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Title: The Greatest Heiress in England
Author: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Language: English
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ENGLAND ***
THE
GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND.
_A NOVEL._
BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
NEW YORK:
GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER,
17 TO 27 VANDEWATER STREET.
MRS. OLIPHANT’S WORKS
CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION):
NO. PRICE.
45 A Little Pilgrim 10
177 Salem Chapel 20
205 The Minister’s Wife 30
321 The Prodigals, and their Inheritance 10
337 Memoirs and Resolutions of Adam Graeme of Mossgray,
including some Chronicles of the Borough of Fendie 20
345 Madam 20
351 The House on the Moor 20
357 John 20
370 Lucy Crofton 10
371 Margaret Maitland 20
377 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story of the Scottish Reformation 20
402 Lilliesleaf; or, Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret
Maitland of Sunnyside 20
410 Old Lady Mary 10
527 The Days of My Life 20
528 At His Gates 20
568 The Perpetual Curate 20
569 Harry Muir 20
603 Agnes. First half 20
603 Agnes. Second half 20
604 Innocent: A Tale of Modern Life. First half 20
604 Innocent: A Tale of Modern Life. Second half 20
605 Ombra 20
645 Oliver’s Bride 10
655 The Open Door, and The Portrait 10
687 A Country Gentleman 20
703 A House Divided Against Itself 20
710 The Greatest Heiress in England 20
THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE.
A country town, quiet, simple, and dull, chiefly of old construction,
but with a few new streets and scattered villas of modern flimsiness, a
river flowing through it, dulled and stilled with the frost; trees
visible in every direction, blocking up the horizon and making a
background, though only with a confused anatomy of bare branches, to the
red houses; not many people about the streets, and these cold, subdued,
only brightening a little with the idea that if the frost “held” there
might be skating to-morrow. On one side the High Street trended down a
slight slope toward the river, on the other ran vaguely away into a
delta of small streets, which, in their turn, led to the common, on the
edge of which lay the new district of Farafield. All towns it is said
have a tendency to stray and expand themselves toward the west, and this
is what had happened here. The little new streets, roads, crescents, and
places all strayed toward the setting sun. The best and biggest of
these, and at the same time the furthest off of all, was the Terrace, a
somewhat gloomy row of houses, facing toward the common, and commanding
across the strip of garden which kept them in dignified seclusion from
the road a full view of the broken expanse of gorse and heather over
which the sunsets played, affording to these monotonous windows a daily
spectacle far more splendid than any official pomp. There were but
twelve of these houses, ambitiously built to look like one great
“Elizabethan mansion.” Except one or two large old-fashioned substantial
houses in the market-place, these were the largest and most pretentious
dwellings in the town; the proud occupants considered the pile as a very
fine specimen of modern domestic architecture, and its gentility was
undoubted. It was the landlord’s desire that nobody who worked for his
or her living should enter these sacred precincts. It is difficult to
keep so noble a resolution in a country where so many occupations which
are not conspicuous to the common eye live and grow; but still it was an
exalted aim.
In this town there was a street, and in this street there was a house,
and in this house there was a room. After this fairy-tale fashion we may
be permitted to begin this history. The house, which was called No. 6 in
the Terrace, was in no way remarkable externally among its neighbors;
but within the constitution of the family was peculiar. The nominal
master of the house was a retired clerk of the highest respectability,
with his equally respectable wife. But it was well known that this
excellent couple existed (in the Terrace) merely as ministers to the
comfort of an old man who inhabited the better part of the house, and
whose convenience was paramount over all its other arrangements. There
was a link of relationship, it was understood, between the Fords and old
Mr. Trevor, and though there was no great disparity of social condition
between them, yet there was the great practical difference that old
Trevor was very rich, and the Fords had no more than sufficient for
their homely wants--wants much more humble than those of the ordinary
residents in the Terrace, who were the _élite_ of the town. This gave a
tone of respect to their intercourse on one side, and a kind of
superiority on the other. The Fords were of the opinion that old Mr.
Trevor had greatly the best of the bargain. He had none of the troubles
of a house upon his shoulders, and he had all its advantages. The
domestic arrangements which cost Mrs. Ford so much thought cost him
nothing but money; he had no care, no annoyance about anything, neither
taxes to pay nor servants to look after, and everything went on like
clock-work; his tastes were considered in every way, and all things were
made subservient to him. When coals or meat rose in value, or when one
of the three servants (each more troublesome than the other, as it is
the nature of maids to be) was disagreeable, what did it matter to old
Mr. Trevor? And when that question arose about the borough rate, what
had he to say to it? Nothing, absolutely nothing! all this daily burden
was on the shoulders of Richard Ford and Susan his wife; whereas Mr.
Trevor had nothing to do but to put his hand into his pocket, to some
people the easiest exercise. He had the best of everything, the chief
rooms, and the most unwearied attendance; and not only for him but for
his two children, who were a still more anxious charge, as Mrs. Ford
expressed it, was every good thing provided. Sometimes the excellent
couple grumbled, and sometimes felt it hard that, being relations, there
should be so much difference; but, on the whole, both parties were
aware that their own comforts profited by the conjunction, and the
household machinery worked smoothly, with as few jars and as much
harmony as is possible to man.
At the time this history begins, Mr. Trevor was seated in the
drawing-room, the best room in the house. The Fords occupied the front
parlor below, where the furniture was moderate and homely; but all the
skill of the upholsterer had been displayed above. The room had two long
windows looking out over the common, not at this moment a very cheerful
prospect. There was nothing outside but mist and dampness, made more
dismal by incipient frost, and full of the sentiment of cold, a chill
that went to your heart. The prospect inside was not much adapted to
warm or cheer in such circumstances. The windows were cut down to the
floor, as is usual in suburban houses, and though the draught had been
shut out as much as possible by list and stamped leather, and by the
large rugs of silky white fur which lay in front of each window, yet
there were still little impertinent whiffs of air blowing about. And the
moral effect was still more chilly. It was not an artistic room,
according to the fashion of the present day, or one indeed in which any
taste to speak of had been shown. The walls were white with gilded
ornaments, the curtains were blue, the carpet showed large bouquets of
flowers upon a light ground. There were large prints, very large, and
not very interesting, royal marriages and christenings, hanging, one in
the center of each wall. Thus it will be seen there was nothing to
distinguish it from a hundred other unremarkable and unattractive
apartments of the ordinary British kind. A large folding screen was
disposed round the door to keep out the draught, and the folding-doors
which led into Mr. Trevor’s bedroom behind were veiled with curtains of
the same blue as those of the windows. The old man was seated by a large
fire in a comfortable easy-chair, with a writing-table within reach of
his hand. Mr. Trevor was not a man of imposing presence; he was little
and very thin, wrapped in a dark-colored dressing-gown, with a high
collar in which he seemed pilloried, and a brown wig which imparted a
very aged juvenility to his small and wrinkled face. Gray hairs
harmonize and soften wrinkles; but the smooth chin and bright brown
locks of this little old man gave him a somewhat elfish appearance,
something like that of an elderly bird. He sat with a pen in his hand
making notes upon a large document opened out upon the writing-table,
and his action and a little unconscious chirp to which he gave vent now
and then increased his resemblance to an alert sparrow. And indeed, it
might have been a claw which Mr. Trevor was holding up with a quill in
it, and his little air of triumphant success and self-content, his head
held on one side, and the dab he made from time to time upon his paper,
gave him very much the air of a sparrow. He had laid down his “Times,”
which hung in a much crumpled condition, like a table-cover, over a
small round table on his other hand, in order to make this sudden note,
whatever it might be, and as he made it he chuckled. The paper on which
he wrote was large blue paper, like that employed by lawyers, and had an
air of formality and importance. It was smoothed out over a big
blotting-book, not long enough quite to contain it, and had a dog’s-ear
at the lower corner, which proved a frequent recurrence on the part of
the writer to this favorite manuscript. When he had written all that
occurred to him, Mr. Trevor put down his pen and resumed the “Times;”
but the interest of the previous occupation carried the day even over
that invaluable newspaper, which is as good as a trade to idle persons.
He had not gone down a column before he paused, rested his paper on his
knee, and chuckled again. Then he leaned over the writing-table and read
the note he had made, which was tolerably long; then, with his “Times”
in his hand, rose and went to the door, losing himself behind the
screen. There he stood for a moment, wrapping his dressing-gown around
his thin legs with a shiver, and called for “Ford! Ford!” Presently a
reply came, muffled by the distance, from the room below. “I’ve put in
another clause,” the old man called over the stair.
Ford below opened the door of his parlor to listen.
“Bless me! have you indeed, Mr. Trevor?” he replied, with less
enthusiasm.
“Come up, come up, and you shall hear it,” said the other, fidgeting
with excitement. Then he returned to his easy-chair, laughing to himself
under his breath. He bent over the document and read it again. “They’ll
keep her straight, they’ll keep her straight among them,” he said to
himself. “She’ll be clever if she goes wrong after all this,” and then
he sat down again, chuckling and tucking the “Times” like a napkin over
his knees.
All this time he had not been alone; but his companion was not one who
claimed much notice. There was spread before the fire a large
milky-white rug, like those that stopped the draught from the windows;
and upon this, half-buried in the fur, lay a small boy in knickerbockers
absorbed in a book. The child was between seven and eight; he was
dressed in a blue velveteen suit, somewhat shabby. He was small even
for his small age. His face was a little pale face, with fair and rather
lanky locks. Sometimes he would lie on his back with his book supported
upon his chest--sometimes the other way, with the book on the rug, and
his head a little raised, leaning on his hands. This was his attitude at
present; he took no notice of his father, nor his father of him; he was
a kind of postscript to old Mr. Trevor’s life; no one had expected him,
no one had wanted him; when he chose to come into the world it was at
his own risk, so to speak. He had been permitted to live, and had been
called John--a good, safe, serviceable name, but no special
encouragement of any other kind had been given to him, to pursue the
thankless path of existence. Nevertheless, little Jock had done so in a
dogged sort of way. He had been delicate, but he had always gone on all
the same. Lately he had found the best of all allies and defenders in
his sister, but no one else took much notice of him, nor he of them; and
his father and he paid no attention to each other. Mr. Trevor took care
not to stumble over him, being thoroughly accustomed to his presence;
and as for little Jock, he never stirred. He was on the rug in the body,
but in soul he was in the forest of Ardennes, or tilting on the Spanish
roads with Don Quixote. It was wonderful, some people thought, that such
a baby should read at all, or reading, that he should have any books
above the level of those that are written in three syllables. But the
child had no baby-books, and therefore he took what he could get. Are
not the baby-books a snare and delusion, keeping children out of their
inheritance? How can they understand Shakespeare, you will say? and I
suppose Jock did not understand; yet that great person pervaded the very
air about this little person, so that it glowed and shone. Only his
shoulders, raised a little way out of the white silky fluff of the rug,
betrayed the immovable creature, and his book was almost lost altogether
in it. There he lay, thinking nothing of how his life was to run, or of
the influences which might be developing round him. There was not a
piece of furniture in the room which counted for less with Mr. Trevor
than little Jock.
Ford was a long time coming; he had some business of his own on hand,
which though not half so important, was, on the whole, more interesting
to him than Mr. Trevor’s business; and then he had a little
argumentation with Mrs. Ford before he could get away.
“What is it now?” Mrs. Ford said fretfully, “what does he make such a
fuss about? Sure there’s nothing so very wonderful in making a will. I’d
say, ‘I leave all I have to my two children,’ and there would be an end
of it. He makes as much of it as if it was a book that he was writing.
Many a book has been written with less fuss.”
“My dear,” said Ford, “there are many people who can write books and can
not make a will; indeed the most of them have no need to, if all we hear
is true. And you don’t give a thought to the interests--I may say the
colossal interests--that are involved.”
“Pooh!” said Mrs. Ford, “I think of our own interests if you please,
which are all I care for. Is he going to leave us anything? that is what
I want to know.”
“I am sorry you are so mercenary, my dear.”
“I am not mercenary, Mr. Ford; but I like to see an inch before me, and
know what is to become of me. He’s failing fast, any one can see that;
and if we’re left with the lease of a big house on our hands--” This was
the danger that afflicted Mrs. Ford at all moments, and robbed her of
her peace.
“Stuff!” Ford said. He knew a great deal about the important literary
composition which the old gentleman was concocting; but “he was not at
liberty” to mention what he knew. Sometimes it made him laugh secretly
within himself to think how differently she would talk if she too knew.
But then that is the case in most matters. He went upstairs at last
deliberately, counting (as it seemed) every step, while Mr. Trevor sat
impatient in his great chair, full of the enthusiasm of his own work,
and thinking every minute an hour till he could show his friend, who was
entirely in his confidence, who almost seemed like his _collaborateur_,
the last stroke he had made. It was the _magnum opus_ of Mr. Trevor’s
life, the work by which he hoped to be remembered, to attain that
immortality in the recollection of other men which all men desire. For a
long time he had been working at it, a little bit at a time as it
occurred to him. He was not like the thriftless literary persons to whom
Ford compared him, who write whether they have anything to say or not,
whether the fountain is welling forth freely or has to be pumped up drop
by drop. Mr. Trevor composed his great work under the most favorable
conditions. He had it by him constantly, night and day, and when
something occurred to him, if it were in the middle of the night, he
would get up and wrap his dressing-gown round his shrunken person and
put it down. He did not forget it either sleeping or waking. It was a
resource for his imagination, an occupation for his life. Also it was
likely to prove a considerable source of occupation to others after his
death, if nobody stepped in to nick it into shape.
When he heard Ford’s step on the stairs he began to chuckle again,
already enjoying the surprise and admiration which he felt his last new
idea must call forth. Ford was a very good literary confidant. He would
find fault with a trifle now and then, which made his general
approbation all the more valuable, as showing that there was
discrimination in it. Mr. Trevor put away the “Times” from his knees,
and drew the blotting-book with its precious contents a little nearer.
He waited with as much impatience as a lover would show for the
appearance of his love. And he had time to take off his spectacles,
clean them carefully, rubbing them with his handkerchief, and put them
on again with great deliberation before Ford, after very carefully and
audibly closing the door behind him, appeared at last on the inner side
of the screen which kept out the draught, that draught which rushed up
the narrow ravine of the staircase as up an Alpine _couloir_ white with
snow.
CHAPTER II.
OLD JOHN TREVOR.
John Trevor had been a school-master for the greater part of his life.
How he acquired so well sounding a name nobody knew. He had no
relations, he always said, in the male line, and his friends on his
mother’s side were people of undistinguished surnames. And for the first
fifty years of his life he had maintained a very even tenor of
existence, always respectable, always a man who kept his engagements,
paid his way, gave his entire attention, as his circulars said, to the
pupils confided to his care; but even in his schoolmastership there was
nothing of a remarkable character. After passing many obscure years as
an usher, he attained to an academy of his own, in which a sound
religious and commercial education was insured, as the same circular
informed the parents and guardians of Farafield, by the employment of
most competent masters for all the branches included in the course, and
by his own unremitting care. But often the masters at Mr. Trevor’s
academy were represented solely by himself, and the number of his pupils
never embarrassed or overweighted him. The good man, however, worked his
way all the same; he kept afloat, which so many find it impossible to
do. If the number of scholars diminished he lived harder, when it
increased he laid by a little. He was never extravagant, never forgot
that his occupation was a precarious one, and thus--turning out a few
creditable arithmeticians to fill up the places in the little “offices”
of Farafield, the solicitor’s, the auctioneer’s, the big builder’s, and
even in the better shops, where they were the best of cashiers, never
wrong in a total--he lived on from year to year. His house was but a
dingy one, with a large room for his pupils, and two upstairs, shabby
enough, in which he lived; but, by dint of sheer continuance and
respectability, John Trevor, by the time he was fifty, was as much
respected in Farafield as a man leading such a virtuous, colorless,
joyless, unblamable existence has a right to be.
But at fifty a curious circumstance happened. John Trevor married. To
say that he fell in love would perhaps scarcely represent the case. He
had a friend who had been in India and all over the world, and who came
home to Farafield with a liver-complaint, and a great deal of money,
some people said. Trevor at first did not believe very much in the
money. “I have enough to live upon,” his friend said; and what more was
necessary? No one knew very well how the money had been made--though
that it was honestly acquired there was no doubt. He had been a clerk in
an office in Farafield first, then because of his good conduct, which
everybody had full faith in, and his business qualities (at which
everybody laughed), he was sent to London by his employer, and received
into an office there, from which he was sent to India, coming home with
this fortune, but with worn-out health, to his native place. “Fortune?
you can call it a fortune if you like. It is enough to live on,” John
Trevor repeated, “that is all I know about it. To be sure that _is_ a
fortune: for to have enough for your old days, and not to be compelled
to work, what could a man desire more? But poor Rainy will not enjoy it
long,” his old school-fellow added regretfully. Rainy was older by five
or six years than John Trevor; but fifty-six does not seem old when one
is drawing near that age, though it is a respectable antiquity to youth.
Rainy’s sister had been a hard-working woman too; she had been a
governess, and then had kept a school; then looked after the children of
a widowed brother; and during her whole life had discharged the duties
of the supernumerary woman in a large family, taking care of everybody
who wanted taking care of. When her brother returned to Farafield she
had come to him to be his companion and nurse. He gave her a very nice
home, everybody said, with much admiration of the brother’s kindness and
the sister’s good-luck. They lived in Swallow Street, in one of the old
houses, which were warmer and better built than the new ones, and kept
two maids, and had everything comfortable, if not handsome, about,
them. When poor Rainy died, Miss Rainy had a great deal of business to
do which she did not at all understand. She had to refer to John Trevor
perpetually in the first week or two, and she was not young any longer,
nor ambitious, the good soul, and nobody had been so kind to her brother
as John, and they had known each other all their lives. It came about
thus quite naturally that they married. To be sure there were a great
many people who said that Trevor married Miss Rainy for her money, as if
poor old John at fifty had been able to have his choice of all the
lovely young maidens of the district. But this was not the case; neither
was it for love they married. They married for mutual support and
company, not a bad motive after all. If there had been no money in the
case, they would have contented themselves in their loneliness; but as
she had a house and an independence, and he an occupation, they “felt
justified,” he said to all inquirers, in taking a step which otherwise
they might not have contemplated. The consequences, however, were not at
all such as they contemplated. Mrs. Trevor began, too late, with the
energy of a workman who has no time to lose, the hard trade of a mother.
She had one baby after another at headlong speed, losing them almost as
soon as they were born, and losing her own health and tranquillity in
the process. For some half dozen years the poor soul was either ill or
in mourning. And at the end of that period she died. Poor Trevor saved
his little Lucy out of the wreck, that was all; there were five or six
little mounds in the church-yard besides Mrs. Trevor’s longer one, and
so her kind old maidenly existence was over; for before she married she
had been universally acknowledged, even by her closest friends, to be an
old maid.
It was not till Mrs. Trevor was dead that it became fully known in
Farafield that it was no humble competency that had been left to her by
her brother, but “an immense fortune.” Neither she nor her husband had
known it till long after their marriage. Rainy had been a very clever
business man, though his townsfolk all laughed at the idea, and some of
his speculations, which had been all but forgotten, turned out at last
to be real mines of gold. When it was known what a large, what a
fabulous fortune it was, all Rainy’s kindred and connections were roused
as one man. They crowded round Trevor, most of them demanding their
share, almost all of them fully believing that he had known from the
beginning how matters stood, and had married (being so much in request,
poor old John!) solely on this inducement; but some of them, on the
other hand, showed their admiration by leaving their own little bits of
fortune to Lucy, already so liberally endowed. Both of these effects
were natural enough. Trevor held his own bravely against them all. Rainy
had left his money to his sister; he knew best who deserved it, and it
was not for him (Trevor) to annul or allow to be annulled his
brother-in-law’s wishes, especially now that Lucilla Rainy (poor thing)
had a child to inherit all that belonged to her. He was not illiberal,
however, though he was unyielding on the point of law and his child’s
rights, and between him and the town-clerk, who was a person of great
influence and much trusted in by the surrounding population, the crowd
of discontented relations were silenced. As for the others, those who
insisted upon leaving their money to Lucy on the old and always popular
principle, that to those that have shall be given, Trevor allowed them
to do what seemed to them good, and by this treatment it came to pass
that the fortune of Lucy acquired several additions. “Money draws
money,” the proverb says. Thus this man of fifty-six, with all the
restrained and economical habits of a life-time passed in laborious
endeavors to make the two ends meet, found himself at the latter end of
his life with a great fortune and a motherless baby on his hands. The
position in both ways was very strange to him. He gave up the school,
generously bestowing the good-will, the furniture, and the remaining
pupils on young Philip Rainy, the son of a cousin of his wife. He would
not give away his child’s money; but he hoped, he said, that he would
always be ready to serve an old friend with that which was his own. And
then he gave himself up to the charge of Lucy’s fortune. One thing that
was to the credit of John Trevor, all Farafield said, was that he never
gave himself any airs or committed any extravagances. He lived on the
same income with which his wife and he had begun life, before the great
windfalls came which made their little daughter one of the richest
heiresses in England. He might have bought himself a great house, set up
a carriage, tried to make his way into society. But he did none of these
things. He lived on in the old way, without fuss or show, nursed Lucy’s
fortune and rolled it into ever-increasing bulk like a snow-ball, and
had Lucy nursed as best he might with no woman to help him. How it was
that in this respectable and right-minded career there should have
occurred the interval of folly in which little Jock came into the world,
who can tell? The second Mrs. Trevor was a good woman enough, and had
acted for some years as his housekeeper and the superintendent of Lucy’s
health and comfort--a comely person, too, which perhaps had something
to do with it. But nobody ever dwelt upon this moment of aberration in
old Trevor’s life, for his second wife died as his first wife had done,
and there would have been an end of the incident but for little Jock.
And nobody made much account of him.
When the second Mrs. Trevor died, he gave up housekeeping. Perhaps he
was afraid of other risks that might attend him in the same way. When a
man is a widower for the second time it is impossible to say what
Bluebeard career he may not rush into. In this, as in so many other
things, _il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte_. After that there is no
telling to what lengths you may go. So Trevor wisely withdrew from all
hazards. He looked about him carefully, and fixed upon Mrs. Ford, who
was a cousin of his first wife. Ford was just then beginning to sigh and
make comparisons between his own lot and that of his employer, who was
his contemporary, and had just retired with, if not a fortune, at least
a competency. “Whereas I shall have to slave on to the end,” Ford said.
One evening, however, his wife came out to meet him in high excitement
to tell him what had happened.
“He will buy the lease for us,” she said, “and set us up, and then he
will take our lodgings. I never should have thought old Trevor would be
so liberal; but I suppose it is for poor Lucilla’s sake.”
And next day they went and inspected No. 6 in the Terrace. Mr. and Mrs.
Ford felt that it was a solemn moment in their career; they had no
children, and they liked to be comfortable, but such a piece of grandeur
as a house in the Terrace had never come within the range of their
hopes; and Mrs. Ford liked the idea of the cook, and the housemaid, and
the parlor-maid. Thus the bargain was made; and though the Fords had not
found it quite so delightful as it appeared at first, yet the experiment
was, on the whole, a successful one. The household got on as well as it
was possible for such a composite household to do. Sometimes a maid
would be saucy, and give Mrs. Ford to understand as she knew very well
who was the real master; and sometimes Mr. Trevor would make himself
disagreeable and find fault with the eggs, or complain of the tea. But
barring these rufflings of the rose leaves, all went very well with the
house. When she was not thinking of her housekeeping, Mrs. Ford kept a
convenient little fund of misery on hand, which she could draw upon at
the shortest notice, as to the position in which she and her husband
would be left when Mr. Trevor died. Mr. Trevor was now seventy, so that
the fear was not unnatural, and she was a woman full of anxieties who
liked to have one within reach. Ford was above all this; he knew that
they were not to be left with the lease of the house in the Terrace, and
nothing more to trust to. For he had become Mr. Trevor’s confidant. It
is not so touching a relationship as that which exists at the theater
between the first and second ladies, the heroine in white satin and the
confidante in muslin; but it is doubtful whether Tilburina ever made
revelations more exciting than those over which these two old men wagged
their beards--or rather their smooth old chins, well shaven every
morning; for at their age and in their condition of life beards were
still unknown.
Mr. Trevor was sixty-five when the idea of making his will occurred to
him first. Not that he had left Lucy’s fortune in any doubt up to that
moment. A brief and concise little document existed in his lawyer’s
hands, putting her rights entirely beyond question; but it was years
after the making of this first will that the idea occurred to him of
shaping out Lucy’s life for her, and settling the course of years after
he should have himself passed from the conduct of affairs. He was a man
who had lived a very matter-of-fact life; but John Trevor was not a man
without imagination. Even in the days when he had least time for such
vanities, there had been gleams of fancy about him, and he had always
been fond of entering into the circumstances of his pupils, and giving
them his advice. They all knew that to have his advice asked was a thing
that pleased him. And the management of a great fortune excites the mind
and draws forth the imagination. He had to throw himself into all the
combinations of speculative money-making, the romance of shares and
coupons; and had acquired a sort of divination, a spirit of prophecy, a
power of seeing what was about to pay or not to pay. Some men have this
power by nature, but few acquire it; and no doubt it had lain dormant in
John Trevor all the years during which, having no money to invest, he
had not cared to exercise his faculties as to the best investment. When,
however, he had made many very successful _coups_, and eluded many
stumbles, and steered triumphantly through some dangers, a sense of his
own cleverness and power stole into his heart. He felt that he was a man
with great powers of administration, and instincts which it was a
thousand pities not to make use of; and it suddenly came into his mind
one evening, when he had just added several thousand pounds to Lucy’s
fortune by a very successful and clever operation, that he might
exercise these powers in a still more effectual way. Ah! if Lucy’s
fortune had been a poor little trumpery bit of a fortune, not enough
for the girl to live on, it would not have increased like this, it would
never have doubled itself, as old Trevor’s money did! Even Providence
seemed in the compact, and gave the advantage to the heiress, just as
the richer people of the Rainy kindred did, who gave her their money
because she had so much already. But this is a digression. As Mr. Trevor
thought over the whole question--and naturally Lucy’s fortune, which was
his chief occupation, was also the thing that took up most of his
thoughts--he could not but feel a vivid regret that it would be
impossible to outlive his own ending, and see how the money throve in
Lucy’s hands. This seems a whimsical regret, but it is not an unnatural
one. Could we only keep a share of what is going on, could we but be
sure of seeing our ideas carried out, and assisting at our own dying and
burying, and all that would follow after, death would be a much less
dismal matter. To be sure, in most cases the penalty of this post-mortem
spectatorship would be that we should not see our ideas carried out at
all. But this was not what Mr. Trevor looked forward to. He would have
been quite content to give up his share in the world, if he could only
have kept an eye on the course of events afterward, and retained some
power of suggesting, at least, what ought to be done. But even under the
most favorable view, the hereafter for which we hope was not likely, Mr.
Trevor felt, to permit any active intervention of the disembodied spirit
in the matter of stocks or shares. And it was a painful check to him to
feel that, in a few years at the most, Lucy’s property and herself would
be deprived of the invaluable guidance which his own experience and
intelligence would give. It was while this regret was heavy upon him
that the idea of making a will suddenly occurred to him--not the
ordinary sort of will, a thing which, as already indicated, was made
long ago, but a potential and living instrument, by which out of his
grave he would still be able to look after the affairs which had cost
him so much trouble, and which had so prospered in his hands. The idea
stirred him with the liveliest thrill of pleasure. He began the document
the very next day, after laying in a stock of paper, large blue folio,
lined and crackling, that the very outward form might be absolutely
correct. And it was a very remarkable document; it was the romance, the
poem of John Trevor’s life. Sitting by himself among his coupons and
account books, he had evolved out of his own consciousness, bit by bit,
the ideal of a millionaire--nay, of a female millionaire--of an heiress,
not in her usual aspect as the prey of fortune-hunters, pursued for
love, not of herself, but of her money. The sentimental side of the
question did not touch old Trevor at all. He thought of his daughter
from a very different point of view. If he ever reflected upon a
possible husband for her, it was with great impatience and distaste of
the idea. He would rather, if he could, have settled for her that she
should never marry. He wanted her to be herself, and not anybody’s wife.
