"Ayala's Angel": electronic edition	

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A-1377-C:  Ayala's Angel.  Ed. David Skilton. London, 1989: Folio 
Society. Depositor: Joe Whitlock Blundell, The Folio Society.  [On RLIN]

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11 May 1993

First edition published in 1881 




AYALA'S ANGEL by Anthony Trollope


CHAPTER 1
THE TWO SISTERS

When Egbert Dormer died he left his two daughters utterly penniless
upon the world, and it must be said of Egbert Dormer that nothing
else could have been expected of him. The two girls were both
pretty, but Lucy, who was twenty-one, was supposed to be simple
and comparatively unattractive, whereas Ayala was credited --
as her somewhat romantic name might show -- with poetic charm
and a taste for romance. Ayala when her father died was nineteen.
We must begin yet a little earlier and say that there had been
-- and had died many years before the death of Egbert Dormer
-- a clerk in the Admiralty, by name Reginald Dosett, who, and
whose wife, had been conspicuous for personal beauty. Their charms
were gone, but the records of them had been left in various grandchildren.
There had been a son born to Mr Dosett, who was also a Reginald
and a clerk in the Admiralty, and who also, in his turn, had
been a handsome man. With him, in his decadence, the reader will
become acquainted. There were also two daughters, whose reputation
for perfect feminine beauty had never been contested. The elder
had married a city man of wealth -- of wealth when he married
her, but who had become enormously wealthy by the time of our
story. He had when he married been simply Mister, but was now
Sir Thomas Tringle, Baronet, and was senior partner in the great
firm of Travers and Treason. Of Traverses and Treasons there
were none left in these days, and Mr Tringle was supposed to
manipulate all the millions with which the great firm in Lombard
Street was concerned. He had married old Mr Dosett's eldest daughter,
Emmeline, who was now Lady Tringle, with a house at the top of
Queen's Gate, rented at L#1,500 a year, with a palatial moor
in Scotland, with a seat in Sussex, and as many carriages and
horses as would suit an archduchess. Lady Tringle had everything
in the world; a son, two daughters, and an open-handed stout
husband, who was said to have told her that money was a matter
of no consideration. 

The second Miss Dosett, Adelaide Dosett, who had been considerably
younger than her sister, had insisted upon giving herself to
Egbert Dormer the artist, whose death we commemorated in our
first line. But she had died before her husband. They who remembered
the two Miss Dosetts as girls were wont to declare that, though
Lady Tringle might, perhaps, have had the advantage in perfection
of feature and in unequalled symmetry, Adelaide had been the
more attractive from expression and brilliancy. To her Lord Sizes
had offered his hand and coronet, promising to abandon for her
sake all the haunts of his matured life. To her Mr Tringle had
knelt before he had taken the elder sister. For her Mr Progrum,
the popular preacher of the day, for a time so totally lost himself
that he was nearly minded to go over to Rome. She was said to
have had offers from a widowed Lord Chancellor and from a Russian
prince. Her triumphs would have quite obliterated that of her
sister had she not insisted on marrying Egbert Dormer. 

Then there had been, and still was, Reginald Dosett, the son
of old Dosett, and the eldest of the family. He too had married,
and was now living with his wife; but to them had no children
been born, luckily, as he was a poor man. Alas, to a beautiful
son it is not often that beauty can be a fortune as to a daughter.
Young Reginald Dosett -- he is anything now but young -- had
done but little for himself with his beauty, having simply married
the estimable daughter of a brother clerk. Now, at the age of
fifty, he had his L#900 a year from his office, and might have
lived in fair comfort had he not allowed a small millstone of
debt to hang round his neck from his earlier years. But still
he lived creditably in a small but very genteel house at Notting
Hill, and would have undergone any want rather than have declared
himself to be a poor man to his rich relations the Tringles.
Such were now the remaining two children of old Mr Dosett --
Lady Tringle, namely, and Reginald Dosett, the clerk in the Admiralty.
Adelaide, the beauty in chief of the family, was gone; and now
also her husband, the improvident artist, had followed his wife.
Dormer had been by no means a failing artist. He had achieved
great honour -- had at an early age been accepted into the Royal
Academy -- had sold pictures to illustrious princes and more
illustrious dealers, had been engraved and had lived to see his
own works resold at five times their original prices. Egbert
Dormer might also have been a rich man. But he had a taste for
other beautiful things besides a wife. The sweetest little phaeton
that was to cost nothing, the most perfect bijou of a little
house at South Kensington -- he had boasted that it might have
been packed without trouble in his brother-in-law Tringle's dining-room
-- the simplest little gem for his wife, just a blue set of china
for his dinner table, just a painted cornice for his studio,
just satin hangings for his drawing-room -- and a few simple
ornaments for his little girls; these with a few rings for himself,
and velvet suits of clothing in which to do his painting; these,
with a few little dinner parties to show off his blue china,
were the first and last of his extravagances. But when he went,
and when his pretty things were sold, there was not enough to
cover his debts. There was, however, a sweet savour about his
name. When he died it was said of him that his wife's death had
killed him. He had dropped his palette, refused to finish the
ordered portrait of a princess, and had simply turned himself
round and died. 

Then there were the two daughters, Lucy and Ayala. It should
be explained that though a proper family intercourse had always
been maintained between the three families, the Tringles, the
Dormers, and the Dosetts, there had never been cordiality between
the first and the two latter. The wealth of the Tringles had
seemed to convey with it a fetid odour. Egbert Dormer, with every
luxury around him which money could purchase, had affected to
despise the heavy magnificence of the Tringles. It may be that
he affected a fashion higher than that which the Tringles really
attained. Reginald Dosett, who was neither brilliant nor fashionable,
was in truth independent, and, perhaps, a little thin-skinned.
He would submit to no touch of arrogance from Sir Thomas; and
Sir Thomas seemed to carry arrogance in his brow and in his paunch.
It was there rather, perhaps, than in his heart; but there are
men to whom a knack of fumbling their money in their pockets
and of looking out from under penthouse brows over an expanse
of waistcoat, gives an air of overweening pride which their true
idiosyncracies may not justify. To Dosett had, perhaps, been
spoken a word or two which on some occasion he had inwardly resented,
and from thenceforward he had ever been ready to league with
Dormer against the "bullionaire", as they agreed to call Sir
Thomas. Lady Tringle had even said a word to her sister, Mrs
Dormer, as to expenses, and that had never been forgiven by the
artist. So things were when Mrs Dormer died first; and so they
remained when her husband followed her. 

Then there arose a sudden necessity for action, which, for a
while, brought Reginald Dosett into connexion with Sir Thomas
and Lady Tringle. Something must be done for the poor girls.
That the something should come out of the pocket of Sir Thomas
would have seemed to be natural. Money with him was no object
-- not at all. Another girl or two would be nothing to him --
as regarded simple expenditure. But the care of a human being
is an important matter, and so Sir Thomas knew. Dosett had not
a child at all, and would be the better for such a windfall.
Dosett he supposed to be -- in his, Dosett's way -- fairly well
off. So he made this proposition. He would take one girl and
let Dosett take the other. To this Lady Tringle added her proviso,
that she should have the choice. To her nerves affairs of taste
were of such paramount importance! To this Dosett yielded. The
matter was decided in Lady Tringle's back drawing-room. Mrs Dosett
was not even consulted in that matter of choice, having already
acknowledged the duty of mothering a motherless child. Dosett
had thought that the bullionaire should have said a word as to
some future provision for the penniless girl, for whom he would
be able to do so little. But Sir Thomas had said no such word,
and Dosett, himself, lacked both the courage and the coarseness
to allude to the matter. Then Lady Tringle declared that she
must have Ayala, and so the matter was settled. Ayala the romantic;
Ayala the poetic! It was a matter of course that Ayala should
be chosen. Ayala had already been made intimate with the magnificent
saloons of the Tringles, and had been felt by Lady Tringle to
be an attraction. Her long dark black locks, which had never
hitherto been tucked up, which were never curled, which were
never so long as to be awkward, were already known as being the
loveliest locks in London. She sang as though Nature had intended
her to be a singing-bird -- requiring no education, no labour.
She had been once for three months in Paris, and French had come
naturally to her. Her father had taught her something of his
art, and flatterers had already begun to say that she was born
to be the one great female artist of the world. Her hands, her
feet, her figure were perfect. Though she was as yet but nineteen,
London had already begun to talk about Ayala Dormer. Of course
Lady Tringle chose Ayala, not remembering at the moment that
her own daughters might probably be superseded by their cousin.
And, therefore, as Lady Tringle said herself to Lucy with her
sweetest smile -- Mrs Dosett had chosen Lucy. The two girls were
old enough to know something of the meaning of such a choice.
Ayala, the younger, was to be adopted into immense wealth, and
Lucy was to be given up to comparative poverty. She knew nothing
of her uncle Dosett's circumstances, but the genteel house at
Notting Hill -- No. 3, Kingsbury Crescent -- was known to her,
and was but a poor affair as compared even with the bijou in
which she had hitherto lived. Her aunt Dosett never rose to any
vehicle beyond a four-wheeler, and was careful even in thinking
of that accommodation. Ayala would be whirled about the park
by a wire-wig and a pair of brown horses which they had heard
it said were not to be matched in London. Ayala would be carried
with her aunt and her cousin to the show-room of Madame Tonsonville,
the great French milliner of Bond Street, whereas she, Lucy,
might too probably be called on to make her own gowns. All the
fashion of Queen's Gate, something, perhaps, of the fashion of
Eaton Square, would be open to Ayala. Lucy understood enough
to know that Ayala's own charms might probably cause still more
august gates to be opened to her, whereas Aunt Dosett entered
no gates. It was quite natural that Ayala should be chosen. Lucy
acknowledged as much to herself. But they were sisters, and had
been so near! By what a chasm would they be dissevered, now so
far asunder! 

Lucy herself was a lovely girl, and knew her own loveliness.
She was fairer than Ayala, somewhat taller, and much more quiet
in her demeanour. She was also clever, but her cleverness did
not show itself so quickly. She was a musician, whereas her sister
could only sing. She could really draw, whereas her sister would
rush away into effects in which the drawing was not always very
excellent. Lucy was doing the best she could for herself, knowing
something of French and German, though as yet not very fluent
with her tongue. The two girls were, in truth, both greatly gifted;
but Ayala had the gift of showing her talent without thought
of showing it. Lucy saw it all, and knew that she was outshone;
but how great had been the price of the outshining! 

The artist's house had been badly ordered, and the two girls
were of better disposition and better conduct than might have
been expected from such fitful training. Ayala had been the father's
pet and Lucy the mother's. Parents do ill in making pets, and
here they had done ill. Ayala had been taught to think herself
the favourite, because the artist, himself, had been more prominent
before the world than his wife. But the evil had not been lasting
enough to have made bad feeling between the sisters. Lucy knew
that her sister had been preferred to her, but she had been self-denying
enough to be aware that some such preference was due to Ayala.
She, too, admired Ayala, and loved her with her whole heart.
And Ayala was always good to her -- had tried to divide everything
-- had assumed no preference as a right. The two were true sisters.
But when it was decided that Lucy was to go to Kingsbury Crescent
the difference was very great. The two girls, on their father's
death, had been taken to the great red brick house in Queen's
Gate, and from hence, three or four days after the funeral, Lucy
was to be transferred to her Aunt Dosett. Hitherto there had
been little between them but weeping for their father. Now had
come the hour of parting. 

The tidings had been communicated to Lucy, and to Lucy alone,
by Aunt Tringle -- "As you are the eldest, dear, we think that
you will be best able to be a comfort to your aunt," said Lady
Tringle. 

"I will do the best I can, Aunt Emmeline," said Lucy, declaring
to herself that, in giving such a reason, her aunt was lying
basely. 

"I am sure you will. Poor dear Ayala is younger than her cousins,
and will be more subject to them." So in truth was Lucy younger
than her cousins, but of that she said nothing. "I am sure you
will agree with me that it is best that we should have the youngest."
"Perhaps it is, Aunt Emmeline." 

