Mrs. Oliphant

“ I thought to myself, Miss Lottie shall not be unhappy because of having no home to go to——”
“Oh!” said Lottie, putting out her hand to stop him. She could not bear any more. Her heart was sick with the mortification of such a suit. She could have crushed and trampled upon her humble lover, in rage and shame, and yet she could not but see the generosity and truth in his heart. If he had been less worthy, it would have been less hard upon her. “It is not a thing that can be,” she cried hastily. “Oh, don’t say another word. I know you are kind, but it is not a thing that can be.” ”

“ Meanwhile Lottie had been disturbed in her seclusion by a sharp knock at her door. “Do you mean to stay there all night, Miss?” cried Polly’s sharp voice. “You might pay me the compliment to keep me company now and again as long as you stay in my house. If you think it is civil to stay there, shut up in your room, and me all alone in the drawing-room, I don’t. I can’t think where your hearts is, you two,” Polly went on, a whimper breaking into the tone of offence with which she spoke. “To see one as is not much older than yourself, and never did you no harm, and not a soul to keep her company. ”

“ So this strange paradox of a world runs on. The Minor Canon, who was of very gentle mould, with a heart open as day to melting charities, sat and thought of it with a giddiness and vertigo of the heart. He could not change it. He could not take up Lottie’s trouble and give her his calm. One cannot stand in another’s place—not you in mine, nor I in yours—though you may be a hundred times more capable of my work than I. This was what Ernest Ashford thought sitting among his peaceful books, and following Lottie Despard in imagination into the little lodge which was her battlefield. ”

“ A generous soul cannot take care of itself when a friend is in trouble. Mr. Ashford, who had been on the edge of the precipice, half consciously, for some time, holding himself back as he could, thinking as little about her as he could, now let himself go. He felt as the Quixotes of humanity are apt to feel, that nothing he could give her should be withheld now. If it did not do her any good, still it would be something—it was all he could do. He let himself go. He thought of her morning and night, cherishing her name in his heart. Poor Lottie—life and love had alike been traitors to her. ”

“ A gleam of sudden fury blazed over Lottie’s face. She, too, clenched her hands passionately. She stamped her foot upon the floor. “How dare you?” she said, “how dare you insult me in my own home, you two men? Oh, yes, I know who you are—my father and my brother, my father and my brother! the two who ought to protect a girl and take care of her! Oh! is it not enough to make one hate, and loathe and despise—!” said Lottie, dashing her white clenched hand into the air. ”

“ Pardon me for comparing you in your generous anxiety to a man who was not a hero. But, Miss Despard, you see what I mean. You will never put yourself into Law. He does not understand you; he is not capable of it. You must give up the attempt. I am only a new acquaintance, but I think I must be an old friend, somehow. I want you to give up the attempt.”
He looked at her with such a kind comprehension and pity in his eyes, that Lottie’s heart sprang up a little from its profound depression, like a trodden-down flower, to meet this first gleam of sunshine. ”

“ Mrs. O’Shaughnessy gave a great many nods and smiles when at last he went away. “I say nothing, me dear, but I have my eyesight,” she said, “and a blind man could see what’s in the wind. So that is how it is, Lottie, me darling? Well, well! I always said you were the prettiest girl that had been in the Lodges this many a year. I don’t envy ye, me love, your rise in the world. And I hope, Lottie, when ye’re me lady, ye’ll not forget your old friends.”
“How should I ever be my lady?” said Lottie; “indeed, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, I don’t know what you mean.” ”

“ She approached the borders of her éclaircissement a hundred times, and evaded it with the most delicate skill, feeling by instinct the superior charm of the vague and undecided, and how love itself loses its variety, its infinite novelty, and delightfulness, when it has declared and acknowledged itself. Law, in his room with his big book, comforting himself under the confused and painful study to which the shock of last night’s suggestion had driven him by the idea that Lottie too must be as uncomfortable as himself, was as much mistaken as it was possible to imagine. ”