All his calculations were for her as she was, Lucy Trevor, not for Mrs.
So-and-so. It seemed to him that the woman who would take up his sketch
of existence and carry it out, would be something much more worth
thinking of than a married lady of the ordinary level. She would be a
very important person indeed, in her father’s sketch of her, making what
he intended to be a very fine use of her money, and living for that end
like a princess. He did not cut off any portion of her duties, because
she was a woman; indeed he thought no more of that fact than in so far
as it was this which gave him his chief certainty of being able to mold
her, and make her life what he wished. He would not, probably, have
thought it worth his while to take so much trouble had she been a boy;
he would not have had the same faith in her, not the same feeling about
her position. It would have been more a matter of course, not so
interesting to the fancy. Perhaps a girl, in all cases, answers the
purpose of an ideal better than a boy does. Old Trevor did not think
much about the question of sex, but instinctively felt that the girl was
what he wanted, and it would be impossible to conceive an exercise of
the imagination more exciting, more interesting. It was as near like
creating a human being as anything could be. Of the character of
Lucy--in the flesh, a slim and quiet girl of sixteen--her father knew
not very much; but the Lucy who, day by day, developed more and more in
the will, became a personage very distinct to him. The manner in which
she was to conduct herself in all the difficulties she might meet, was
the subject of his continual thoughts; until at last it seemed to the
old man that he saw her as in a mirror moving along through the
difficulties and perplexities of her life in which his own position
would enable him to accompany her and help her with his advice--rather
than that he was actually inventing the entire course of her experience
for her.
This was the subject upon which Ford was Mr. Trevor’s confidant. He
could not have lived all alone in this imaginary world; he had to
consult some one, to tell some one of all the developments of his
imagination as he traced his heiress through her life. And Ford, you may
be sure, liked to know every particular, and was pleased to have a hand
in the guidance of so rich a person, and to help to decide how so much
money was to be spent. It made him feel as if he were rich himself. He
made a very judicious confidant. He agreed in all Mr. Trevor’s ideas in
the greater matters, and differed in trifles just enough to show the
independence of his judgment; and, as it happened, there was something
particularly interesting to Ford in the chapter of Lucy’s future life at
which they had now arrived.
CHAPTER III.
THE WILL.
“I think I have got it now, Ford, I think I have got it now,” the old
man said, rubbing his hands. “But it has given me a great deal of
trouble. Get yourself a chair, and sit down. I want you to hear how I’ve
put it. I think, though I don’t want to be conceited, that this time I
have hit upon the very thing. Sit down, Ford, and give me your advice.”
Ford found himself a chair, and put it in front of the fire. His feet
were close to little Jock on the hearth-rug, but neither did he pay the
least attention to little Jock, any more than if he had been a little
dog half buried in the fur. The child moved now and then, as his
position became fatiguing. He changed now an elbow, now the hand with
which he held his book, and sometimes fluttered the pages as he turned
them; but these little movements were like the falling of the ashes from
the grate, or the little flickers of the flames, and no one took any
notice. Jock kept on reading his Shakespeare, wholly absorbed in it; yet
as in a dream heard them talking, and remembered afterward, as children
do, what they had said.
“Listen!” said Mr. Trevor. He was so eager to read that he had taken his
MS. into his hands before his confidant was ready to hear, and waited,
clearing his throat while Ford took his seat. Then without a pause,
raising his hand to command attention, he began:
“In respect to the future residence of my daughter Lucy, up to the
moment of her coming of age, I desire that her time should be divided
between two homes which I have selected for her. It is my wish that she
should pass the first six months of every year in the house and under
the care of Lady Randolph, Park Street, London--”
Here Ford interrupted with an exclamation of astonishment. “Lady
Randolph!” he said.
Trevor paused, and uttered his usual chuckle, but with a still livelier
note of pleasure in it. “Ah!” he said. “Lady Randolph--that surprises
you, Ford. We haven’t many titles among us, have we? But she’s a
relation of poor Lucilla’s all the same; or at least she says so,” he
added, with another chuckle. “There is nothing like money for opening
people’s eyes.”
“A relation of Lucilla’s!” Ford’s amazement was not more genuine than
the impression of awe made upon him by the name. “I never knew the
Rainys had any rich relations. I suppose you mean Sir Thomas Randolph at
the Hall, the lord of the manor, he that was member for the county when
I first came here--the present Sir Thomas’s uncle--the--”
“That will do,” said the old man. “It’s not Sir Thomas, but it’s his
wife, or his widow, to be exact. She says she is a relation--no, a
connection of Lucilla’s--and she ought to know best. She has made me an
offer to take charge of Lucy, and introduce her, as she calls it. I’ve
been of use to my Lady Randolph in the way of business, and she wants to
be of use to me. I don’t ask, for my part, if it’s altogether
disinterested. It appears there was a Randolph that married beneath him;
I can’t tell you how long ago. My lady,” said old Trevor dryly, “would
not break her heart, perhaps, if another Randolph married beneath him,
and into the same family too.”
“But,” said Ford, “that would be no reason for putting Lucy in her
hands--a poor lamb in the way of the wolf.”
“One wolf is not a bad thing to keep off others; besides, my good
fellow, I’ve taken every precaution. Wait till you see,” and he resumed
his manuscript, with again a little preparatory clearing of his throat:
“The latter part of the year it is my wish that Lucy should spend in the
house which has already been her home for some years, under the charge
of her other relations, Richard Ford and Susan, his wife, who have been
her fast friends since ever she can recollect, and to whom for this
purpose I hereby give and bequeath the said house, No. 6 in the Terrace,
in the parish of Farafield, in the hundred of--”
“Stop a bit!” said Ford feebly; he was overcome by his feelings. “‘Her
fast friends,’” he repeated, “that’s just what we are. We’ve loved her
like our own, that’s what we’ve always done, Susan and me. And as for
Susan, many’s the time she has said, ‘Supposing anything was to happen,
or any change to occur, what should we do without Lucy? It would be
like losing a child of our own.’”
“Then you approve?” Trevor said. He liked to receive the full expression
of the gratitude which was his due.
“Approve!” said Ford. When a man without any natural dignity to speak of
is moved tearfully, the effect is sometimes less pathetic than
ludicrous; the good man did all but cry. “It isn’t the property, Mr.
Trevor, it’s the trust,” he said, with a restrained sob. “But one thing
I’ll promise, it sha’n’t be a trust betrayed. We’ll watch over her night
and day. There shall be no wolf come near her while she’s with Susan and
me.”
“In moderation! in moderation!” said the old man, waving his hand. “I
don’t want her to be watched night and day; something must be left to
Lucy herself.”
“Ah!” said Ford, drawing a long breath. He had the air of a man who was
ready to patrol under his ward’s window with a pair of pistols. “Lucy
has a great deal of sense, but to expose a girl to the wiles of a set of
fortune-hunters is what I would never do--and with that worldly-minded
old woman. Ah! Mr. Trevor, you’re too kind, you’re too kind. Lady
Randolph is not one that would step out of her own sphere for nothing.
It isn’t any desire she has to be kind to you.”
“Her own sphere,” said Mr. Trevor. “Money levels all spheres. And Lucy
is an heiress, which makes her equal to a prince of the blood. But,” he
added, with a chuckle, snapping his fingers, “_that_ for the
fortune-hunters! I’ve put bolt and bar between them and their prey. It’s
all done in black and white, and I don’t know who can go against it.
Listen, Ford.
“It is further my wish, and I hereby stipulate that my said daughter,
Lucy, shall contract no marriage up to the age hereinafter mentioned
without the consent of the following parties, who will consider
themselves as a sort of committee for the disposal of her hand, and whom
I hereby appoint and constitute her guardians, so far as this subject is
concerned; it being fully understood that this appointment does not
confer any power or authority over her pecuniary concerns. The committee
which I thus charge with the arrangement of her marriage is to consist
of the three persons above mentioned, to wit, Dame Elena Randolph,
Richard Ford, and Susan Ford, his wife, with the following assessors
added: Robert Rushton, Esq., town clerk of Farafield, my old friend; the
Rev. William Williamson, of the Congregational Chapel, my pastor; and
Mrs. Maria Stone, school-mistress, of the same place--”
“But, Mr. Trevor!” Ford ejaculated with a gasp. The paragraph he had
just listened to took away his breath.
“Well? out with your objections; let us hear them,” said old Trevor,
turning upon him, brisk and lively, and ready for war.
“Objections! yes, I can not deny it, I have objections,” said Ford,
hesitating. “Mr. Trevor, you know better than I do, you that have had
such quantities of money passing through your hands; but--”
“Out with it,” said Trevor; he rubbed his hands. It was an amusement the
more to him to have his arrangements questioned.
“You can’t have taken everything into consideration. Six people--_six_,
all so different. If she has to get all their consents, she will never
marry at all.”
“And no great harm done either,” said old Trevor briefly, “if that is
all. Why should she marry? A woman who is poor, who wants somebody to
work for her, that is comprehensible; but a woman with a lot of money,
there is no reason why she shouldn’t stay as she is. What should she get
married for?”
Ford scratched his head; he did not quite make it out. This was a
challenge to all his convictions. It touched, he felt, the very first
prerogative of man. Where were all true foundations of primal supremacy
and authority to go to, if it were once set up as a rule that marriage
was no longer necessary to womankind?
“It’s always a good thing for a woman to marry,” he said hoarsely. Many
a radical opinion he had heard from his lodger, but never anything so
sweeping as this.
“Ah! you think so,” said old Trevor. “There was poor Lucilla, to go no
further. She might have been alive yet, and enjoying her good fortune,
if she had not married me.”
This disturbed still more the man of orthodox ideas; he could do nothing
but stare at the old revolutionary. What might he not say next?
“I suppose,” he said, after awhile, “poor Lucilla would never have
hesitated; she was a woman who never considered her own comfort, in
comparison with doing her duty.”
“Her duty, poor soul! how was it her duty to marry me? Poor thing, I’ve
always been very sorry for her,” said Trevor. “Women have hard times in
this world. But a girl with a great fortune, she may be kept out of it.”
Here he paused, while his companion sat opposite to him, his very mouth
open with amazement. It was indeed more than amazement, it was
consternation which filled the honest mind of Richard Ford. He did not
know what to think of this; was it a new phase of Radicalism worse than
any that had gone before? He would have said it was Popery if he had not
known how far from any ideas of that description his old friend was.
While he sat thus half stupefied with astonishment, old Trevor took up
his pen again hastily. “Now I think of it,” he said, “Lucy belongs to
the country, I don’t hold much with the Church, but the Church should
have a hand in it. I’ll add the rector to the committee. That will be
only a proper respect.”
“The rector!” said Ford, pale with wonder, “and Mr. Williamson at the
chapel, and Mr. Rushton, and Mrs. Stone, and me--”
“You forget Lady Randolph,” said old Trevor, with a chuckle; “that’s
exactly as it ought to be, all classes represented, the right thing for
a girl in Lucy’s position. To tell the truth,” he added, laying down his
pen, “I don’t know that there ever was a girl in Lucy’s position before.
It’s a very fine position, and I hope she’s been brought up to feel all
the responsibilities. I don’t want to brag of myself; but given an
unusual situation like hers, and I think I’ve hit the right thing for
it. When you are born a great lady that’s different; but a girl with the
greatest fortune in England, proceeding out of the lower classes--”
“I don’t see,” said Ford, aggrieved, “that we need call ourselves the
lower classes; the middle--that is about what it is--the middle
class--the strength of the country.”
“Bosh!” said Trevor, “she will go to Lady Randolph’s, and there she will
see fine people, and no doubt she’ll be courted. There is nobody like
them for knowing the value of money; and then she will come to you, Dick
Ford, where she will see nobody, or else a few young clerks and that
sort.”
“I assure you,” said Ford solemnly, “I will take care that she shall see
no one here; not a man shall enter the house, not a creature come near
her, while she is under my care.”
“That will be lively for Lucy,” said the old man, “you numskull! If she
never sees any one, how is she to make a choice?”
“Mr. Trevor,” said Ford, with a voice so solemn and serious that it
trembled, “you would not wish your heiress to make a choice among the
young clerks? Whom you say,” he added after a moment, in a tone of
offense, “she will meet here.”
“She is not _my_ heiress, you stupid fellow. She is Lucilla’s heiress,
poor Rainy’s heiress; what was he but a young clerk? Why shouldn’t she,
if she likes, marry into her own class? That’s your snobbishness, Ford.
You will find nothing of that in me. If she likes a man who is in the
same rank of life as Rainy was when he began to make his fortune, or as
I was (when I was that age), why let her marry him in Heaven’s name and
be happy--that is,” said old Trevor, chuckling, “if she can get her
guardians to consent.”
“Mr. Trevor,” said Ford hurriedly, with the tremulousness of real
feeling, “I must protest, I must really protest. I am very conscious of
the great kindness you are showing to us; but I can not sit quiet and
see poor Lucy doomed to such a fate. She will never get all her
guardians to consent. Put it into one person’s hands, whom you please,
but for goodness’ sake don’t leave the poor thing to fight with half a
dozen; the end will be that she will never be married at all.”
“And that won’t kill her,” said Trevor. “Do you think I want her to
marry? Not a bit, not a bit. ‘She is better if she so abide.’ Don’t you
know who said that? And I agree with St. Paul, whatever you may do.”
Now the idea of not agreeing with St. Paul was terrible to Ford; it
scandalized him utterly; for he was a Low Churchman, and much devoted to
the writer of the Epistles.
“There never could be any question on that point,” he said, “if you ask
me whether I believe in my Bible, Mr. Trevor; but I can not pretend that
I understand that passage. There is more in it, I make bold to say, than
meets the eye. There’s a type in it, or a similitude. I am not a learned
man, I can’t tell you what it is in the original, but there’s more in it
than we think.”
Old Trevor laughed--he was quite as stanch a believer as his friend; but
being a Congregationalist, he was naturally a little more at his ease on
such subjects than even the lowest of Churchmen. He was not shocked by
the idea that it might be possible not to agree with St. Paul, and he
was not so sure of the hidden meaning.
“It is quite enough for me as it stands,” he said; “and as for Lucy’s
marriage--”
Here there was an interruption that startled these old conspirators.
Little Jocky, who had been lying as still as a mouse at their feet, with
no movement except that of turning a leaf of his book, now began to
stir. They had forgotten his very existence, as they often did. He had
not been paying much attention to them, but probably he had heard other
sounds more interesting to him, which they, on the other hand, had taken
no notice of. At this stage he suddenly jumped up on his feet like a
little acrobat, startling them greatly. He was not at all unlike an
acrobat, with his long, slim, pliable limbs, and his faded suit of blue
velveteen, a little short in the arms, and white in the seams. He got up
with a bound, like a thing on springs, immediately under Mr. Ford’s
nose, who was much discomfited by the sudden movement. It was a thing
that had happened before, but Mr. Ford had confessed that it was not a
thing to which he could accustom himself. He was not used to children,
and he was nervous; little Jock’s jump made him jump too.
“What is it? What is the matter?” he cried.
But just then the door softly opened behind the screen, and a soft voice
said, “I have come home, papa, I have come to take Jock for his walk. Do
you want anything?”
“Not that I know of, my dear, not that I know of; except yourself, and I
shall have you by and by,” said the old man, his countenance expanding.
She was not visible behind the high screen, but her voice seemed to
throw a new element, something of softness and comfort into the air.
“At tea, papa. Come, Jock,” said the voice; and the little fellow was
gone almost before the words were said. The two old men sat quite
silent, and listened to the steps going down the stairs. It was not an
unusual incident, but it is scarcely possible not to feel an uneasy
sensation when you have been discussing, much more deciding, the fate of
another, and suddenly that other looks in and interrupts your secret
combinations by the sound of an innocent and affectionate voice. Such
unconsciousness is more trying to a conspirator than any suspicion of
his motives. Even when it is a private consultation between a father and
mother on the expediency of sending a child to school, with what
compunctions the sudden appearance of the unconscious victim overwhelms
them! Old Trevor himself was moved by it, though he was not a likely
subject for penitence.
“She hasn’t much notion what we’re settling,” he said. “Poor little
Lucy! I wonder if it’s a good thing for a bit of a girl to have such a
fate before her. But it is a fine position--a fine position; not many
have such a chance, and I hope I’ve bred her up to understand what it
is.”
“Poor child!” Ford breathed, in a sigh which was not unmingled with
personal feeling; for notwithstanding the substantial advantages
promised to him, and the gratifying character of the trust conferred,
there already began to appear before the good man, not too confident in
his own firmness or force of character, a crowd of difficulties to come.
How would he be able to resist if a fine lady like Lady Randolph took
him in hand? And how would Susan stand out against cajoling? He sighed,
beginning to foresee that it would not be unmixed happiness to be Lucy’s
guardian even for six months in the year. But Lucy’s appearance, or
rather Lucy’s voice had disturbed the sitting effectually. Mr. Trevor
folded up his blue manuscript, and put it back into the blotting-book,
and he lifted the “Times” from the little table on which it had been
spread out, and once more arranged it on his knees.
“We’ll go into further detail,” he said, “another time, I’ll give you
the help of all my lights, Dick Ford. You’ll want them to steer your way
clear, and you can tell Susan there sha’n’t be any want of money. That
is what she’ll think of first.”
“I hope, Mr. Trevor, that you don’t think money is the only thing we
think of, either Susan or me.”
“It is a very important thing,” said the old man. “I have been poor, and
now I am rich, and it isn’t a matter that will let itself be kept in the
background. But you shall have plenty of money, tell Susan so, and for
other things you must do your best.”
“I hope we’ll do that in any case,” Ford said devoutly, and he went
down-stairs with nervous solemnity, holding his head very high. He was
very conscientious even in the smallest matters, and it may be supposed
that this tremendous call upon him, as soon as he began to realize it,
went to the very depths of that conscience which was alert and anxious
in the minutest affairs. Old Trevor watched him disappear behind the
screen, waited till the door had audibly closed behind him, then with a
chuckling laugh resumed his newspaper.
“I’ve given _him_ something to think about,” he said, with a grin of
mischievous satisfaction to himself.
CHAPTER IV.
SISTER AND BROTHER.
From the two old men and their consultations it was a relief, even in
that chilly and dismal day, to get outside into the free air, though it
was heavy with the chill of moisture turning into frost. It was not a
cheerful world outside. The sky was the color of lead, and hung low in
one uniform tint of dullness over the wet world, with all its wetness
just on the point of congealing. The common stretched out its low green
broken lines and brown divisions of path to touch the limited horizon.
Mrs. Stone’s school, the big white house which stood on the north side,
had a sort of halo of mist hanging round it, and everything that moved
moved drearily, as unable to contend against the depression in the air.
But little Jock Trevor was impervious to that depression; it was the
moment of all the twenty-four hours in which he was happy. Though he had
lain as still on the rug as if there was no quicksilver at all in his
little veins he could scarcely stand quietly now to have his little
great-coat put on, which his sister did with great care. She was
seventeen, a staid little person, with much composure of manners,
dressed in a gray walking-dress, trimmed with gray fur, very neat,
comfortable, and sensible, but not quite becoming to Lucy, who was of
that kind of fair complexion which tends toward grayness; fair hair,
with no color in it, and a face more pale than rosy. Ill-natured people
said of her that she was all the same color, hair, cheeks, and
eyes--which was not true, and yet so far true as to make the gray dress
the least favorable envelope that could have been chosen. There was no
irregularity of any kind about her appearance; all was exact, the very
impersonation of neatness; a ribbon awry, an irregularity of line
anywhere, would have been a relief, but no such relief was afforded to
the spectator. Whoever might be found fault with for untidiness in Mrs.
Stone’s establishment, it never was Lucy; her collars were always
spotless; her ribbons always neatly tied; her dress the very perfection
of good order and completeness. She put on her brother’s little coat,
and buttoned it to the last button, though he was dancing all the time
with impatience; then enveloped his throat with a warm woolen scarf, and
tucked in the ends. “Now your gloves, Jocky,” she said, and she would
not move till he had dragged these articles on, and had them buttoned in
their turn. “What does it matter if you are two minutes earlier or
later,” she said, “you silly little Jock? far better to have them
buttoned before you go out than to struggle with them all the way. Now,
have you got your handkerchief, and has your hat been brushed properly?
Well,” Lucy added, surveying him with mingled satisfaction in the result
and reluctance to allow it to be complete, “now we may go.”
If she had not held him by the hand, there is no telling what caracoling
Jock might have burst into by way of exhausting the first outburst of
exhilaration. The contact with the fresh air, though it was not anything
very lively in the way of air, moved all the childhood in his veins. He
strained Lucy’s arm, as a hound strains at a leash, jumping about her as
they went on. Almost her staid steps were beguiled out of their usual
soft maidenly measure by the gambols of the little fellow.
“Let’s have a run to the gate,” he said. “Oh, Lucy, come, run me to the
gate,” and he dragged at her hand to get loose from its hold. But when
he escaped Jock did not care to run alone. He came back to her, out of
breath.
“I wish I could have a real run--just once,” he said, with a sigh; then
brightening up, “or a wrestling like Shakespeare. I’ll tell you who I’d
like to be, Lucy; I’d like to be Orlando when he had just killed that
big bully of a man--”
“Jock! you wouldn’t like to kill any one, I hope?”
“Oh, shouldn’t I!” cried the boy; “just to see him go down, and turn
over on his face, and clinch his hands. Do they always do that, I
wonder? You see them in the pictures all with their fists clinched,
clawing at the ground. Well,” he added, with magnanimity, “he needn’t
quite die, you know; I’d like him only to be badly hurt, as bad as if he
were killed, and then to get better. I dare say,” said the child,
“Charles got better, you know, after Orlando threw him. It isn’t said
that he was regularly killed.”
“Is it a pretty story you’ve been reading, dear?” said Lucy, sweetly,
altogether ignorant of Orlando. And she was not ashamed of her
ignorance, nor did Jock know that she had any reason to be ashamed.
“That’s the best bit,” he said, impartially. “The rest is mostly about
girls. It was the Duke’s wrestler, you know, a big beast like--oh, I
don’t know anybody so big--a drayman,” said Jock, as a big wagon
lumbered by, laden with barrels, with one of those huge specimens of
humanity (and beer) moving along like a clumsy tower by its side. “Like
_him_; and Orlando was quite young, you know, not so very big--like me,
when I am grown up.”
“You don’t know what you will be when you are grown up, you silly little
boy. Perhaps you will never grow up at all,” said Lucy, somewhat against
her conscience improving the occasion.
Jock stood for a moment with wide open eyes. Then resumed:
“I sha’n’t be big or fat like that fellow--when I am about seventeen, or
perhaps twenty-two, and never taught to box or anything. I would have
gone in at him,” cried Jock, throwing out his poor arm, with a very
tightly clinched woolen glove at the end of it, “just like Orlando, just
like this; and down he’d go, like, like--” But imagination did not serve
him in this particular. “Like Charles did,” he concluded, with a
dropping of his voice, which betrayed a consciousness of the failure,
not in grammar, but in force of metaphor. Jock’s experience did not
furnish any parallel incident.
“You must never fight when you grow up,” said Lucy. “Gentlemen never
do; except when they are soldiers, and have to go and fight for the
queen.”
“Does the queen want to be fighted for?” said Jock. “If any fellow was
to bully her or hit her--”
“Oh,” cried Lucy, horrified, “nobody would do that, but people sometimes
go against the country, Jock, and then the people that are fighting for
England are said to be fighting for the queen.”
Jock’s mind, however, went astray in the midst of this discourse. There
passed the pair in the road a very captivating little figure--a small
boy, much smaller even than Jock, with long fair locks streaming down
his shoulders, in the most coquettish of dresses, mounted upon a
beautiful cream-colored pony, as tiny as its rider. What child could
pass this little equestrian and not gaze after him? The children sighed
out of admiration and envy when they saw him, for he was a very
well-known figure about Farafield; but the elders shook their heads and
said, “Poor child!” Why should the old people say “Poor child!” and the
young ones regard him with such admiring eyes? It was little Gerald
Ridout, the son of the circus proprietor. Nobody was better known. As he
rode along, the most daring little rider, on his pretty little Arab,
which was as pretty as himself, with his long flowing curls waving,
there could have been no such attractive advertisement. The circus
traveled for a great part of the year, but its home was in Farafield,
and everybody knew little Gerald. Jock fixed his glistening eyes upon
him from the moment of his appearance--eyes that shone with pleasure and
sympathy, and that wistful longing to be as beautiful and happy, which
is not envy. There was nothing of the more hateful sentiment in little
Jock’s heart, but because he admired he would have liked to resemble,
had that been within his power. He followed the child with his eyes as
long as he was visible. Then he asked, “Do people who are rich have
ponies, Lucy?” with much gravity and earnestness.
“Very often, dear, and horses too; but that poor little fellow is not
rich, you know.”
“I should like to be him,” said Jock.
“A little circus-boy? to ride upon the stage, and have all the most
horrid people staring at you?”
“And jump through the hoop, and gallop, gallop, and have a pony like
that all to myself. A--h!” Jock cried with a long-drawn breath.
“Would you like a pony so very much, Jocky? Then some day you shall
have one,” said his sister in her tranquil voice. “I will buy you one
when I am rich.”
“Are you _soon_ going to be rich?” said the little boy doubtfully. Like
wiser people, he preferred the smallest bird in the hand to a whole
aviary in the dim and doubtful distance. But Lucy had not a very lively
sense of humor. She knew the circumstances better than he did, and said,
“Hush! hush!” with a little awe.
“Not for a very long time, I hope,” she said.
Her little brother looked at her with wondering eyes; but this mystery
was too deep for him to solve. He had no insight into those deep matters
which occupied his father’s time, nor had he the least notion that
Lucy’s wealth depended upon that father’s death, though it had all been
discussed with so much detail day by day over his dreaming head.
“When you are rich, shall I be rich too, Lucy?” he said.
“I am afraid not, Jock; but if I am rich, it will not matter; you shall
have whatever you please. Won’t that do just as well?”
Jock paused and thought.
“Why shouldn’t I be rich too?” he remarked. It was not said as a
question; it was an observation. The fact did not trouble him, but _en
passant_ he noticed it as a thing which might perhaps want explaining.
It was not of half so much importance, however, as the next thing that
came into his head.
“I say, Lucy, do you think that boy on the pony has to go to school?
What do you think he can be learning at school? I should like to go
there too.”
“When you go, it shall be to a much nicer place,” she said, with energy.
“There is one thing I should like to be rich for, and that is for you,
little Jock. You don’t know anything at all yet. You ought to be
learning Greek and Latin, and mathematics, and a great many other
things. It makes me quite unhappy when I think of it. I go to school,
but it does not matter for me; and you are living all your time, not
learning anything, reading nonsense on the hearth-rug. I could cry when
I think of it,” Lucy said. She said it very quietly, but this was
vehemence in her.
Jock looked up at her with wondering eyes; for his own part he had no
enthusiasm for study, nor, except for the pleasure of being with the
circus boy, whom he vaguely apprehended as caracoling about the very
vague place which his imagination conceived of as “School,” on his
pretty pony, had he any desire to be sent there; but it did not occur to
him to enter into any controversy on the subject.
“Are you going up-town, Lucy?” he asked; “have you got to go to shops
_again_? I wish you would buy all your ribbons at one time, and not be
always, always buying more. Aunty Ford when she goes out goes to shops
too, and you have to stand and stare about, and there’s nothing to look
at, and nothing to do.”