"Sir Thomas would not have had it any other way," said Lady Tringle,
with a little severity, feeling that Lucy's accord had hardly
been as generous as it should be. But she recovered herself quickly,
remembering how much it was that Ayala was to get, how much that
Lucy was to lose. "But, my dear, we shall see you very often,
you know. It is not so far across the park; and when we do have
a few parties again -- " 

"Oh, aunt, I am not thinking of that." 

"Of course not. We can none of us think of it just now. But when
the time does come of course we shall always have you, just as
if you were one of us." Then her aunt gave her a roll of bank-notes,
a little present of twenty-five pounds, to begin the world with,
and told her that the carriage should take her to Kingsbury Crescent
on the following morning. On the whole Lucy behaved well and
left a pleasant impression on her aunt's mind. The difference
between Queen's Gate and Kingsbury Crescent -- between Queen's
Gate and Kingsbury Crescent for life -- was indeed great! 

"I wish it were you, with all my heart," said Ayala, clinging
to her sister. 

"It could not have been me." 

"Why not!" 

"Because you are so pretty and you are so clever." 

"No!" 

"Yes! If we were to be separated of course it would be so. Do
not suppose, dear, that I am disappointed." 

"I am." 

"If I can only like Aunt Margaret," -- Aunt Margaret was Mrs
Dosett, with whom neither of the girls had hitherto become intimate,
and who was known to be quiet, domestic, and economical, but
who had also been spoken of as having a will of her own -- "I
shall do better with her than you would, Ayala." 

"I don't see why." 

"Because I can remain quiet longer than you. It will be very
quiet. I wonder how we shall see each other! I cannot walk across
the park alone." 

"Uncle Reg will bring you." 

"Not often, I fear. Uncle Reg has enough to do with his office.
"You can come in a cab." 

"Cabs cost money, Ayey dear." 

"But Uncle Thomas -- " 

"We had better understand one or two things, Ayala. Uncle Thomas
will pay everything for you, and as he is very rich things will
come as they are wanted. There will be cabs, and if not cabs,
carriages. Uncle Reg must pay for me, and he is very very kind
to do so. But as he is not rich, there will be no carriages,
and not a great many cabs. It is best to understand it all."
"But they will send for you." 

"That's as they please. I don't think they will very often. I
would not for the world put you against Uncle Thomas, but I have
a feeling that I shall never get on with him. But you will never
separate yourself from me, Ayala!" 

"Separate myself!" 

"You will not -- not be my sister because you will be one of
these rich ones?" 

"Oh, I wish -- I wish that I were to be the poor one. I'm sure
I should like it best. I never cared about being rich. Oh, Lucy,
can't we make them change?" 

"No, Ayey, my own, we can't make them change. And if we could,
we wouldn't. It is altogether best that you should be a rich
Tringle and that I should be a poor Dosett." 

"I will always be a Dormer," said Ayala, proudly. 

"And I will always be so too, my pet. But you should be a bright
Dormer among the Tringles, and I will be a dull Dormer among
the Dosetts. I shall begrudge nothing, if only we can see each
other." 

So the two girls were parted, the elder being taken away to Kingsbury
Crescent and the latter remaining with her rich relations at
Queen's Gate. Ayala had not probably realized the great difference
of their future positions. To her the attractions of wealth and
the privations of comparative poverty had not made themselves
as yet palpably plain. They do not become so manifest to those
to whom the wealth falls -- at any rate, not in early life --
as to the opposite party. If the other lot had fallen to Ayala
she might have felt it more keenly. 

Lucy felt it keenly enough. Without any longing after the magnificence
of the Tringle mansion she knew how great was the fall from her
father's well-assorted luxuries and prettinesses down to the
plain walls, tables, and chairs of her Uncle Dosett's house.
Her aunt did not subscribe to Mudie's. The old piano had not
been tuned for the last ten years. The parlour-maid was a cross
old woman. Her aunt always sat in the dining-room through the
greater part of the day, and of all rooms the dining-room in
Kingsbury Crescent was the dingiest. Lucy understood very well
to what she was going. Her father and mother were gone. Her sister
was divided from her. Her life offered for the future nothing
to her. But with it all she carried a good courage. There was
present to her an idea of great misfortune; but present to her
at the same time an idea also that she would do her duty. 


CHAPTER 2
LUCY WITH HER AUNT DOSETT

For some days Lucy found herself to be absolutely crushed --
in the first place, by a strong resolution to do some disagreeable
duty, and then by a feeling that there was no duty the doing
of which was within her reach. It seemed to her that her whole
life was a blank. Her father's house had been a small affair
and considered to be poor when compared with the Tringle mansion,
but she now became aware that everything there had in truth abounded.
In one little room there had been two or three hundred beautifully
bound books. That Mudie's unnumbered volumes should come into
the house as they were wanted had almost been as much a provision
of nature as water, gas, and hot rolls for breakfast. A piano
of the best kind, and always in order, had been a first necessary
of life, and, like other necessaries, of course, forthcoming.
There had been the little room in which the girls painted, joining
their father's studio and sharing its light, surrounded by every
pretty female appliance. Then there had always been visitors.
The artists from Kensington had been wont to gather there, and
the artists' daughters, and perhaps the artists' sons. Every
day had had its round of delights -- its round of occupations,
as the girls would call them. There had been some reading, some
painting, some music -- perhaps a little needlework and a great
deal of talking. 

How little do we know how other people live in the houses close
to us! We see the houses looking like our own, and we see the
people come out of them looking like ourselves. But a Chinaman
is not more different from the English John Bull than is No.
10 from No. 11. Here there are books, paintings, music, wine,
a little dilettanti getting-up of subjects of the day, a little
dilettanti thinking on great affairs, perhaps a little dilettanti
religion; few domestic laws, and those easily broken; few domestic
duties, and those easily evaded; breakfast when you will, with
dinner almost as little binding, with much company and acknowledged
aptitude for idle luxury. That is life at No. 10. At No. 11 everything
is cased in iron. There shall be equal plenty, but at No. 11
even plenty is a bondage. Duty rules everything, and it has come
to be acknowledged that duty is to be hard. So many hours of
needlework, so many hours of books, so many hours of prayer!
That all the household shall shiver before daylight, is a law,
the breach of which by any member either augurs sickness or requires
condign punishment. To be comfortable is a sin; to laugh is almost
equal to bad language. Such and so various is life at No. 10
and at No. 11. 

From one extremity, as far removed, to another poor Lucy had
been conveyed; though all the laws were not exactly carried out
in Kingsbury Crescent as they have been described at No. 11.
The enforced prayers were not there, nor the early hours. It
was simply necessary that Lucy should be down to breakfast at
nine, and had she not appeared nothing violent would have been
said. But it was required of her that she should endure a life
which was altogether without adornment. Uncle Dosett himself,
as a clerk in the Admiralty, had a certain position in the world
which was sufficiently maintained by decent apparel, a well-kept,
slight, grey whisker, and an umbrella which seemed never to have
been violated by use. Dosett was popular at his office, and was
regarded by his brother clerks as a friend. But no one was acquainted
with his house and home. They did not dine with him, nor he with
them. There are such men in all public offices -- not the less
respected because of the quiescence of their lives. It was known
of him that he had burdens, though it was not known what his
burdens were. His friends, therefore, were intimate with him
as far as the entrance into Somerset House -- where his duties
lay -- and not beyond it. Lucy was destined to know the other
side of his affairs, the domestic side, which was as quiet as
the official side. The link between them, which consisted of
a journey by the Underground Railway to the Temple Station, and
a walk home along the Embankment and across the parks and Kensington
Gardens, was the pleasantest part of Dosett's life. 

Mr Dosett's salary has been said to be L#900 per annum. What
a fund of comfort there is in the word! When the youth of nineteen
enters an office how far beyond want would he think himself should
he ever reach the pecuniary paradise of L#900 a year! How he
would see all his friends, and in return be seen of them! But
when the income has been achieved its capabilities are found
to be by no means endless. And Dosett in the earlier spheres
of his married life had unfortunately anticipated something of
such comforts. For a year or two he had spent a little money
imprudently. Something which he had expected had not come to
him; and, as a result, he had been forced to borrow, and to insure
his life for the amount borrowed. Then, too, when that misfortune
as to the money came -- came from the non-realization of certain
claims which his wife had been supposed to possess -- provision
had also to be made for her. In this way an assurance office
eat up a large fraction of his income, and left him with means
which in truth were very straitened. Dosett at once gave up all
glories of social life, settled himself in Kingsbury Crescent,
and resolved to satisfy himself with his walk across the park
and his frugal dinner afterwards. He never complained to anyone,
nor did his wife. He was a man small enough to be contented with
a thin existence, but far too great to ask anyone to help him
to widen it. Sir Thomas Tringle never heard of that L#175 paid
annually to the assurance office, nor had Lady Tringle, Dosett's
sister, even heard of it. When it was suggested to him that he
should take one of the Dormer girls, he consented to take her
and said nothing of the assurance office. 

Mrs Dosett had had her great blow in life, and had suffered more
perhaps than her husband. This money had been expected. There
had been no doubt of the money -- at any rate on her part. It
did not depend on an old gentleman with or without good intentions,
but simply on his death. There was to be ever so much of it,
four or five hundred a year, which would last for ever. When
the old gentleman died, which took place some ten years after
Dosett's marriage, it was found that the money, tied tight as
it had been by half a dozen lawyers, had in some fashion vanished.
Whither it had gone is little to our purpose, but it had gone.
Then there came a great crash upon the Dosetts, which she for
a while had been hardly able to endure. 

But when she had collected herself together after the crash,
and had made up her mind, as had Dosett also, to the nature of
the life which they must in future lead, she became more stringent
in it even than he. He could bear and say nothing; but she, in
bearing, found herself compelled to say much. It had been her
fault -- the fault of people on her side -- and she would fain
have fed her husband with the full flowery potato while she ate
only the rind. She told him, unnecessarily, over and over again,
that she had ruined him by her marriage. No such idea was ever
in his head. The thing had come, and so it must be. There was
food to eat, potatoes enough for both, and a genteel house in
which to live. He could still be happy if she would not groan.
A certain amount of groaning she did postpone while in his presence.
The sewing of seams, and the darning of household linen, which
in his eyes amounted to groaning, was done in his absence. After
their genteel dinner he would sleep a little, and she would knit.
He would have his glass of wine, but would make his bottle of
port last almost for a week. This was the house to which Lucy
Dormer was brought when Mr Dosett had consented to share with
Sir Thomas the burden left by the death of the improvident artist.
When a month passed by Lucy began to think that time itself would
almost drive her mad. Her father had died early in September.
The Tringles had then, of course, been out of town, but Sir Thomas
and his wife had found themselves compelled to come up on such
an occasion. Something they knew must be done about the girls,
and they had not chosen that that something should be done in
their absence. Mr Dosett was also enjoying his official leave
of absence for the year, but was enjoying it within the economical
precincts of Kingsbury Crescent. There was but seldom now an
excursion for him or his wife to the joys of the country. Once,
some years ago, they had paid a visit to the palatial luxuries
of Glenbogie, but the delights of the place had not paid for
the expense of the long journey. They, therefore, had been at
hand to undertake their duties. Dosett and Tringle, with a score
of artists, had followed poor Dormer to his grave in Kensal Green,
and then Dosett and Tringle had parted again, probably not to
see each other for another term of years. 

"My dear, what do you like to do with your time?" Mrs Dosett
said to her niece, after the first week. At this time Lucy's
wardrobe was not yet of a nature to need much work over its ravages.
The Dormer girls had hardly known where their frocks had come
from when they wanted frocks -- hardly with more precision than
the Tringle girls. Frocks had come -- dark, gloomy frocks, lately,
alas! And these, too, had now come a second time. Let creditors
be ever so unsatisfied, new raiment will always be found for
mourning families. Everything about Lucy was nearly new. The
need of repairing would come upon her by degrees, but it had
not come as yet. Therefore there had seemed, to the anxious aunt,
to be a necessity for some such question as the above. 

"I'll do anything you like, aunt," said Lucy. 

