in the midst of a wide moor-like space, in the dark, than most of her sex—to increase her speed. Her companion, who had drawn a thick veil down over her face, completely shrouding her features, offered no objection to this change in their pace, but, if anything, appeared desirous of accelerating it, seemingly wishful, now she had decided on accepting a new condition of life, to hurry to it, so as to escape the observation of the outer world.
Their walk thus became rapid, and the lights drew nearer, and grew brighter.
Suddenly, a footstep, quick and light, sounded immediately behind them, and a hand touched Lotte lightly on the shoulder. She turned, and perceived at her elbow a tall, moustached gentleman, a little in advance of two others, arm in arm, who were following him up.
He addressed Lotte.
“What a hurry you are in, my dear,” he said; “I have had to increase my pace to a gallop to catch you. Don’t walk so fast, I beg of you; you fatigue me, and do you know that disturbs my serenity.”
Lotte gazed upon him with inexpressible astonishment.
“I don’t know you,” she said, with unequivocal surprise, “I am sure you don’t know me. You have mistaken me, sir, for some other person.”
The man bent his head down, and looked closely and impertinently at her face; he appeared rather agreeably surprised by its prettiness.
“How absurd,” he exclaimed, catching hold of her wrist, “mere affectation, you little coy queen, you. We are good friends, you know, of course.”
He tried to put her hand within his arm. Lotte wrenched her hand from him, and stamped her foot indignantly.
“How dare you touch me?” she said, her face and neck becoming a brilliant crimson. “You are aware that I am an entire stranger to you, and that your speaking thus to me is an insult.”
“The little pearl!” exclaimed the man, with a slight laugh, as he placed himself before her to impede her advance.
At this moment his companions arrived, and one of them said, with a stupid grin—
“A brace only, Spoonly; Vane and I will have to go Newmarket for the other.”
Lotte felt her companion shiver, shrink, cower, as though she would sink into the earth. She clung tightly, desperately to Lotte, and in a low, hissing whisper, she murmured—
“For mercy’s sake, let us fly!”
“Stand aside, sir!” cried Lotte, firmly, and with clear tones, to the man who detained her; “let us pass on without further interruption.”
“I will do anything in the world, my little pet, to gratify you,” responded the man whom she addressed, “but that—a—I cannot do that.”
Again Lotte stamped her little foot angrily.
“But you shall!” she exclaimed. “A ruffled dove, by Jupiter!” exclaimed her tormentor laughing. “Now, if there is one thing I love to see beyond aught else, it is a ruffled dove. It is such a pretty bird, and it swells and extends its feathers, and struts so gloriously, I feel that I could catch it in my arms and press it”——
“I say—though—by Jove—here, Spoonly, stop,” suddenly observed the person who had before spoken, “I know this young lady; you must give way to me here.”
“You know her, Grahame!” cried the man he addressed as Spoonly; “well, that gives an interesting turn to the incident.”
“You know her, Grahame?” cried the third individual, advancing, “pray introduce us; we shall make a blissful termination to a dull barrack dinner.”
At the sound of his voice, Lotte’s companion seemed as though she would crawl upon the earth from the spot. It was the Honorable Lester Vane who spoke. Lotte was at a loss to divine why she betrayed so much abject fear, but she felt that it called upon her for renewed spirit and exertions.
She caught a firmer hold of her companion’s arm, and pushing her first assailant out of her path, hurried on, but he instantly pursued and caught her.
“You are a little vixenish fairy,” he said. “I like vixens. I have a thorough-bred filly, which is the sweetest creature to look at in the world of racers, but she has a temper, and I have named her Vixen. I like vixens. My little yacht, a perfect duck upon the water, will run in the teeth of a breeze like an arrow, as if out of spite; I have named her Vixen. I have”——
Finding that remonstrance, as well as resistance, were utterly unavailing, Lotte screamed for assistance loudly and vehemently.
Her cry was so sudden, so unexpected, so shrill and piercing, that it startled even those men against whose insults it was directed.
Almost instantly, from a hollow, the shadowy forms of two men appeared dark against the sky. Both gave a shout; and, in another moment, racing like deer, they reached the side of Lotte and her companion.