“What would you like to do, Jock?”
“Oh, I don’t know--nothing,” said the boy; “if I had a pony I’d get on
its back and ride off a hundred miles before I stopped.”
“The horse couldn’t go a hundred miles, nor you either, dear.”
“Oh, yes, I could, or ten at least, and if I met any one on the road I’d
run races with him; and I’d call the horse Black Bess, or else
Rozinante, or else Chiron; but Chiron wasn’t only a horse, you know, he
was a horseman.”
“Well, dear,” said Lucy, calmly, “I wish you were a horseman, too, if
you would like it so very much.”
“You don’t understand,” cried the child, “you don’t understand! I
couldn’t be like Chiron; he had four legs, he was a man-horse. He
brought up a little boy once, lots of little boys, and taught them. I
say, Lucy, if Chiron was living now I should like to go to school to
him.”
“You are a silly little boy,” said Lucy. “Who ever heard of a
school-master that had four legs? I wonder papa lets you read so many
silly books.”
“They are not silly books at all; it is only because you don’t know,”
said Jock, reddening. “Suppose we were cast on a desert island, what
would _you_ do? You don’t know any stories to tell round the fire; but I
know heaps of stories, I know more stories than any one. Aunty Ford is
pretty good,” the little fellow went on, reflectively: “_she_ knows
some; and she likes me to tell her out of Shakespeare, and about the
‘Three Calenders’ and the ‘Genii in the Bottle,’ and that improves her
mind; but if you were in a desert island what _should_ you do? You don’t
know one story to tell.”
“I should cook your suppers, and mend your clothes, and make the fire.”
“Ah!” said the boy with a little contempt; “bread and milk would do, you
know, or when we shot a deer we’d just put him before the fire and roast
him. We shouldn’t want much cooking; and the skin would do for clothes.”
“You would not be at all comfortable like that,” said Lucy gravely,
shocked by the savagery of the idea; “even Robinson Crusoe had to sew
the skins together and make them into a coat; and how could you have
milk,” she added, “without some one to milk the cow?”
“I will tell you something that is very strange,” said Jock: “Aunty Ford
never read ‘Robinson Crusoe;’ but she knows Christian off by heart, and
all about Mary and Christiana and the children. And she knows the
history of Joseph, and David, and Goliath; so you can not say she is
quite ignorant; and she makes me tell her quantities of things.”
“You should not mix up your stories,” said Lucy; “the Bible is not like
other books. About Joseph and David and those other--” (Lucy had almost
said gentlemen, which seemed the most respectful expression; but she
paused, reflecting with a little horror that this was too modern and
common a title for Bible personages). “They are for Sunday,” she went
on, more severely, to hide her own confusion; “they are not like
‘Robinson Crusoe’ or the ‘Genii in the Bottle;’ you ought not to mix
them up.”
“It is Christian that is the _most_ Sunday,” said Jock; “she explains it
to me, and all what it means, about the House Beautiful and the ladies
that lived there. There is a Punch, Lucy! and there’s Cousin Philip;
never mind him, but run, run, and let us have a good look at the Punch.”
“I mustn’t run,” said Lucy, holding him back, “and I can not stand and
look at Punch. If Mrs. Stone were to see me she never would let me come
out with you any more.”
“Oh, run, run!” cried the little boy, straining at her hand like a hound
in a leash. He had dragged her half across the street when Cousin Philip
came up. This was the only other relative with whom Mr. Trevor had kept
up any intercourse. He was the young man to whom the old school-master
had made over his school, and he, too, like Lucy, was taking advantage
of the half holiday. In Farafield, where young men were scarce, Philip
Rainy had already made what his friends called a very good impression.
He was not, it was true (to his eternal confusion and regret) a
University man; but neither was he a certified school-master. He had
greatly raised the numbers of old John Trevor’s school, and he occupied
a kind of debatable position on the borders of gentility, partly because
of his connection with the enriched family perhaps, but partly because
his appearance and manners were good, and his aspirations were lofty
from a social point of view. He had begun with a determination, to
resist steadily all claims upon him from below, and to assert
courageously a right to stand upon the dais of Farafield society; and
though there may be many discouragements in the path of a young man
thus situated, it is astonishing how soon a steady resolution of this
kind begins to tell. He had been five years in old John Trevor’s school,
and already many people accredited him with a B.A. to his name. Philip
told no fibs on that or any subject that concerned his position. “When
it was necessary,” as he said, he was perfectly frank on the subject;
but there are so few occasions on which it is necessary to be
explanatory, a modest man does not thrust himself before the notice of
the world; and he was making his way--he was making an impression.
Though he had been brought up a Dissenter like his uncle, he had soon
seen the entire incompatibility of Sectarianism with society, and he had
now the gratification of hearing himself described as a sound if
moderate churchman. And he was now permanently upon the list of men who
were asked to the dinner-parties at the rectory, when single men were
wanted to balance a superabundance of ladies, an emergency continually
recurring in a country town. This of itself speaks volumes. Philip Rainy
was making his way.
He was a slim and a fair young man, bearing a family resemblance to his
cousin Lucy; and he had always been very “nice” to Lucy and to Jock. He
came up to them now to solve all their difficulties, taking Jock’s eager
hand out of his sister’s, and arresting their vehement career.
“Stop here, and I’ll put you on my shoulder, Jock; you’ll see a great
deal better than among the crowd, such a little fellow as you are; and
Lucy will talk to me.”
They made a very pretty group, as they stood thus at a respectful
distance from Punch and his noisy audience, Jock mounted on his cousin’s
shoulder, clapping his hands and crowing with laughter, while Lucy
stood, pleased and smiling, talking to Philip, who was always so “nice.”
The passers-by looked at them with an interest which was inevitable in
the circumstances. Wherever Lucy went people looked at her and pointed
her out as the heiress, and naturally the young man who was her relation
was the subject of many guesses and speculations. To see them standing
together was like the suggestion of a romance to all Farafield. Were
they in love with each other? Would she marry him? To suppose that
Philip, having thus the ball at his foot, should not be “after” the
heiress, passed all belief.
But the talk that passed between them, and which suggested so many
things to the lookers-on, was of the most placid kind.
“How is my uncle?” Philip asked. Old John Trevor was not his uncle, but
the difference between age and youth made the cousinship resolvable
into a more filial bond, and it sounded much nearer, which pleased the
young man. “May I come and see him one of these evenings, Lucy? I am
dining out to-day and to-morrow; but Friday perhaps--”
“How many people you must know!” said Lucy, half admiring, half amused;
for young persons at school have a very keen eye for everything that
looks like “showing off.”
“Yes, I know a good many people--thanks chiefly to you and my uncle.”
“To me? I don’t know anybody,” said Lucy.
“But they know you; and to be a cousin to a great heiress is a feather
in my cap.”
Lucy only smiled; she was neither pleased nor annoyed by the reference,
her fortune was so familiar a subject to her. She said, “Papa will be
glad to see you. But I must not stand here on the street; Mrs. Stone
will be angry; and I think Jock must have seen enough.”
“Don’t knock my hat off, Jock. Have you seen enough? I will walk with
you to the Terrace,” said Philip, and the little family group as they
went along the street attracted a great deal of interest. What more
natural than that Philip should be “nice” to his young cousins, and turn
with them when he met them on a half holiday? and it is so good to be
seen to have relations who are heiresses for a young man who is making
his way.
CHAPTER V.
AFTERNOON TALK.
The children, as they were called in the Terrace, came home just in time
for tea. Mr. Trevor had changed the course of his existence for some
time past. He who all his life had dined at two, and had tea at six, and
“a little something” in the shape of supper before he went to bed, had
entirely revolutionized his own existence by the troublesome invention
of “late dinner,” which Mrs. Ford thought was the suggestion of the Evil
One himself. His reason for it was the same as that of many other
changes which he had made at some cost to his own comfort, but he did
not explain to any one what this meant--at least, if he did explain it,
it was to Lucy, and Lucy was the most discreet of confidantes. When she
came in with her little brother the Fords were seating themselves at
the table in their parlor, on which were the tray and the tea-things,
and a large plate of substantial bread and butter. Here Jock took his
place with the old people, while Lucy went upstairs. She would have
liked the bread and butter, too, but her father liked her to spend this
hour with him, and he despised the modern invention of five o’clock tea,
understanding that meal only, as the Fords did, who made themselves
thoroughly comfortable, and had muffins sometimes, and a variety of
pleasing adjuncts. Mr. Trevor was still sitting between the fire and the
window when Lucy went upstairs. She had taken off her hat and out-door
jacket, and went in to her father a spruce little gray maiden, with hair
as smooth and everything about her as neat as if she had just come out
of a bandbox. In Mr. Trevor’s rank of life there is no personal virtue
in a woman that tells like neatness. He looked at her with eyes full of
fond satisfaction and pleasure. He had put away the “Times” from his
knees, and now had a book, having finished his paper, which lasted him
till about four o’clock, and then went down-stairs to Mr. Ford. The
books Mr. Trevor read were chiefly travels. He did not think novels were
improving to the mind; and as for history and solid information at his
age, what was the use of them? they could serve very little purpose in
his case: though Lucy ought to read everything that was instructive. He
put down his book open, on its face, on his knee when his daughter came
in. His eyes dwelt upon her with genuine pleasure and pride as she took
the chair in which Ford had been sitting. She had some knitting in her
hand, which she began to work at placidly without looking at it. Lucy
with her blue eyes, her fair smooth hair, and her equally smooth gray
dress without a crease in it, looked the very impersonation of good
order and calm. She looked at her father tranquilly with a pleasant
smile. She was no chattering girl with a necessity of talk upon her.
Even among the other girls at Mrs. Stone’s Lucy was never, as Mrs. Ford
said, “one to talk.” She waited for what should be said to her.
“Well,” said her father, rubbing his hands, “and where have you been,
Lucy, to-day?”
“Up into the High Street, papa.”
“I think you are fond of the High Street, Lucy?”
“I don’t know. The common is very wet, and Jock will run and jump. I
don’t like it in this weather. The High Street is dry and clean--at
least it is dry and clean in front of Ratcliffe’s shop.
“And there are all the pretty things in the windows.”
“I don’t look at the things in the windows--what is the good? You would
let me buy them all if I wanted them,” said Lucy, quietly.
“Every one!” said old Trevor, with a chuckle. “Every one! You might have
a new dress every day of the year, if you liked!”
Lucy smiled; she went on with her knitting. This delightful possibility
did not seem to affect her much--perhaps because it was a possibility.
“We met the little circus-boy on his pony,” she said. “Jock thinks so
much of him. Papa, you always let me have everything I want--might I
have a pony for Jock? It would make him so happy.”
“No,” said old Trevor, succinctly. “For yourself as many you like; but
that sort of thing is not for the child. No, nothing of that sort.”
“Why?” she said, with something which in Lucy was impatience and
vexation. It was too slight a ruffling of the calm surface to have told
at all in any one else.
“Because, my dear, Jock must not have anything that is above his own
rank in life. What should he do with a pony? He is not a gentleman’s son
to be bred up with foolish notions. It would be all the worse for him to
find out the difference afterward.”
“But he is my brother,” Lucy said, “and your son, papa. If he is not a
gentleman’s son neither am I--How is he different from me? And do you
think I can make such a difference when--when I am grown up--”
“You mean when I am dead? Say it out. Isn’t that what I’m always
thinking of? The little boy, my dear,” said old Trevor, gravely, yet
with his familiar chuckle breaking in, “is a mistake. He didn’t ought to
have been at all, Lucy. Now he’s here, we can’t help it--we’ve got to
put up with it; and we must make the best of him. We can’t send him out
of the world because it was a mistake his coming into it; but he must
keep to his own rank in life.”
“But, papa, if you would think a little why should there be such a
difference? I so rich--and if he is to have nothing--”
“He will be as well off as he has any right to be,” said old Trevor.
“I’ve laid by a little. Don’t trouble yourself about Jock. What have you
been doing to-day? That is the thing of the greatest importance. I want
to know all my little lady is about.”
“We had our French lesson,” said Lucy, a little disturbed under her
smooth surface; but the disturbance was so little that her father never
found it out, “and--all the rest just as usual, papa.”
“And can you understand what mounsheer says? Can you talk to him? I used
to know a few words myself, but never to talk it,” said the old man. His
acuteness seemed to have deserted him, and turned into the most innocent
simplicity--a little glow came upon his face. He was almost childishly
excited on this point.
“A few words were enough for me--what did I want with French?--though
things are altered now; and it’s taught, I’m told, in every commercial
academy, and the classics neglected. That wasn’t the way in my time. If
a boy learned anything besides reading and writing it was Latin; and I
was considered very successful with my Latin.”
“That is another thing, papa,” said Lucy; “don’t you think Jock should
go to school?”
Old Trevor’s face extended slightly. “Have you nothing to say to me,
Lucy, but about Jock?”
“Oh, yes, a great deal,” said the girl. She did not lose a single change
in his face, though she kept on steadily with her knitting, and she saw
it was not safe to go further. She changed the subject at once.
“Monsieur says I get on very well,” she said; “but not so well as Katie
Russell. She is first in almost everything. She is so clever. You should
hear her chatter French--as fast! It is like the birds in the trees, as
pretty to listen to--and just as little sense that you can make out.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” said the old man, with a little impatience, “There is
no occasion for _you_ to learn like that, Lucy. She has to make her
living by it, that girl. I wonder now, you that are in so very different
a position, why it’s always this Russell girl you talk about, and never
any of the real ladies, the Honorable Miss Barringtons and Lady--what do
you call her?--and the better sort. It was for them I sent you to Mrs.
Stone’s school, Lucy,” he said, with a tone of reproach.
“Yes, papa. I like them very well--they are just like me. They do as
little work as they can, and get off everything they can. We had a
famous ride--but that was yesterday. I told you about it. Lily
Barrington’s horse ran away, or we thought it ran away; and mine set off
at such a pace! I was dreadfully frightened, but Lily liked it. She had
done it on purpose, fancy! and thinks there is nothing in the world so
delightful as a gallop.”
“And you call her Lily?” said Mr. Trevor, with a glow of pleasure;
“that’s right, my dear. That’s what I like to hear. Not that I want you
to neglect the others, Lucy; but you can always get a hold on the poor;
no fear of them; I want you to secure the great ones, too. I want you
to know all sorts. You ought to with your prospects. I was saying to
Ford to-day a girl with your prospects belongs to England. The country
has an interest in you, Lucy. You ought to know all sorts, rich and
poor. That is just what I have been settling,” he said, laying his hand
on the blotting-book now closed, in which his papers were.
Lucy gave him a little smile nodding her head. She was evidently quite
in the secret of the document there. But she did not stop her knitting,
nor was she so much interested in that future which he was settling for
her so carefully as to ask any questions. Her little nod, her smile
which had a kind of indulgence in it, as for the vagaries of a child,
her soft calm and indifference bore the strangest contrast to his
absorption in all that concerned her. Perhaps the girl did not realize
how entirely her future was being mapped out; perhaps she did not
realize that future at all. There was a touch of the gentlest youthful
contempt for that foolish wisdom of our fathers to which we are all
instinctively superior in our youth, in her perfect composure. It amused
him--though it was so odd that a man should be amused in such a way--and
it did not matter any further to her.
“Mrs. Stone sent her kind regards, papa, and she will gladly come over
and take a cup of tea any time you like.”
“Oh, she’ll come, will she? I want to tell her of something I’ve put in
the will,” said old Mr. Trevor.
This roused Lucy from her composure. She looked at him with a
half-startled glance.
“You will tell--her--of that paper?”
“Well, not much about it--only something that regards herself. You will
be much sought after when I am gone. All sorts of people will be after
you for your money; and I want to protect you, Lucy. It’s my business to
protect you. Besides, as I tell you, you’re too important to have just a
couple of guardians, like a little girl with ten thousand pounds. You
belong to the country, my dear. A fortune like yours,” said the old man,
now launched upon his favorite subject, “is a thing by itself; and I
want to protect you, my dear.”
This time Lucy, instead of the smile, breathed a little sigh. It was a
sigh of impatience, very momentary, very slight. This was the doctrine
in which she had been brought up, and she would as soon have thought of
throwing doubt upon the ten commandments as of denying that her own
position made her of almost national importance. She was aware of all
that; it was merely the reiteration of it which moved her to the
faintest amount of impatience; but this she very soon repressed.
“Is Mrs. Stone to protect me?” she said.
“She is to be one of them, my dear. You know I don’t wish to do anything
in secret, Lucy. I wish you to know all my arrangements. If you came to
think afterward that your father had taken you by surprise I--should not
like it; and now I have got as far as where you ought to live--listen,
Lucy,” said the old man. The big document in the writing-case was
evidently his one idea. His face brightened as he took it up and spread
out the large leaves. As for Lucy, she sighed again very softly. How the
will wearied her! But she was heroic, or stoical. She made no sort of
stand against it; and after that one soft little protest of nature, went
on with her knitting, and listened with great tranquillity. Her father
read the paragraphs that he had been consulting Ford about, one by one;
and Lucy listened as if he had been reading a newspaper. It awoke no
warmer interest in her mind. She had heard so much of it that it did not
affect her in any practical way; it seemed a harmless amusement for her
father, and nothing more.
“Do you think you shall like going to Lady Randolph, Lucy?”
“How can I tell, papa? I don’t know Lady Randolph,” Lucy said.
“No; but that’s high life, my dear; and here’s humble life, Lucy. I want
you to know both; and as for your marriage, you know--”
“You do not want me to marry,” said the sensible girl, “and I don’t
think I wish it either, papa. But if I ever did, it would not be nice to
have to go and ask all these people; and they never would agree. We
might be quite sure of that.”
“Then you think I have been hard upon you? Always speak to me quite
openly, Lucy. I don’t want to be hard upon you, my child--quite the
other way.”
“Oh, it does not matter at all,” said Lucy, cheerfully, plying her
knitting-needles. “I don’t think it is the least likely that I shall
ever want to marry. As you have always told me, I shall have plenty to
do, and there will be Jock,” she added, after a momentary pause.
“You have a great many prejudices about Jock,” her father said, testily:
“what difference can he make? He has not so very much to do with you,
and he will be in quite a different sphere.”
“Do you want me to have nobody belonging to me?” Lucy cried, with a
sudden vivacity not without indignation in it, then subdued herself as
suddenly. “It doesn’t at all matter,” she said.
“And you remember,” said her father almost humbly, “this is only till
you are five-and-twenty. It is not for all eternity; you will have
plenty of time to marry, or do whatever you please, after that.”
Lucy nodded and smiled once more. “I don’t think I shall want to marry,”
she said; but while she spoke she was making a quiet calculation of
quite a different character. “Jock is eight and I am seventeen,” she was
saying within herself, “how old will Jock be when I am twenty-five?” It
does not seem a difficult question; but she was not great in arithmetic,
and it took her a moment or two to make it out. When she had succeeded
her face brightened up. “Still young enough to be educated,” she added,
always within herself, and this quite restored her patience and her
cheerfulness.
“It will be very funny,” she said, “to see the rector and Mr. Williamson
consulting together. I wonder how they will begin; I am sure Mr.
Williamson will put on colored clothes to show how independent he is;
and the doctor--the doctor will smile and rub his hands.”
“You forget,” said old Trevor, with a slight sharpness of tone, though
he laughed, “that such things have been as that I should outlive the
doctor. He’s younger than I am, to be sure, but I would not have you to
calculate on my death before the doctor. It might be quite a different
rector. It might be a young man that would, perhaps, put in claims to
the heiress himself. But I’ll give you one piece of advice, Lucy,
beforehand. Never marry a parson. They’re always in the way. Other kinds
of men have their occupations; but a parson with a rich wife is always
lounging about. Your mother used to say so; and she was a very sensible
woman. She had an offer from one of the chapel ministers when she was
young; but she would have nothing to say to him. A man in slippers,
always indoors, was what she never could abide.”
“I don’t think the rector would be like that, papa,” said Lucy; “he
doesn’t look as if he ever wore slippers at all--”
“Well, perhaps, it is the other kind I am thinking of,” said Mr. Trevor,
who had not much acquaintance with the class which he called “church
parsons,” though his liberality of mind was such that he had brought up
Lucy partially, at least, as a church woman. His conduct, in this
respect, was much the same as it was in reference to the distinctions of
society. He wanted her to have her share in all--to be familiar alike
with poverty and riches, and, as a kind of moral consequence, with
church and chapel, too.
It was almost a disappointment to the old man that Lucy let the subject
drop, and showed no further interest in it. He was a great deal more
excited about her future life than she was. Lucy’s life was, indeed, to
her father at once his great object and his pet plaything. It was his
determination that it should be such a life as no one had ever lived
before; a perfection of beneficence, wisdom, well-doing, and general
superiority. He wanted to guard her against all perils, to hedge her
round from every enemy. Unfortunately, he knew very little of the world,
the dangers of which he was so intent on avoiding; but he was quite
unaware of his own ignorance. He foresaw the well-known danger of
fortune-hunters; but he did not perceive the impossibilities of the
arrangement by which he had, he flattered himself, so carefully and
cleverly guarded against them. In this respect Lucy had more insight
than her father, in her gentle indifference. Her life was not a matter
of theory to Lucy. It was not a thing at all to be molded and formed by
any one, it was to-day and to-morrow. She listened to, without being
affected by, all her father’s plans for her. They seemed a dream--a
story to her, the future to which they referred was quite unreal in her
eyes.
“We met Philip, papa,” she said, after a pause, with her usual
tranquillity. “He is always very nice to Jock. He put him upon his
shoulder to see the Punch. And he says he is coming to see you.”
“You met Philip,” said the old man, “and he is coming to see me? Well,
let him come, Lucy. He is a rising man, and a fine gentleman--too fine
for a homely old man like me. But we are not afraid of Philip. Let him
come; and let us hope he will find his match when he comes here.”
“You do not like Philip, papa? I think he is the only person you
are--not quite just to. What has he done? He is always very nice to
Jock, and--” Lucy added, hastily, in a tone of conciliation, “to me,
too.”
“Done?” said the old man, with a snarl in place of his usual chuckle.
“He has done nothing but what is virtuous. He has doubled the school,
and he sets up for being a gentleman. Don’t you know that I have the
highest opinion of Philip? I always say so--the best of young men; and
he calls me uncle, though he is only my wife’s distant cousin, which is
very condescending of him. Not to approve of Philip would be to show
myself a prejudiced old fool, and--” Mr. Trevor added, after a pause,
showing his old teeth in yellow ferocity, not unmixed with humor, “that
is exactly what I am.”
Lucy looked at him with her peaceful blue eyes. She shook her head in
mild disapproval. “He is very nice to Jock--and to me, too,” she
repeated, softly. But she made no further defense of her cousin. This
was all she said.
CHAPTER VI.
PHILIP.
Philip Rainy was, as his relation had been obliged to avow, an excellent
young man; there was nothing to be found fault with in his moral
character, and everything to be applauded in his manners and habits. He
had acquired his education in the most laborious way, at the cheapest
possible rate, and he had used it, since he was in a condition to do so,
in the most admirable manner. He was intelligent and amiable as well as
prudent and ambitious, and though he meant to establish a reputation for
himself, and a position among those who were considered best in
Farafield, yet he never forgot his family, whom he had left behind; nor,
though he did not think it necessary to brag that he had begun the world
in the lowliest way, did he ever, when it was called for, shrink from an
avowal of his origin, humble as that was. Why old Mr. Trevor should
dislike him, it would be difficult to say, or rather, though it might be
easy enough to divine the causes, it would be almost impossible to offer
any justification of them. Old Trevor disliked the young man because--he
was so altogether unexceptionable a young man. Every inducement that
could have led an old man to patronize and encourage a young one existed
here, and yet these very reasons why he should like Philip made his old
relation dislike him. He was too good, and, alas, too successful. He had
doubled the school in Kent’s Lane, which the old gentleman, distracted
by other occupations, had brought down very low, indeed; and this was
something which it was rather hard to forgive, though it was worthy of
nothing but praise. And he was Lucy’s cousin, on the side of the house
from which the fortune came, and perfectly suitable to Lucy in point of
age, and in almost every way. How much trouble it would have avoided,
how much ease and security it would have given, if Philip had been
placed in Lucy’s way, and an attachment encouraged between them! It
would have been the most natural thing in the world; it would have
restored the fortune to the name, it would have enriched the family of
the original possessor, it would have saved all the trouble of the will
which old Trevor was elaborating with so much care. Therefore, it was
that old Trevor detested Philip Rainy, or, at least, was so near
detesting him that only Christian principle prevented that climax of
feeling. As it was, with a distinct effort because the sentiment was
wrong, the old man restrained his conscious dislike of the young one
within the bounds of what he considered permissible hostility. But all
he could do could not entirely control that fierce impulse of
repugnance. He could not keep his voice from altering, his expression
from changing, when Philip Rainy’s name was mentioned. Perhaps at the
bottom of all his anxiety about Lucy’s fortune, and his desire to shape
and control her actions, was an underlying dread that Lucy’s fate might
be lying quite near, and might be decided at any moment before ever his
precautions could come into effect.
Philip himself had no conception how far the dislike of his uncle--as he
called old Trevor, without being in the least aware that this of itself
was an offense--went. He did not even know that it was only to himself
that the old man was so systematically ill-tempered. It was seldom he
saw old Trevor in the society of other people, and he took it for
granted, with much composure, that the sharpness of his gibes and the
keenness of his criticisms were natural, and employed against the world
in general as well as against himself. Being a young man determined to
rise in the world, it was not to be supposed that he had not taken the
whole question of his family connections into earnest consideration, or
that he was entirely unmoved by the consciousness that within his reach,
and accessible to him in many ways not possible for other men, was one
of the greatest prizes imaginable, an heiress, whose soft little hand
could raise him at once above all the chance of good or evil fortune,
and confer upon him a position far beyond anything that was within his
possibilities in any other way. On this latter point, however, he was
not at all clear; for Philip was young, and had not learned to know
these inexorable limits which hem in possibility. He thought he could do
a great many things by his unaided powers which he would have easily
seen to be impossible for any one else. He believed in occasions arising
which would give scope to his talents, and show the world what manner of
man it was which the irony of fate confined to the humble occupation of
a school-master in a little country town; and he entertained no doubt
that when the occasion came he would show himself worthy of it.
Therefore, he was not sure that Lucy’s fortune could do much more for
him than he could do for himself; but he was too sensible to ignore the
difference it would make in his start, the great assistance it would be
in his career. It would give him an advantage of ten years, he said to
himself, in the musings of that self-confidence which was so determined
and arrogant, yet so simple; a difference of ten years--that stands for
a great deal in a man’s life. To attain that at thirty which in ordinary
circumstances you would only attain at forty, is an advantage which is
worthy many sacrifices; but yet, at the same time, if you are sure of
attaining at forty, or by good luck at thirty-nine, the good fortune on
which your mind is set, it is not perhaps worth your while to make a
very serious sacrifice of your self-esteem or pride merely for the sake
of saving these ten years. This was why Philip maintained with ease so
dignified and worthy a position in respect to his heiress-cousin. She
would make a difference of ten years--but that was all; and besides
being a young man determined to get on in the world, he was a young man
who gave himself credit for fine feelings, and independence of mind, and
generosity of sentiment. He could not, at this early stage of his
existence, have come to a mercenary decision, and made up his mind to
marry for money. He did not see any necessity for it; he felt quite able
to encounter fate in his own person; therefore, though he did not refuse
to acknowledge that it would be a very good thing to marry an heiress,
and very pleasant if the woman with whom he fell in love should belong
to that class, he had not proposed to himself the idea either of trying
to fall in love with Lucy or attempting to secure her affections to
himself. The idea of her hovered before his mind as a possibility--but
there were many other possibilities hovering before Philip, and some
more enticing, more attractive, than any heiress. Therefore he did not
spoil his own prospects by perpetual visits, or by paying her anything
that could be called “attention” in the phraseology of the drawing-room.