"It is not for me, my dear. I get through a deal of work, and
am obliged to do so." She was, at this time, sitting with a sheet
in her lap, which she was turning. Lucy had, indeed, once offered
to assist, but her assistance had been rejected. This had been
two days since, and she had not renewed the proposal as she should
have done. This had been mainly from bashfulness. Though the
work would certainly be distasteful to her, she would do it.
But she had not liked to seem to interfere, not having as yet
fallen into the ways of intimacy with her aunt. "I don't want
to burden you with my task-work," continued Mrs Dosett, "but
I am afraid you seem to be listless." 

"I was reading till just before you spoke," said Lucy, again
turning her eyes to the little volume of poetry, which was one
of the few treasures which she had brought away with her from
her old home. 

"Reading is very well, but I do not like it as an excuse, Lucy."
Lucy's anger boiled within her when she was told of an excuse,
and she declared to herself that she could never like her aunt.
"I am quite sure that for young girls, as well as for old women,
there must be a great deal of waste time unless there be needle
and thread always about. And I know, too, unless ladies are well
off, they cannot afford to waste time any more than gentlemen."
In the whole course of her life nothing so much like scolding
as this had ever been addressed to her. So at least thought Lucy
at that moment. Mrs Dosett had intended the remarks all in good
part, thinking them to be simply fitting from an aunt to a niece.
It was her duty to give advice, and for the giving of such advice
some day must be taken as the beginning. She had purposely allowed
a week to run by, and now she had spoken her word -- as she thought
in good season. 

To Lucy it was a new and most bitter experience. Though she was
reading the Idylls of the King, or pretending to read them, She
was, in truth, thinking of all that had gone from her. Her mind
had, at that moment, been intent upon her mother, who, in all
respects, had been so different from this careful, sheet-darning
housewife of a woman. And in thinking of her mother there had
no doubt been regrets for many things of which she would not
have ventured to speak as sharing her thoughts with the memory
of her mother, but which were nevertheless there to add darkness
to the retrospective. Everything behind had been so bright, and
everything behind had gone away from her! Everything before was
so gloomy, and everything before must last for so long! After
her aunt's lecture about wasted time Lucy sat silent for a few
minutes, and then burst into uncontrolled tears. 

"I did not mean to vex you," said her aunt. 

"I was thinking of my -- darling, darling mamma," sobbed Lucy.
"Of course, Lucy, you will think of her. How should you not?
And of your father. Those are sorrows which must be borne. But
sorrows such as those are much lighter to the busy than to the
idle. I sometimes think that the labourers grieve less for those
they love than we do just because they have not time to grieve."
"I wish I were a labourer then," said Lucy, through her tears.
"You may be if you will. The sooner you begin to be a labourer
the better for yourself and for those about you." 

That Aunt Dosett's voice was harsh was not her fault -- nor that
in the obduracy of her daily life she had lost much of her original
softness. She had simply meant to be useful, and to do her duty;
but in telling Lucy that it would be better that the labouring
should be commenced at once for the sake of "those about you'
-- who could only be Aunt Dosett herself -- she had seemed to
the girl to be harsh, selfish, and almost unnatural. The volume
of poetry fell from her hand, and she jumped up from the chair
quickly. "Give it me at once," she said, taking hold of the sheet
-- which was not itself a pleasant object; Lucy had never seen
such a thing at the bijou. "Give it me at once," she said, and
clawed the long folds of linen nearly out of her aunt's lap.
"I did not mean anything of the kind," said Aunt Dosett. "You
should not take me up in that way. I am speaking only for your
good, because I know that you should not dawdle away your existence.
Leave the sheet." 

Lucy did leave the sheet, and then, sobbing violently, ran out
of the room up to her own chamber. Mrs Dosett determined that
she would not follow her. She partly forgave the girl because
of her sorrows, partly reminded herself that she was not soft
and facile as had been her sister-in-law, Lucy's mother; and
then, as she continued her work, she assured herself that it
would be best to let her niece have her cry out upstairs. Lucy's
violence had astonished her for a moment, but she had taught
herself to think it best to allow such little ebullitions to
pass off by themselves. 

Lucy, when she was alone, flung herself upon her bed in absolute
agony. She thought that she had misbehaved, and yet how cruel
-- how harsh had been her aunt's words! If she, the quiet one,
had misbehaved, what would Ayala have done? And how was she to
find strength with which to look forward to the future? She struggled
hard with herself for a resolution. Should she determine that
she would henceforward darn sheets morning, noon, and night till
she worked her fingers to the bone? Perhaps there had been something
of truth in that assertion of her aunt's that the labourers have
no time to grieve. As everything else was shut out from her,
it might be well for her to darn sheets. Should she rush down
penitent and beg her aunt to allow her to commence at once? 

She would have done it as far as the sheets were concerned, but
she could not do it as regarded her aunt. She could put herself
into unison with the crumpled soiled linen, but not with the
hard woman. 

Oh, how terrible was the change! Her father and her mother who
had been so gentle to her! All the sweet prettinesses of her
life! All her occupations, all her friends, all her delights!
Even Ayala was gone from her! How was she to bear it? She begrudged
Ayala nothing -- no, nothing. But yet it was hard! Ayala was
to have everything. Aunt Emmeline -- though they had not hitherto
been very fond of Aunt Emmeline -- was sweetness itself as compared
with this woman. "The sooner you begin to labour the better for
yourself and those about you." Would it not have been fitter
that she should have been sent at once to some actual poorhouse
in which there would have been no mistake as to her position?
That it should all have been decided for her for her and Ayala,
not by any will of their own, not by any concert between themselves,
but simply by the fantasy of another! Why should she thus be
made a slave to the fantasy of anyone! Let Ayala have her uncle's
wealth and her aunt's palaces at her command, and she would walk
out simply a pauper into the world -- into some workhouse, so
that at least she need not be obedient to the harsh voice and
the odious common sense of her Aunt Dosett! But how should she
take herself to some workhouse? In what way could she prove her
right to be admitted even then? It seemed to her that the same
decree which had admitted Ayala into the golden halls of the
fairies had doomed her not only to poverty, but to slavery. There
was no escape for her from her aunt and her aunt's sermons. "Oh,
Ayala, my darling -- my own one; oh, Ayala, if you did but know!"
she said to herself. What would Ayala think, how would Ayala
bear it, could she but guess by what a gulf was her heaven divided
from her sister's hell! "I will never tell her," she said to
herself. "I will die, and she shall never know." 

As she lay there sobbing all the gilded things of the world were
beautiful in her eyes. Alas, yes, it was true. The magnificence
of the mansion at Queen's Gate, the glories of Glenbogie, the
closely studied comforts of Merle Park, as the place in Sussex
was called, all the carriages and horses, Madame Tonsonville
and all the draperies, the seats at the Albert Hall into which
she had been accustomed to go with as much ease as into her bedroom,
the box at the opera, the pretty furniture, the frequent gems,
even the raiment which would make her pleasing to the eyes of
men whom she would like to please -- all these things grew in
her eyes and became beautiful. No. 3, Kingsbury Crescent, was
surely, of all places on the earth's surface, the most ugly.
And yet -- yet she had endeavoured to do her duty. "If it had
been the workhouse I could have borne it," she said to herself;
"but not to be the slave of my Aunt Dosett!" Again she appealed
to her sister, "Oh, Ayala, if you did but know it!" Then she
remembered herself, declaring that it might have been worse to
Ayala than even to her. "If one had to bear it, it was better
for me," she said, as she struggled to prepare herself for her
uncle's dinner. 


CHAPTER 3
LUCY'S TROUBLES

The evening after the affair with the sheet went off quietly,
as did many days and many evenings. Mrs Dosett was wise enough
to forget the little violence and to forget also the feeling
which had been displayed. When Lucy first asked for some household
needlework, which she did with a faltering voice and shame-faced
remembrance of her fault, her aunt took it all in good part and
gave her a task somewhat lighter as a beginning than the handling
of a sheet. Lucy sat at it and suffered. She went on sitting
and suffering. She told herself that she was a martyr at every
stitch she made. As she occupied the seat opposite to her aunt's
accustomed chair she would hardly speak at all, but would keep
her mind always intent on Ayala and the joys of Ayala's life.
That they who had been born together, sisters, with equal fortunes,
who had so closely lived together, should be sundered so utterly
one from the other; that the one should be so exalted and the
other so debased! And why? What justice had there been? Could
it be from heaven or even from earth that the law had gone forth
for such a division of the things of the world between them?
"You have got very little to say to a person," said Aunt Dosett,
one morning. This, too, was a reproach. This, too, was scolding.
And yet Aunt Dosett had intended to be as pleasant as she knew
how. 

"I have very little to say," replied Lucy, with repressed anger.
"But why?" 

"Because I am stupid," said Lucy. "Stupid people can't talk.
You should have had Ayala." 

"I hope you do not envy Ayala her fortune, Lucy?" A woman with
any tact would not have asked such a question at such a time.
She should have felt that a touch of such irony might he natural,
and that unless it were expressed loudly, or shown actively,
it might be left to be suppressed by affection and time. But
she, as she had grown old, had taught herself to bear disappointment,
and thought it wise to teach Lucy to do the same. 

"Envy!" said Lucy, not passionately, but after a little pause
for thought. "I sometimes think it is very hard to know what
envy is." 

"Envy, hatred, and malice," said Mrs Dosett, hardly knowing what
she meant by the use of the well-worn words. 

"I do know what hatred and malice are," said Lucy. "Do you think
I hate Ayala?" 

"I am sure you do not." 

"Or that I bear her malice?" 

"Certainly not." 

"If I had the power to take anything from her, would I do it?
I love Ayala with my whole heart. Whatever be my misery I would
rather bear it than let Ayala have even a share of it. Whatever
good things she may have I would not rob her even of a part of
them. If there be joy and sorrow to be divided between us I would
wish to have the sorrow so that she might have the joy. That
is not hatred and malice." Mrs Dosett looked at her over her
spectacles. This was the girl who had declared that she could
not speak because she was too stupid! "But, when you ask me whether
I envy her, I hardly know," continued Lucy. "I think one does
covet one's neighbour's house, in spite of the tenth commandment,
even though one does not want to steal it." 

Mrs Dosett repented herself that she had given rise to any conversation
at all. Silence, absolute silence, the old silence which she
had known for a dozen years before Lucy had come to her, would
have been better than this. She was very angry, more angry than
she had ever yet been with Lucy; and yet she was afraid to show
her anger. Was this the girl's gratitude for all that her uncle
was doing for her -- for shelter, food, comfort, for all that
she had in the world? Mrs Dosett knew, though Lucy did not, of
the little increased pinchings which had been made necessary
by the advent of another inmate in the house; so many pounds
of the meat in the week, and so much bread, and so much tea and
sugar! It had all been calculated. In genteel houses such calculation
must often be made. And when by degrees -- degrees very quick
-- the garments should become worn which Lucy had brought with
her, there must be something taken from the tight-fitting income
for that need. Arrangements had already been made of which Lucy
knew nothing, and already the two glasses of port wine a day
had been knocked off from poor Mr Dosett's comforts. His wife
had sobbed in despair when he had said that it should be so.
He had declared gin and water to be as supporting as port wine,
and the thing had been done. Lucy inwardly had been disgusted
by the gin and water, knowing nothing of its history. Her father,
who had not always been punctual in paying his wine-merchant's
bills, would not have touched gin and water, would not have allowed
it to contaminate his table. Everything in Mr Dosett's house
was paid for weekly. 

And now Lucy, who had been made welcome to all that the genteel
house could afford, who had been taken in as a child, had spoken
of her lot as one which was all sorrowful. Bad as it is -- this
living in Kingsbury Crescent -- I would rather bear it myself
than subject Ayala to such misery! It was thus that she had,
in fact, spoken of her new home when she had found it necessary
to defend her feelings towards her sister. It was impossible
that her aunt should be altogether silent under such treatment.
"We have done the best for you that is in our power, Lucy," she
said, with a whole load of reproach in her tone. 

"Have I complained, aunt?" 

"I thought you did." 

"Oh, no! You asked me whether I envied Ayala. What was I to say?
Perhaps I should have said nothing, but the idea of envying Ayala
was painful to me. Of course she -- " 

"Well?" 