“ His generous ardour to help her whenever he found her in want of help, the enthusiasm of a love which she believed had been given at first sight, like the love the poets tell of, had filled Lottie’s heart with all the sweetness of a perfect faith. Impossible to say how she had trusted in him, with what pure and perfect delight and approbation her soul had given itself up to him, glad beyond all expression not only to find him hers, but to have found him at all, the one man known to her for whom no excuse had to be made. ”

“ Just you give in to her, Lottie. Fighting is no good: she has got a tongue that you couldn’t stand, and the things she would say you wouldn’t understand. I understand her well enough; but you wouldn’t know what she meant, and it would make you angry and hurt you. Give in, Lottie. Since the governor’s been so silly, she has a right. And don’t you make any stand as if you could do it—for you can’t. It is a great deal better not to resist——”
“What do you mean by resist? How can I resist? The house is papa’s, I suppose?” said Lottie. ”

“ She had met the man who, before he had ever spoken to her, had, according to all appearances, placed her on the highest pinnacle on which a girl can be placed—the throne of a romantic love. Though it had been a temporary downfall to her to be placed in the charge of Mr. Ashford and the Signor, instead of crossing the Dean’s Walk in the company of this secret and poetical lover, yet she was almost glad to be thus let drop into quietness, to avert any word or look too much, which might have spoiled the visionary elevation on which she felt herself. ”

“ Ah! when can we have a good long time to ourselves? Can you escape your Captain to-night, my darling? I should like to shake him by the hand, to thank him for taking care of you; but couldn’t you escape from him, my Lottie, to-night?”
Lottie grew a little pale; her heart sank, not with distrust, but with perhaps a little, a very little disappointment. Was this still how it was to be? Just the same anxious diplomacies to secure a meeting, the same risks and chances? This gave her a momentary chill. “It is very difficult,” she said. “He is the only one I have to take care of me. ”

“ The young lover had chosen, as it is fit the lover should do; but Lady Caroline had ratified his selection, and Lottie, proud yet entirely humble in the tender humility born of gratitude, wanted to show that she could do credit to their choice. She read the note which purported to be Lady Caroline’s over and over again; how kind it was! Lady Caroline’s manner perhaps was not quite so kind. People could not control their manner. The kindest heart was often belied, Lottie was aware, by a stiffness, an awkwardness, perhaps only a shyness, which disguised their best intentions. ”

“ And let Lottie alone. Who wants her to work? The fresher she looks and the better she looks, the more likely she is to get a husband; and that’s a girl’s first duty. Is that the bell?” said Captain Despard, rising, drawing himself up, and pulling his collar and wristbands into due display. “Let me hear nothing about work. No daughter of mine shall ever disgrace herself and me in that way. Get yourself a husband, my child; that’s the only work I’ll ever permit—that’s all a lady can do. A good husband, Lottie. ”

“ They don’t care a rap for you!”
Lottie took no notice of this speech. She withdrew her hand from her face, but still kept her eyes half-closed, unwilling to be roused out of her dream.
“They’re all as selfish as old bears,” said Law; “most people are, for that matter. They never think of you; you’ve got to look after yourself; it’s their own pleasure they’re thinking of. What can you expect from strangers when a man that pretends to be one’s own father——?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Lottie, slowly waking, with a feeling of disgust and impatience, out of her finer fancies. ”

“ There was no inspiration left in the dull and narrowed world where Lottie found herself left. Her first opening of vigorous independent life had been taken from her, and for the first time the life of visionary passion and enthusiasm was laid low. She did not give in. She made a brave effort, stilling her excited nerves, commanding her depressed heart. The Signor himself was more excited than he had been by all the previous easy triumphs of her inspiration. Now was the test of what she had{vol.-III-35} in her. Happiness dies, love fails, but art is for ever. ”