His relations with her were no more than cousinly; he was very “nice;”
but then he was even more “nice” to little Jock, who was not his
relation at all, than to Lucy. It was part of his admirable character
that he was fond of children, and always good to them, so that no
suspicion could possibly attach to the very moderate amount of
intercourse which was conducted on so reasonable a footing. But the more
it was reasonable, the more it was cousinly, the more did old Trevor
dislike his child’s relation; he had not the slightest ground for
fault-finding, therefore his secret wrath was nursed in secret, and grew
and increased. It was all he could do to receive Philip with civility
when he came. He came in after dinner in a costume carefully adapted to
please, or at least to disarm all objections, a compromise between
morning and evening dress; he made judicious inquiries after the old
man’s health, not too much, as if there was anything special in his
solicitude, but as much as mingled politeness and family affection
required.
“I hope you are standing the cold pretty well, sir,” he said; “spring is
always so trying. I can bear the winter better myself; at all events,
one does not expect anything better in December, and one makes up one’s
mind to it.”
“At your age,” said old Trevor, “it was all the same to me, December or
July; I liked the one as much as the other. But I think we might find
something better to talk of than the weather; every idiot does that.”
“That is true,” said the young man, “it is always the first topic among
English people. With our uncertain climate--”
“I never was out, of England, for my part,” the old man interrupted him
sharply. “English climate is the only climate I know anything about. I
don’t pretend to be superior to it, like you folks that talk of Italy
and so forth. What have I got to do with Italy? It may be warmer, but
warm weather never agreed with me.”
“I have never been out of England, either,” said the young man, with
that persistence in the soft word that turns away wrath, which is of all
things in the world the most provoking to irritable people; and then he
changed the subject gently, but not to his own advantage. “I thought you
would like to hear, uncle, how well everything is going on in Kent’s
Lane. I am thinking of an assistant, the boys are getting beyond my
management; indeed, if things go on as they are doing, I shall soon have
enough to do managing, without teaching at all. I have heard of a very
nice fellow, a University man. Don’t you think that, on the whole, would
be an advantage? people think so much more nowadays--for the mere
teaching, you know, only for the teaching--of a man with a degree.”
“A man with a fiddlestick!” said old Trevor. “The question is, are you
going into competition with Eton and Harrow, Mr. Philip Rainy, or are
you the master of a commercial academy, that’s the question. The man
that founded that establishment hadn’t got a degree, no, nor would have
accepted one if they had gone on their knees to him. He knew his place,
and the sort of thing that was expected from him. Oh, surely, get your
man with a degree! or go and buy a degree for yourself (it’s a matter of
fees more than anything else, I have always heard), and starve when you
have got it. But I’d like you to hand over Kent’s Lane first to
somebody that will carry it on as it used to be.”
“I beg your pardon with all my heart, uncle,” cried the young man. “I
have not the least intention of abandoning Kent’s Lane. It’s my
sheet-anchor, all I have in the world; and I would not alter the
character you stamped upon it for any inducement. The only thing is,
that so much more attention is paid to the classics nowadays--”
“Curse nowadays, sir!” cried old Trevor, his countenance glowing with
anger. Then he pulled himself up, and recollected that such language was
far from becoming to his age and dignity, not to speak of his Christian
principles. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he added, in a subdued tone;
“I don’t want to curse anything. Still I don’t know what the times are
coming to with all these absurd novelties. The classics” (he had been
boasting of his Latin an hour before) “for a set of shop-keepers’ sons
that want to know how to add up their fathers’ books! It’s folly and
nonsense, that’s what it is. Even if you could do it, what’s the
advantage of snipping all classes out on the same pattern? It’s a great
deal better to have a little difference. Women, too--you’d clip them all
out like images in paper, the same shape as men. It’s a pity,” he added,
grimly, “that your classics and your degrees don’t do more for those
that have got them. Many an M. A. I’ve seen in my time tacked to the
names of the biggest fools I’ve ever known.”
“Still it is not necessary to be a big fool, sir, because you are an M.
A.,” said Philip, always mildly, but with a sigh. “It is a great
advantage to a man; I wish I had it. I know what you will say, better
men than I have not had it; but just because I am not a better man--”
For the first time old Trevor broke into his habitual chuckle.
“Give him some tea, Lucy,” he said. “I suppose you’re one of the
fashionable kind, and have your dinner when I used to have my supper.
That’s not the way to thrive, my lad.”
“What does it matter whether you call it dinner or supper, sir?” said
Philip; “and, pardon me, don’t you do the same?”
“It makes a deal of difference,” said the old man. “Parents like to hear
that you have your tea at six o’clock, and your supper at nine, like
themselves. They don’t like you to give yourself airs, as if you were
better than they are. You’re a clever fellow, Philip Rainy, and you
think you are getting on like a house on fire. But you’re a fool all the
same.”
“Papa, I wish you would not be so uncivil,” said Lucy, who had yet taken
no part in their talk.
“I tell you he’s a fool all the same. I kept Kent’s Lane a-going for
thirty years, and I ought to know. I’ve taught the best men in the town.
Oxford fellows, and Cambridge fellows, and all sorts, have come to me
for their mathematics, though I never had a degree; and I eat my dinner
at two, and my tea at six as regular as clock-work all the time. That’s
the way to do, if you mean to keep it up all your life, and lay by a
little money, and leave the place to your son after you. If Jock had
been older that’s what I should have made him do; that is the way to
succeed in Kent’s Lane.”
There was a little pause after this, for Philip was a little angry too,
and had not command for the moment of that soft word of which he made so
determined a use; and at the same time he was resolved not to quarrel
with Lucy’s father. He said, after a while, in as easy a tone as he
could assume:
“I wish you would let me have Jock. He is old enough for school now, and
whatever you want to do with him I could always begin his education; of
course, you will give him every advantage--”
“I will give him as good as I had myself, Philip, and as you had. Do you
think I am going to take Lucy’s money for that child? Not a penny! He
shall be bred up according to his own rank in life; and by the time he’s
a man, you’ll have grown too grand for the old place, and you can hand
it over to him.”
Philip opened his eyes in spite of himself.
“Then Lucy will be a great lady,” he said, half laughing, “and her
brother a little school-master in Kent’s Lane.”
Lucy, who was standing behind her father at the moment, began to make
the most energetic signs of dissent. She made her mouth into a puckered
circle of inarticulate “No-os,” and shook her head with vehement
contradiction. Just below, and all unconscious of this pantomime, the
old man grinned upon his visitor, delighted with the opportunity at once
of declaring his intentions, and of inflicting a salutary snub.
“That is exactly what I intend,” he said, “you have hit it. Even if it
hadn’t been just, it would have been a fine thing to do as an example;
but it is _just_ as well. Is a fine lady any better than a poor
school-master? Not a bit! Each one in the rank of life that is
appointed, and one as good as another; that’s always been my principle.
I wouldn’t have stepped out of my rank of life, or the habits of my rank
of life, not if you had given me thousands for it; not, I promise you,”
cried old Trevor, with a snarl, “for the sake of being asked to dinner
here and there, as some folks are; but being in my own rank of life I
thought myself as good as the king; and that’s why Lucy shall be a great
lady, and her brother a little school-master, whether or not he’s in
Kent’s Lane.”
“But he shall not be so, papa, if I can help it,” Lucy said.
“You won’t be able to help it, my pet,” said her father, relapsing Into
a chuckle, “not you, nor any one else; that’s one thing of which I can
make sure.”
The two young people looked at each other over his old head. They made
no telegraphic signs this time. Philip was for the moment overawed by
the old man’s determination, while Lucy, the most dutiful of daughters,
was mute, in a womanly confidence of somehow or other finding a way to
balk him. She had not in the least realized how life was to be bound and
limited by the imperious will of the father who grudged her nothing. But
Lucy accepted it all quite tranquilly, whatever it might be--except
this. When she went with her cousin to the door, she confided to him the
one exception to her purposes of obedience.
“Papa does not think what he is saying; I never believe him when he
talks like that. I to be rich and Jock poor! He only says it for fun,
Philip, don’t you think?”
“It does not look much like fun,” Philip said, with a rueful shake of
his head.
“Well! but old people--old people are very strange; they think a thing
is a joke that does not seem to us at all like a joke. I will do all
that papa wishes, but not about Jock.”
“And I hope you won’t let him persuade you to think,” said Philip,
lingering with her hand in his to say good-night, “that I am neglecting
my work, or giving myself airs, or--”
“Oh, that is only his fun,” said Lucy, nodding her head to him with a
pleasant smile as he went out into the night.
She was not pretty, he thought, as he walked away, but her face was very
soft and round and pleasant; her blue eyes very steady and peaceful,
with a calmness in them, which, in its way, represented power. Philip,
who was, though so steady, somewhat excitable, and apt to be fretted and
worried, felt that the repose in her was consolatory and soothing. She
would be good to come home to after a man had been baited and bullied in
the world. He had thought her an insignificant little girl, but to-night
he was not so sure that she was insignificant, and Philip did not know
anything, at all about the will and its iron rod.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WHITE HOUSE.
The life of Lucy Trevor, at this period, was divided between two worlds,
very dissimilar in constitution. The odd household over which her
father’s will and pleasure was paramount, though exercised through the
medium of Mrs. Ford, and in which so many out-of-the-way subjects were
continually being discussed, all with some personal reference to the old
man and his experiences and crotchety principles of action, occupied one
part of her time and thoughts: but the rest of her belonged to another
sphere--to the orderly circle of studies and amusements of which the
central figure was Mrs. Stone, and the scene the White House, a large
irregular low building on the edge of the common, which was within sight
of Mr. Trevor’s windows in the Terrace, and had appeared, through all
the mist and fog of those wintery days, with a kind of halo round its
whiteness like that of a rainy and melancholy old moon, tumbled from its
high place to the low levels of a damp and flat country. Mrs. Stone’s
was known far and wide as the best school for a hundred miles round, the
best as far as education was concerned, and also the most exclusive and
aristocratic. Lucy Trevor was the only girl in Farafield who was
received as a day-pupil. Efforts had been made by people of the highest
local standing to procure the admission of other girls of well-known
families in the town, but in vain. And why Mrs. Stone had taken Lucy,
who was nobody, who was only old John Trevor’s daughter, was a mystery
to her best friends. She had offended a great many of the townspeople,
but she had flattered the local aristocracy, the county people, by her
exclusiveness; and she offended both by the sudden relaxation of her
rule on behalf of Lucy. The rector’s daughter would have been a thousand
times more eligible, or even Emmy Rushton, whose mother had knocked at
those jealous doors in vain for years together; and why should she have
taken Lucy Trevor, old John’s daughter, who was nobody, who had not the
faintest pretension to gentility? Lady Langton drove in, as a kind of
lofty deputation and representative of the other parents who had
daughters at Mrs. Stone’s school, to remonstrate with her, and procure
the expulsion of the intruder; but Mrs. Stone was equal to the occasion.
She did not hesitate to say to the countess, “Your ladyship is at
liberty to remove Lady Maud whenever you please. I dispense with the
three months’ notice.”
It was this speech which established Mrs. Stone’s position far more than
her excellence in professional ways. A woman who dared to look a
countess in the face, and make such a suggestion, was too wonderful a
person to be contemplated save with respect and awe. Lady Langton
herself withdrew, abashed and confounded, protesting that to take Maud a
way was the last idea in her mind. And Mrs. Stone’s empire was thus
established. The incident made a great impression on the county
generally; and it nearly threw into a nervous fever the other mistress,
conjointly with Mrs. Stone, of the White House, her sister Miss
Southwood, called, as a matter of course, Southernwood by the girls, who
stood by aghast, and heard her say, “I dispense with the three months’
notice:” and expected nothing less than that the sky should fall, and
the walls crumble in round them. Miss Southwood liked to think afterward
that it was her own deprecating glances, her look of horror and dismay,
and, above all, the cup of exquisite tea which she offered Lady Langton
as she waited for her carriage, which put everything straight; but all
her civilities would never have established that moral ascendency which
her sister’s uncompromising defiance secured.
Miss Southwood was the elder of the two. She was forty-five or
thereabouts, and she was old-fashioned. Whether it was by calculation,
to make a claim of originality for herself, such as it was, or simply
because she thought that style becoming to her, nobody knew; but she
dressed in the fashions which had been current in her youth, and never
changed. She wore her hair in a knot fastened by a high comb behind, and
with little ringlets drooping on either cheek; and amid the long and
sweeping garments of the present era, wore a full plain skirt which did
not touch the ground, and _gigot_ sleeves. In this dress she went about
the house softly and briskly, without the whistling and rustling of
people in long trains. She was a very mild person in comparison with her
high-spirited and despotic sister; but yet was gifted with a gentle
obstinacy, and seldom permitted any argument to beguile her from her own
way. She had, nominally, the same power in the house as Mrs. Stone, and
it was partly her money which was put in peril by her sister’s audacity;
but the elder had always been faithful to the younger, and though she
might grumble, never failed to make common cause with her, even in her
most heroic measures. As for Lucy Trevor, though she shook her head, she
submitted, feeling that to suffer on behalf of an heiress was a pain
from which the worst sting was taken out; for it was not to be supposed
that a girl so rich could allow her school-mistress to come to harm on
her account. Mrs. Stone was far more imposing in appearance. She was
full five years younger, and she was not old-fashioned. She was tall,
with a commanding figure, and her dresses were handsome as herself, made
by an _artiste_ in town, not by the bungling hands of the trade in
Farafield, of rich texture and the most fashionable cut. She was a woman
of speculative and theoretical mind, believing strongly in “influence,”
and very anxious to exercise it when an opportunity occurred. She had
her ideas, as Mr. Trevor had, of what might be made of an heiress; and
it seemed to Mrs. Stone that there was no class in the world upon which
“influence” might tell more, or be more beneficially exercised. Her
ideas on this subject laid her open to various injurious suppositions.
Thus, when she took Lady Maud Langton into her bosom, as it were--moved
by a brilliant hope of influence to be exercised on society itself by
means of a very pretty and popular young woman of fashion--vulgar
by-standers accused Mrs. Stone of tuft-hunting, and of paying special
honor to the girl who was the daughter of an earl out of mere love of a
title, an altogether unworthy representation of her real motive. And her
sudden stand on behalf of Lucy took the world by surprise. They could
not fathom her meaning; that she should have defied the countess, whom
up to this time she had been supposed to worship with a servile
adulation, on account of a little bit of a girl of no particular
importance, was incomprehensible. It was known in Farafield that Lucy
had a fortune, but it was not known how great that fortune was, and
after much groping among the motives possible to Mrs. Stone in the
circumstances, the country-town gossips had come to the conclusion that
she aspired to a marriage with old John Trevor, and an appropriation to
herself of all his wealth. This supplied a sufficient reason even for a
breach with the countess. To be asked to Langdale, which was the finest
thing that could happen to her in connection with Lady Maud, was, though
gratifying, not to be compared with the possibility of marrying a rich
man in her own person, and becoming one of the chief ladies of
Farafield. This was how it was accounted for by that chorus of
spectators who call themselves society, and Miss Southwood herself
entertained, against her will, the same opinion. This suggestion seemed
to make everything clear.
A few days after that on which Mr. Trevor read to Ford the last
paragraph which he had added to his will, Lucy tapped at the door of
Mrs. Stone’s private parlor with her father’s message. The ladies were
seated together in their private sanctuary, resting from their labors.
It was a seclusion never invaded by the pupils except on account of some
important commission from a parent, or to ask advice, or by order of its
sovereigns. Lucy came in with the little old-fashioned courtesy which
Mrs. Stone insisted upon, and made her request.
“If you would come to tea to-morrow night. Papa is very sorry, but he
bids me say he thinks you know that he can not come to you.”
“How is Mr. Trevor, Lucy?”
Miss Southwood, who was looking at her sister anxiously, thought she
asked this question by way of gaining time. Could he have sent for her
in order to propose to her, the anxious sister thought. What a very
curious way of proceeding! But a rich old man, with one foot in the
grave, could not be expected to act like other men.
“He is--just as he always is; very busy, always writing; but he can not
go out, and if you would be so kind--”
“Oh, yes, I will be so kind,” said Mrs. Stone, with a smile; “it is not
the first time, Lucy. Is he going to complain of you, or to tell me of
something he wants for you?”
“I think,” said Lucy, “it is about the will.”
“Dear me!” Miss Southwood cried. “What can you have to do, Maria, with
Mr. Trevor’s will?”
Mrs. Stone smiled again.
“He goes on with it, then, as much as ever?” she said.
“Oh, yes, almost more than ever; it gives him a great deal of
occupation,” said Lucy, with a grave face. There were some things that
she had it in her heart to say on this subject; she looked at the
school-mistress anxiously, not knowing if she might trust her, and then
was silent, fearing to open her mind to any one on the subject of Jock.
“Poor child! he is putting a great burden upon you at your age; the
management of a fortune is too much for a girl; but, Lucy, you will
always know where to find advice and help so far as I can give it. You
must never hesitate to come to me, whatever happens,” Mrs. Stone said.
“Thank you,” said Lucy, in her tranquil way. She had read something in
the school-mistress’s face, she could not have told what, which sealed
her lips in respect to Jock.
“Dear me!” cried Miss Southwood again, “you are both very mysterious; I
should think nothing was easier than to manage a fortune. It is when
one has no fortune that life is difficult to manage,” she said, with a
sigh.
“The wonder is,” said Mrs. Stone, calmly ignoring her sister’s
interruption, “that your father does not carry out some of his own
views, Lucy, instead of leaving everything to you. It would be in your
favor if he would take a larger house, and get together an establishment
more befitting your prospects; I think I shall suggest this to him. He
has always been very civil in listening to my suggestions. A proper
establishment, all set in order in his life-time, would be a great
matter for you.”
“But, Maria, Maria!” cried Miss Southwood, “think, for Heaven’s sake,
what you are doing; think what people will say. That _you_ should
suggest such a thing would never do.”
Mrs. Stone turned round and looked at her with scathing indifference.
“What do people say?” she asked, and went on without waiting for an
answer. “You ought to be living as becomes your future position,” she
said; “the associations you will form at present, and the habits you are
acquiring, can not be good for you. Thank Heaven you are here, my dear
child, in a place which, however homely, is intended as a place of
training for girls who have to occupy high positions.”
“I don’t think it will matter for me,” said Lucy; “I shall never be a
great lady, I shall only be rich. No one will expect so very much from
me.”
“They will expect a great deal, and I hope my pupil will do me credit,”
said Mrs. Stone; and she rose up and kissed Lucy with a little
enthusiasm. “I agree with your father, I think there is a great deal in
you, Lucy; but I don’t agree with him as to the best means of bringing
it out. He thinks that you should be plunged into life all of a sudden,
and a great call made upon you; but I believe in education; we shall
soon see who is right.”
“Oh, I hope not,” cried Lucy, “I hope not; for before you can know
anything about it papa will have to be--”
“Not if he takes my way, Lucy; he ought to take Holmwood, that pretty
house near Sir Thomas Randolph’s, and give you a beginning; and I think
he ought to do some of the things in his will which he is talking of
leaving upon you; I will speak to him to-morrow night. Yes; you can say
I will come; but do not think too much of these serious matters; go and
amuse yourself with your companions, my dear.”
“Maria,” said Miss Southwood, when the door closed, “you think yourself
a great deal wiser than I am, but you must hear what I have to say. If
you go and advise that old man to take Holmwood and set up an
establishment, there will be but one thing that anybody can think. If
you care anything for the opinion of the world, or for my opinion, for
Heaven’s sake don’t do it, don’t do it! a woman in your position has
need to be so careful. Of course, it stands to reason _that_ is what
everybody will think.”
“_What_ is what everybody--? Your style in conversation is very
careless,” said Mrs. Stone, with great indifference. But her counselor
would not be put down.
“I will tell you exactly what will be thought,” she said, solemnly.
“What is the common talk already? that you mean to marry that old man.
Why did you take up the girl, risking your whole connection--you that
have always been so exclusive--a girl of no family at all! You must have
had a motive--no one ever acts without a motive; and perhaps if he is
very rich, and you could be sure of carrying it out--But how do we know
that he is really very rich? and most likely you will not be able to
carry it out; and at your age to risk your reputation--oh, I don’t mean
in any _wrong_ way--but to risk your character for sense and good taste,
and all that! Consider for one moment, consider, Maria, what the
‘parents’ would say, what the parents would have a right to say!”
“If you think that I am to be kept in order by a threat of what
‘parents’ will think!” said Mrs. Stone. “Do you suppose I will ever give
in to parents? Why, it would be our destruction. But make your mind
easy, I don’t mean to marry old Trevor, and he does not mean to ask me.
Listen! you don’t know what you are talking about. That girl whom you
think nothing of, that girl you are always taunting me about--and she is
a very nice girl, as simple as a daisy and as true--Listen, Ellen! she
will be the greatest heiress in England one of these days.”
Miss Southwood stood and listened with all her soul, her eyes and her
mouth opening wider and wider, her imagination set suddenly on fire, for
she had an imagination, and that of a most practical kind. The greatness
of Lucy’s fortune had never been so plainly set before her. She was so
much taken by surprise that she spoke with a gasp, as if all her breath
and energy were thrown into the question.
“And what do you mean to do?”
“I mean to manage her, if I can, for her own good, and for the good of
her fellow-creatures,” cried Mrs. Stone, excited too. “Power, that is
what I have always wanted. I know I can use it well, and Lucy is a good
girl, good to the bottom of her heart. She will want to do good with her
money; and money, money is power.”
Miss Southwood listened, but she did not share her sister’s enthusiasm.
Her countenance fell into shades of disapproval and impatience. She
shook her head.
“You were always so high-flown,” she said. “I never saw anything come of
these heiresses. Manage her! you ought to know by this time girls are
not such easy things to manage. But there is a much better thing you can
do--marry her! and that will be good for her and us.”
Mrs. Stone looked at her sister with a smile which was somewhat
supercilious.
“That is, of course, your first idea; and how, if I may ask, would such
an expedient be good for us? if I thought of good for us--which is a
thing that never entered my thoughts--”
“Because you have no family affection, Maria. I have always said it of
you. You think of the girl more than of your own relations. How is it
possible,” asked Miss Southwood, severely, “that you could have any hand
in the disposal of an heiress and not think of Frank?”
CHAPTER VIII.
EXPLANATIONS.
Lucy went home a little impressed by what Mrs. Stone had said. It had
never occurred to her before to think of anything but her father’s will
and pleasure in the matter, or to suppose that she had anything to do
but to acquiesce in his arrangements; but when the idea was put into her
head, it commended itself to her reasonable mind. If he were, at least,
to begin to do some of the things which he had by his will commanded her
to do, what an ease and comfort it would be! and she could not but think
that it would be a relief to himself, as well as for her, could he be
made, as Mrs. Stone suggested, to see it in this way. In the first
place, it would obviate on his part all necessity for dying, which, at
present, was the initial requirement, the one thing needful, before any
of his regulations could be carried out. Why should he die? She could
not but perceive, as she thought over the whole subject dispassionately,
according to her nature, that from his own point of view it would be a
mistake if his life were prolonged. The whole scheme was based upon his
death. So long as he did not die it was a mere imagination. And why
should this be? far better to get over this fundamental necessity by
changing the construction of his plan altogether, and begin to carry out
his wishes himself. When they were sitting together in the afternoon,
which was wet and dull, the idea took a stronger hold upon her, and it
was when Mr. Trevor was actually writing down something new that had
occurred to him, that her thoughts came the length of speech. She looked
up from her knitting, and he stopped, with the pen in his hand, and,
looking round upon her, listened with a smile to what Lucy might have to
say.
“Why should you take all this trouble, papa?” she said, suddenly. “I
have been thinking; and this is what I feel sure of, that it should all
be altered. You are not ill, or likely to die. Instead of writing out
all these orders for me, would it not be much better if you would put
that paper aside and do the things you have put into it yourself?”
He looked at her over the top of his spectacles with an air of
consternation.
“Do the things myself! what things?” he said, then paused and pushed his
spectacles up on his forehead, and gazed at her almost fiercely with his
small keen eyes. “That paper!” he repeated; “do you mean the will, my
will, Lucy?” The tone in which he spoke was as if it had been the
British Constitution which Lucy proposed to set aside.
“Yes,” she said. “You see, papa, I shall be very young, I shall not have
very much sense.”
“You have a great deal of sense, Lucy,” he said, mollified, “far more
than most girls. Providence has made you for the work you have got to
do.”
“But, papa,” she said, “I shall be very young; it will be very hard upon
me to decide what is to be done with all that money, and to give and not
to give. It will be very hard. How should I know which are the right
people? I should either want to give to everybody or to nobody. I should
throw it away, or I should be too frightened to make any use of it at
all.”
“That will be impossible,” said old Trevor, with a nod of satisfaction;
“I have taken precautions about that.”
“Then I should give foolishly, papa.”
“Very likely, my dear, very likely; every one has to pay for his own
experience. It is a very dear commodity, Lucy; I can’t give you mine,
you must get it for yourself, and it has always, always to be paid for.
There is no question about that.”
“But, papa, would it not be a great deal better--you who have this
experience, who have paid for it and got it--instead of living quietly
here as if you were nobody, to do it all yourself?”
The old man laughed.
“There you have hit it, Lucy,” he said, “there you have hit it, my dear.
I live quietly, as if I were nobody--and I am nobody--that is exactly
the state of affairs.”
“But,” she cried, with great surprise and indignation, “if you mean
nobody in family, then neither am I, but the money, the money is all
yours to do with it whatever you please.”
Once more he laughed, and chuckled, and lost his breath, and coughed
before he could recover it again; and whether it was the laughing, or
the coughing, or something else, Lucy could not tell, but the water
stood in his eyes.
“You are mistaken, Lucy, you are mistaken,” he said. “You must
understand the truth, my dear; neither am I any one to speak of, nor is
the money mine. I have made a little in my life--oh, very little--a poor
school-master’s earnings--what are they, nothing to make a fuss about.
I’ve put my little savings away for Jock, you know that. A few thousand
pounds, just as much as will give him a start in the world, if it is
well taken care of.”
“Papa, you ought to give Jock the half,” said Lucy reproachfully; “it is
not fair that he should have nothing, and that all should come to me.”
“Listen to her!” said the old man; “first telling me to spend it myself,
and then to give half to the boy. Nothing of the sort, Lucy; I know what
justice is, and I mean to do it. Do you think I could take poor
Lucilla’s money to make that brat a gentleman? Why, it’s a kind of
insult to her, poor thing, that he’s there at all. I don’t say a word
against his mother, Lucy, but I always felt I never ought to have
married her. I was not like a young man, I was middle-aged even before I
married poor Lucilla, and I had no business to have the other; it was a
mistake, it was an affront to your poor mother. People say that you show
how happy you’ve been with the first when you get a second, but I don’t
go in with that. When I think of facing these two women and not knowing
which I belong to, I--I don’t like it, Lucy. Lucilla was always very
considerate, and made great allowances, but there are things a woman
can’t be expected to put up with, and I don’t like the thought.”
The humor and half-ludicrous pathos of this explanation, which was made
between a laugh and a sob, was lost upon Lucy, who was altogether taken
by surprise, and whose sense of humor was but little developed. She
gazed at him with her eyes a little more widely opened than usual, not
knowing what to say. Had she been a more experienced person, no doubt
she would have consoled him with the reflection that husbands and wives,
as we are told, do not stand exactly on the same footing in the next
world. But she did not feel capable of saying anything in opposition to
this matter-of-fact compunction; it has much in it which commends itself
to the unsophisticated. She only gazed at her father, seeing
difficulties in the way of his exit from the world which she had never
thought of before.