“What is all this?” cried one of the new arrivals.
“Have these men insulted you?”
Lotte uttered an almost hysterical shriek.
“Charley, Charley!” she cried, and disengaging herself from her companion, she threw herself upon the neck of her brother, for it was he.
But her embrace, passionate and loving as it was, lasted but an instant; in another moment she had again possessed herself of the arm of the young lady.
“We are safe now! oh, we are safe now!” she cried, in joyous tones.
“I should think so,” muttered Charley, with a slight swelling of the throat. Then he said—“These fellows have insulted you; have they not, Lotte?”
“Fellows!” echoed Vane fiercely.
“Puppies is the truer and the better word!” exclaimed Charley’s companion. “We will say puppies!”
“You walk on, Lotte, dear, with your friend,” said Charley to his sister; “we will join you presently; you need no more be afraid. We will deal with these vagabonds.”
Lord Spoonly—for he was a lord—placed himself directly in front of Charley.
“You dirty clerk,” he cried, “how dare you apply such epithets to gentlemen. You see that we are three to two, and therefore could take advantage of your want of strength, by half-murdering the pair of you. But I will prevent that, by taking upon myself to chastise you, Charley, and by ducking your friend. Vane and Grahame hold that fellow, while I give this one a lacing.”
As he spoke, he suddenly seized Charley by the collar, and raised his light Malacca cane to inflict severe punishment upon him. But, as it descended, it was caught by Charley’s companion, and twisted out of Lord Spoonly’s hand; at the same time he caught his lordship by the neck, jerked him from his grip of Charley, and lashed him with his own cane until he absolutely roared from pain.
Charley, in the meanwhile, attacked Vane, but that honourable gentleman parleyed; he objected to a fistic encounter, and submitted to say “he was sorry for what had happened”—rather than do battle with his hands. He would not have hesitated an instant—let him have justice—with the small sword or the pistol—to have confronted his antagonist, but then Charley was not a person, so he believed, whom he could meet on such terms, and, therefore, to avoid the vulgar appearance of maltreatment upon his handsome face, he said—
“Look here, my man—to stand up and fight like a couple of boxers, is not to my taste, and is merely ridiculous, where our physical powers appear so unequal, therefore I say that I am sorry the young ladies were offended; they were only accosted in joke, and nothing occurred to make that foolish young creature scream as she did—nothing.”
“Charley” surveyed him with a look of disdain; he waved his hand contemptously. “Come, Mark,” he said, “we will overtake the girls. I do not think these fellows will trouble us any more.”
Mark, as Charley styled his friend, put the cane to his knee, broke it into two pieces, and, uttering a few indignant comments, flung it towards his prostrate antagonist. He then took Charley’s arm, and accompanied him in the same direction as Lotte and her companion had pursued.
They were hardly gone, when a man came up to where Lester Vane was bending over his friend, who had been most severely thrashed. He touched his hat to Vane, saying—
“Goodness me, sir, what has happened?”
“You scoundrel!” cried Vane, passionately; “you ought to have been here before this to have given a thrashing to a couple of ruffians who have assaulted us. However, you may do some good yet. Hurry along yon path, you will overtake two men; they will join two girls; see where they go to, and bring back word to me; be particular in the address, and ascertain that you are correct. Be off with you!”
The man touched his hat, and hurried after Charley and his companion.
In the meantime, Charley had overtaken Lotte. In a few brief words he explained to her that he had been to New York; and, having succeeded in aiding an officer to capture the person of whom he had been sent in quest, he had immediately returned with the prisoner to England.
On board the vessel he had made the acquaintance of a young fellow, who, he said, strangely enough, turned out to be the son of the person in whose house Lotte had lodged when he left England, and he had broken to him, as well as he could, the pecuniary distress into which the family had been plunged; but he was not prepared to find that the house had been destroyed by fire, and his relatives dispersed he knew not where.
“Then this gentleman,” said Lotte, “is Mr. Mark Wilton, I presume?
“Exactly,” said Charley, “and he is anxious to have his mind set at rest about his father and sister.”
Lotte turned her eyes upon him. There was light enough to see that his countenance much resembled Flora’s—save that it was, of course, manly in all its points—and his skin was browned by exposure to the sun.