"I had better say nothing more, aunt. If I were to pretend to
be cheerful I should be false. It is as yet only a few weeks
since papa died." Then the work went on in silence between them
for the next hour. 

And the work went on in solemn silence between them through the
winter. It came to pass that the sole excitement of Lucy's life
came from Ayala's letters -- the sole excitement except a meeting
which took place between the sisters one day. When Lucy was taken
to Kingsbury Crescent Ayala was at once carried down to Glenbogie,
and from thence there came letters twice a week for six weeks.
Ayala's letters, too, were full of sorrow. She, too, had lost
her mother, her father, and her sister. Moreover, in her foolish
petulance she said things of her Aunt Emmeline, and of the girls,
and of Sir Thomas, which ought not to have been written of those
who were kind to her. Her cousin Tom, too, she ridiculed -- Tom
Tringle, the son and heir -- saying that he was a lout who endeavoured
to make eyes at her. Oh, how distasteful, how vulgar they were
after all that she had known. Perhaps the eldest girl, Augusta,
was the worst. She did not think that she could put up with the
assumed authority of Augusta. Gertrude was better, but a simpleton.
Ayala declared herself to be sad at heart. But then the sweet
scenery of Glenbogie, and the colour of the moors, and the glorious
heights of Ben Alchan, made some amends. Even in her sorrow she
would rave about the beauties of Glenbogie. Lucy, as she read
the letters, told herself that Ayala's grief was a grief to be
borne, a grief almost to be enjoyed. To sit and be sad with a
stream purling by you, how different from the sadness of that
dining-room in the Crescent. To look out upon the glories of
a mountain, while a tear would now and again force itself into
the eye, how much less bitter than the falling of salt drops
over a tattered towel. 

Lucy, in her answers, endeavoured to repress the groans of her
spirit. In the first place she did acknowledge that it did not
become her to speak ill of those who were, in truth, her benefactors;
and then she was anxious not to declare to Ayala her feeling
of the injustice by which their two lots had been defined to
them. Though she had failed to control herself once or twice
in speaking to her aunt she did control herself in writing her
letters. She would never, never, write a word which should make
Ayala unnecessarily unhappy. On that she was determined. She
would say nothing to explain to Ayala the unutterable tedium
of that downstairs parlour in which they passed their lives,
lest Ayala should feel herself to be wounded by the luxurious
comforts around her. 

It was thus she wrote. Then there came a time in which they were
to meet -- just at the beginning of November. The Tringles were
going to Rome. They generally did go somewhere. Glenbogie, Merle
Park, and the house in Queen's Gate, were not enough for the
year. Sir Thomas was to take them to Rome, and then return to
London for the manipulation of the millions in Lombard Street.
He generally did remain nine months out of the twelve in town,
because of the millions, making his visits at Merle Park very
short; but Lady Tringle found that change of air was good for
the girls. It was her intention now to remain at Rome for two
or three months. 

The party from Scotland reached Queen's Gate late one Saturday
evening, and intended to start early on the Monday. To Ayala,
who had made it quite a matter of course that she should see
her sister, Lady Tringle had said that in that case a carriage
must be sent across. It was awkward, because there were no carriages
in London. She had thought that they had all intended to pass
through London just as though they were not stopping. Sunday,
she had thought, was not to be regarded as being a day at all.
Then Ayala flashed up. She had flashed up some times before.
Was it supposed that she was not going to see Lucy? Carriage!
She would walk across Kensington Gardens, and find the house
out all by herself. She would spend the whole day with Lucy,
and come back alone in a cab. She was strong enough, at any rate,
to have her way so far, that a carriage, wherever it came from,
was sent for Lucy about three in the afternoon, and did take
her back to Kingsbury Crescent after dinner. 

Then at last the sisters were together in Ayala's bedroom. "And
now tell me about everything," said Ayala. 

But Lucy was resolved that she would not tell anything. "I am
so wretched!" That would have been all; but she would not tell
her wretchedness. "We are so quiet in Kingsbury Crescent," she
said,; "you have so much more to talk of." 

"Oh, Lucy, I do not like it." 

"Not your aunt?" 

"She is not the worst, though she sometimes is hard to bear.
I can't tell you what it is, but they all seem to think so much
of themselves. In the first place they never will say a word
about papa." 

"Perhaps that is from feeling, Ayey." 

"No, it is not. One would know that. But they look down upon
papa, who had more in his little finger than they have with all
their money." 

"Then I should hold my tongue." 

"So I do -- about him; but it is very hard. And then Augusta
has a way with me, as though she had a right to order me. I certainly
will not be ordered by Augusta. You never ordered me." 

"Dear Ayey!" 

"Augusta is older than you -- of course, ever so much. They make
her out twenty-three at her last birthday, but she is twenty-four.
But that is not difference enough for ordering -- certainly between
cousins. I do hate Augusta." 

"I would not hate her." 

"How is one to help oneself? She has a way of whispering to Gertrude,
and to her mother, when I am there, which almost kills me. 'If
you'll only give me notice I'll go out of the room at once,'
I said the other day, and they were all so angry." 

"I would not make them angry if I were you, Ayey." 

"Why not?" 

"Not Sir Thomas, or Aunt Emmeline." 

"I don't care a bit for Sir Thomas. I am not sure but he is the
most good-natured, though he is so podgy. Of course, when Aunt
Emmeline tells me anything I do it." 

"It is so important that you should be on good terms with them."
"I don't see it at all," said Ayala, flashing round. 

"Aunt Emmeline can do so much for you. We have nothing of our
own -- you and I." 

"Am I to sell myself because they have got money! No, indeed!
No one despises money so much as I do. I will never be other
to them than if I had the money, and they were the poor relations."
"That will not do, Ayey." 

"I will make it do. They may turn me out if they like. Of course,
I know that I should obey my aunt, and so I will. If Sir Thomas
told me anything I should do it. But not Augusta." Then, while
Lucy was thinking how she might best put into soft words advice
which was so clearly needed, Ayala declared another trouble.
"But there is worse still." 

"What is that?" 

"Tom!" 

"What does Tom do?" 

"You know Tom, Lucy?" 

"I have seen him." 

"Of all the horrors he is the horridest." 

"Does he order you about?" 

"No; but he -- " 

"What is it, Ayey?" 

"Oh! Lucy, he is so dreadful. He -- " 

"You don't mean that he makes love to you?" 

"He does. What am I to do, Lucy?" 

"Do they know it?" 

"Augusta does, I'm sure; and pretends to think that it is my
fault. I am sure that there will be a terrible quarrel some day.
I told him the day before we left Glenbogie that I should tell
his mother. I did indeed. Then he grinned. He is such a fool.
And when I laughed he took it all as kindness. I couldn't have
helped laughing if I had died for it." 

"But he has been left behind." 

"Yes, for the present. But he is to come over to us some time
after Christmas, when Uncle Tringle has gone back." 

"A girl need not be bothered by a lover unless she chooses, Ayey.
"But it will be such a bother to have to talk about it. He looks
at me, and is such an idiot. Then Augusta frowns. When I see
Augusta frowning I am so angry that I feel like boxing her ears.
Do you know, Lucy, that I often think that it will not do, and
that I shall have to be sent away. I wish it had been you that
they had chosen." 

Such was the conversation between the girls. Of what was said
everything appertained to Ayala. Of the very nature of Lucy's
life not a word was spoken. As Ayala was talking Lucy was constantly
thinking of all that might be lost by her sister's imprudence.
Even though Augusta might be disagreeable, even though Tom might
be a bore, it should all be borne -- borne at any rate for a
while -- seeing how terrible would be the alternative. The alternative
to Lucy seemed to be Kingsbury Crescent and Aunt Dosett. It did
not occur to her to think whether in any possible case Ayala
would indeed be added to the Crescent family, or what in that
case would become of herself, and whether they two might live
with Aunt Dosett, and whether in that case life would not be
infinitely improved. Ayala had all that money could do for her,
and would have such a look-out into the world from a wealthy
house as might be sure at last to bring her some such husband
as would be desirable. Ayala, in fact, had everything before
her, and Lucy had nothing. Wherefore it became Lucy's duty to
warn Ayala, so that she should bear with much, and throw away
nothing. If Ayala could only know what life might be, what life
was at Kingsbury Crescent, then she would be patient, then she
would softly make a confidence with her aunt as to Tom's folly,
then she would propitiate Augusta. Not care for money! Ayala
had not yet lived in an ugly room and darned sheets all the morning.
Ayala had never sat for two hours between the slumbers of Uncle
Dosett and the knitting of Aunt Dosett. Ayala had not been brought
into contact with gin and water. 

"Oh, Ayala!" she said, as they were going down to dinner together,
"do struggle; do bear it. Tell Aunt Emmeline. She will like you
to tell her. If Augusta wants you to go anywhere, do go. What
does it signify? Papa and mamma are gone, and we are alone."
All this she said without a word of allusion to her own sufferings.
Ayala made a half promise. She did not think she would go anywhere
for Augusta's telling; but she would do her best to satisfy Aunt
Emmeline. Then they went to dinner, and after dinner Lucy was
taken home without further words between them. 

Ayala wrote long letters on her journey, full of what she saw,
and full of her companions. From Paris she wrote, and then from
Turin, and then again on their immediate arrival at Rome. Her
letters were most imprudent as written from the close vicinity
of her aunt and cousin. It was such a comfort that that oaf Tom
had been left behind. Uncle Tringle was angry because he did
not get what he liked to eat. Aunt Emmeline gave that courier
such a terrible life, sending for him every quarter of an hour.
Augusta would talk first French and then Italian, of which no
one could understand a word. Gertrude was so sick with travelling
that she was as pale as a sheet. Nobody seemed to care for anything.
She could not get her aunt to look at the Campanile at Florence,
or her cousins to know one picture from another. "As for pictures,
I am quite sure that Mangle's angels would do as well as Raffael's."
Mangle was a brother academician whom their father had taught
them to despise. There was contempt, most foolish contempt, for
all the Tringles; but, luckily, there had be no quarrelling.
Then it seemed that both in Paris and in Florence Ayala had bought
pretty things, from which it was to be argued that her uncle
had provided her liberally with money. One pretty thing had been
sent from Paris to Lucy, which could not have been bought for
less than many francs. It would not be fair that Ayala should
take so much without giving something in return. 

Lucy knew that she too should give something in return. Though
Kingsbury Crescent was not attractive, though Aunt Dosett was
not to her a pleasant companion, she had begun to realise the
fact that it behoved her to be grateful, if only for the food
she ate, and for the bed on which she slept. As she thought of
all that Ayala owed she remembered also her own debts. As the
winter went on she struggled to pay them. But Aunt Dosett was
a lady not much given to vacillation. She had become aware at
first that Lucy had been rough to her, and she did not easily
open herself to Lucy's endearments. Lucy's life at Kingsbury
Crescent had begun badly, and Lucy, though she understood much
about it, found it hard to turn a bad beginning to a good result.


CHAPTER 4
ISADORE HAMEL

It was suggested to Lucy before she had been long in Kingsbury
Crescent that she should take some exercise. For the first week
she had hardly been out of the house; but this was attributed
to her sorrow. Then she had accompanied her aunt for a few days
during the half-hour's marketing which took place every morning,
but in this there had been no sympathy. Lucy would not interest
herself in the shoulder of mutton which must be of just such
a weight as to last conveniently for two days -- twelve pounds
-- of which, it was explained to her, more than one-half was
intended for the two servants, because there was always a more
lavish consumption in the kitchen than in the parlour. Lucy would
not appreciate the fact that eggs at a penny a piece, whatever
they might be, must be used for puddings, as eggs with even a
reputation of freshness cost two-pence. Aunt Dosett, beyond this,
never left the house on week-days except for a few calls which
were made perhaps once a month, on which occasion the Sunday
gloves and the Sunday silk dress were used. On Sunday they all
went to church. But this was not enough for exercise, and as
Lucy was becoming pale she was recommended to take to walking
in Kensington Gardens. 