“But that is neither here nor there,” he said, with his usual chuckle
much subdued. “It is only to explain to you why I won’t give anything
but my own savings to Jock. I have often told you so before, but now you
know the reason why.”
Lucy was silent for a time, pondering over all this then she said, in
the same serious tone. “But papa, I don’t see that what you have said is
any answer to my question. I want to know why you should live here so
quietly and save, and leave everything to me to do, when it would be so
much better to do it yourself.”
“Some one has put this into your head.”
“No; only something set me thinking--why shouldn’t you, papa, take a
great house instead of this; and have carriages and servants, and do all
these things--giving and endowing, and building and setting up--that you
want me to do--”
The old man laughed with less complication of sentiment than before. “I
should make a fine country gentleman,” he said, “to sit down and hob and
nob with the Earl and Lord Barrington, and Sir John and Sir Thomas. What
should I do with grand carriages, that never go outside these four
walls, or with men-servants, when I can’t bear the sight of ’em? No, no!
and I shouldn’t like it, neither. I can put it all down on paper for
you; but I shouldn’t like to do it myself. I like to stick to the money,
Lucy. I like to lay it up, and see it grow--that’s my pleasure in life.
It makes me happy when the stocks go up. Interest and compound interest,
that’s what pleases me.”
“But, papa,” said Lucy, astonished, “_that_ is all quite different;” she
nodded her head toward the will always lying in the blotting-case within
reach of his hand. “There it is all spending and giving; over and over
again you say there is to be no hoarding up, no putting by.”
“Ah!” said old Trevor, rubbing his hands with enjoyment, “that is for
you; that is a different thing altogether. When I’ve had my own way all
my life, down to the last moment, why, then you shall have yours.”
“How can you call it mine?” she said. “I don’t think I want to have my
own way--except in some things. I am very willing to do what you tell
me, papa; but it will not be my will--it will be your will. Why, then,
shouldn’t you do it yourself, and have the pleasure of it, and not leave
it to me?”
“The pleasure of it!” he said. And then paused and cleared his voice,
and drew his chair nearer to hers. “Look here, Lucy,” he said, “you have
heard something about your mother--not very much; but still you have
heard something. She was a good woman, a very good woman. She was not of
my kind. In the way of money, she let me manage--she never interfered.
But still she was not of my kind. She was a woman that had little but
trouble in this world, Lucy. She was what people call an old maid when
we married. We were both old maids for that matter,” he added, with his
usual chuckle, “and she had always had a hard life. She the old maid of
the family; when anything was wrong, she was the one that was sent for.
She was the one that nursed them all when they were ill. Father and
mother--she closed both their eyes. She never had time to think what was
going to become of her. When she came back to Farafield to live with
poor Robert, nobody knew he was rich. It was the old story over again.
She thought she was coming only to nurse him, and slave for him till he
died. Your mother was a good woman--a very good woman, Lucy--”
His voice was a little thick, and the tears sprung into Lucy’s eyes.
“Oh, thank you, papa; thank you for telling me!” she said.
“That she was,” he went on after a little pause, “the best of women. And
after we were married she had just as hard a life as ever. She was never
well; and all your little brothers and sisters came--and went again.
That’s very hard upon a woman, Lucy. A baby--who cares much about a
baby? it does not seem anything to make a fuss about. There’s too many
of them in the world; but to have them, and to lose them, is terrible
work for a woman. We didn’t know about the money at first; and what’s
money when things are going to the bad in that way? She never got what
you may call the good of it. She was one of your giving people. Her hand
was never out of her pocket as long as she had a penny in it: but she
never rightly got the good of her money. In the first place, we didn’t
know about it; and in the second place, why, you know there was me.”
“You?” Lucy looked at him with a question in her eyes.
“Yes,” said old Trevor, with a comical look of half real, half simulated
penitence. “I wanted to tell you all this some time, to show you your
duty--there was me, Lucy, I told you I was fond of money; and more still
when I wasn’t used to it. I clutched it all, and wanted more; and she
left it all to me, poor dear. She never even knew how much it was--she
let me do whatever I pleased. I didn’t even always let her have what she
wanted for her poor folks, Lucy,” he added ruefully, shaking his head;
but there was something about the corner of his mouth which was not
repentance. “I was a beast to her--that’s just what I was; but, poor
thing, she never knew--She thought to the last we couldn’t afford any
more. She left all the money matters to me.”
“She ought to have had her money for the poor, papa.”
“Yes, indeed; don’t I say so?” a half chuckle of triumph in his own
successful craftiness mingled with the subdued tone appropriate to this
confession. “And since she’s been dead,” he added, with a touch of
complacency, “I’ve behaved badly by poor Lucilla. I acknowledge that I
have behaved badly; and that is just why I am determined she shall have
her revenge--”
“Her revenge!” Lucy looked at him aghast.
“Yes, her revenge; you, Lucy, a girl that shall be brought up a lady,
that shall have everything of the best; that shall do as she pleases,
and give with both hands. Ah, Lucilla, poor thing, would have liked
that; she would have ruined me with giving,” he cried with a momentary
tone of complaint; “but you, Lucy, you won’t be able to ruin yourself.
You will always have plenty, you will be able to cut and come again as
people say. Isn’t that what I have bred you up for since you were a
baby? No, no, it isn’t I that could do it (and I wouldn’t if I could),
nor Jock that shall have a penny. It is you that shall be the greatest
heiress in England, and do the most for the poor, as Lucilla would have
done. Please God she shall have her revenge.”
These strange words, which, though they were mixed with so quaint an
admixture of comic self-consciousness, had yet passion in them, an and
odd kind of idealism and romance, passed over the placid head of Lucy
without exciting any feeling but surprise. She was very much astonished.
It was impossible to her to understand the vehemence of feeling,
generous in its way, though checkered with so much that was not
generous, in her father’s tone, and was totally at a loss how to reply.
They were alone, and when they were alone the conversation almost always
turned on the will, which was not an enlivening subject to Lucy.
Certainly the diversion she had made of their mutual thoughts from their
ordinary channel had been more amusing; but it had been perplexing too.
A little tea-table was set out in the middle of the room, the “massive”
silver tea-service which had been one of the few gratifications got by
Lucy’s mother out of her fortune shining upon it, in full display for
the benefit of Mrs. Stone, who was expected. Mr. Trevor was in a
garrulous mood; he had prepared himself to talk while he waited for his
visitor, and Lucy’s questions had been all that were wanted to loosen
the flood-gates. While she sat opposite to him, wondering, pondering,
occasionally looking up at him over her knitting, taking into her mind
as best she could the information she had got, but not knowing what to
say, he proceeded as if unable to stop himself, with a little gesture of
excitement, his hand sawing the air.
“No, she never had much comfort in her life--hard work, sick-nursing and
trouble, one dying after another--poor Lucilla; but all she didn’t have
her girl shall have. She was a governess one while. Always be kind to
governesses, Lucy, wherever you see them. Your mother was a real good
woman. She would have honored any station; she had the most unbounded
confidence in me; she never asked a word of explanation.”
“Papa,” said Lucy, glad, in the disturbance of her mind, for any
interruption, “I think I hear Mrs. Stone.”
“Then go down and meet her,” said old Trevor, but he went on with his
recapitulation of his wife’s virtues. “Never asked a question, was
always satisfied whatever I said to her--”
Lucy heard his voice as she went down-stairs. She was still wondering,
not knowing what to make of it, but self-possessed in that calm of youth
which nothing disturbs. It was odd that her father should speak so. He
had never been so confidential, or talked of himself so much before;
altogether it was strange, tempting her half to laugh, half to cry; but
that was all. She went down quite composedly to meet Mrs. Stone, who was
untying her white Shetland shawl from her head in the hall. Lucy saw
that Mrs. Ford was peeping from the parlor door at the visitor, with
something like a scowl upon her face. Mrs. Ford distrusted and feared
the school-mistress; she thought her capable of marrying old Trevor,
notwithstanding his years, and of dissipating Lucy’s fortune, and
perhaps raising up rivals to little Jock in his sister’s affections; for
Lucy’s affections were all he had to look to, Mrs. Ford was aware, and
she thought it was a wicked shame.
“I hope you are better than when I saw you last,” Mrs. Stone said,
casting a quick glance around her. She knew everything very well by
sight in Mr. Trevor’s not very comfortable room, the white silky mats,
the blue curtains, the little table groaning under that tea-service,
which was easy to see weighed as many ounces as a tea-service could be
made to weigh. How much more comfortable, she could not but think, the
rich old man might have been made; but then he did not know any better,
and Lucy did not know any better; they were used to it; they liked this
as well as the best. What a blessing for Lucy that as long as she was
young enough to be trained she had fallen into good hands! Mrs. Stone
took the big easy-chair which Lucy rolled forward to the other side of
the fire, and sat down after that greeting. She saw more clearly than
Lucy did the excitement in old Mr. Trevor’s eyes. What was it? An
additional glass of wine after dinner, Mrs. Stone thought, a very small
matter would be enough to upset an old man sedentary and crippled as old
Trevor was.
“Never was better in my life,” he said; “that is, I am getting old, and
my legs are not good for much, as you know, ma’am; but, thank God, I
have plenty to keep my mind occupied and interested, and that is the
great thing, that is the great thing--at my age.”
“Always thinking about Lucy,” Mrs. Stone said.
“Yes, always about Lucy. She is worth it, ma’am, a girl with her
prospects is something worth thinking about. She has all the world
before her, she has the ball at her foot.”
“Ah, Mr. Trevor, that is what we always think when we are young;
everything that is good is going to happen to us, and nothing that is
evil. We think we can choose for ourselves, and make our lives for
ourselves.”
“And so she shall,” said old Trevor, “ay, that she shall. I beg your
pardon, ma’am, but when I speak of Lucy it isn’t merely as a little bit
of a girl with her life before her. I think of the place she is to take,
and the power she will have in her hands.”
“You mean her fortune, Mr. Trevor. Dear child, give me a cup of tea. You
think it is not a bad thing to talk so much to her about her fortune?”
“No, ma’am,” said the old man; “on the contrary, the very best thing
possible. It would be too great a weight for any one not used to it. You
know it fills my mind night and day. I’ve got to prepare her for it, and
put all straight for her as far as I can. There is many a great person
that has not the weight on her shoulders that little thing will have,
and that is why I sent for you.”
“Asked me to come and take tea,” said Mrs. Stone, smiling.
“No sugar, my dear. Yes, no doubt we have to train her for her future
responsibilities. I do it by trying to make her a good girl, Mr. Trevor,
and I think I have succeeded,” the lady added, putting her hand
affectionately on the girl’s shoulder. Lucy, standing between the two,
with the cup of tea in one hand and a plateful of cake in the other,
looked as completely unexcited by all this talk about her, and as unlike
a personage of vast importance, as personages of importance often
contrive to do.
“She is a good girl by nature,” said her father somewhat sharply. “I
want to tell, ma’am, of a trust I have appointed you to in my will along
with others,” he added hastily--“along with others. I have arranged that
in case of Lucy’s marriage--”
“Had not you better step down-stairs a little, my dear, and just see
whether Jane is waiting in the hall?” Mrs. Stone said hurriedly.
“Perhaps Mrs. Ford would allow her, as it is so cold, to go
down-stairs.”
“You need not send her away,” said old Trevor grimly, “she knows all
about it. I don’t want her to be taken by surprise when I die. I want
her to know all that is in store for her.”
“But about her marriage, my dear Mr. Trevor; at seventeen these ideas
come too quickly of themselves.”
“I’ll tell you, ma’am, Lucy is not like common girls,” he said testily;
“when a woman’s in a great position, she has to learn many things that
otherwise might be kept from her. What had the queen to do, I would like
to know? Settle all her marriage herself, whatever any one might think.”
“Poor young lady! I used to hear my mother say that her heart bled for
her. But you don’t compare our Lucy with her majesty, Mr. Trevor! Dear
Lucy! though she were the richest girl in England, it would still be a
little different from the queen.”
“Madame,” said old Trevor solemnly, “so far as I am aware, she _will_ be
the richest girl in England, and, therefore, surrounded by dangers: so
I’ve devised a scheme for her safety, and I have put you on the
committee. If you will wait a moment till I have got my spectacles I
will read it all out to you here.”
Mrs. Stone was the third person to whom that wonderful paragraph had
been read. She listened with surprise, gradually rising into
consternation. When she saw, with the corner of her eye, Lucy coming
softly from behind the shelter of the screen, she made an imperative
gesture, without looking round, to send her away. The girl obeyed with a
smile. Why should she be sent away? she had already heard it all.
She went outside and sat down on the stair to wait. The draught that
swept up the well of the staircase did not affect Lucy; her blood,
though it flowed so tranquilly through her veins, was young and kept her
warm. She had given up easily the attempt she had made to influence her
father, and now she half laughed to herself at the fuss they all made
about herself. What were they making such a fuss about? The importance
her father attached to all her future proceedings was to Lucy just about
as sensible as Mrs. Stone’s precautions for preventing her hearing
something she knew perfectly; but she could afford to smile at both.
What did it matter? Lucy felt that everything would go on all the same,
that to-day would be as yesterday, and life quite a simple, easy
business, whatever they might say.
CHAPTER IX.
A GREAT TEMPTATION.
The important communication made to her by Mr. Trevor made a great
impression upon the mind of Mrs. Stone, but it was an impression of a
confusing kind, disturbing all her previous plans and thoughts. It had
been her intention, ever since Lucy was placed in her care, to take a
decided part in the shaping of the girl’s life. Her imagination had been
roused by the situation altogether--a young creature, simple, pliable
and unformed, with no relations who had any real right to guide her, and
with a great fortune--what might not be made of such a charge! It was
not with any covetous inclination to employ her pupil’s wealth to her
own advantage that Mrs. Stone had determined by every means in her power
to acquire an influence over Lucy. She was much too high-minded, too
proud, for anything of the sort. No doubt there was an alloy, if not of
selfishness, at least of self-regard, in her higher motive, but the
worst she would have done would have been to carry out some pet projects
of her own by Lucy’s help, not to enrich herself. She thought, perhaps,
or rather, without thinking was aware, that her own importance would be
increased by her influence over the heiress; but nothing in the shape of
personal aggrandizement was present to her thoughts, even by inference.
Mr. Trevor’s communication, however, disturbed her mind in the most
uncomfortable way. When you are contemplating a vague influence of a
general kind to be gradually and with trouble acquired, it is
demoralizing to have a definite power suddenly thrust into your hands;
and it is hardly possible to refrain from exercising that power were it
but for the sake of the novelty and unexpected character of it, _en
attendant_ the larger influence to be acquired hereafter. As Mrs. Stone
sat in front of Mr. Trevor’s fire listening to him, with a ringing in
her ears of sudden excitement, holding her cup of tea in her hand, with
external calm, yet feeling every pulse flutter, there suddenly appeared
before her bewildered eyes, not written on the wall like Belshazzar’s
warning, but hanging in the air without any material support, like an
illuminated scroll, in big luminous letters, the name which her sister
had suggested; the name of Frank--F R A N K--but bigger, a great deal
bigger, than any capitals, dazzling her eyes with the glow in them. Her
first feeling was alarm and a kind of horror. It was all she could do to
restrain the outcry that rose to her lips. She started so that she
spilled her tea, which was hot, so that she started still more; but upon
this little accident she put the best face possible.
“It is nothing, my love, nothing,” she said, when Lucy hastened to her
rescue; “only a little awkwardness on my part, and my old black silk
won’t hurt.” She looked up with a smile in Lucy’s face, when lo! the
appearance sailed into the air over Lucy’s head, and hung there
magically, almost touching the girl’s fair hair. “How awkward I am,”
Mrs. Stone cried, looking quite pale and spilling more tea. She thought
it was something diabolical, a piece of witchcraft; but it can not be
supposed that it was an easy matter to drive it out of her thoughts. She
scarcely knew what happened afterward, till she had bidden the Trevors
good-night, and found herself in the muddy bit of road which led to the
White House, and got rid, in the darkness, of that startling legend. Was
it diabolical, or was it a suggestion from heaven? Perhaps it would have
been more near the mark if she had remembered that it was a suggestion
from Miss Southwood, which she had crushed with infinite scorn when it
was made; but Mrs. Stone did not, or would not, remember this. The night
was damp and foggy, and the lights of her own house appeared to her all
blurred and hazy, with prismatic halos round them, like so many sickly
moons, and the intermediate bit of road was fitfully lighted by the
lantern carried by her maid, which shone in the dark puddles and
glistening wet herbage. But Mrs. Stone was scarcely conscious where she
was, as she picked her way lightly from one bit of solid path to
another; her mind was so full that she might have been in Regent Street,
or on a Swiss mountain. Frank! was it a diabolical suggestion, or a
revelation from heaven?
All was quiet in the White House when its mistress got in. It was ten
o’clock, and the doves were in their nests, which, to be sure, is but an
ornamental way of saying that all the girls had gone to bed. The light
burned low in the hall, as it burned all night, for Miss Southwood
thought light was “a protection” to a lonely house; and the open door of
the drawing-room, in which it was the custom of the ladies to sit with
their pupils after tea, showed something of the disorderly look of a
room deserted for the night, notwithstanding the tidiness with which all
the little work-baskets were put out of the way. Besides that open door,
however, was another still shining with firelight and lamplight, where a
little supper-tray had just been placed on the table, and a pretty
silver cover and crystal decanter, not to speak of a delicate fragrance
of cooking, showed that the mistress of the house was pleasantly
provided for. No mystery was made of this little supper, which everybody
knew was Mrs. Stone’s favorite meal; but all the girls had a curiosity
about it, and the governesses felt themselves injured that they were not
privileged to share its delights. Mrs. Stone, however, stoutly defended
her privacy at this hour of repose. She sat down with a sigh of relief,
opposite to her sister, who presided at the little white-covered table.
“You are tired,” said Miss Southwood, sympathetically, “and that girl
has forgotten as usual to put the claret to fire. But this bird is very
well cooked, and the bread-crumbs are brown and crisp, just as you like
them. Why was it he sent for you? something quite trifling, I suppose. I
wonder how parents can reconcile themselves to the trouble they give.”
“It was not a trifle, it was about Lucy’s marriage,” said the other, “or
rather about preventing Lucy’s marriage, I think. I am to have a finger
in the pie.”
“_You!_ Old Mr. Trevor is very queer, I know; is he going to take up
that odious French system, and arrange it without any reference to the
girl? But surely, Maria, you would never countenance an iniquity like
that?”
“Iniquity! are you sure it is an iniquity? In some points of view I
approve of it greatly. Do you think I could not choose better husbands
for the girls than they will ever choose for themselves? How is a girl
to exercise any judgment in the matter? She takes the first man that
comes, perhaps, or the first fool she thinks nice-looking, and what is
there sacred in that?”
“I thought you were always the one to stand up for love,” said Miss
Southwood. “I never pretend to know anything about it myself.”
“Oh, when there is _love_,” said Mrs. Stone, “that is another thing. But
what do they know about love? It is fancy, it is not love; how should
they know?”
“I am sure _I_ can’t tell,” answered the unmarried sister, very
demurely, “don’t ask me to give any opinion; you are the one that ought
to know; and I have always heard you say, and understood you to
uphold--”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the other, impatiently; “when a thing has been
said once, one is held to it forever, in this unintelligent way. You
never consider how unlike one case is to another, or take the
circumstances into account. Besides, all I said referred to a sentiment
already formed. I would never tear two young people asunder that were
fond of each other, because one was rich and the other poor; that is a
thing I could never be guilty of. But this is a very different matter.
To take care that a girl like Lucy Trevor does not make a foolish
choice, or even,” said Mrs. Stone, with a certain solemnity and
deliberateness of utterance, “to direct her thoughts to some one
eminently suitable--”
Miss Southwood looked at her with eager eyes. After the manner in which
her suggestion had been received at their former interview, she did not
venture to repeat it; but she knew by experience that a suggestion is
sometimes very badly received to-day, and accepted, as a matter of
course, or even energetically acted upon, to-morrow; so she said
nothing, but with eager though concealed scrutiny watched her sister’s
looks. Finding, however, that Mrs. Stone said nothing more, but
pensively eat her chicken, she resumed, after awhile, her inquiries.
“I suppose Mr. Trevor has been consulting you,” she said, “and I am sure
it was the very best thing he could do. But, after all, Lucy is only
seventeen, poor little thing! and a good girl, with no nonsense about
her. Does he want to marry her off so young, the poor child?”
“I think,” said Mrs. Stone, reflectively, turning her chair to the fire,
“he does not want her to marry at all.”
“Oh!” cried Miss Southwood in dismay. She had not married herself, she
professed at once, when the subject was mentioned, her entire
incompetence to give any opinion; but the idea that a girl’s friends
should wish her _not_ to many filled her mind with amazement beyond
words. The _naïveté_ of her conviction on this point betrayed itself in
her unfeigned wonder. She could not believe it. “I suppose,” she said,
“that he wants to keep the money in the family; and that means that he
will marry her to her cousin, that young man, that Mr. Rainy.”
“Her cousin! you mean the certificated school-master, the Dissenter.”
“Oh, he is not a Dissenter; we met him at the rectory; he is a very
rising young man, and clever, and--”
“You may save yourself, the trouble of enumerating his good qualities. I
can’t tell how you know them; but Lucy shall never marry the
school-master. I will refuse my consent.”
“You will refuse your consent? and what will that matter?” Miss
Southwood said.
Mrs. Stone made no particular answer. She put her feet upon the
comfortable velvet cushion before the fire, and smiled. She did not care
to enter upon explanations, but she had made up her mind. The fire was
bright, the bird had been good, and her modest glass of claret was
excellent. She was altogether in a balmy humor, willing to enjoy the
many comforts of her life, and to feel benevolently toward her neighbor.
“I think you are right,” she said, “and perhaps I am prejudiced. He is a
rising young man. We have met him two or three times at the rectory, so
he can not be a Dissenter; but he is not a gentleman either. How should
he be, being one of those Rainys? I shouldn’t wonder if it was to keep
him out.”
“If what was to keep him out?”
“By the way,” said Mrs. Stone, “I have a letter to write. Don’t let me
keep you out of bed, Ellen. I am very much behind in family
correspondence. Have any of the St. Clairs ever been at the White House
since we came here? I can’t recollect.”
“Not one,” said Miss Southwood, with a beating heart. “Not one; and I
have often thought, Maria, considering all things, and that they have no
father, poor things, and are not very well off--and so nice, both
sisters and brothers--”
“One does not want so many arguments. Frank may come and pay us a visit
if he likes,” said Mrs. Stone, with much amiability. But it was not till
the morning, when she came down first, as she always did, and put the
letter, which had been left on Mrs. Stone’s private writing-table, ready
for the early post, in the letter-bag, that Miss Southwood had the
satisfaction of seeing that it was addressed to the favorite nephew,
whose name she had not ventured to pronounce for a second time. Mrs.
Stone had not been inattentive to the vision, the intimation, whether
from heaven or the other place. He was to come and try his fortune in
those lists.
Miss Southwood went about her occupations all day as if she trod on air;
but she kept her lips tightly shut, and never asked a question. She was
discretion itself. As for Mrs. Stone, after she had done it, many doubts
suggested themselves. It was not for nothing, not by mere vice of
temperament that she obeyed her own impulses so readily. Like all
impulsive people, she was subject to cold fits as well is hot; but like
many other impulsive people, she had learned that it was her best policy
to obey the first imperious movement of nature. The thing was done, at
all events, before the struggle of judgment began. And the answer she
made to her own objections was a mysterious one. “Why not I as well as
Lady Randolph?” was what she said to herself.
CHAPTER X.
CHATTER.
“Do you know,” said Katie Russell, “there is a gentleman in the house?
None of us have seen him; but he came yesterday. He is young, and tall,
and nice-looking. He is their nephew. Mademoiselle says it is quite
improper. Of course she oughtn’t to say so; and the girls don’t know
what to think; for you know it is queer.”
“Why is it queer?” said Lucy. “If he is their nephew, he may surely come
to see them. If they had a son, he would live here.”
“I don’t think so,” said Katie promptly. “Oh, no! if they had a dozen
sons, not while the girls are here. It would never do. I have been at
other schools, and I know. I have spent my life at schools, I think,”
the girl said, with an impatient shrug of her shoulders, “and I know
mademoiselle is quite right, though she oughtn’t to say so. I wonder,
Lucy, if I will be as governessy when I am old? They almost always are.”
Lucy could not follow this quick digression. She gazed at her friend
with wondering eyes. “You always jump so,” she said. “Which am I to
answer--about the gentleman, or about--”
“Oh, never mind the gentleman. I only told you--it can’t matter very
much to me,” said Katie. “It is for Maud and Lily, and girls of that
set, that it is not right, or you--Is it true that you are to have a
great fortune, Lucy? I always wanted to ask you, but I did not like--”
“Yes, I believe so,” said Lucy quietly; “why shouldn’t you like? Papa
takes a great deal of trouble about it: but it does not matter so much
to me. One is just the same one’s self, whether one is rich or poor; it
will give a great deal of trouble. So I don’t care for it for my part.”
“Oh, I should care for it,” cried Katie. “I should not mind the trouble.
How delightful it must be to be really, really rich! I should give--I
should do--oh, I don’t know what I shouldn’t do! The use of being rich,”
Katie added sententiously, “is that you can do as you please--go where
you please, be us kind to everybody as you please; help people, enjoy
yourself, buy everything you like, and yet always have something. Oh,”
she said, clasping her hands, “to have to think and think whether you
can buy yourself a pair of gloves--not to be able to get a cab when your
mother is tired; and to grow old, and to grow governessy, like
mademoiselle--”
“Mademoiselle is very nice, Katie. Don’t say anything against her.”
“_I_ say anything against her! I adore her! but she is governessy, how
can she help it, poor old darling? Her mind is full of the girls’ little
ways, and what they mean by this and by that, Lucy,” said the girl,
stopping short to give greater emphasis to her words. “If we ever see
each other when I am an old governess like mademoiselle--be sure you
remember to tell me when you see me worrying, that the girls mean
_nothing_ by it--_nothing!_ This is the 21st of February. It is my
birthday--I am nineteen. Tell me to recollect that I said they meant
nothing--and that it’s true.”
“Are you really nineteen to-day?” said Lucy. “Older than I--”
“More than a year older. I wonder,” said Katie, with that patronage and
superiority which the poor often show to the rich, “whether, when you
are fifty, you will know as much of the world as I do now?”
Lucy’s companion was the governess-pupil, the one among the band of
girls whose society her father had counseled her not to seek. Perhaps
there was something of the perversity of youth in the preference which,
notwithstanding this advice, Lucy felt for the girl whose friendship old
Mr. Trevor had decided could be of no use whatever to her. Lucy was not
nearly so clever as Katie Russell, who was already a great help in the
school, and earning the lessons which she shared with the more advanced
pupils. But Lucy was by no means so sure of her inferiority in point of
experience as her companion was. She knew, if not the expedients of
poverty, yet of economy through Mrs. Ford’s example, and she knew many
details of a lower level of existence, lower than anything Katie was
acquainted with; and even the shadow of her own future power which had
lain upon her from her childhood had stood in the stead of knowledge to
Lucy, teaching her many things; but she was a quiet person, thinking
much more than she spoke; and she made no reply to this imputation of
ignorance, though she thought it a mistake. She replied, with a little
closer pressure of her friend’s arm, “Why are you so sure of being an
old governess? You will marry--most likely the first of all of us.”
“Oh, no, no; don’t you know there are a million more women in England
than men? It is in all the papers. Some of us will marry--you, for
instance; but there must be a proportion--say five out of twenty, that’s
not much,” said Katie, knitting her soft brows, “who never will, and I
shall be one of them. For fun,” she said, throwing gravity to the winds,
“let us guess who the other four will be.”