To say this, is to suggest that he was a very handsome, manly-looking young fellow, and so Lotte thought the more she looked at him.
It was satisfactory to think that one so good-looking as he, had lifted his strong right arm in her defence, and she resolved, when an opportunity offered, to work some little article of use, and present him with it, in testimony of her appreciation of his valour.
She felt a pleasure, too, in telling him that his father had become the possessor of a large fortune; that he lived in a fine house; that Flora was now a lady; and that he would become a grand gentleman.
Mark listened with evident surprise, but with no display of emotion, and he took down the address of the house in the Regent’s Park tenanted by his father, that he might proceed there that night, or rather immediately on reaching Oxford Street.
Beyond this point, Lotte would not permit her brother to accompany her.
“Ask me not wherefore, Charley,” she said; “you know my address, and when you come to see me tomorrow or next day, at furthest, then I will explain much that may seem strange and inexplicable to you now.”
Charley Clinton had too much confidence in his sister to ask a question, or to press his desire to accompany her to her lodging. He, therefore, bade her good night, without putting a question respecting, or making any allusion to, the young lady who was with her, and he promised to call upon her, not on the following day, but the day succeeding.
Mark Wilton also took his farewell of her, but now that the light fell full upon her face and he saw her bright eye, her cheek flushed with excitement, and the pure ingenuous expression upon her pretty face, he mentally promised himself that the parting now taking place should not be for long.
“Love at first sight” is an open question. It certainly is subjected in this country to a wholesale doubt, while in the warmer climes of the sunny south it is an every hour occurrence. Here, where we take impressions with a qualification, it is considered almost apocryphal that a man or woman should fall in love with one of the opposite sex the moment they cast eyes upon each other. Yet it is not deemed wonderful that persons seeing an article which, at the first glance, strikes them as being beautiful, should conceive instantly a desire to possess it, and call it their own. Why should there be a difference between the emotions raised by the inanimate and the animate? In nine cases out of ten, love which is clothed with passion springs into existence at the first sight of the object, although other causes may be afterwards attributed, and proofs may be adduced that it was of slow growth, fostered and increased by charms freshly and continuously developed, but the fact of the first impression calling love into existence, we venture to think, remains indisputable.
Mark was, perhaps, unconscious of the effect which Lotte’s expressive and attractive face had really upon him. He saw that she was pretty and that her manner was agreeable; he thought he should like to see her again; he felt almost instantly after he had entertained that thought that he must see her again; and, as he pressed her soft hand and gazed into her clear mild eyes, he resolved that he would see her again; and so they parted, Lotte silently sharing his impressions.
The groom despatched by Lester Vane to follow Charley and Mark, was embarrassed by perceiving the two young men suddenly proceed in opposite directions, while the young ladies took a wholly different course. It was impossible that he should follow them all, so he decided upon following the females. He shrewdly surmised that the females, being alone, would proceed home, and that where the females lived, the young men were likely to visit, and thus, at some future time, if needful, might be tracked to their own abodes.
He followed, unobserved, Lotte and her young companion to the house in which the former resided and watched them in. Then he carefully noted down the name of the street, and the number of the house. But, although he went to butcher, and baker, and publican, he failed to ascertain Lotte’s name. He returned, therefore, to the hotel, where he knew he should find his master, with all the information he could obtain.
And now Lotte was at home in her own little room, her candle lighted, and the door locked.
She was alone with her new acquaintance. She gently forced her to a seat upon the sofa.
“This,” she said, in soft tones, purposely made so that she might give strength and encouragement to the young lady to speak—“this is my home, all my home; for the limits of my property are bounded by these walls. But here I sit the day long, employed at my needle, the song of my little bird ringing joyously in my ears, the bright sky shining beyond my windows, the fresh air coming in among my flowers; and, being so fortunate as to have no lack of employment, I am as happy as the day is long.”
She paused and looked at her companion. Her hand was to her face, her bowed head yet partly concealed by her veil.
Lotte knelt suddenly, but softly, at her feet, and took both her hands in hers.