It is generally understood that there are raging lions about
the metropolis, who would certainly eat up young ladies whole
if young ladies were to walk about the streets or even about
the parks by themselves. There is, however, beginning to be some
vacillation as to the received belief on this subject as regards
London. In large continental towns, such as Paris and Vienna,
young ladies would be devoured certainly. Such, at least, is
the creed. In New York and Washington there are supposed to be
no lions, so that young ladies go about free as air. In London
there is a rising doubt, under which before long, probably, the
lions will succumb altogether. Mrs Dosett did believe somewhat
in lions, but she believed also in exercise. And she was aware
that the lions eat up chiefly rich people. Young ladies who must
go about without mothers, brothers, uncles, carriages, or attendants
of any sort, are not often eaten or even roared at. It is the
dainty darlings for whom the roarings have to be feared. Mrs
Dosett, aware that daintiness was no longer within the reach
of her and hers, did assent to these walkings in Kensington Gardens.
At some hour in the afternoon Lucy would walk from the house
by herself, and within a quarter of an hour would find herself
on the broad gravel path which leads down to the Round Pond.
From thence she would go by the back of the Albert Memorial,
and then across by the Serpentine and return to the same gate,
never leaving Kensington Gardens. Aunt Dosett had expressed some
old-fashioned idea that lions were more likely to roar in Hyde
Park than within the comparatively retired purlieus of Kensington.
Now the reader must be taken back for a few moments to the bijou,
as the bijou was before either the artist or his wife had died.
In those days there had been a frequent concourse of people in
the artist's house. Society there had not consisted chiefly of
eating and drinking. Men and women would come in and out as though
really for a purpose of talking. There would be three or four
constantly with Dormer in his studio, helping him but little
perhaps in the real furtherance of his work, though discussing
art subjects in a manner calculated to keep alive art-feeling
among them. A novelist or two of a morning might perhaps aid
me in my general pursuit, but would, I think, interfere with
the actual tally of pages. Egbert Dormer did not turn out from
his hand so much work as some men that I know, but he was overflowing
with art up to his ears -- and with tobacco, so that, upon the
whole, the bijou was a pleasant rendezvous. 

There had come there of late, quite of late, a young sculptor,
named Isadore Hamel. Hamel was an Englishman, who, however, had
been carried very early to Rome and had been bred there. Of his
mother question never was made, but his father had been well
known as an English sculptor resident at Rome. The elder Hamel
had been a man of mark, who had a fine suite of rooms in the
city and a villa on one of the lakes, but who never came to England.
English connections were, he said, to him abominable, by which
he perhaps meant that the restrictions of decent life were not
to his taste. But his busts came, and his groups in marble, and
now and again some great work for some public decoration: so
that money was plentiful with him, and he was a man of note.
It must be acknowledged of him that he spared nothing in bringing
up his son, giving him such education as might best suit his
future career as an artist, and that money was always forthcoming
for the lad's wants and fantasies. 

Then young Hamel also became a sculptor of much promise; but
early in life differed from his father on certain subjects of
importance. The father was wedded to Rome and to Italy. Isadore
gradually expressed an opinion that the nearer a man was to his
market the better for him, that all that art could do for a man
in Rome was as nothing to the position which a great artist might
make for himself in London -- that, in fact, an Englishman had
better be an Englishman. At twenty-six he succeeded in his attempt,
and became known as a young sculptor with a workshop at Brompton.
He became known to many both by his work and his acquirements;
but it may not be surprising that after a year he was still unable
to live, as he had been taught to live, without drawing upon
his father. Then his father threw his failure in his teeth, not
refusing him money indeed, but making the receipt of it unpleasant
to him. 

At no house had Isadore Hamel been made so welcome as at Dormer's.
There was a sympathy between them both on that great question
of art, whether to an artist his art should be a matter to him
of more importance than all the world besides. So said Dormer
-- who simply died because his wife died, who could not have
touched his brush if one of his girls had been suffering, who,
with all his genius, was but a faineant workman. His art more
than all the world to him! No, not to him. Perhaps here and again
to some enthusiast, and him hardly removed from madness! Where
is the painter who shall paint a picture after his soul's longing
though he shall get not a penny for it -- though he shall starve
as he put his last touch to it, when he knows that by drawing
some duchess of the day he shall in a fortnight earn a ducal
price? Shall a wife and child be less dear to him than to a lawyer
-- or to a shoemaker, or the very craving of his hunger less
obdurate? A man's self, and what he has within him and his belongings,
with his outlook for this and other worlds -- let that be the
first, and the work, noble or otherwise, be the second. To be
honest is greater than to have painted the San Sisto, or to have
chiselled the Apollo, to have assisted in making others honest
-- infinitely greater. All of which were discussed at great length
at the bijou, and the bijouites always sided with the master
of the house. To an artist, said Dormer, let his art be everything
-- above wife and children, above money, above health, above
even character. Then he would put out his hand with his jewelled
finger, and stretch forth his velvet-clad arm, and soon after
lead his friend away to the little dinner at which no luxury
had been spared. But young Hamel agreed with the sermons, and
not the less because Lucy Dormer had sat by and listened to them
with rapt attention. 

Not a word of love had been spoken to her by the sculptor when
her mother died, but there had been glances and little feelings
of which each was half conscious. It is so hard for a young man
to speak of love, if there be real love -- so impossible that
a girl should do so! Not a word had been spoken, but each had
thought that the other must have known. To Lucy a word had been
spoken by her mother -- "Do not think too much of him till you
know," the mother had said -- not quite prudently. "Oh, no! I
will think of him not at all," Lucy had replied. And she had
thought of him day and night. "I wonder why Mr Hamel is so different
with you?" Ayala had said to her sister. "I am sure he is not
different with me", Lucy had replied. Then Ayala had shaken her
full locks and smiled. 

Things came quickly after that. Mrs Dormer had sickened and died.
There was no time then for thinking of that handsome brow, of
that short jet black hair, of those eyes so full of fire and
thoughtfulness, of that perfect mouth, and the deep but yet soft
voice. Still even in her sorrow this new god of her idolatry
was not altogether forgotten. It was told to her that he had
been summoned off to Rome by his father, and she wondered whether
he was to find his home at Rome for ever. Then her father was
ill, and in his illness Hamel came to say one word of farewell
before he started. 

"You find me crushed to the ground," the painter said. Something
the young man whispered as to the consolation which time would
bring. "Not to me," said Dormer. "It is as though one had lost
his eyes. One cannot see without his eyes." It was true of him.
His light had been put out. 

Then, on the landing at the top of the stairs, there had been
one word between Lucy and the sculptor. "I ought not to have
intruded on you perhaps," he said; "but after so much kindness
I could hardly go without a word." 

"I am sure he will be glad that you have come." 

"And you?" 

"I am glad too -- so that I may say goodbye." Then she put out
her hand, and he held it for a moment as he looked into her eyes.
There was not a word more, but it seemed to Lucy as though there
had been so many words. 

Things went on quickly. Egbert Dormer died, and Lucy was taken
away to Kingsbury Crescent. When once Ayala had spoken about
Mr Hamel, Lucy had silenced her. Any allusion to the idea of
love wounded her, as though it was too impossible for dreams,
too holy for words. How should there be words about a lover when
father and mother were both dead? He had gone to his old and
natural home. He had gone, and of course he would not return.
To Ayala, when she came up to London early in November, to Ayala,
who was going to Rome, where Isadore Hamel now was, Isadore Hamel's
name was not mentioned. But through the long mornings of her
life, through the long evenings, through the long nights, she
still thought of him -- she could not keep herself from thinking.
To a girl whose life is full of delights her lover need not be
so very much -- need not, at least, be everything. Though he
be a lover to be loved at all points, her friends will be something,
her dancing, her horse, her theatre-going, her brothers and sisters,
even her father and mother. But Lucy had nothing. The vision
of Isadore Hamel had passed across her life, and had left with
her the only possession that she had. It need hardly be said
that she never alluded to that possession at Kingsbury Crescent.
It was not a possession from which any enjoyment could come except
that of thinking of it. He had passed away from her, and there
was no point of life at which he could come across her again.
There was no longer that half-joint studio. If it had been her
lot to be as was Ayala, she then would have been taken to Rome.
Then again he would have looked into her eyes. and taken her
hand in his. Then perhaps -- . But now, even though he were to
come back to London, he would know nothing of her haunts. Even
in that case nothing would bring them together. As the idea was
crossing her mind -- as it did cross it so frequently -- she
saw him turning from the path on which she was walking, making
his way towards the steps of the Memorial. 

Though she saw no more than his back she was sure that it was
Isadore Hamel. For a moment there was an impulse on her to run
after him and to call his name. It was then early in January,
and she was taking her daily walk through Kensington Gardens.
She had walked there daily now for the last two months and had
never spoken a word or been addressed -- had never seen a face
that she had recognised. It had seemed to her that she had not
an acquaintance in the world except Uncle Reg and Aunt Dosett.
And now, almost within reach of her hand, was the one being in
all the world whom she most longed to see. She did stand and
the word was formed within her lips; but she could not speak
it. Then came the thought that she would run after him, but the
thought was expelled quickly. Though she might lose him again
and for ever she could not do that. She stood almost gasping
till he was out of sight, and then she passed on upon her usual
round. 

She never omitted her walks after that, and always paused a moment
as the path turned away to the Memorial. It was not that she
thought that she might meet him there -- there rather than elsewhere
-- but there is present to us often an idea that when some object
has passed from us that we have desired then it may be seen again.
Day after day, and week after week, she did not see him. During
this time there came letters from Ayala, saying that their return
to England was postponed till the first week in February -- that
she would certainly see Lucy in February -- that she was not
going to be hurried through London in half an hour because her
aunt wished it; and that she would do as she pleased as to visiting
her sister. Then there was a word or two about Tom -- "Oh, Tom
-- that idiot Tom!" And another word or two about Augusta. "Augusta
is worse than ever. We have not spoken to each other for the
last day or two." This came but a day or two before the intended
return of the Tringles. 

No actual day had been fixed. But on the day before that on which
Lucy thought it probable that the Tringles might return to town
she was again walking in the Gardens. Having put two and two
together, as people do, she felt sure that the travellers could
not be away more than a day or two longer. Her mind was much
intent upon Ayala, feeling that the imprudent girl was subjecting
herself to great danger, knowing that it was wrong that she and
Augusta should be together in the house without speaking -- thinking
of her sister's perils -- when, of a sudden, Hamel was close
before her! There was no question of calling to him now -- no
question of an attempt to see him face to face. She had been
wandering along the path with eyes fixed upon the ground, when
her name was sharply called, and they two were close to each
other. Hamel had a friend with him, and it seemed to Lucy at
once, that she could only bow to him, only mutter something,
and then pass on. How can a girl stand and speak to a gentleman
in public, especially when that gentleman has a friend with him?
She tried to look pleasant, bowed, smiled, muttered something,
and was passing on. But he was not minded to lose her thus immediately.
"Miss Dormer," he said, "I have seen your sister at Rome. May
I not say a word about her?" 

Why should he not say a word about Ayala? In a minute he had
left his friend, and was walking back along the path with Lucy.
There was not much that he had to say about Ayala. He had seen
Ayala and the Tringles, and did manage to let it escape him that
Lady Tringle had not been very gracious to himself when once,
in public, he had claimed acquaintance with Ayala. But at that
he simply smiled. Then he had asked of Lucy where she lived.
"With my uncle, Mr Dosett," said Lucy, "at Kingsbury Crescent."
Then, when he asked whether he might call, Lucy, with many blushes,
had said that her aunt did not receive many visitors -- that
her uncle's house was different from what her father's had been.
"Shall I not see you at all, then?" he asked. 

She did not like to ask him after his own purposes of life, whether
he was now a resident in London, or whether he intended to return
to Rome. She was covered with bashfulness, and dreaded to seem
even to be interested in his affairs. "Oh, yes," she said,; "perhaps
we may meet some day." 

"Here?" he asked. 

"Oh, no; not here! It was only an accident." As she said this
she determined that she must walk no more in Kensington Gardens.
It would be dreadful, indeed, were he to imagine that she would
consent to make an appointment with him. It immediately occurred
to her that the lions were about, and that she must shut herself
up. 