“Me,” said Lucy, with a gentle composure and indifference alike to
matrimony and to grammar. “I think that is what papa would like best--”
“That is absurd,” said Katie; “you! You will have a hundred proposals
before you are out a year. You will be the very first.”
“Put me down, however,” Lucy repeated. “It will be rather a good thing
to be kept from getting married, if it is as you say. It will help to
set the balance straight. There will be my gentleman for one of you.”
“You do not mean that you are to be _kept_ from marrying,” Katie cried,
aghast. This made a still greater impression on her mind than it had
done on Miss Southwood’s, and it suggested to her a sudden chivalrous
idea of rescue. Katie too had a Frank, a cousin, between whom and
herself there had existed from the earliest tiny a baby tenderness. If
ever she was married, Katie had tacitly concluded that he would be “the
gentleman.” They might set up a school together; they might work
together in various ways. It was a vague probability, yet one in which
most of the light of Katie’s future lay. But suddenly it flashed upon
her, all in a moment, what a chance, what an opening was this for any
man. Frank was poor; they were all poor; but if he could be persuaded to
step in and save Lucy from the celibacy to which she seemed to think
herself condemned, Frank’s fortune would be made. It was the basest
calculation in the world; and yet nothing could have been more
innocent--nay, generous. It blanched Katie’s cheeks for the moment, but
filled her mind with a whirl of thoughts. What a thing it would be for
him and all the family! If the dream should come to pass, Katie felt
that she herself might give in at once, and make up her mind to grow old
and governessy like mademoiselle; but what did that matter, she asked
herself heroically. For a second, indeed, she paused to think whether
her brother Bertie might not answer the purpose without costing herself
so much; but anticipated sacrifice is the purest delight of misery at
nineteen, and she rather preferred to think that this great advantage to
her cousin and her friend would be purchased at the cost of her
happiness. And Frank himself might not like the idea at first; her great
consolation was that it was almost certain Frank would not like it. But
he must learn to subdue his inclinations, she thought, proudly; would
not she do so for his sake? If _other people_ were content to make that
sacrifice, why should not he? And what a difference it would make, if a
stream of comfort--of money and all that money can buy, ease of mind and
freedom from debt, and power to do what one would--came suddenly pouring
into the family, setting everything right that was wrong, and smoothing
away all difficulties! To despise money is a fine thing; but how few can
do it! Katie did not despise it at all. She forgot her companion while
she walked on dreamily by her side, thinking of her fortune. Mercenary
little wretch, the moralist would say; and yet she was not mercenary at
all.
The girls were walking across the common by themselves. It was part of
Mrs. Stone’s enlightened system that she allowed them to do so, in cases
where the parents did not interfere. And so far as these two were
concerned, even the consent of the parents was unnecessary; for was not
Katie Russell, though only eighteen, a governess in the bud? and,
accordingly, quite capable of acting as chaperon when necessary. Poor
little Katie! this was one of the mild indignities of her lot that she
felt most. Her lot was not at all a bad one at Mrs. Stone’s, where the
head of the establishment backed her up quietly as indeed the one of her
inmates with whom she was most in sympathy--and when the girls were
“nice.” Girls are not all “nice,” any more than any other class of the
community, and Katie had known what it was to be snubbed and scorned,
and even insulted. But happily this was not the fashion at the White
House. Still one mark of her inferior position remained in the fact that
Katie, though so young, and one of the prettiest, of the band, was,
being half a governess, qualified to accompany her peers in the
character of chaperon. It was not quite clear that she might not be at
that moment taking care of Lucy, who was less than a year her junior;
but happily this idea had not crossed her mind. It was Sunday, which was
a day of great freedom at the White House--a day given over (after due
attention to all religious duties, need it be said? for Mrs. Stone knew
what was expected of her, and you may be sure took all her doves to
church with the most undeviating regularity) to confidences, to talks,
to letter-writings. Some of the girls were covering sheets of note-paper
with the most intimate revelations, some were chattering in corners,
some reading story-books. Story-books are not necessarily novels--Mrs.
Stone made a clever distinction. There was nothing in three volumes upon
her purified and dignified shelves; but a book in one volume had a very
good chance of coming within her tolerant reading of the word story. And
some were out, perambulating about the garden, where the first crocuses
were beginning to bloom, or crossing the common by those devious little
paths half hidden in heather and all kinds of wild plants which were bad
for boots and dresses, but very pleasant otherwise. It was along one of
these that Lucy Trevor and her companion were wandering. The mossy turf
was very green, betraying the moisture beneath; and the great bushes of
heather, with all the withered bloom stiffened upon them, stood up like
mimic forests from the treacherous grass. Wild bushes of gorse, with
here and there a solitary speck of yellow, a premature bud upon them,
interspersed their larger growth here and there. The frost had all
melted away. In the little marshy pools, the water was clear and caught
glimpses of a sky faintly blue. One willow on the very verge of the
common had hung out its tassels, those prophecies of coming life.
There was a scent of spring in the air. “In the spring a young man’s
fancy lightly turns to--” love, the poet says; and so, perhaps, does a
girl’s. But before either is warmly awakened to that interest, spring
touches them thrilling with a profusion of thought and planning and
anticipation, not so distinct as love. The young creatures feel the sap
of life mounting within them. Oft-times they know nothing more, and have
formed no definite idea either of what they want, or why; but their
minds are running over with the flood of living. Their plans go lightly
skimming through the air, now poising on a branch, and again flashing
widely on devious wings to all the points of the compass like so many
birds. There was no immediate change necessary in the placid course of
their school-girl existence; but they leaped forward to meet the future
with all the force of their energies. Yet, perhaps, it was only one of
them who did this. Lucy was too calm in the certainty of the changes
that sooner or later would happen to her--changes already mapped out and
arranged for her, as she was well aware--to be able to give herself up
to these indefinite pleasures of imagination. But Katie leaped at her
future with the fervor of a fresh imagination. She made up her mind to
sacrifice herself, and give Lucy her cousin in less time than many would
take to decide whether they should give up a ribbon. She sunk into
silence for a little time while she was pondering it, but never from any
indecision; only because, in her rapid foresight of all that was
necessary, she did not quite see how the first step, the introduction of
these two to each other, was to be brought about.
Just then the girls became aware of two other figures, bearing down upon
them from the other side of the common--two larger personages making
their slight youth look what it was, something not much more than
childish. There was Mrs. Stone and the unknown gentleman who had arrived
at the White House, to the scandal of the old governess, last night.
When the girls perceived this they mutually gave each other’s arms a
warning pressure. “Oh, look, here he is!” said Katie, and, “Is that the
gentleman?” Lucy said. The encounter brought to the former a quick flush
of excitement. She wondered a little, on her own account, who the
gentleman was; for an apparition of such an unusual description in a
girl’s school had naturally excited all the inmates. A man under Mrs.
Stone’s roof! Men were common enough, things at home, and aroused no
feelings of curiosity or alarm. But here it was quite different. Whence
came he, and what had he come for? But besides this, there was another
source of interest in Katie’s thoughts. As she conceived her own plot, a
glimmering sense of the other came upon her by instinct. Why had this
wonderful occurrence, this arrival of a gentleman, happened at Mrs.
Stone’s? Mrs. Stone knew all about Lucy’s fortune, and the wicked scheme
invented by her father (of which Katie knew nothing except by lively
guesses) to keep her unmarried. And straightway the gentleman had come!
She watched him anxiously as he approached. He was like Mrs. Stone, and
he was not unlike the smiling and gracious face in a hairdresser’s
window, complacent in wax-work satisfaction. He was large, tall, with
fine black hair, whiskers and mustache, and a good complexion. He had
something of that air of self-display--not vanity or conceit, but simply
expansion and spreading out of himself which is characteristic of large
men used to the company if many women. Katie pressed her friend’s arm
more and more closely as they approached.
“What do you think of him?” she said. “I wonder if they will speak to
us. Will Mrs. Stone introduce us? If she does I know what I shall
think.”
“What shall you think?” said Lucy, across whose mind no glimmering of
the cause of this unusual visit had flown. She watched him coming very
placidly. “Mrs. Stone will not stop. She never does when she has any
stranger with her. Who is it, Katie? I never heard that they had any
brother.”
“It is their nephew,” Katie said, with something of that knowledge which
is what she herself called governessy; that minute acquaintance with all
the details of a family which people in any kind of dependence are so
apt to attain. Mademoiselle was her authority--mademoiselle, who, though
she was “nice,” had yet the foibles of her position, and a certain
jealous interest, not altogether unkind, yet too curious to be entirely
benevolent, about all her employers’ works and ways. “He was brought up
for the Church, but he has not gone into the Church. Doesn’t he look
like a parson? When a man has been brought up in that way he never gets
the better of it. He always looks like a spoiled clergyman.”
“I don’t think he looks like a clergyman at all,” said Lucy, “nor
spoiled either.”
“Oh, you admire him! I ought to have known you are just the kind of girl
to like a barber’s block man. Our Frank,” said Katie, with some
vehemence, “is not so big--he has not half such a shirtfront; but I am
sure he has more strength. You should see him throwing things. He won
two cups for that, and one for running,” she added, with a sigh. She
already felt something of the pang with which these cherished cups would
be put, with their owner, into another’s possession. In imagination she
had sometimes seen them arranged on an humble sideboard in a little
house, with which she herself, Katie, had the closest connection. But
that was the merest dream, and not to be considered for a moment when
the interest of one and the happiness of the other were concerned.
“Frank! who is Frank?” said Lucy; “you never told me of him before.”
“Oh, Frank is my cousin. There never was any occasion,” said Katie, with
a slightly querulous tone, which Lucy did not understand. She looked
with a little wonder at her friend, then set down her perturbation to
the score of Mrs. Stone, who was now very near. The girls withdrew from
each other to make room, leaving the narrow path clear between. Mrs.
Stone answered this courtesy by stepping forward in front of the
gentleman with a gracious smile upon her face.
“Where are you going?” she said. “I think, my dear children, it is going
to rain. You must soon turn back; and the common is very wet. After you
have got back and changed your boots, come to my room to tea.” And then
she passed on with little amical nods and smiles. The gentleman was not
introduced to them, but he took off his hat as he followed behind Mrs.
Stone, a courtesy which is always agreeable to girls who have only
lately ceased to be little girls, and come within the range of dignified
salutations. Even Lucy’s tranquil soul owned a faint flutter of
pleasure. It was a distinct honor too to be asked to Mrs. Stone’s room
to tea, and to know that they were to be introduced into the society of
the “gentleman” added a little additional excitement. They walked only a
very little way further, mindful at once of the advice and the
invitation.
“I wonder if any of the others will be there,” said Katie. She was
somewhat elated, although she was suspicious, and in a state of half
resistance to Mrs. Stone and the rival Frank, whose rivalry the little
schemer felt by instinct. As for Lucy, the object of all this plotting,
she suspected nothing. She even felt a little guilty in the pleasure to
which she looked forward. To be asked to Mrs. Stone’s room to tea on
Sunday evening was a distinction of which all the girls were proud. It
was like an invitation from the queen, a command which was not to be
disregarded; but yet she had a little uneasiness in her mind, thinking
of her little brother, who would be disappointed. Even for Mrs. Stone,
the sovereign of this small world, she did not like to break faith with
little Jock.
CHAPTER XI.
AN AFTERNOON TEA.
Mrs. Stone’s room was fitted up in the latest, which I need not say is
far from being the newest fashion. It would indeed have been an insult
to her to say that anything in it was new. Mr. Morris had only just
begun to reign over the homes of the æsthetic classes; but Mrs. Stone
was well in advance of her age, and her walls were covered with a very
large pattern of acanthus-leaves in several shades of green, with
curtains as nearly as possible the same in design and color. She had a
number of plates hung about the walls instead of pictures, and here and
there gleaming shelves and little cabinets full of china, which were a
great relief and comfort to the eye. Her chairs were Chippendale, need
it be said? and held her visitors upright in a dignified height and
security. The room had but one window, which was large, but half-filled
with designs in glass, and half overshadowed with a great lime-tree,
which was delightful in summer, but in February not so delightful. The
fire was at the end of the room, and the room was somewhat dark,
especially in the afternoon. When the two girls went in several persons
were dimly visible seated in those large and solemn Chippendalian
chairs, with hands reposing upon the arms of them, ranged against the
walls like Egyptian gods. The color of one of those figures, though
faint in the gloom, was that of Miss Southwood’s gray velveteen, her
ordinary afternoon dress, and therefore recognizable; but the others in
masculine black clothes, with only a vague whiteness for their faces,
were mysterious as Isis and Osiris; and so was a lady with her veil over
her face, who sat at the other side of the fireplace, with the air of a
chairwoman at a meeting, high and stately; though she caught a little of
the pale afternoon daylight upon her, yet her dark dress and seal-skin
coat and veil prevented any distinctness of revelation. In this correct
and carefully arranged parlor there was one weak point. A woman who is
without caprice is unworthy of being called a woman. Instead of herself
occupying a Chippendale chair, and having her tea-tray placed upon the
tall slender-limbed Queen Anne table, which stood in readiness against
the wall, Mrs. Stone chose to make herself the one anachronism in the
place. Her chair was a low one in front of the fire; her teatable was in
proportion--a bit of debased nineteenth-century comfort in the midst of
the stately grace which she professed to think so much more delightful.
Why was this? It was Mrs. Stone’s pleasure, and there was no more to be
said. She, with her pretty white cap upon her handsome head, seated at
the feet of all her silent guests in their high chairs, was not only the
central light in the picture, but a kind of humorous commentary upon it;
but whether this proceeded from any sense of the joke in her, or was
merely the expression of her own determination to please herself, were
it even in flat rebellion to her own code, no one could tell.
“You are just in time,” she said, “Lucy and Katie, to give our friends
some tea. Don’t interfere, Frank. I like girls to hand tea. It comes
within their province; and it is a pretty office, which they do far more
prettily than you can.”
“That I don’t dispute for a moment,” said a large round manly barytone,
enthroned on high in one of the Chippendale chairs, “and I don’t deny
that I like to be served by such hands when it is permitted.”
“That is one of the popular fallacies about women,” said Mrs. Stone,
“and involves the whole question. Our weak surrender of our rights for
the pleasure of being waited upon in public, was, I suppose, one of the
consequences of chivalry. According to my theory, it is the business of
women to serve. You shoot the birds or kill the deer, Mr. Rushton, as
you best can, and we cook it and carve it, and serve it up to you.”
“If this beatitude depends upon my ability to kill the deer or shoot the
birds, my dear lady!” said another good-natured voice, which added
immediately, “Why, this is Lucy Trevor! I am very glad to see you. My
dear, this is Lucy Trevor. Since she has been at the White House we have
scarcely seen her. You girls are made too happy when you get under the
charge of Mrs. Stone.”
“Is it you, Lucy?” said the lady with the veil; “come and speak to me,
dear. I think it is a year since I have seen you. You have grown up,
quite grown up in the time. How these young creatures change! A year
does not make much difference in us; but this child has shot up! And
Raymond--you remember your playfellow, Lucy--why, he is a man, as old as
his father, giving us advice, if you please! It is something wonderful.
I catch myself laughing out when I hear him discoursing about law.
Raymond giving his opinion, my little boy, my baby! And I dare say
little Lucy has begun to give her opinion, too.”
“Lucy is a very good girl,” said Mrs. Stone; “she never takes anything
upon her. Katie now and then favors us with her ideas as to how the
world should be governed.”
“That is right,” said Mr. Rushton, from the darker side. “I like to know
what the young people think. It is they who will have it all in their
hands one day.”
“But, thank Heaven, they will have changed their minds before that
time.”
This was from Miss Southwood, who emphasized her exclamation by getting
up to sweep off into the fire-place a few crumbs from her gray velveteen
gown.
“Do you think it is a good thing they should have changed their minds?
It seems to me rather a pity. That is why we never have anything new. We
all fall into the same jog-trot about the same age.”
“The new is always to be avoided. Don’t tell me about jog-trot--I wish I
were half as sensible as my mother.”
“And so do I, Ellen,” said Mrs. Stone, taking up the discussion in her
own manner with that soft little half blow to begin with. Nobody could
tell whether it was directed at her sister, or was an echo of her wish,
not even Lucy, who knew her so well, and who stood between her and Mrs.
Rushton, listening to their talk, but without any impulse on her own
part to rush into it as Katie would have done. Katie in the meantime had
got out of that graver circle. She had given the large barytone his cup
of tea, and now was holding the cake-basket while he selected a piece.
Katie was in the light, so much light as there was. She was a
fair-haired girl, with just the touch of warmth and color that Lucy
wanted--a little gold in her hair, a deeper blue in her eyes, a tinge of
rose on her cheeks; and she had a far warmer sense of fun than Lucy, who
would have carried the cake-basket quite demurely without any smile.
“I hope you will not think this is my fault,” Mrs. Stone’s nephew said
in a low tone. “I am bound to obey, as I suppose every one is here;
otherwise I should not sit still and allow myself to be served; it is
not my way, I assure you. And I keep you standing so long. I can not
make up my mind which piece to take. This has the most plums, but that
is the larger piece. It always turns out so in this life; I wonder if
you have found that out in your experience, or if things are better
managed here.”
“We are not supposed to have any experience at school,” said Katie,
demurely. It was pretty to see her holding the cake-basket. And the rest
of the company was occupied with their own conversation. Besides, how
was he to know which of them was the heiress?
“We met you on the common just now with your friend. It is not a very
amusing walk, but it is better than going out in procession, I suppose.
Does my aunt make you do that? is it part of a young lady’s education,
as cricket is of a man’s?”
“Yes,” said Katie. “We are trained to put up with everything that is
disagreeable, just as boys are trained to everything that is pleasant.”
“Do you think cricket then so pleasant?”
“Not to me, but I suppose it is to boys; and boating and everything of
the kind. On our side we are taught quite differently. If there is
anything more tiresome than another, more tedious, less likely to please
us, that is what we are made to do.”
“My poor aunt! is she a tyrant then with her pupils? She is not a
tyrant for her relations; or at least a very charming, delightful
tyrant.”
“I did not mean Mrs. Stone; she is very kind--even to me; but I have
been at other schools. I suppose it is for our good,” said Katie, with a
sigh; “everything that is very disagreeable is for our good; though I
wonder sometimes why the boys should not have a little trial of the
same--for I suppose they too have got to put up with things that are
disagreeable in their life.”
“We are supposed,” said the barytone, who was becoming quite visible to
her, enthroned in his Chippendale chair, “to have most of the
disagreeables of life, while you ladies who dwell at home at ease--”
“Ah!” cried Katie, setting down the cake-basket, “if you would but quote
correctly. The man who wrote the song knew a great deal better. It is
the gentlemen who live at home at ease. ‘To all you ladies now on land,’
is what he says; he knew better. We don’t go out to sea like him, but we
go through just as much on land, you may be sure,” cried the girl with a
sudden flush over her face; “it was not to us he said, ‘How little do
you think upon the dangers of the seas.’ I have got a little brother a
sailor,” she added, half under her breath.
“I have evidently chosen my illustration badly,” said the other, with
prompt good-humor and a sympathetic tone. “If you have a little brother
I have a big one at sea, so here is something to fraternize upon. Mine
is the captain of a big merchantman, an old salt and does not mind the
dangers of the sea.”
“Ah, but mine is a little middy,” said Katie, with a smile in her eyes
and a tear trembling behind it, “he minds a great deal. He does not like
it at all. And mamma and I feel the wind go through and through us
whenever it blows.”
“I see,” said the gentleman, “these are the disagreeables of life you
speak of--imaginary. Probably when he is in a gale you know nothing
about it, and the winds that make you tremble have nothing to do with
him; but these are very different, you must acknowledge, from real
troubles.”
Katie did not condescend to answer this speech. She gave him a look
only, but that spoke volumes. The superiority of experience in it was
beyond words. How could he know, a man, well dressed, and well off
apparently, with a heavy gold chain to his watch, and handsome studs,
how could he know one tithe of the troubles that had come her way in
that poverty which only those who know it can fathom? She withdrew
behind the tea-table, just as Mrs. Stone called to her nephew.
“Frank,” she said. (“So he is Frank, _too_,” said Katie to herself.) “I
have not presented you to my young friends. Mr. Frank St. Clair, Miss
Russell (I see you have made acquaintance already), and Miss Trevor.
Lucy, do you remember I once told you of a boy who was to me what your
little Jock is to you? There he stands,” for Frank had risen to bow to
his new acquaintance, and stood with his back to the window, shutting
out what little light there was.
“You were a very young aunt, certainly,” he said, “but I refuse to
believe that Miss Trevor has anything to do with a second generation.”
“Youth does not matter in that respect,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I was an
aunt when I was three. There are a great many younger aunts than Lucy;
but, as it happens, it is a little brother we are thinking of. And _à
propos_, my dear, how _is_ little Jock? has he gone to school? it must
be time he were at school.”
“When you are ready, Lucy,” said Mr. Rushton, “I am going with you to
see your father. Not to say a word against my good old friend Trevor, he
is full of whims. Now, what is his fancy about that child? He will not
bring him up as you have been, brought up, Lucy.”
“Because he has nothing to do with the money,” said Lucy, simply. “Papa
thinks that a very good reason. I wish you would persuade him, Mr.
Rushton; I can’t.”
“And he tells you so!” said Mrs. Rushton, shaking her head; “he talks to
you about your money, Lucy?”
“Oh, yes, a great deal,” said Lucy. She spoke with perfect calm and
composure, and they all looked at her with subdued admiration. Six pairs
of eyes thus turned to her in the partial gloom. An heiress! and not
ashamed of it, nor excited by it--taking it so calmly. Sighs that were
all but prayers burst from, at least, three bosoms. Oh, that she but
knew my Raymond! thought one; and, if Frank will but play his cards as
he ought! breathed another; while Mr. St. Clair himself said within
himself robustly and without any disguise, I wish I had it! There was no
sentiment in the latter aspiration. Katie, for her part, looked across
the tea-table at her friend with one of her sudden blushes, feeling her
cheeks tingle. What were her feelings in respect to Lucy? In her case
the wonder and interest were dashed with contempt, yet warmed by
affection. Katie thought she despised money--not the abuse of it, nor
the pride of it--but itself. Her soft little lip curled (or, at least,
she tried to make it curl) with disdain at this meretricious advantage.
She had said a hundred times that Lucy would be a very nice girl, the
nicest girl in the school, if it were not for that money. She looked at
her with a kind of angry love--half disposed to cry out, in Lucy’s
defense, that she was far better than her fortune; and half to throw a
gibe at her because she was rich. If they had been alone she would have
done the latter. As it was, amid this party of people, with Mrs. Stone
close by, and Miss Southwood’s little dark eyes twinkling at her out of
the shadows, Katie was prudent and said nothing at all. As for Lucy, she
did not in the least perceive the covetousness which--in some instances,
so mingled with other feelings that its baseness was scarcely
visible--flamed in the eyes of the irreproachable people who surrounded
her. Mrs. Rushton was a kind, good woman, who would not have harmed a
fly. Mrs. Stone was better even, she was high-minded, generous in her
way. And yet they both devoured Lucy in their thoughts--gave her over to
the destroyer. How fortunate that she never suspected them as she stood
there tranquilly between the two, acknowledging that she knew a great
deal about her money! Mrs. Rushton was still shaking her head at that
avowal.
“My dear,” she was saying, and with perfect sincerity, “you must not let
it turn your head. Money can do a great deal, but there are many things
it can not do. It can not make you happy--or good.”
“Lucy is good in spite of it,” Mrs. Stone said, she too in all
sincerity; “and I don’t think she lets her mind dwell upon it. But it is
a very equivocal advantage for a girl,” she added, with a sigh.
All this Frank St. Clair listened to with a grin upon his good-looking
countenance. What humbugs! he said to himself--not being capable of
understanding that these women were much more interesting as well as
more dangerous in not being humbugs at all. He, for his part, waited for
an opportunity of making himself agreeable to the little heiress in
perfect good faith--_brutalement_ as the French say. He wanted to please
her frankly for her fortune’s sake. Not that he could have been unkind
to her had he happened to strike her fancy, or would waste her fortune,
or do anything unbecoming an honest Englishman. But an honest Englishman
with a light purse may surely look after a girl with money without
compromising his character. When he asked her to marry him he would not
let her see that her money had anything to do with it. He would fall in
love with her as a matter of course. It is not difficult to fall in
love with a pretty young girl of seventeen. Well, perhaps, not strictly
pretty--not nearly so pretty, for example, as that little Poverty by her
side, the foil to her wealth; but still very presentable, and not
unattractive in her own simple person. Thus the cautious eyes that
surrounded Lucy, the hearts that beat with eagerness to entrap and seize
her, did not recognize themselves as inflamed by evil passions. They
were aware, perhaps, that a little casuistry would be necessary to make
the outer world aware of the innocence of their intentions, but there
was no aspect of the case in which they could not prove that innocence
to themselves.
When the hour of tea was over Mr. Rushton walked home with Lucy to see
his old friend. John Trevor was not Mr. Rushton’s equal, nor did he
treat him as such. The old school master had taught him arithmetic, that
neglected branch of education, thirty or forty years ago, before he went
to the public school, where it was not taught; and the prosperous
lawyer, who was town clerk, and one of the principal men in Farafield,
had always shown a great regard for his old master. “I should never have
known more than two times two but for you, Trevor,” he would say,
patting the old man on the shoulder, not very respectful, yet with
genuine kindness. He went into the blue and white drawing-room, and
seated himself in front of the fire, and talked for an hour to old
Trevor, liberating Lucy, who hurried away to Mrs. Ford’s parlor, and
with enviable confidence in her digestion, had another cup of tea to
please Jock, who had been watching for her eagerly from the window. Then
she was made to sit down in a creaking basket-work chair beside the fire
and tell him stories. Mrs. Ford’s parlor was not æsthetic, like that of
Mrs. Stone; but its horse-hair and mahogany furniture produced an effect
not much unlike. Mrs. Ford, in a black arm-chair, was elevated as high
above the heads of the younger people as if she had been seated in a
genuine Chippendale chair. And she crossed her hands on her black silk
apron, and sitting back in the shadow, listened well pleased, but half
in a drowse of comfort, to Lucy’s stories. She had a little rest in her
own person when Lucy stepped into the breach; though Mrs. Ford was not
at all certain that Lucy’s stories were Sunday stories worthy of the
name.
Old Trevor had the will spread out before him when Mr. Rushton
entered--not adding to it, however, which he would have certainly
disapproved of as improper Sunday work--but reading it over, some times
aloud, sometimes under his breath, sometimes with mutterings of
criticism. He pushed it away a his visitor entered, and rose tottering
to welcome him.
“Always going on with it, always going on with it,” the new-comer said,
shaking his hand.
“Yes, I always go on with it,” cried old Trevor, with a chuckle; “it’s
my _magnum opus_, Mr. Rushton. I add a bit most days, and on Sunday I
read over my handiwork, and study how I can mend it. I have put you in,”
he added, with a great many nods of his head.
“What, for a legacy, Trevor?” said Mr. Rushton, with an easy laugh.
“For a legacy if you like,” said old Trevor, “though I don’t suppose a
hundred pounds would be much to you. No, not for money, but for the care
of my girl, who is money. Ford down-stairs is always dinning into my
ears that somebody will marry her for her fortune. I hope Lucy has more
sense; but still, in case of anything happening, I want her to have
friends to advise her.”
“Oh, I will advise her,” said Mr. Rushton, lightly, “though I think
perhaps my wife would do it better. Fortune-hunters, yes, there are
always fortune-hunters after an heiress. Your best plan would be to
choose some one for her yourself, and get her married off in your
lifetime, Trevor. Lucy is a good girl, and would content herself with
her father’s choice.”