“ The suddenness of this prospect of deliverance, which she did not understand, took away Lottie’s breath.
“But—there are no buts. You would be taken care of as if you were in a palace. You would have everything to make your life pleasant. You could work at your music——”
“Ah!” she said, interrupting him; his excitement roused no alarm in her mind. She was incapable of understanding any meaning in him that was inconsistent with honour. “Would it be so necessary to think of the music?” she said. It seemed to her that for Rollo Ridsdale’s wife it need not be any longer a point essential. ”

“ Art, pure art, was not as yet, if it ever would be, the spring of Lottie’s life. It was “that fellow.” Her voice grew softer and more exquisite, full of pathos and meaning—her notes more liquid and sweet. If the Signor had been Rollo’s rival in reality he could scarcely have been more annoyed—he whose aspiration was to make a true artist of this creature, to whom heaven had given so glorious a medium of expression, but who as yet knew nothing about art.
Thus September stole away. Never before had Ridsdale been so long at the Deanery. ”

“ This was the beginning of the time which was the crown and flower of life to Lottie Despard. Deceived, and yet not deceived; creating really the sentiment which she believed in, yet not as she believed it: she herself all simple and trustful, impassioned in everything she undertook, then and there, to the last fibre of her being, gave her heart to Rollo Ridsdale—loved him, believing herself as fully justified as ever woman was, by the possession of his love, to bestow her own ”

“ All the powers of life were surging about Lottie, contending in her and around her; forces vulgar yet powerful, calling forth in that bit of a girl, in that slim creature, made, the man thought, for all the sweetness and protections of life, all its heroic qualities instead—while for such as he, thirty-five, and a man, fate held nothing but quiet, and mastery of all circumstances, Handel and the Abbey! ”

“ There was no harm in the songs she sang, nothing but absolute silliness and flippancy, such as are natural to that kind of production; but as Lottie grew into womanhood, and began by instinct to know better, she gave them up, and knowing no others except some ancient sentimental ditties of her mother’s, gave up singing so far as a musical creature can give up what is another kind of breathing to her. But when she heard the choir in the Abbey church, Lottie woke up, with such a delightful discovery of what music was, and such an ecstatic finding out of her own powers, as words cannot express. ”

“ Lottie, who believed in love, and who believed in womanhood, with such a faith as perhaps girls only possess: what silent rage and horror filled her at this thought! She believed in womanhood, not so much in herself. For the sake of that abstraction, not for her own, she wanted to be wooed{vol.-II-141} reverently, respected above all. A man, to be a perfect man, ought to look upon every woman as a princess of romance: not for her individual sake so much as for his sake, that he might fall short of no nobleness and perfection. ”

“ The world seemed to go round and round with Rollo, and when it settled again out of the whirling and pale confusion as of an earthquake, it was not any longer the same world. The proportion of things had changed in the twinkling of an eye. The distant and the near had changed places. What was close to him before receded; what was far away became near. In the hurry of his thoughts he could not even think. Pain mingled with everything, with the giddiness of a strange elation, with the bewilderment of a surprise more startling than any that had ever come to him before in all his life. ”

“ We all prefer to be prized for nothing at all, for ourselves. And this, in the face of circumstances, and clean against all reason, was what Lottie hoped and determinedly believed. She could not consent to the other idea. To be praised and made friends with for her voice was intolerable. The only approbation which is really flattering and delightful is that which is given upon no ground at all.
She had been sitting thus for some time on her bed, musing, with eyes that sparkled and a heart that fluttered with happiness ”

“ A little fire was burning there, a luxury unknown to Lottie in the days when she was her own mistress, and no one cared how chilly she might be. Then with old Lear’s “climbing sorrow” in her throat, she undid the little bit of maidenly finery for which she had so much wanted a sprig of orange blossom. It was a nothing, a little knot of tulle and ribbon—a piece of vanity not worthy a thought; so any moralist would have said who had seen Lottie stand speechless, tearless, a great sob in her throat, with the poor little bonnet in her hand. A bonnet, there is nothing tragic in that. ”