"I have thought of you every day since I have been back," he
said, "and I did not know where to hear of you. Now that we have
met am I to lose you again?" Lose her! What did he mean by losing
her? She, too, had found a friend -- she who had been so friendless!
Would it not be dreadful to her, also, to lose him? "Is there
no place where I may ask of you?" 

"When Ayala is back, and they are in town, perhaps I shall sometimes
be at Lady Tringle's," said Lucy, resolved that she would not
tell him of her immediate abode. This was, at any rate, a certain
address from where he might commence further inquiries, should
he wish to make inquiry; and as such he accepted it. "I think
I had better go now," said Lucy, trembling at the apparent impropriety
of her present conversation. 

He knew that it was intended that he should leave her, and he
went. "I hope I have not offended you in coming so far." 

"Oh, no." Then again she gave him her hand and again there was
the same look as he took his leave. 

When she got home, which was before the dusk, having resolved
that she must, at any rate, tell her aunt that she had met a
friend, she found that her uncle had returned from his office.
This was a most unusual occurrence. Her uncle, she knew, left
Somerset House exactly at half past four, and always took an
hour and a quarter for his walk. She had never seen him in Kingsbury
Crescent till a quarter before six. "I have got letters from
Rome," he said, in a solemn voice. 

"From Ayala?" 

"One from Ayala, for you. It is here. And I have had one from
my sister, also; and one, in the course of the day, from your
uncle in Lombard Street. You had better read them!" There was
something terribly tragic in Uncle Dosett's voice as he spoke.
And so must the reader read the letters; but they must be delayed
for a few chapters. 


CHAPTER 5
AT GLENBOGIE

We must go back to Ayala's life during the autumn and winter.
She was rapidly whirled away to Glenbogie amidst the affectionate
welcomings of her aunt and cousins. All manner of good things
were done for her, as to presents and comforts. Young as she
was, she had money given to her, which was not without attraction;
and though she was, of course, in the depth of her mourning,
she was made to understand that even mourning might be made becoming
if no expense were spared. No expense among the Tringles ever
was spared, and at first Ayala liked the bounty of profusion.
But before the end of the first fortnight there grew upon her
a feeling that even bank-notes become tawdry if you are taught
to use them as curl-papers. It may be said that nothing in the
world is charming unless it be achieved at some trouble. If it
rained "'64 Leoville' -- which I regard as the most divine of
nectars -- I feel sure that I should never raise it to my lips.
Ayala did not argue the matter out in her mind, but in very early
days she began to entertain a dislike to Tringle magnificence.
There had been a good deal of luxury at the bijou, but always
with a feeling that it ought not to be there -- that more money
was being spent than prudence authorised -- which had certainly
added a savour to the luxuries. A lovely bonnet, is it not more
lovely because the destined wearer knows that there is some wickedness
in achieving it? All the bonnets, all the claret, all the horses,
seemed to come at Queen's Gate and at Glenbogie without any wickedness.
There was no more question about them than as to one's ordinary
bread and butter at breakfast. Sir Thomas had a way -- a merit
shall we call it or a fault? -- of pouring out his wealth upon
the family as though it were water running in perpetuity from
a mountain tarn. Ayala the romantic, Ayala the poetic, found
very soon that she did not like it. 

Perhaps the only pleasure left to the very rich is that of thinking
of the deprivations of the poor. The bonnets, and the claret,
and the horses, have lost their charm; but the Gladstone, and
the old hats, and the four-wheeled cabs of their neighbours,
still have a little flavour for them. From this source it seemed
to Ayala that the Tringles drew much of the recreation of their
lives. Sir Thomas had his way of enjoying this amusement, but
it was a way that did not specially come beneath Ayala's notice.
When she heard that Break-at-last, the Huddersfield manufacturer,
had to sell his pictures, and that all Shoddy and Stuffgoods'
grand doings for the last two years had only been a flash in
the pan, she did not understand enough about it to feel wounded;
but when she heard her aunt say that people like the Poodles
had better not have a place in Scotland than have to let it,
and when Augusta hinted that Lady Sophia Smallware had pawned
her diamonds, then she felt that her nearest and dearest relatives
smelt abominably of money. 

Of all the family Sir Thomas was most persistently the kindest
to her, though he was a man who did not look to be kind. She
was pretty, and though he was ugly himself he liked to look at
things pretty. He was, too, perhaps, a little tired of his own
wife and daughters -- who were indeed what he had made them,
but still were not quite to his taste. In a general way he gave
instructions that Ayala should be treated exactly as a daughter,
and he informed his wife that he intended to add a codicil to
his will on her behalf. "Is that necessary?" asked Lady Tringle,
who began to feel something like natural jealousy. "I suppose
I ought to do something for a girl if I take her by the hand,"
said Sir Thomas, roughly. "If she gets a husband I will give
her something, and that will do as well." Nothing more was said
about it, but when Sir Thomas went up to town the codicil was
added to his will. 

Ayala was foolish rather than ungrateful, not understanding the
nature of the family to which she was relegated. Before she had
been taken away she had promised Lucy that she would be "obedient"
to her aunt. There had hardly been such a word as obedience known
at the bijou. If any were obedient, it was the mother and the
father to the daughters. Lucy, and Ayala as well, had understood
something of this; and therefore Ayala had promised to be obedient
to her aunt. "And to Uncle Thomas," Lucy had demanded, with an
imploring embrace. "Oh, yes," said Ayala, dreading her uncle
at that time. She soon learned that no obedience whatsoever was
exacted from Sir Thomas. She had to kiss him morning and evening,
and then to take whatever presents he made her. An easy uncle
he was to deal with, and she almost learned to love him. Nor
was Aunt Emmeline very exigeant, though she was fantastic and
sometimes disagreeable. But Augusta was the great difficulty.
Lucy had not told her to obey Augusta, and Augusta she would
not obey. Now Augusta demanded obedience. 

"You never ordered me," Ayala had said to Lucy when they met
in London as the Tringles were passing through. At the bijou
there had been a republic, in which all the inhabitants and all
the visitors had been free and equal. Such republicanism had
been the very mainspring of life at the bijou. Ayala loved equality,
and she specially felt that it should exist among sisters. Do
anything for Lucy? Oh, yes, indeed, anything; abandon anything;
but for Lucy as a sister among sisters, not for an elder as from
a younger! And if she were not bound to serve Lucy then certainly
not Augusta. But Augusta liked to be served. On one occasion
she sent Ayala upstairs, and on another she sent Ayala downstairs.
Ayala went, but determined to be equal with her cousin. On the
morning following, in the presence of Aunt Emmeline and of Gertrude,
in the presence also of two other ladies who were visiting at
the house, she asked Augusta if she would mind running upstairs
and fetching her scrap-book! She had been thinking about it all
the night and all the morning, plucking up her courage. But she
had been determined. She found a great difficulty in saying the
words, but she said them. The thing was so preposterous that
all the ladies in the room looked aghast at the proposition.
"I really think that Augusta has got something else to do," said.
Aunt Emmeline. "Oh, very well," said Ayala, and then they were
all silent. Augusta, who was employed on a silk purse, sat still
and did not say a word. 

Had a great secret, or rather a great piece of news which pervaded
the family, been previously communicated to Ayala, she would
not probably have made so insane a suggestion. Augusta was engaged
to be married to the Honourable Septimus Traffick, the member
for Port Glasgow. A young lady who is already half a bride is
not supposed to run up and down stairs as readily as a mere girl.
For running up and down stairs at the bijou Ayala had been proverbial.
They were a family who ran up and down with the greatest alacrity.
"Oh, papa, my basket is out on the seat' -- for there had been
a seat in the two-foot garden behind the house. Papa would go
down in two jumps and come up with three skips, and there was
the basket, only because his girl liked him to do something for
her. But for him Ayala would run about as though she were a tricksy
Ariel. Had the important matrimonial news been conveyed to Ariel,
with a true girl's spirit she would have felt that during the
present period Augusta was entitled to special exemption from
all ordering. Had she herself been engaged she would have run
more and quicker than ever -- would have been excited thereto
by the peculiar vitality of her new prospects; but to even Augusta
she would be subservient, because of her appreciation of bridal
importance. She, however, had not been told till that afternoon.
"You should not have asked Augusta to go upstairs," said Aunt
Emmeline, in a tone of mitigated reproach. 

"Oh! I didn't know," said Ayala. 

"You had meant to say that because she had sent you you were
to send her. There is a difference, you know." 

"I didn't know," said Ayala, beginning to think that she would
fight her battle if told of such differences as she believed
to exist. 

"I had meant to tell you before, but I may as well tell you now,
Augusta is engaged to be married to the Honourable Mr Septimus
Traffick. He is second son of Lord Boardotrade, and is in the
House." 

"Dear me!" said Ayala, acknowledging at once within her heart
that the difference alleged was one against which she need not
rouse herself to the fight. Aunt Emmeline had, in truth, intended
to insist on that difference -- and another; but her courage
had failed her. 

"Yes, indeed. He is a man very much thought of just now in public
life, and Augusta's mind is naturally much occupied. He writes
all those letters in The Times about supply and demand." 

"Does he, aunt?" Ayala did feel that if Augusta's mind was entirely
occupied with supply and demand she ought not to be made to go
upstairs to fetch a scrap-book. But she had her doubts about
Augusta's mind. Nevertheless, if the forthcoming husband were
true, that might be a reason. "If anybody had told me before
I wouldn't have asked her," she said. 

Then Lady Tringle explained that it had been thought better not
to say anything heretofore as to the coming matrimonial hilarities
because of the sadness which had fallen upon the Dormer family.
Ayala accepted this as an excuse, and nothing further was said
as to the iniquity of her request to her cousin. But there was
a general feeling among the women that Ayala, in lieu of gratitude,
had exhibited an intention of rebelling. 

On the next day Mr Traffick arrived, whose coming had probably
made it necessary that the news should be told. Ayala was never
so surprised in her life as when she saw him. She had never yet
had a lover of her own, had never dreamed of a lover, but she
had her own idea as to what a lover ought to be. She had thought
that Isadore Hamel would be a very nice lover -- for her sister.
Hamel was young, handsome, with a great deal to say on such a
general subject as art, but too bashful to talk easily to the
girl he admired. Ayala had thought that all that was just as
it should be. She was altogether resolved that Hamel and her
sister should be lovers, and was determined to be devoted to
her future brother-in-law. But the Honourable Septimus Traffick!
It was a question to her whether her Uncle Tringle would not
have been better as a lover. 

And yet there was nothing amiss about Mr Traffick. He was very
much like an ordinary hard-working member of the House of Commons,
over perhaps rather than under forty years of age. He was somewhat
bald, somewhat grey, somewhat fat, and had lost that look of
rosy plumpness which is seldom, I fear, compatible with hard
work and late hours. He was not particularly ugly, nor was he
absurd in appearance. But he looked to be a disciple of business,
not of pleasure, nor of art. "To sit out on the bank of a stream
and have him beside one would not be particularly nice," thought
Ayala to herself. Mr Traffick no doubt would have enjoyed it
very well if he could have spared the time; but to Ayala it seemed
that such a man as that could have cared nothing for love. As
soon as she saw him, and realised in her mind the fact that Augusta
was to become his wife, she felt at once the absurdity of sending
Augusta on a message. 

Augusta that evening was somewhat more than ordinarily kind to
her cousin. Now that the great secret was told, her cousin no
doubt would recognise her importance. "I suppose you had not
heard of him before?" she said to Ayala. 

"I never did." 

"That's because you have not attended to the debates." 

"I never have. What are debates?" 

"Mr Traffick is very much thought of in the House of Commons
on all subjects affecting commerce." 

"Oh!" 

"It is the most glorious study which the world affords." 

"The House of Commons. I don't think it can be equal to art."
Then Augusta turned up her nose with a double turn -- first as
against painters, Mr Dormer having been no more, and then at
Ayala's ignorance in supposing that the House of Commons could
have been spoken of as a study. "Mr Traffick will probably be
in the government some day," she said. 

"Has not he been yet?" asked Ayala. 

"Not yet." 