“Do you think so?” said the old man, with a gleam of pleasure; “but, no,
no,” he added, “I am not in the same world that Lucy will be in. I
couldn’t choose for her; and besides she’s only seventeen, and I’m not
long for this world.”
“Seventeen is not too young to be married; and you’re hale and hearty,
my old friend,” said his visitor, once more slapping him on the
shoulder. This demonstration of friendliness was almost too much for old
Trevor, standing up feebly on his trembling old legs in honor of this
distinguished acquaintance. He shook his head, but the voice was shaken
out of him, and he was not capable of any further reply. When, however,
Mr. Rushton encountered Ford outside at the gateway of the Terrace he
took a much less jovial tone. “I hope he has got everything signed and
sealed,” he said, “and all his affairs in order: these papers he is
always pottering over--codicils, I suppose--you should get them signed,
too, and made an end of. He is not long for this world, as he himself
says.”
“I don’t see much difference,” said Ford, with that eagerness, half
sorrow for the impending event, half impatience to have it over, which
even the most affectionate of friends often feel in spite of
themselves, in respect to a long anticipated, often retarded ending.
“But then I see him every day. Do you really think--”
“You should see that everything is settled and in order,” said the
lawyer, as he walked away.
CHAPTER XII.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
“And so Christopher went away to look for the great strong man that King
Maximus was afraid of; but I forgot, his name was not Christopher then,
but only Offero, a heathen; you know what a heathen is, Jock?”
“I should think I did know; but go on, go on with the story, I never
read this in any book.”
“Well! Then Christopher wandered about everywhere over all the country,
asking for the strange man. He did not know whether it was a giant like
himself, or a king like Maximus, or what it was; but he went over the
seas and up among the hills and into all the towns, looking for him.”
“That is far too like a fairy tale for a Sunday,” said Mrs. Ford sitting
behind in her big arm-chair. “My dear, if he had gone to the chief
people in the country, the ways of the towns, or the authorities, they
would soon have told him--that is, if he knew his name; and even in a
fairy tale few people are so stupid as to set out in search of any one
without knowing his name.”
Mrs. Ford was a trifle, just a trifle jealous. Lucy was not at all in
the habit of interfering with her prerogative; but she did not like it.
The “Pilgrim’s Progress” she felt was much better entertainment on a
Sunday night for any child.
“Oh, but this was not a person that the mayors and the magistrates knew.
Listen, Jock, his name was Satan. Now, do you know who that great strong
man was?”
“I thought as much, and it’s all an allegory,” said Jock, who was
_blasé_ and tired of parables. “I like a story best when it doesn’t mean
anything; but go on, Lucy, all the same.”
“I don’t think it’s an allegory. Katie Russell read it out of a book
about the saints. I believe it is a true story, only very, very long
ago; many things happened long ago that don’t happen now. I don’t
suppose the queen has a big giant like Christopher in all her armies;
but still there was once a Christopher, Jock.”
Jock accepted the explanation with a little wave of his hand. He was
glad, very glad, especially on Sunday, of anything new, but at the same
time he was critical, and at the first suggestion of an allegory stood
on his guard.
“Well,” said Lucy, resuming, “when Christopher had wandered about for a
long time he met with a band of knights and their servants, traveling
about as they used to do in those days, and at their head there was one
all in black armor, with a helmet covering his head and his face.”
“You mean, I suppose,” said Jock, somewhat cynically, “with his visor
down.”
“I suppose so,” said Lucy, a little confused, “but you know I am not so
clever about these things as you are. I’m afraid you don’t care about my
story, Jock.”
“Oh, yes, I care about it; but unless there were enemies about, and he
was afraid, he never would have had his visor down; and if he were
afraid, Christopher would have known he couldn’t be much; but I like
your story all the same,” Jock added, with great politeness; and he
liked the _rôle_ of critic, which was novel, too.
“He did not want to show his face,” said Lucy, considerably cowed,
“because if people had seen him it would have been known what kind of a
being he was, and he looked a very great prince with all his followers
round him. So when Christopher heard that this was Satan he went to him
and offered his service, and he was one of his soldiers for a long time,
I can’t tell how long, but he did not like it at all, Jock, they did so
many cruel things. At last one day, one very hot day in summer, they
were all marching along, and there were two roads to the place where
they were going; one road led through a wood, and that was a pleasant
shady way, and the other was the high road, which was dusty and
scorching, and not a bit of shelter; and you may suppose how astonished
Christopher was when the captain refused to go by the pleasant way,
though it was the shortest, too.”
“What was that for?” said Jock, excited mildly by an incident which he
had not foreseen.
“He would not tell for a long time; first he said it was one thing and
then another, but none of these reasons was the true one. At last
Christopher so pressed and pressed that he got into a passion, and it
all came out. ‘You great big blundering stupid giant,’ he cried, ‘don’t
you know there is a cross in the wood?’ But Christopher did not know
what the cross meant; and then the black knight was obliged to tell him
that he dared not pass the cross, because of One,” here Lucy’s voice
sunk into reverential tones, “who had been crucified upon it, and had
won the battle, and had made even that dreadful black spirit, that cruel
Satan, tremble and fly.”
Jock was impressed, too, and there was a little pause, and in the ruddy
twilight round the fire the two young creatures looked solemnly at each
other; and a faint sound, something between a sigh and a sob, came from
kind Mrs. Ford, over their heads, who was much touched and weeping-ripe
at the turn, to her so unexpected, which the story had taken.
“And what did he do then?” asked Jock, not without awe.
“Oh, Jock! he dashed his great big fist in the black captain’s face, and
shouted out, ‘I knew you were a coward, you are so cruel. The Man who
hung upon the cross, He is my Master. I will go and seek Him till I
die.’”
Then there was another little pause--Lucy, too, in the excitement of her
story telling, having got a lump in her throat--and Mrs. Ford sobbed
once more for pleasure.
“It is a beautiful story,” she said; “I am very glad that the poor giant
is going to be converted at the last.”
“Ah, but now comes the difficult part,” said Jock, “how was he to find
him? It was only a wooden image that was upon that cross; he might seek
and seek, like the knights in the ‘Morte d’Arthur.’ but how was he to
find Him? that is what I want to know.”
“Lucy, my dear, I think your papa wants you,” said Ford, coming in at
this point, a little more uneasy than usual, by dint of Mr. Rushton’s
warning. “He is sitting all alone, and he has just had his gas lighted.”
He came out to the door of the parlor to wait for her, as she rose and
disengaged herself from her little brother, who caught her dress to
detain her. Ford, at the door, put his hand on Lucy’s arm. “Do you think
he has been looking worse? don’t let me frighten you, Lucy, but can you
see any appearance as if he were sinking?”
“Do you mean papa? No,” cried Lucy, with a start of alarm. “Is he ill? I
will go to him directly. What is the matter?”
He had talked to her so much of his death that the girl’s heart leaped
into the excited throbbing which accompanies every great rallying of the
forces of nature. All her strength might be required now, at once,
without preparation. Her throat grew dry, and the blood rushed to her
face.
“Oh, I don’t think there is anything more than ordinary,” said Ford;
“but Mr. Rushton thought him looking bad. He gave me a fright; and then,
of course, my dear, at his time of life--”
Lucy drew her arm away, and went softly upstairs. Many daughters before
now have had to smooth the way before a dying father, and there was
nothing required of her in this way that was above her strength; but it
was not with her in other things as with others. She was aware how great
the change was which would open upon her the moment this aged life had
reached its term and all the strange unknown conditions which would
surround her. It was not possible for Lucy to thrust away the thought,
and comfort herself with indefinite hopes. For years her thoughts had
been directed to the catastrophe which was to be so momentous for her;
she had never been allowed to ignore it. Her heart still beat loudly at
the thought of that which might be coming now--which certainly must come
before long. Her father was the center of all her present living--beyond
him lay the unknown; but when she went upstairs he was sitting quite
cheerfully, as he had been sitting any time these ten years--almost
since ever Lucy could remember--in his arm-chair, neither paler nor
sadder, nor with any tragical symptoms in him, looking over, with the
same air of satisfaction, the same large manuscripts in which, with his
own small neat handwriting, he had written down his whole mind. He
looked up as she came in, and gave her his usual little nod of welcome;
and Lucy’s heart immediately settled down in to its usual calm. She took
her usual seat beside him. All was as it had been for years in the
familiar room; it was not, however, the familiar room which took any
character from its inmates--or rather perhaps it embodied too entirely
the character of its old master, who required nothing except his
chimney-corner, and had no eye or taste for those niceties which reign
in a lady’s sitting-room, even when not a Queen Anne parlor of the
newest old-fashion, like that of Mrs. Stone. Lucy had never been used to
anything else, yet it repressed all emotion in her when she came into
this unemotional place. Die! why should any one ever die? Would not
to-day be as yesterday forever, and every hour the same?
“I have had Rushton here,” said the old man; “how fat that man is
getting at his age! I don’t suppose he’s fifty yet. I am glad I am not
one of the fat kind, Lucy; it must be such a trouble. And to think I
remember him a slim boy, not much higher than you are. Hasn’t he got a
son?”
“Yes, papa; Raymond. I used to play with him when I was little. He is
quite grown up now. Mrs. Rushton was telling me about him--”
“Take my advice, Lucy,” said her father, interrupting her, “and don’t,
however it may be pressed upon you, marry a man out of Farafield. Plenty
will try for you--very likely Raymond himself. I thought there was
something in Rushton’s eye--it was that made me think of it. Don’t marry
a man from here. There’s nothing but paltry sort of people here.”
“Yes, papa,” said Lucy, calmly. She had given a great many other
promises on this question of her marriage, with the same composure.
There was no excitement in her own mind about the question. She did not
care what pledges she gave. Her father, who was not without humor,
perceived this, and fixed his eyes upon her with his usual chuckle.
“Yes, papa,” he said, mimicking her small voice. “Anything for a quiet
life; you would promise me not to marry the mayor, or to marry the
bishop, if I asked you, just in the same tone.”
“No, papa; I will promise _not_ to marry anybody you choose to mention,
but the other thing would be more difficult. In the first place, I don’t
know the bishop,” she added, with a smile.
“That is all very well,” said the old man; “but don’t you know, Lucy,
that in a year or two your mind may change on that subject? You might
fall in love, not with the bishop, but why not with Raymond Rushton, or
any other boy about the place? And this is what I want to say to you, my
dear. Don’t! That is to say, keep them at a distance, Lucy. Don’t let
them come near enough to get hold of you. Take my word for it, though
they may be nice enough in their way, Farafield people are small. They
are petty people. They don’t know the world; and you, with your fortune,
my dear, you belong to the world, not to a little place like this.”
“But you have lived all your life in Farafield.”
“Oh, yes; that is quite true. And I am just the same kind--petty, that
is the word, Lucy--small. That is why I am living like this, making no
change till it all comes into your hands. Living in a grand house,
spending a deal of money, would go against me--I should not like it. I
should grudge every penny--I should say to myself, ‘You old fool, John
Trevor! what do you mean by spending all this upon yourself?’ I couldn’t
do it. Carriages, and horses, and a number of servants would be the
death of me.”
“I don’t think I shall like them any better, papa; and if it is waste
for you it would also be waste for me.”
“Not at all, not at all,” he said; “you have been brought up to it; and
it will be your duty, for property has duties, Lucy. It is just as
necessary that you should spend a great deal on your living, and keep up
a great show, as it is that you should give a great deal to the poor.”
“But why then, papa, if you think that am I to live here with the Fords,
who do not understand anything of the kind, half of the year?”
“Aha, Lucy!” he said, “that is just my principle, you know; that is what
you don’t understand as yet. You are to live with Lady Randolph and the
Fords six months each for--unless you can get them all to consent to let
you marry somebody before that time--as long as you are a girl, my dear;
this is the very crown of my plan, Lucy, without which the other would
not be good for much,” he said, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and
pausing to tantalize her. As it was Sunday Lucy had not her knitting, so
that she had nothing to do but to look at him, with perfect placid
composure as usual, showing no scrap of excitement.
“Do you mean it is to be only for a time, papa?”
“For--seven years,” he said, “seven years from the time of my death. It
is to be hoped that my death will not be very long of coming, or you
will be too old to enjoy your freedom. But there is not much fear of
that; even if you were thirty before it came, thirty is the finest time
of life. You know a great deal by that time, you are not so easily taken
in, and you are still fresh and in all your glory. Never mind if fools
begin to call you an old maid; a woman is not an old maid at thirty, she
is at her best. She can pick and choose, especially when she has a
fortune like yours. And by that time you will have got out of the young
set--the ball-room set; you will have learned to know people of
importance. Yes,” he said, chuckling, “that is the crown of my plan for
you, Lucy--for seven years you will be under a little restraint; Mrs.
Ford on one hand, Lady Randolph on the other, two people. I flatter
myself, just as unlike as can be; and all the men that have a chance
will be after you; but none of them will be able to marry you without
the consent, you know,” he went on, chuckling once more, “of all these
people; which I confess, Lucy, I take to be next to impossible. And
then, my dear--then, in seven years complete freedom--freedom to do
whatever you like--to marry whom you like--to be your own guardian--your
own adviser. It is worth waiting for, Lucy--well worth waiting for. What
a prospect!” cried the old man, in an ecstasy, “a well-trained mind used
to control, an inexhaustible fortune, nothing to do but to pick and
choose among the best people, and still under thirty years of age! By
that time you will have learned to be content with nothing less than the
best.”
Nothing could be more curious than the pleased excitement of the old
man, looking forward to this climax of mortal felicity which he had
carefully arranged for his child, and the perfect calm of the child
herself, who neither realized nor appreciated that blessedness. She
said, after awhile, with a soft little sigh, which was half weariness
and half a sense of the dreariness of the prospect,
“I should think it would be very nice--for a man, papa.”
“For a man! nonsense, Lucy; that is just an old fashioned notion. A
woman who is thirty, and has a great fortune, and is free to please
herself, is as good as any man.”
This was not exactly Lucy’s point of view, but she had no gift for
argument. She thought it was time to take refuge in a little harmless
gossip, which was the only thing that now and then gave her the
possibility of an escape from the will.
“Mrs. Stone has a visitor,” she said, “a gentleman come to see her.
Mademoiselle thinks it very wrong to have a gentleman where there are so
many girls. He is Mrs. Stone’s nephew; his name is Mr. Frank St. Clair.
It is quite a pretty name, isn’t it, papa? and he is good-looking,
though Katie says it is the barber’s-stock style. How I know is, that
Katie and I went to Mrs. Stone’s parlor to tea. She never asks more than
two girls on Sunday, and it shows she is pleased with you when she asks
you. We all like to be asked to the parlor to tea.”
“Ah!” said old Trevor. He laughed, and looked at Lucy with a great many
nods of his gray head. “Mrs. Stone is generally pleased with _you_, eh,
Lucy? She is a sensible woman; she knows what’s what, as well as any
one, I know. And so she has had her nephew down _already_. She is a
clever woman, a prompt woman. I have a great opinion of Mrs. Stone.”
“Do you know him, then?” said Lucy, with a little surprise. “She said
she could not pretend to entertain him at the White House, which is
given up to education, and that it would be nice for him to be able to
come and talk to you.”
At this Mr. Trevor chuckled more and more; he rubbed his hands with
glee.
“She is quite capable of it,” he cried, delighted, “quite capable of it.
She is a clever woman, Lucy. I have always had a great admiration for
Mrs. Stone.”
“Capable of what?” said Lucy, almost angry. She, for her part, had a
great admiration for Mrs. Stone. She had a girl’s belief in and loyalty
to, the elder woman, who yet was not too old to be out of sympathy with
girls. She admired her mature beauty, her dress, everything about her,
and to hear Mrs. Stone laughed at was painful to Lucy. It affected that
_esprit de corps_ which is next to self-regard, or sometimes even goes
before it. She fell, her own moral standing involved when any one
questioned, or seemed to question, the superiority of her leader. It was
almost the only occasion on which any latent gleam of temper came to
Lucy’s mild eyes.
Mr. Trevor laughed again.
“You don’t understand it, my dear,” he said, “it’s a joke between Mrs.
Stone and me. She is capable of making me a party to my own defeat,” he
said, with a new series of chuckles, “of bringing me into the conspiracy
against myself. That’s what I call clever, Lucy; oh, she’s a very able
woman! but let us hope this time she won’t be so successful as she
deserves. Forewarned is forearmed; I know now what I’ve got to look
forward to, and I hope she won’t find me an easy prey, my dear, thanks
to you.”
“I can not in the least, tell what you mean, papa,” said Lucy, with
dignity, “and if it is anything against Mrs. Stone, I don’t want to
know; and _I_ hope she will be successful, whatever she wishes to
do--though I don’t know what it is,” the girl added, with vehemence
quite unusual to her. It brought the color to her usually pale cheek.
She got up from her chair with angry haste. “I am going to get ready for
dinner,” she said, “and if I have said anything to set you against Mrs.
Stone, I did not mean it, and I am very sorry. It must be my fault, for
I am quite sure there is nothing wrong in anything _she_ wants to do.”
It was as if Lucy flounced out of the room, so different was it from her
usual calm, though even now her demeanor was quiet enough. But her
father was not much affected by the girl’s vehemence. He sat looking
after her, and chuckled, watching her gray gown whisk--nay, almost
whisk--the word was too violent to be employed to any movement of
Lucy’s--round the corner of the big screen, and thought to himself how
wise he had been, and how clever in choosing an instructress for Lucy of
whom she thought so well. Mrs. Stone’s design, which he thought he had
found out, amused, and, indeed, pleased him, too. He liked to see that
this fortune, of which he thought so much, produced a corresponding
effect upon others, and, indeed, would have been disappointed if there
had been nobody “after” it during his life-time. This was the first, and
he chuckled over the advent of the suitor, whom he determined to play
and amuse himself with. That Mrs. Stone should have begun to scheme
already did not displease, rather flattered him, especially as it gave
him a fresh evidence of his penetration in finding her out, and
confidence in his own power of baffling her. Another man might have been
taken in, but not he. There he sat complacent, while Lucy changed her
gray gown for a blue one.
All these habits and customs of a life more refined than his own, the
old man had done his best to train his daughter into. For a time he had
even gone so far as to put himself into an evening coat for Lucy’s sake,
but increasing weakness had persuaded him to give up that penitential
ceremony. Still he exacted, rigorously and religiously, that she should
dress for dinner, and would indeed have made her come down with bare
shoulders every evening to the homely meal, but for the interference of
Mrs. Stone, who had declared it “old-fashioned,” with great energy, to
the complete annihilation of poor old Trevor, who had thought himself
certain of this important special feature of high life.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAST CLAUSE
It is not to be supposed that in the _tête-à-tête_ dinner that followed
Lucy was set free from the interminable subject of that fortune which
occupied all her father’s thoughts. The idea of perfect freedom in seven
years had but newly dawned upon him--though, as soon as he had thought
of it, he felt it to be, as he had said, the natural crown of his plan,
and climax of his thoughts. Up to the moment the great idea had dawned
upon him, there had been a little sense of imperfection in his plans.
They were elaborate preparations for--nothing. But now he had seized the
end to which all the preparations led. Neither the Fords nor Lady
Randolph could be expected to live forever in order to keep Lucy under
subjection, nor would she always be under the superintendence of the
matrimonial committee. The absurdity became apparent to the framer of
the scheme just as he found the deliverance from it. And now that the
climax had been attained, all the parts fell into due subordination.
Restraint until she had fully tried all the preliminaries of life and
learned to estimate the worth of time, and then full freedom and the
control of herself and all that belonged to her. It seemed to old
Trevor, as he thought it over, a beautiful scheme; to-morrow he would
put fully on record these last stipulations, and when that was done
there would be no more to do but to gather his garments round him and go
out of the way. It must not be supposed, however, that any real idea of
getting out of the way was in the old man’s mind. He could not doubt
that somehow he would still be in the midst of it, though he professed
to be quite sure of dying and passing into another life--that was a
matter of course; but when he rubbed his hands with satisfaction over
the completeness of this plan, there was no feeling in his mind that
completeness involved conclusion. On the contrary, he seemed to see the
prospect widening out before him. He enjoyed in anticipation not only
the admirable wisdom of all his own stipulations, but even the amusing
complications to which they would give birth; and then with a thrill of
pride and satisfaction looked forward to the time of her freedom and
happy reign, and power of self-disposal, nor ever once said to himself,
“I shall be out of it all--what will it be to me?”
However, Mr. Trevor’s mind was so full of this new idea that he could do
nothing but show, over and over again, how beautifully it fitted in with
every previous arrangement, and how naturally everything led up to this.
“Of course,” he said, “to keep you under control all your days was what
I never thought, my dear. What I intended all along was to train you to
a right use of your liberty. Only when you are able to bear the burden,
Lucy--when you have seen a great many fancies drop off and a great deal
that you have believed in fail you, and when you have learned to know
what is the best.”
“Do you think that is so hard, papa?” said Lucy, quietly, yet with a
faint half gleam of a smile. No doubt it was natural that at his age he
should make “a fuss” about everything Lucy felt, though she was so
sensible that, of course, she would choose nothing but the best.
“Yes, it is very hard,” said the old man; “one tries a great many things
before one comes to that. A good-looking fellow, perhaps, for a lover,
or a nice mannered girl for a friend--till you find out that they are
naught, neither one nor the other, and that you have got to begin again;
that’s the way of the world. Then perhaps you will choose some others
quite different, and they will cheat you, too. You get a little more and
a little more experience at every step, and then at the end you will
find somebody, as I found poor Lucilla, that is really the best.”
Lucy looked up at him aghast. The idea made her tremble; first one bad
and then another, and at last a Lucilla who would die, and be in her
turn succeeded by another, who was not the best. This gave the girl a
shudder.
“I would rather put up with the bad ones,” she cried, “if I am fond of
them, than go from one to another; it is horrible what you are saying,
papa.”
“Well, perhaps it is,” said old Trevor, “life’s not so very beautiful,
whatever you may think just now; but what I am saying is right, that is
one thing I am certain of. You may content yourself with what’s inferior
if you like, Lucy; but you can’t expect any encouragement from me--”
She looked at him with a little alarm in her eyes. “It would be better
to have nothing to do with anybody, to live all alone by one’s self, and
never care for anybody,” she cried.
“Many people do that,” said old Trevor, “but I don’t approve of it,
Lucy. Take example by me. I had seen a many before I saw your mother,
but I never had got any satisfaction to my mind till I met with Lucilla.
I used to say to myself, this one won’t do, and that one won’t do. You
see I kept my wits about me, and my head clear. Now that’s the plan you
must go upon, both with friends and with a husband if you marry. You
don’t need to marry unless you like--I don’t say one thing or the
other--you are to please yourself. But don’t take the first that comes,
don’t take any one till you’ve tried him and tested him. And the same
with your friends--take ’em and leave ’em, and choose again till you
have found the best.”
“It is horrible, papa!” cried Lucy, almost with tears. Then, though she
was not an imaginative girl, there suddenly came across her mind the
story which she had been telling to little Jock. She had denied stoutly
that it was an allegory, as Jock’s more experienced imagination had at
once feared; but there was something in the course of this conversation
which chimed in with it, which brought it to her mind. Just so had the
giant in that story sought his strongest and greatest. The end of the
tale which she had not told to Jock was very incomprehensible to Lucy
herself. She had not understood it when it was “read out loud,” but it
did not trouble her mind much. She thought it would do for a story to
tell Jock, that was all. Now she thought of it again as she sat over the
almonds and raisins opposite to her father and listened to him, and
shrunk from the map of life which he opened out before her. His
revelations went up to just about the same point as the story she had
told to Jock. And after that came the incomprehensible part, how to
discern the best, how to get to the acquaintance of the mysterious
conqueror of all. Jock had said that was the difficult bit. In the story
it was all a confusion to Lucy, and she could not understand it at all.
While she was thinking thus her father was talking on, but she had lost
a good deal of what he was saying when she suddenly came to herself
again, and began to hear him as if his voice came out of a mist.
“And when that has happened once or twice,” old Trevor was saying, “you
get sharp, oh, you get sharp! you are up to their devices--you can not
be taken in any more.”
“You speak as if everybody tried to take you in, papa.”
“Very near everybody,” said old Trevor, grinning, with a chuckle; “not
all, I don’t say all--but very near: and the hard thing is to find out
the ones that don’t want to take you in. That is a thing which you have
to learn by experience, Lucy. First you trust everybody--then you trust
nobody; but after awhile the sight comes back to your eyes, and you know
who to trust. That is about the best lesson you can have in this world.
I was over fifty before I met with your mother; that is to say, I had
known her when we were, younger, but I had not given any attention to
her, not having learned then to discriminate. We saw a deal of each
other for two years before we married; so you see I was a long time
before I got hold of my best, and yet I did get it at the end.”
Lucy was disturbed out of her usual composure by all this alarming and
discouraging talk, and she was slightly irritated, she could scarcely
have told why, by all she had heard about her mother. She could not
avoid a little retaliation. “But afterward,” she said, “after--when poor
mamma died--was that the best too?”
He had been discoursing as from a pulpit upon his own wisdom and
success, and received this thrust full in his face with astonishment
that was comic. After the first confusion of surprise old Trevor laughed
and chuckled himself out of breath. “You have me there,” he said, “Lucy,
you have me there. I have not got a word to say. We won’t say anything
on the subject at all, my dear. I told you before that was a mistake.”
But he was half-flattered, half-amused by this return blow. During the
rest of the evening he would drop into ceaseless chuckles, recalling the
sudden boldness of the assault. A man of many wives is always more
flattered than disconcerted by any allusion to his successes. It was a
mistake, but still he was not ashamed of his achievement. When, however,
he had taken his glass of port, which had more effect upon him than
usual in his growing weakness, the old man grew penitential. “It was a
great mistake,” he said again, “and I can’t help wondering, now and
then, how Lucilla will take it. She was a very considerate person; but
there are flings the best of women can’t be expected to put up with. I
will confess to you, Lucy, that it makes me a little uneasy sometimes.
Oh, yes, it was a mistake.”
Lucy had been quite reassured when she had joined her father in the
afternoon after Ford’s warning, and had seen no difference in his looks;
but before the evening was over a vague uneasiness had crept over her.
He talked more than usual and sat longer than usual before he could be
persuaded to go to bed. And now and then there was something disjointed
in his talk. He stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and forgot to
finish it. He introduced one subject into the midst of another. He gave
her the same advice several times over. After awhile she ceased to
notice what he was saying altogether, out of anxiety about him. He was
not like himself; but he would not allow her to leave him. He was more
intent on having her companionship than she had ever known him. “Don’t
go away,” he said, when she did but stir in her chair. As she sat and
looked at him, having no knitting (as it was Sunday), the spectacle of
the feeble old figure, garrulous, holding forth from his chair, scarcely
waiting for a reply, struck the girl as if she had seen it for the first
time. His old cheeks were suffused with a feverish red, his eyes were
gleaming, his head had a tremble in it, his lean old hand, so often used
to emphasize what he said, shook when he held it up. There are moments
when the aspects of a familiar figure change to us, when we see it as
strangers see it, but with a still keener insight, perceiving in a
moment, the wreck which we may have seen without seeing it, falling into
decay for years. This was the revelation which all at once came upon
Lucy. She had seen nothing unusual about him a few hours ago--now, quite
suddenly, she came to see him as Mr. Rushton had seen him, as he
appeared to strangers; but in a guise so much the more alarming as it
concerned her much more closely. She held her breath as this revelation
flashed upon her, feeling as if she must cry out and call for help, she
who was so composed and unexcitable. It seemed to Lucy, in her sudden
alarm and ignorance, that he might die before her eyes.
This, of course, was an entirely false alarm. Next morning he was
exactly like himself again, no special feebleness in his aspect, and
much energy in his mind. As soon as he got settled in his chair Mr.