“It is not so long,” she said, in yet lower tones, “since I was waked in my sleep by the wild cry of fire. The house in which I dwelt was a mass of living flame. The noble intrepidity of young Mr. Vivian—you do not know him—ah! he is such a fine, hand-some-looking youth—saved my life. Circumstances placed me where this dire calamity most deeply affected me. What shall I say? I became a hopeless, homeless outcast. I sought refuge from my despair in an attempt to die by my own hand—yet I am here; I can wear a smile on my face, a song is ever on my lips, and I have a contented heart. Nay, let your eyes rest on mine—there is hope for all—hope for the most despairing, hope even for those whose crimes seem most to repel it—will you believe that for you only there is no hope?”
“Not on this earth—not on this earth,” murmured the young stranger, plaintively.
“Upon this earth, and There, even Where you least expect it,” cried Lotte, with energy, pointing heavenward. Then she raised her hands and gently unfastened the superb brooch which confined the mantle worn by her companion, letting her garment fall from her shoulders behind her where she sat.
“Pardon me,” she said, “I would not offend you, nor would I seem troublesomely attentive, but I have elevated myself to the post of foster-sister, and I wish to perform the duties I have undertaken.”
As she said this, she, with the same gentle violence which forbade the impulsive resistance offered slightly by the young lady, removed her bonnet, and the two girls now looked into each other’s eyes with unimpeded gaze.
Lotte saw the sharp traces of recent illness upon the pale features of the young lady as strongly as the lines which developed hopeless woe, and her heart was drawn yet closer to her new companion.
She saw that her features were beautiful; she detected in the thin, finely-shaped aquiline nose, the small ear, the delicate lips, and the exquisitely transparent skin, the well-defined evidences of aristocratic birth. She detected also that the impression she had previously entertained of having before somewhere seen the face on which now she gazed, was confirmed, and she said quietly—
“I have seen you before.”
“You have,” said the young lady, laconically.
“I knew it—but where? I cannot remember where.”
“Yet I recollect your face well, and where I saw it.”
“You?”
“Yes. It was in the garden in the rear of Mr. Wilton’s mansion.”
Lotte clasped her hands together.
She remembered the rencontre in the garden, the group, and, most of all, that proud young beauty, who stood among all, as it then seemed, the “Flower of the Flock.”
And was the prostrate, agonized being before her that same haughty girl!
She gazed on her intently.
Alas! yes it was she! But what a wreck in a period so brief. She could scarcely credit the evidence of her senses, scarce believe that splendid loveliness such as she had seen admired could become so bruised and shattered as this which she now saw before her.
She remained silent for a minute, steadfastly gazing upon her, and then she said—
“You then are—”
She hesitated.
The young lady compressed her hands together, as if with sudden agony, and in broken accents murmured—
“Helen Grahame!”
There was again a silence, and then Lotte looked up wistfully in her face, and said—
“You must have suffered deeply, dreadfully; but pray believe the worst to be past. Look upon me as a trustful, loving, faithful attendant, in whom you may confide safely so much as you may see fit to reveal. I ask no more. I will preserve your secret faithfully, and do all, all that I can to bring to you peace and comfort.”
Then Helen fell upon her neck, and wept a long, long passion of tears; and, when the fount was exhausted, she, in broken tones and disjointed words, and with sobs and groans, revealed all to Lotte—more, far more, than ever she had breathed to mortal before.
Lotte listened with breathless attention, sometimes in astonishment, at others in fright, but when, half fainting, the worst part of the history was confessed by Helen, she pressed her to her bosom, and wept with her.
A woman’s error out of a woman’s love, oh! it was not unpardonable, least of all in the eyes of a woman with a young and loving heart.
It was far into the night before Helen laid her wearied frame down upon Lotte’s humble couch. The tender and compassionate girl made a pretence of arranging her little domestic matters, so that she did not retire with her, but busied herself about the room, until she perceived that, utterly worn out and exhausted, Helen had fallen into a slumber.
Then she knelt down by the modest bedside, and, in humble intercession, prayed long and earnestly for her.
Then, with calmer heart and quieter mind, she sate herself at the foot of the bed, and watched in silence the sad face of the pale and haggard sleeper.