"Then won't he be very old before he gets there?" This was a
terrible question. Young ladies of five-and-twenty, when they
marry gentlemen of four-and-fifty, make up their minds for well-understood
and well-recognised old age. They see that they had best declare
their purpose, and they do declare it. "Of course, Mr Walker
is old enough to be my father, but I have made up my mind that
I like that better than anything else." Then the wall has been
jumped, and the thing can go smoothly. But at forty-five there
is supposed to be so much of youth left that the difference of
age may possibly be tided over and not made to appear abnormal.
Augusta Tringle had determined to tide it over in this way. The
forty-five had been gradually reduced to "less than forty' --
though all the Peerages were there to give the lie to the assertion.
She talked of her lover as Septimus, and was quite prepared to
sit with him beside a stream if only half an hour for the amusement
could be found. When, therefore, Ayala suggested that if her
lover wanted to get into office he had better do so quickly,
lest he should be too old, Augusta was not well pleased. 

"Lord Boardotrade was much older when he began," said Augusta.
"His friends, indeed, tell Septimus that he should not push himself
forward too quickly. But I don't think that I ever came across
anyone who was so ignorant of such things as you are, Ayala."
"Perhaps he is not so old as he looks," said Ayala. After this
it may be imagined that there was not close friendship between
the cousins. Augusta's mind was filled with a strong conception
as to Ayala's ingratitude. The houseless, penniless orphan had
been taken in, and had done nothing but make herself disagreeable.
Young! No doubt she was young. But had she been as old as Methuselah
she could not have been more insolent. It did not, however, matter
to her, Augusta. She was going away; but it would be terrible
to her mamma and to Gertrude! Thus it was that Augusta spoke
of her cousin to her mother. 

And then there came another trouble, which was more troublesome
to Ayala even than the other. Tom Tringle, who was in the house
in Lombard Street, who was the only son, and heir to the title
and no doubt to much of the wealth, had chosen to take Ayala's
part and to enlist himself as her special friend. Ayala had,
at first, accepted him as a cousin, and had consented to fraternise
with him. Then, on some unfortunate day, there had been some
word or look which she had failed not to understand, and immediately
she had become afraid of Tom. Tom was not like Isadore Hamel
-- was very far, indeed, from that idea of a perfect lover which
Ayala's mind had conceived; but he was by no means a lout, or
an oaf, or an idiot, as Ayala in her letters to her sister had
described him. He had been first at Eton and then at Oxford,
and having spent a great deal of money recklessly, and done but
little towards his education, had been withdrawn and put into
the office. His father declared of him now that he would do fairly
well in the world. He had a taste for dress, and kept four or
five hunters which he got but little credit by riding. He made
a fuss about his shooting, but did not shoot much. He was stout
and awkward looking -- very like his father, but without that
settled air which age gives to heavy men. In appearance he was
not the sort of lover to satisfy the preconceptions of such a
girl as Ayala. But he was good-natured and true. At last he became
to her terribly true. His love, such as it seemed at first, was
absurd to her. "If you make yourself such a fool, Tom, I'll never
speak to you again," she had said, once. Even after that she
had not understood that it was more than a stupid joke. But the
joke, while it was considered as such, was very distasteful to
her; and afterwards, when a certain earnestness in it was driven
in upon her, it became worse than distasteful. 

She repudiated his love with such power as she had, but she could
not silence him. She could not at all understand that a young
man, who seemed to her to be an oaf, should really be in love
-- honestly in love with her. But such was the case. Then she
became afraid lest others should see it -- afraid, though she
often told herself that she would appeal to her aunt for protection.
"I tell you I don't care a bit about you, and you oughtn't to
go on," she said. But he did go on, and though her aunt did not
see it Augusta did. 

Then Augusta spoke a word to her in scorn. "Ayala," she said,
"you should not encourage Tom." 

Encourage him! What a word from one girl to another! What a world
of wrong there was in the idea which had created the word! What
an absence of the sort of feeling which, according to Ayala's
theory of life, there should be on such a matter between two
sisters, two cousins, or two friends! Encourage him! When Augusta
ought to have been the first to assist her in her trouble! "Oh,
Augusta," she said, turning sharply round, "what a spiteful creature
you are." 

"I suppose you think so, because I do not choose to approve."
"Approve of what! Tom is thoroughly disagreeable. Sometimes he
makes my life such a burden to me that I think I shall have to
go to my aunt. But you are worse. Oh!" exclaimed Ayala, shuddering
as she thought of the unwomanly treachery of which her cousin
was guilty towards her. 

Nothing more came of it at Glenbogie. Tom was required in Lombard
Street, and the matter was not suspected by Aunt Emmeline --
as far, at least, as Ayala was aware. When he was gone it was
to her as though there would be a world of time before she would
see him again. They were to go to Rome, and he would not be at
Rome till January. Before that he might have forgotten his folly.
But Ayala was quite determined that she would never forget the
ill offices of Augusta. She did hate Augusta, as she had told
her sister. Then, in this frame of mind, the family was taken
to Rome. 


CHAPTER 6
AT ROME

During her journeying and during her sojourn at Rome Ayala did
enjoy much; but even these joys did not come to her without causing
some trouble of spirit. At Glenbogie everybody had known that
she was a dependent niece, and that as such she was in truth
nobody. On that morning when she had ordered Augusta to go upstairs
the two visitors had stared with amazement -- who would not have
stared at all had they heard Ayala ordered in the same way. But
it came about that in Rome Ayala was almost of more importance
than the Tringles. It was absolutely true that Lady Tringle and
Augusta and Gertrude were asked here and there because of Ayala;
and the worst of it was that the fact was at last suspected by
the Tringles themselves. Sometimes they would not always be asked.
One of the Tringle girls would only be named. But Ayala was never
forgotten. Once or twice an effort was made by some grand lady,
whose taste was perhaps more conspicuous than her good nature,
to get Ayala without burdening herself with any of the Tringles.
When this became clear to the mind of Augusta -- of Augusta,
engaged as she was to the Honourable Septimus Traffick, Member
of Parliament -- Augusta's feelings were -- such as may better
be understood than described! "Don't let her go, mamma," she
said to Lady Tringle one morning. 

"But the Marchesa has made such a point of it." 

"Bother the Marchesa! Who is the Marchesa? I believe it is all
Ayala's doing because she expects to meet that Mr Hamel. It is
dreadful to see the way she goes on." 

"Mr Hamel was a very intimate friend of her father's." 

"I don't believe a bit of it." 

"He certainly used to be at his house. I remember seeing him."
"I daresay; but that doesn't justify Ayala in running after him
as she does. I believe that all this about the Marchesa is because
of Mr Hamel." This was better than believing that Ayala was to
be asked to sing, and that Ayala was to be feted and admired
and danced with, simply because Ayala was Ayala, and that they,
the Tringles, in spite of Glenbogie, Merle Park, and Queen's
Gate, were not wanted at all. But when Aunt Emmeline signified
to Ayala that on that particular morning she had better not go
to the Marchesa's picnic, Ayala simply said that she had promised
-- and Ayala went. 

At this time no gentleman of the family was with them. Sir Thomas
had gone, and Tom Tringle had not come. Then, just at Christmas,
the Honourable Septimus Traffick came for a short visit -- a
very short visit, no more than four or five days, because Supply
and Demand were requiring all his services in preparation for
the coming Session of Parliament. But for five halcyon days he
was prepared to devote himself to the glories of Rome under the
guidance of Augusta. He did not of course sleep at the Palazzo
Ruperti, where it delighted Lady Tringle to inform her friends
in Rome that she had a suite of apartments au premiere, but he
ate there and drank there and almost lived there; so that it
became absolutely necessary to inform the world of Rome that
it was Augusta's destiny to become in course of time the Honourable
Mrs Traffick, otherwise the close intimacy would hardly have
been discreet -- unless it had been thought, as the ill-natured
Marchesa had hinted, that Mr Traffick was Lady Tringle's elder
brother. Augusta, however, was by no means ashamed of her lover.
Perhaps she felt that when it was known that she was about to
be the bride of so great a man then doors would be open for her
at any rate as wide as for her cousin. At this moment she was
very important to herself. She was about to convey no less a
sum than L#120,000 to Mr Traffick, who in truth, as younger son
of Lord Boardotrade, was himself not well endowed. Considering
her own position and her future husband's rank and standing,
she did not know how a young woman could well be more important.
She was very important at any rate to Mr Traffick. She was sure
of that. When, therefore, she learned that Ayala had been asked
to a grand ball at the Marchesa's, that Mr Traffick was also
to be among the guests, and that none of the Tringles had been
invited -- then her anger became hot. 

She must have been very stupid when she took it into her head
to be jealous of Mr Traffick's attention to her cousin; stupid,
at any rate, when she thought that her cousin was laying out
feminine lures for Mr Traffick. Poor Ayala! We shall see much
of her in these pages, and it may be well to declare of her at
once that her ideas at this moment about men -- or rather about
a possible man -- were confined altogether to the abstract. She
had floating in her young mind some fancies as to the beauty
of love. That there should be a hero must of course be necessary.
But in her day-dreams this hero was almost celestial -- or, at
least, athereal. It was a concentration of poetic perfection
to which there was not as yet any appanage of apparel, of features,
or of wealth. It was a something out of heaven which should think
it well to spend his whole time in adoring her and making her
more blessed than had ever yet been a woman upon the earth. Then
her first approach to a mundane feeling had been her acknowledgment
to herself that Isadore Hamel would do as a lover for Lucy. Isadore
Hamel was certainly very handsome -- was possessed of infinite
good gifts; but even he would by no means have come up to her
requirements for her own hero. That hero must have wings tinged
with azure, whereas Hamel had a not much more aetherealised than
ordinary coat and waistcoat. She knew that heroes with azure
wings were not existent save in the imagination, and, as she
desired a real lover for Lucy, Hamel would do. But for herself
her imagination was too valuable then to allow her to put her
foot upon earth. Such as she was, must not Augusta have been
very stupid to have thought that Ayala should become fond of
her Mr Traffick! 

Her cousin Tom had come to her, and had been to her as a Newfoundland
dog is when he jumps all over you just when he has come out of
a horse-pond. She would have liked Tom had he kept his dog-like
gambols at a proper distance. But when he would cover her with
muddy water he was abominable. But this Augusta had not understood.
With Mr Traffick there would be no dog-like gambols; and, as
he was not harsh to her, Ayala liked him. She had liked her uncle.
Such men were, to her thinking, more like dogs than lovers. She
sang when Mr Traffick asked her, and made a picture for him,
and went with him to the Coliseum, and laughed at him about Supply
and Demand. She was very pretty, and perhaps Mr Traffick did
like to look at her. 

"I really think you were too free with Mr Traffick last night,"
Augusta said to her one morning. 

"Free! How free?" 

"You were -- laughing at him." 

"Oh, he likes that," said Ayala. "All that time we were up at
the top of St Peter's I was quizzing him about his speeches.
He lets me say just what I please." 

This was wormwood. In the first place there had been a word or
two between the lovers about that going up of St Peter's, and
Augusta had refused to join them. She had wished Septimus to
remain down with her -- which would have been tantamount to preventing
any of the party from going up; but Septimus had persisted on
ascending. Then Augusta had been left for a long hour alone with
her mother. Gertrude had no doubt gone up, but Gertrude had lagged
during the ascent. Ayala had skipped up the interminable stairs
and Mr Traffick had trotted after her with admiring breathless
industry. This itself, with the thoughts of the good time which
Septimus might be having at the top, was very bad. But now to
be told that she, Ayala, should laugh at him; and that he, Septimus,
should like it! "I suppose he takes you to be a child," said
Augusta; "but if you are a child you ought to conduct yourself."
"I suppose he does perceive the difference," said Ayala. 

She had not in the least known what the words might convey --
had probably meant nothing. But to Augusta it was apparent that
Ayala had declared that her lover, her Septimus, had preferred
her extreme youth to the more mature charms of his own true love
-- or had, perhaps, preferred Ayala's raillery to Augusta's serious
demeanour. "You are the most impertinent person I ever knew in
my life," said Augusta, rising from her chair and walking slowly
out of the room. Ayala stared after her, not above half comprehending
the cause of the anger. 