“ On one of those lovely russet-coloured afternoons, full of haze made golden by the sunshine, already turning to the west, Lottie, walking up St. Michael’s Hill, towards the Abbey, had seen a fly driving along the street which had caught her eye as she passed. She knew it very well; it was Jobling’s fly—a nice respectable clean cab, looking for all the world like a shabby well-dressed man in a frock coat and high hat. There are many shabby respectable well-preserved things which resemble each other. ”

“ The night air blew in, the moths whirled about the candles, dashed against the globe of the lamp, dropped on the floor with fatal infinitesimal booms of tragic downfall; and Lady Caroline lay on the sofa, with eyes directed to vacancy, looking at nothing. Lottie, with the roses in her hair, and so much life tingling in her, could not endure it. She wanted to go and shake the vision on the sofa, she wanted to cry out and make some noise or other to save herself from the spell. ”

“ The air was all thrilling with emotion of one kind or another, but they slept as profoundly as if they had not a care in the world—as{vol.-I-137} soundly as the good O’Shaughnessys next door, who had been asleep since eleven o’clock, and who had no cares but those of their neighbours to disquiet them; or old Colonel Dalrymple on the other side, who dozed through his life. The soft night stilled them all, young and old and middle-aged, in their kind, just as it held in soft shadow the Abbey, with all its grey pinnacles and immemorial towers. Nature cared nothing for the troubles of life ”

“ Lottie was not a wise or enlightened young woman. She had not even taken the stamp of her age as many people do who are not enlightened. She had never learned that it was desirable that women should have professions like men. Her thoughts ran entirely in the old-fashioned groove, and it seemed to her that for “a gentleman’s daughter” to work for her living, to be known publicly to work for her living, was a social degradation beyond words to express. ”

“ But who could deliver her from the dying pangs of love in her heart, those longings which are unquenchable, those protestations of nature against loss, those visions of excuses that might still be made, and suggestions of impossible explanation which in her mind she knew to be impossible even while her fancy framed them? Sometimes Lottie would find herself dreaming unawares that someone else, not Rollo, had written that cruel letter; that it was not by his will he had left her to bear the brunt of her disappointment under the elm-tree ”

“ I have never been taught to do anything. If I had been put apprentice to a butcher or a baker when I was young—but you never did anything but bully me to work and go to school. What good is school? If you are to do anything, you ought to be taught when you are young. I have been mismanaged. I doubt if I will ever be good for much now.”
“Oh—h!” cried Lottie, with a deep breath of aspiration from the depths of her chest, “if it was only me! I should find something to do! I should not be long like this, lounging about a little bit of a place, following bad examples, doing no work. ”

“ O’Shaughnessy, who sat by, watching them all with lively but not extravagant interest, was the only one in the little party who was not more or less excited. As for Lottie, this lesson was the centre of all her life. If music be the food of love, love was the very inspiration of music to her; the two re-acted upon each other, raising her to such a height of primitive heroic passion as nobody near her divined—as nobody, indeed, except perhaps the Signor, with his Italian susceptibility, was capable of divining. ”

“ It was not only in the mind of young Purcell that Lottie’s circumstances and prospects were the subject of thought. Rollo Ridsdale had not watched and worshipped as the young musician had done. Nor had he, even on his first introduction to her, looked upon Lottie as anything but the possessor of a beautiful voice, of which use might be made, for her benefit no doubt in the long run, but primarily for his own. She was not a divinity; she was not even a woman; she was a valuable stock-in-trade, a most important implement with which to work. ”

“ I am afraid life is hard, as you say, upon a girl, Miss Despard. She must be content with little things. This is one of the few ways in which she can really get independence—and—stop, hear me out—the power to help others too.”
Lottie had almost begun a passionate remonstrance; but these last words stopped her. Though she might not like the way, still was it possible that this might be a way of setting everything right? She stopped gazing at her counsellor, her eyelids puckered with anxiety, her face quite colourless, and expressing nothing but this question. ”