Then came the very serious affair of the ball. The Marchesa had
asked that her dear little friend Ayala Dormer might be allowed
to come over to a little dance which her own girls were going
to have. Her own girls were so fond of Ayala! There would be
no trouble. There was a carriage which would be going somewhere
else, and she would be fetched and taken home. Ayala at once
declared that she intended to go, and her Aunt Emmeline did not
refuse her sanction. Augusta was shocked, declaring that the
little dance was to be one of the great balls of the season,
and pronouncing the whole to be a falsehood; but the affair was
arranged before she could stop it. 

But Mr Traffick's affair in the matter came more within her range.
"Septimus," she said, "I would rather you would not go to that
woman's party." Septimus had been asked only on the day before
the party -- as soon, indeed, as his arrival had become known
to the Marchesa. 

"Why, my own one?" 

"She has not treated mamma well -- nor yet me." 

"Ayala is going." He had no right to call her Ayala. So Augusta
thought. 

"My cousin is behaving badly in the matter, and mamma ought not
to allow her to go. Who knows anything about the Marchesa Baldoni?"
"Both he and she are of the very best families in Rome," said
Mr Traffick, who knew everything about it. 

"At any rate they are behaving very badly to us, and I will take
it as a favour that you do not go. Asking Ayala, and then asking
you, as good as from the same house, is too marked. You ought
not to go." 

Perhaps Mr Traffick had on some former occasion felt some little
interference with his freedom of action. Perhaps he liked the
acquaintance of the Marchesa. Perhaps he liked Ayala Dormer.
Be that as it might, he would not yield. "Dear Augusta, it is
right that I should go there, if it be only for half an hour."
This he said in a tone of voice with which Augusta was already
acquainted, which she did not love, and which, when she heard
it, would make her think of her L#120,000. When he had spoken
he left her, and she began to think of her L#120,000. 

They both went, Ayala and Mr Traffick -- and Mr Traffick, instead
of staying half an hour, brought Ayala back at three o'clock
in the morning. Though Mr Traffick was nearly as old as Uncle
Tringle, yet he could dance. Ayala had been astonished to find
how well he could dance, and thought that she might please her
cousin Augusta by praising the juvenility of her lover at luncheon
the next day. She had not appeared at breakfast, but had been
full of the ball at lunch. "Oh, dear, yes, I dare say there were
two hundred people there." 

"That is what she calls a little dance," said Augusta, with scorn.
"I suppose that is the Italian way of talking about it," said
Ayala. 

"Italian way! I hate Italian ways." 

"Mr Traffick liked it very much. I'm sure he'll tell you so.
I had no idea he would care to dance." 

Augusta only shook herself and turned up her nose. Lady Tringle
thought it necessary to say something in defence of her daughter's
choice. "Why should not Mr Traffick dance like any other gentleman?"
"Oh, I don't know. I thought that a man who makes so many speeches
in Parliament would think of something else. I was very glad
he did, for he danced three times with me. He can waltz as lightly
as -- " As though he were young, she was going to say, but then
she stopped herself. 

"He is the best dancer I ever danced with," said Augusta. 

"But you almost never do dance," said Ayala. 

"I suppose I may know about it as well as another," said Augusta,
angrily. 

The next day was the last of Mr Traffick's sojourn in Rome, and
on that day he and Augusta so quarrelled that, for a certain
number of hours, it was almost supposed in the family that the
match would be broken off. On the afternoon of the day after
the dance, Mr Traffick was walking with Ayala on the Pincian,
while Augusta was absolutely remaining behind with her mother.
For a quarter of an hour -- the whole day, as it seemed to Augusta
-- there was a full two hundred yards between them. It was not
that the engaged girl could not bear the severance, but that
she could not endure the attention paid to Ayala. On the next
morning "she had it out", as some people say, with her lover.
"If I am to be treated in this way you had better tell me so
at once," she said. 

"I know no better way of treating you," said Mr Traffick. 

"Dancing with that chit all night, turning her head, and then
walking with her all the next day! I will not put up with such
conduct." 

Mr Traffick valued L#120,000 very highly, as do most men, and
would have done much to keep it; but he believed that the best
way of making sure of it would be by showing himself to be the
master. "My own one," he said, "you are really making an ass
of yourself." 

"Very well! Then I will write to papa, and let him know that
it must be all over." 

For three hours there was terrible trouble in the apartments
in the Palazzo Ruperti, during which Mr Traffick was enjoying
himself by walking up and down the Forum, and calculating how
many Romans could have congregated themselves in the space which
is supposed to have seen so much of the world's doings. During
this time Augusta was very frequently in hysterics; but, whether
in hysterics or out of them, she would not allow Ayala to come
near her. She gave it to be understood that Ayala had interfered
fatally, foully, damnably, with all her happiness. She demanded,
from fit to fit, that telegrams should be sent over to bring
her father to Italy for her protection. She would rave about
Septimus, and then swear that, under no consideration whatever,
would she ever see him again. At the end of three hours she was
told that Septimus was in the drawing-room. Lady Tringle had
sent half a dozen messengers after him, and at last he was found
looking up at the Arch of Titus. "Bid him go," said Augusta.
"I never want to behold him again." But within two minutes she
was in his arms, and before dinner she was able to take a stroll
with him on the Pincian. 

He left, like a thriving lover, high in the good graces of his
beloved; but the anger which had fallen on Ayala had not been
removed. Then came a rumour that the Marchesa, who was half English,
had called Ayala Cinderella, and the name had added fuel to the
fire of Augusta's wrath. There was much said about it between
Lady Tringle and her daughter, the aunt really feeling that more
blame was being attributed to Ayala than she deserved. "Perhaps
she gives herself airs," said Lady Tringle, "but really it is
no more." 

"She is a viper," said Augusta. 

Gertrude rather took Ayala's part, telling her mother, in private,
that the accusation about Mr Traffick was absurd. "The truth
is", said Gertrude, "that Ayala thinks herself very clever and
very beautiful, and Augusta will not stand it." Gertrude acknowledged
that Ayala was upsetting and ungrateful. Poor Lady Tringle, in
her husband's absence, did not know what to do about her niece.
Altogether, they were uncomfortable after Mr Traffick went and
before Tom Tringle had come. On no consideration whatsoever would
Augusta speak to her cousin. She declared that Ayala was a viper,
and would give no other reason. In all such quarrelings the matter
most distressing is that the evil cannot be hidden. Everybody
at Rome who knew the Tringles, or who knew Ayala, was aware that
Augusta Tringle would not speak to her cousin. When Ayala was
asked she would shake her locks, and open her eyes, and declare
that she knew nothing about it. In truth she knew very little
about it. She remembered that passage-at-arms about the going
upstairs at Glenbogie, but she could hardly understand that for
so small an affront, and one so distant, Augusta would now refuse
to speak to her. That Augusta had always been angry with her,
and since Mr Traffick's arrival more angry than ever, she had
felt; but that Augusta was jealous in respect to her lover had
never yet at all come home to Ayala. That she should have wanted
to captivate Mr Traffick -- she with her high ideas of some transcendental,
more than human, hero! 

But she had to put up with it, and to think of it. She had sense
enough to know that she was no more than a stranger in her aunt's
family, and that she must go if she made herself unpleasant to
them. She was aware that hitherto she had not succeeded with
her residence among them. Perhaps she might have to go. Some
things she would bear, and in them she would endeavour to amend
her conduct. In other matters she would hold her own, and go,
if necessary. Though her young imagination was still full of
her unsubstantial hero -- though she still had her castles in
the air altogether incapable of terrestrial foundation -- still
there was a common sense about her which told her that she must
give and take. She would endeavour to submit herself to her aunt.
She would be kind -- as she had always been kind -- to Gertrude.
She would in all matters obey her uncle. Her misfortune with
the Newfoundland dog had almost dwindled out of her mind. To
Augusta she could not submit herself. But then Augusta, as soon
as the next session of Parliament should be over, would be married
out of the way. And, on her own part, she did think that her
aunt was inclined to take her part in the quarrel with Augusta.
Thus matters were going on in Rome when there came up another
and a worse cause for trouble. 


CHAPTER 7
TOM TRINGLE IN EARNEST

Tom Tringle, though he had first appeared to his cousin Ayala
as a Newfoundland dog which might perhaps be pleasantly playful,
and then, as the same dog, very unpleasant because dripping with
muddy water, was nevertheless a young man with so much manly
truth about him as to be very much in love. He did not look like
it; but then perhaps the young men who do fall most absolutely
into love do not look like it. To Ayala her cousin Tom was as
unloveable as Mr Septimus Traffick. She could like them both
well enough while they would be kind to her. But as to regarding
cousin Tom as a lover -- the idea was so preposterous to her
that she could not imagine that anyone else should look upon
it as real. But with Tom the idea had been real, and was, moreover,
permanent. The black locks which would be shaken here and there,
the bright glancing eyes which could be so joyous and could be
so indignant, the colour of her face which had nothing in it
of pink, which was brown rather, but over which the tell-tale
blood would rush with a quickness which was marvellous to him,
the lithe quick figure which had in it nothing of the weight
of earth, the little foot which in itself was a perfect joy,
the step with all the elasticity of a fawn -- these charms together
had mastered him. Tom was not romantic or poetic, but the romance
and poetry of Ayala had been divine to him. It is not always
like to like in love. Titania loved the weaver Bottom with the
ass's head. Bluebeard, though a bad husband, is supposed to have
been fond of his last wife. The Beauty has always been beloved
by the Beast. To Ayala the thing was monstrous: but it was natural.
Tom Tringle was determined to have his way, and when he started
for Rome was more intent upon his love-making than all the glories
of the Capitol and the Vatican. 

When he first made his appearance before Ayala's eyes he was
bedecked in a manner that was awful to her. Down at Glenbogie
he had affected a rough attire, as is the custom with young men
of ample means when fishing, shooting, or the like, is supposed
to be the employment then in hand. The roughness had been a little
overdone, but it had added nothing to his own uncouthness. In
London he was apt to run a little towards ornamental gilding,
but in London his tastes had been tempered by the ill-natured
criticism of the world at large. He had hardly dared at Queen's
Gate to wear his biggest pins; but he had taken upon himself
to think that at Rome an Englishman might expose himself with
all his jewelry. "Oh, Tom, I never saw anything so stunning,"
his sister Gertrude said to him. He had simply frowned upon her,
and had turned himself to Ayala, as though Ayala, being an artist,
would be able to appreciate something beautiful in art. Ayala
had looked at him and had marvelled, and had ventured to hope
that, with his Glenbogie dress, his Glenbogie manners and Glenbogie
propensities would be changed. 

At this time the family at Rome was very uncomfortable. Augusta
would not speak to her cousin, and had declared to her mother
and sister her determination never to speak to Ayala again. For
a time Aunt Emmeline had almost taken her niece's part, feeling
that she might, best bring things back to a condition of peace
in this manner. Ayala, she had thought, might thus be decoyed
into a state of submission. Ayala, so instigated, had made her
attempt. "What is the matter, Augusta," she had said, "that you
are determined to quarrel with me?" Then had followed a little
offer that bygones should be bygones. 

"I have quarrelled with you", said Augusta, "because you do not
know how to behave yourself." Then Ayala had flashed forth, and
the little attempt led to a worse condition than ever, and words
were spoken which even Aunt Emmeline had felt to be irrevocable,
irremediable. 

"Only that you are going away I would not consent to live here."
said Ayala. Then Aunt Emmeline had asked her where she would
go to live should it please her to remove herself. Ayala had
thought of this for a moment, and then had burst into tears.
"If I could not live I could die. Anything would be better than
to be treated as she treats me." So the matters were when Tom
came to Rome with all his jewelry. 

Lady Tringle had already told herself that, in choosing Ayala,
she had chosen wrong. Lucy, though not so attractive as Ayala,
was pretty, quiet, and ladylike. So she thought now. And as to
Ayala's attractions, they were not at all of a nature to be serviceable
to such a family as hers. To have her own girls outshone, to
be made to feel that the poor orphan was the one person most
worthy of note among them, to be subjected to the caprices of
a pretty, proud, ill-conditioned minx -- thus it was that Aunt
Emmeline w