Trevor got his big manuscript out, took a fresh pen which Ford had
mended for him, and began to work with great energy and pleasure.
Never had he more enjoyed his work; he was putting on the
corner-stone--finishing the fabric. It took him all the morning to put
everything down as he had planned it. And it pleased him so much that he
smiled and chuckled to himself as he wrote, and said special phrases
over and over under his breath. All the morning through he sat at his
table working at it, while little Jock occupied his habitual position
stretched out upon the white rug before the fire, his shoulders raised a
little, his head bent over his book. Jock was too much absorbed to be
aware of anything that was going on. The book he had lighted upon that
day was Defoe’s “History of the Plague,” and the little fellow was
altogether given over to its weird fascinations. It was more entrancing
even than “Robinson Crusoe.” Thus the child and the old man kept each
other company for hours together; the one betraying his presence
occasionally by a little flicker of two small blue legs from the white
rug, and of the pages of his book, itself half buried in the silky
whiteness; while the other chuckled and muttered as he wrote, delighted
with himself and his latest conception. They were both living by the
imagination, though in phases so different; the boy carried out of
himself, lost in the wonderful dream-history which was so much, more
real than anything else round him; the old man throwing himself forward
into a future he should never see, enacting a dream-life, which was to
be when his should be ended and over, but which in its visionary
distance was also a thousand times more real than the dull day to which
it gave a fictitious charm.
When the clause was finished Mr. Trevor once more called up Ford, and
made him acquainted with his new conception. Ford studied him
attentively while he read it, but he also listened with benevolent
attention; and he gave his approval to the new plan. Seven years! Ford
was just about so much the junior of his friend and patron. He said to
himself, as he listened, that by that time he would no longer care to
have the responsibility of superintending Lucy’s actions; and he
graciously concurred in the expediency of her liberation. “If she can
not manage her own affairs at thirty or so she never will,” he said,
“and I think, Mr. Trevor, that you’re in the right.
“If I go soon,” said the old man, “she’ll be five-and-twenty, and no
more; and I think I’ll go soon; but nobody can answer for a year or two.
Yes, I think it’s a pretty will as it stands; I don’t think, without any
partiality, that you’ll find many like it. There’s nothing that can
happen to her, so far as human insight goes, that I have not foreseen
and left directions for. I hope I have not been insensible to my
responsibilities, Ford. I’ve tried to be father and mother both. If you
can point out anything that I’ve neglected--”
“Mr. Trevor,” said the other; “you’ve thought of a many more things than
would ever have come into my head. You’ve discharged your duties nobly;
and I and Susan will do our part. You need not be afraid; we’ll take
your example for our guide, and we’ll do our part.”
“Just so, just so,” said the old man, not so much interested. It was
essential, no doubt, that his will should be carried out; but he did not
realize so clearly, and perhaps he did not wish to realize, that he
would himself have no hand in carrying it out. When the question was put
as to how the Fords were to do their part, his attention flagged. “You
are not to be the first, you know,” he said, brusquely; “there’s my Lady
Randolph that comes first.”
Here Ford began to shake his head. “If you took my opinion, I’d say that
was the one weak point,” he said; “I make bold to say it, though I know
you will be offended, Mr. Trevor. That’s the weak point. It’s well
intended, very well intended; but that’s the weak point.”
“You blockhead!” said the other; but he kept his temper. “You would keep
her in Farafield all her life, I shouldn’t wonder, and have all the
little cads in the place after her, and never let her have a glimpse of
the world.”
“I don’t know what you call the world,” said Ford. “Human nature is the
same everywhere. We are just the same lot wherever you take us; and as
for cads, there’s Sir Thomas--I thank the Lord I don’t know anybody in
Farafield--nobody in my own class of life--that has been so tiresome,
that has been as wild--”
“You let Sir Thomas alone,” said old Trevor; “he never was a cad.”
Upon which Ford continued to shake his head. “It may be a word that I
don’t fathom,” he said; “I don’t know one in Farafield that has given as
much trouble; and he’s always in want of money; it’s like putting the
lamb into the clutches of the wolf.”
“There are plenty of wolves,” said the old man. “That’s my policy: I set
one to fight the other, and I wish them joy of it. One here and one
there, that’s better than a single candidate. And while they’re pulling
each other to pieces, my little lamb will get off scot-free.”
Ford shook his head persistently, till it seemed doubtful if it ever
would recover its steadiness. “If I were to speak my mind,” he said;
“there’s one that has a real claim--just one. He’s may be too modest to
speak for himself; but there _is_ one, if I were to speak my mind--”
“Then don’t!” said old Trevor, with a fiercer gleam in his eyes; “that’s
my advice to you, Richard Ford. Don’t! I want to hear nothing of your
one that has a claim. Who has any claim! not a soul in the world! Lucy’s
fortune is her own--she’s obliged to nobody for it. It comes to her, not
from me, that I should take upon me to pick and choose. She does not get
a penny from me; all I have I’ve given to the other, and a very good
nest-egg for his position in life. But Lucy’s fortune is none of my
making; Lucy is Lucilla’s daughter.”
“Susan’s cousin!” said Ford, instinctively. He regretted it the next
moment, but he could not withhold this protest. To think that all the
money should be Lucilla’s, and none of it come to Susan, though she was
Lucilla’s cousin! It is hard, it must be allowed, to see fortunes come
so near, yet have no share in them. In the family, yet not yours, not
the smallest bit yours, save by grace and favor of a stranger, a man who
is your cousin’s husband, indeed, but has no claim otherwise to belong
to the family. The Fords were not at all ungrateful to old Trevor; but
still there were moments when this struck them in spite of themselves.
CHAPTER XIV.
A FALSE ALARM.
The prophets of evil were not deceived; when a kind of general
impression arises in respect to an invalid that a crisis is approaching,
it almost always is justified by the event. During that very night there
was a sudden alarm; Mr. Trevor’s bell rang loudly, awakening all the
house. Lucy flew from her room, hastily gathering her dressing-gown
round her, with her light hair hanging about her shoulders, and Mrs.
Ford appeared in a night-cap, which was an indecorum she recollected
long afterward. The maids naturally, being less interested, were harder
to rouse, and it was Mr. Ford himself who issued forth in the
penetrating chill of the early morning, still quite dark and silent, not
a soul astir, and buttoning himself into his warmest overcoat, went out
in the cold to seek a doctor, who, for his part, was just as unwilling
to be roused out of his slumbers in the middle of the night. Jock,
roused by the sounds, sat up in his little bed, with wide-awake eyes,
hearing the bell still jar and tinkle, and sounds of people running
up-and down-stairs, which half frightened, half reassured him. To hear
other people moving about is always a comfort to a child, and so was the
reflection of the lamp at the gateway of the Terrace, which shone into
his room and kept it light. Jock sat up and gazed with big eyes, and
wondered, but was too much awed and alarmed by the nocturnal disturbance
to move; and, indeed, as it turned out after, there was not much need
for any one to be disturbed. Old Trevor’s explanation was that he had
woke up with a loud singing in his ears and a sense of giddiness, and he
could not articulate at first when, they rushed to his bedside, so that
everybody believed it to be a “stroke.” But when the doctor came he
declared that, though the patient’s blood was running like a river in
flood, yet there was nothing very particular the matter, and that a day
or two’s quiet would make him all right. Mrs. Ford, in her night-cap,
remained by the newly lighted fire in Mr. Trevor’s room to take care of
him, but the rest were all sent back to bed, and when the breakfast-hour
arrived the patient pronounced himself as well as ever. He got up at his
usual hour, and would not even allow that, as Mrs. Ford suggested, he
felt “shaky.”
“Not a bit shaky,” he declared, putting out one shrunken shank to show
how steadily he stood on the other; “but I thought my time was come,” he
said. “I’ll allow I thought I had reached it, after looking for it so
long. It was a queer feeling. I am just as well pleased to put it off a
bit, though it must come soon.”
“That is true,” Ford said, shaking his head; “we must all die; but the
youngest may go off before the oldest, as happens every day.”
These were the words that little Jock heard as they came into the
drawing-room, the old man leaning on the arm of the other. Where was the
youngest to go off to? He understood vaguely, and a momentary thrill ran
through his little veins. Was it he that might “go” before his father?
it was a thing which seemed to lie between the eldest and the youngest
Jock’s mind was full of the plague and all its horrible details, and the
wonder and mystery of thus going “off” chimed in with this gloomy yet
fascinating study; the recollection of the bell tinkling through the
streets, the dead-cart stopping at the door, scared yet excited him. But
there was no plague, no dead-cart, no tinkling bell at Farafield. After
awhile the impression died out of the child’s mind, but scarcely so
quickly as it did out of the mind of his old father, who already
chuckled to himself over the fright he had given the house. Mr. Trevor
did justice to the people who surrounded him.
“When it really comes they will be sorry,” he said; “but it was a
disappointment.”
He liked to think he had disappointed them; even in getting better, a
man can not but feel that his own superior sense and strength of
character have something to do with it. Another man would not have
rallied, would have been capable of dying perhaps, and cutting short all
the interest of his story; but not John Trevor, who knew better what he
was about.
The night alarm, however, soon became known over Farafield, and many
people had sufficient interest in the old man and his daughter to come
or send, and make inquiries. Among these he had one visitor who amused
and one who angered him. The first was a stranger, who sent up a card
with the name of Mr. Frank St. Clair, and a message from Mrs. Stone, who
begged to have the last news of the sufferer. “Show him up, show him
up,” old Trevor said, his keen eyes twinkling with malice and humor; but
when the large figure of the young barrister (for that was Mr. Frank St.
Clair’s profession) entered the room, the old man was impressed, in
spite of himself, by the solidity and imposing proportions of Mrs.
Stone’s nephew and candidate; there was an air of respectability about
him which compelled attention. He was handsome, but he was also serious,
and had that air of a man who has given hostages to society, which
nothing confers so surely as this tendency to a comfortable and
respectable fullness of frame. Old Trevor acknowledged to himself that
this was no young dandy, but a man, possibly, of weight of character as
well as person; his very tendency (to speak politely) to _embonpoint_
conciliated the old man. Schemers are seldom fat. Mr. Frank St. Clair
looked respectable to the tips of his well-brushed boots, and as he
looked at him, old Trevor was mollified in spite of himself.
“Yes, I gave them a fright,” he said. “I thought myself that matters
were coming to a crisis; but it was a false alarm. You may tell your
aunt that I am as well as ever, and as clear in my intellects as
ever--such intellects as I have.”
“Nobody would doubt that, I think,” said St. Clair; and indeed Mr.
Trevor flattered himself that nobody could doubt it. He was as clearly
aware of the effect upon a stranger of his own keen eyes and vivacious
wide-awake aspect as any one could be.
“There’s no telling,” said the old man; “some people think they can
take me in--which is a mistake, Mr. St. Clair--a great mistake.”
“I should think so,” said St. Clair, with easy composure. “If you will
let me, I will sit down,” he said; “if there is nothing to occupy you
for the moment, I wonder if you will let me ask your advice about a
little money I have?”
Again the malicious gleam awoke in old Trevor’s eyes, a mixture of
suspicion, admiration, and interest moved him. Every man who had money
interested him more or less; but if this was a dodge on Mrs. Stone’s
part, the move was one which might have filled any like minded artist
with admiration. He chuckled as he invited the confidence of his
visitor; yet though he thought he saw through the deceit, he respected
St. Clair all the same for having money to invest, even if it were not
his own, but lent to him for the occasion; it threw a halo of interest
round him in old Trevor’s eyes.
“So that’s the first of them,” he said to himself, when St. Clair took
his departure; “that’s number one of the pack. Women are quick about it,
they don’t let the grass grow under their feet. Rushton will keep quiet,
he won’t let his lad show in my sight. But the women are bold--they’re
always bold. And I wonder who my lady will bring forward?” The old man
laughed; he was pleased by the thought of the coming struggle. It did
not give him any concern that his young daughter should be left alone in
the midst of it, to be competed for by so many hungry aspirants. “I’d
like to be there to see the wolves at it,” he said aloud, with a grin on
his face. At the sound of the voice over his head, little Jock turned
round upon his rug. Wolves were in his way; from Red Riding-hood upward,
he knew a great deal about them; he had heard them in the forest
pursuing the travelers, and knew what the howl meant when it occurred in
a story in the midst of the black winter night. He turned right round,
with the “History of the Plague” in his arms, and faced his father,
looking upward from the rug. “What is it about wolves?” said Jock.
No question could have surprised old Trevor more; he looked round him
first in suspicion, to see where the voice came from then looked down
upon the child with a gape of wonder. “Eh! do you know anything about
wolves, my lad?” he said.
“Oh, a great deal!” said Jock, calmly; “I could tell you heaps of
stories about them; the worst of all is that one about the woman and her
children. I told it to Lucy, and she would not let me tell it out. Would
you like me to tell it to you?”
Jock spoke to his father on very much the footing of an equal. They did
not, as a rule, take much notice of each other; but the curious way in
which they pursued their lives together had given the old man and the
little boy a sort of tacit fellowship, not at all like the usual
relation between father and child. Not once in two or three months was
there any conversation between them, and this gave all the more
importance to their occasional intercourse. “There was once a woman,”
said Jock, “traveling through a wild, wild forest, and she had her three
little children with her--quite little, little things, littler than me a
great deal; when all of a sudden she heard pad, pad, something coming
behind her. It wasn’t quite night, but it was getting dark, darker and
darker every moment; and the old white horse got awfully frightened, and
the forest was miles and miles long. She knew she couldn’t come to a
village, or a house, for ever so long. And she heard them coming on
faster and faster, sniffing and panting, and all after her, hundreds and
hundreds of them; they’re like dogs, you know,” said Jock
parenthetically, looking up from the rug, where he lay on his back, with
the “History of the Plague” laid open on his breast; “they bark and they
howl, just like dogs when you hear them far off in the woods; but when
they’re after you, they go straight before them, like the wind blowing,
and never make any sound.”
“And what became of the woman and the children?” said old Trevor, partly
amused, partly impressed.
“The white horse[A] galloped on and on,” said Jock, with the instinct of
a story-teller; “and the wolves came after, pad, pad, all like one,
though there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and the woman in the
sleigh (did I tell you it was a sleigh? but I don’t know rightly myself
what a sleigh is) got wild with fright, and the three little things
cried, and the trees made a noise against the sky; and the wood got
deeper and deeper, and the night darker and darker; and then she heard
them all panting behind her, and their breath hot upon her, and every
moment she thought they would jump up behind and crunch her with their
teeth--”
[A] The poem of Ivan Ivanovitch had not been written in those days, and
perhaps it might have been above Jock’s understanding.
“Go on, child, go on,” said old Trevor. “I think I’ve heard the story;
but I don’t remember how she got out of it.”
“This is what Lucy will never listen to,” said Jock, solemnly; “she says
it can’t be true; she says there never was a woman like that. She says
she’ll beat me if I go on; but it is the real end to the story all the
same. Well, you know, the woman was wild; she didn’t know what she was
doing. Just when they were going to crunch her with their teeth in her
neck, she turned round, and she took up one of the children and flung it
out into the middle of the wolves; and the little thing gave just one
more cry (he was crying, you know, before), and the wolves caught him in
their big teeth, and tore him, one a piece here, and another a piece
there, hundreds and hundreds of them; and the old white horse galloped
on and on.
“Well, but then that was only one,” said Jock, resuming after
a pause; “when they had eaten that little thing all up, they were not
half satisfied, and they said to each other, ‘Come on,’ and two minutes
after, what should the woman hear but the whole mob of them after her
again, and the sound of them panting and their breaths on her neck. And
she took hold of another little child--”
“You needn’t tell me any more,” said the old man; “where did you get
these dreadful stories; they turn one sick.”
“She threw them all out, the first, and the second, and the third,”
cried the boy, making haste to complete his narrative, “and then she was
saved herself. Lucy never gets further than the first; but you’ve heard
the second. And she says it can’t be true; but it is true,” said Jock,
severely; “many people have told it. I’ve read another story--”
“Hold your tongue, child,” said the old man.
Which Jock did at once. He was ready to come forward, to recount his
experience, or instruct others by his large amount of miscellaneous
reading whenever it was necessary, but he did not thrust his information
upon unwilling ears. He turned round again promptly, and, laying his
book down on the white rug, supported himself on his elbows and resumed
his reading. Jock had a perfectly good conscience, and could hear any
number of parables (though he was always suspicious of them) without
turning a hair.
But old Trevor was not equally innocent; he trembled a little within
himself at that story of remorseless self-preservation. The wolves were
the image he had himself used, and when he remembered that he had looked
forward to their struggle with amusement, and indeed done his utmost to
draw them together, without much regard for the lamb who was to escape
as she could from their clutches, a momentary tremor of conscience came
over him. But it did not last long; impressions of this kind seldom do;
and when he received a second visit in the evening, this time from
Philip Rainy, who expressed much solicitude about his health, old Trevor
had ceased to feel any compunctions about the fierce competition to
which he was going to expose his child. But he was firmly determined
that the first and most natural competitor, the man who was of the
family, and had a sort of claim to everything that belonged to the name,
should not be, so to speak, in the running at all.
“I am very well,” he said, “quite well, thank you; there is nothing the
matter with me. If people say to the contrary, they’re lying, or at best
they’re fools meddling in other folks’ affairs. It’s nothing to any one
if I’m ill or well.”
“You must pardon me, uncle,” said Philip, “but it is something to me.”
The familiar grin came upon the old man’s face; but it was not
accompanied with a chuckle of not unkindly mirth, as it had been in the
case of Mrs. Stone’s nephew, in whose favor there was no such potent,
argument.
“I don’t know what it should be to you,” he said, “Mr. Philip Rainy: if
you had been waiting for my shoes I could have understood; but you’ve
got ’em, you’ve got ’em, more fool I; and if you think there is anything
more coming to you when I die, you’re mistaken, that’s all I’ve got to
say. My will’s made--and there’s no legacies in it, not one. My money
goes to them that have a right to it. There’s no fancy items to satisfy
those that have gone out of their way, or thought they’d gone out of
their way, to flatter an old man. So that it’s no good, no possible
good, to take that friendly interest in me.”
Lucy, who was sitting by when this was said, started and got up from her
knitting, and went once more behind her father, where she stood looking
pitifully at Philip, clasping her hands together, and imploring him with
her eyes not to be angry. That would have been inducement enough to bear
with the old man’s brutal incivility, if there had been nothing more. He
gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, reassuring her, and
answered with a calmness which did him infinite credit, and indeed cost
him a great effort.
“I am sorry you think so badly of me,” he said, “but I will not defend
myself, I am waiting for no old shoes, heaven knows. I should like to be
of use to my relations--to you or to Lucy. But if you will not let me, I
must put up with it. And I will not stay longer now, since you have so
poor an opinion of me. Good-night, I am going away; but I shall not
cease to think about you, though I do not see you. You have been very
kind to me, substantially kind,” said Philip, rising slowly with a
lingering look at the father and daughter, “I owe all that I am, and
something of what I may be, to you, and I want no more, Mr. Trevor, no
legacies, nothing but a way of showing my gratitude. If I am not to be
allowed to do this, why, I must submit. Good-night.”
There was a quaver of real feeling in the young man’s voice. It was true
enough, and if there was something more that was likewise true, the
_suppressio veri_ is in some cases a very venial fault. As for Lucy,
what with sympathy, and indignation and shame for her father’s conduct,
she was more tenderly inclined toward Philip than she had ever been in
her life. Thus opposition usually works. She cast an indignant look at
her father, and a strenuous protest in the shape of an exclamation,
“Papa!” which spoke volumes; and then in spite of his call to her to
remain she followed Philip as he went down-stairs, appealing to him
also, in a different way, with the tears in her eyes.
“You will not mind, Philip; but please don’t stop coming or quarrel
because he is cross. He is ill, that is the reason, he is not himself;
but I am sure you are too sensible to mind.”
Philip shook his head with a smile. “I fear I am not so sensible,” he
said. “I do mind; but Lucy, if you will always speak to me as kindly I
shall not mind what any one else may say,” he added, with fervor. He had
never gone so far, or felt inclined to go so far before.
Lucy was surprised by this new tone, and looked at him, not with alarm,
but with a mild astonishment. However, as it did not occur to her that
there could be any special meaning in it, she gave him her hand kindly
as usual, nay, a little more kindly, in that her father had used him so
badly.
“It does not matter very much about me,” she said, “but I am very, very
sorry papa has been so--strange. It is only because he is ill, very ill
still. They all think he is better, but I don’t think so; his hand is so
hot and trembling, and there is such a wild sort of brightness in his
eyes. I am not easy about him, but very unhappy. I wish to-night was
over,” she said, the tears falling in a little shower from her eyes.
“Lucy! let me stay; will you let me stay? He need not know that I am
here, but I could sit up down-stairs and be ready to run for the doctor,
or to do anything.”
“It is very good of you, Philip; but how would you be fit for your work
if you sat up all night? No, no, I can not let you do that. And perhaps
it will not be so bad; perhaps I am--silly,” said Lucy, with a dolorous
attempt at a smile.
“What does the doctor say?” Philip asked.
He was very sorry for her in all truth and sincerity, besides having a
sense that it would be very good for him to be thus identified with her,
and show himself as her chief comforter and support at this serious
moment of her life.
Mrs. Ford came out from her parlor as she heard the conversation
outside. She was Philip’s relation too, and she had decided that nothing
could be more suitable, if--But like so many other good women, she could
not let well alone, and to Philip’s great vexation here came out, adding
her portly presence to the scene.
“The doctor is quite satisfied,” said Mrs. Ford, “_quite_ satisfied. He
is going on as nicely as possible; you must help me to persuade Lucy,
Philip, that she must not sit up as she is talking of doing. Why should
she sit up? I shall be there to do whatever is wanted, and to call her
if it should be necessary. At her age it is a killing thing to sit up
all night.”
“I have been begging her to let me stay and watch instead,” said Philip;
“a chair in your parlor would be all I should want, and I should be
ready to run for the doctor.”
“Oh, no, no,” Lucy said.
Mrs. Ford wavered for a moment, thinking that a young man was much more
fit for this duty than her respectable husband, but finally decided that
it was not to be thought of, remembering Mr. Trevor’s dislike to Philip;
and then the bell was heard to ring, and Lucy ran upstairs anxiously.
Mrs. Ford’s parting words, however, were very encouraging.
“Don’t you take any notice,” she said, “but come and see her, whether
you see him or not. He will go some day or other, that’s certain, in one
of these fits.”
“Poor little Lucy!” Philip said.
“Yes, it is true, it will be sad for her,” said Mrs. Ford, not half sure
of what she was saying; “but yet Lucy will have a great deal to be
thankful for, whatever happens,” she added, as she again bade him
good-night.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SIGNING OF THE WILL.
After this alarm, however, Mr. Trevor got better, and there was an
interval of calm. Life resumed its usual routine, and all went on as
before. During this interval, Frank St. Clair became Mr. Trevor’s
constant visitor. He saw the old man almost every day, and there can be
no doubt that he entertained and amused him much. Old Trevor even went
so far as to talk to him about the will, that all-important document,
which was the object of his existence--not, indeed, of its actual
composition, but of its existence as a mysterious authority which was to
guide the steps of his successors for years. They had a great many most
interesting conversations about wills. Frank was not a great lawyer, but
yet he could remember some cases which had made a noise in their day,
and some which had kept families in great commotion and trouble without
making much noise in the world; and he took a somewhat malicious
pleasure in telling his new acquaintance alarming stories of wills that
had been lost, then found again to the confusion of every rational
arrangement; and of wills that had been suppressed, and of some which no
one had paid any attention to, setting aside their stipulations
entirely, almost before the testator was cold in his grave. This was
very startling to old Trevor. He inquired into it with a wonderful look
of anxiety on his face. There was one will, in particular, of which his
informant told him, with malicious calm, in which there was question of
a house which the testator had built for his daughter, and which he left
to her under the condition that it should never be let or sold, but
remain a home for her and her children forever. What had happened? the
house had been let directly, the daughter not finding it convenient to
live there, and it was now about to be sold. Yes, the will was perfectly
sound, not contested by any one; had been proved in due form, and
administered to, and all formalities fulfilled--except in this important
particular of carrying it out. Old Trevor’s throat grew dry as he
listened, the color went out of his face.
“But--but--but--” he said, “was it allowed--was it permitted? Why wasn’t
it put a stop to? You must be making a mistake. Nobody can go against a
will! A will! You forget what you’re saying--a will is part of the law.”
“Who was to put a stop to it?” said St. Clair, calmly, “Who was to
interfere? There were several brothers and sisters, and none of them
wanted the house to stand empty, though the father so willed it. Whose
business was it to stand up for the will? There was no one to
interfere.”
“That is the most wonderful thing I ever heard in my life, the most
wonderful thing,” said the old man, stammering and stumbling. “I can not
understand it. A will--and they paid no attention to it. I never heard
of such a thing in my life.”
“Oh, I have heard of a great many such things,” said St. Clair, and he
gave a little sketch--which, indeed, was interesting--of careful
testaments set aside by the law, or made null by some trifling omission,
or solemnly ignored by the very heirs they appointed. It was a cruel
joke. Poor old Trevor did not get over it for a long time. He sat and
thought of it all the rest of the day. Who was to interfere? who was to
make sure that anybody would do as he had ordained--would take upon them
the trouble of superintending all Lucy’s actions, and following out his
code? He had Ford up when St. Clair left, and talked to him long on the
subject, not betraying his fears, by cunningly endeavoring to pledge
him, over and over, to the carrying out of his views. “You would not see
my will neglected after I’m gone? If the others should be careless, or
refuse the trouble, you’d always see justice done, Ford? I am sure I can
trust in you whatever happens,” the old man said.
“The best thing to do is to get the will signed and sealed and
delivered,” said Ford; “that is the first way of making it sure. So long
as you are adding a little bit every day, you can never be certain. Yes,
yes, you may trust in me, Mr. Trevor. I would never dare to go against a
dead person’s will. I’d expect to be haunted every night of my life. You
may trust in me; but I can’t answer for others. I have charge of half of
the time, no more. I can’t answer for others--Lady Randolph will pay
little attention to me.”
“Lady Randolph will pay attention to her own interests,” said the old
man.
“Ah! that she will,” cried Ford, with energy. There was much more
meaning in the tone than in the words; and the inference was not
agreeable to old Trevor, who retired within himself, and sat for the
rest of the afternoon with a very serious face ruminating how to invent
safeguards for the will, which, however, he would not sign, as Ford
suggested. “There’s something more I want to put in,” the old man said
pettishly. “I’ll try to wind it all up to-morrow.” But as a matter of
fact, he did not want to wind it all up, or conclude the document. When
he did so, his occupation would be gone. It would be the conclusion of
all things. With a natural shrinking he thrust this last action from
him, notwithstanding the composure with which he had long regarded his
own death as something necessary to the fulfillment of his intentions.
But he did not feel disposed to put his final seal to it, and dismiss
himself out of the world with a stroke of his pen. To-morrow was soon
enough. When Lucy returned from school, she found him shivering by the
fire. It was a cold day, but he was chilled by more than the weather;
chilled in his vivacious spirit, which had done more to keep him warm
than his good fire or warmly lined dressing gown. “No, I am not ill,”
he said, in answer to her inquiries, “not at all poorly, only low, Lucy.
If you and the rest should throw me overboard after I am gone; if it
should turn out that I have taken all this trouble for nothing--thinking
of you night and day, and planning for your good and your happiness--if
it should be all for nothing, Lucy?”
“But how could that be,” said Lucy, with her usual calm, “when you have
been so particular--when you have written it all down?”
“Yes, I have written it all down,” he said, “and it can’t come to
nothing, if you will be a good girl, and take care that all your old
father’s wishes are carried out.”
“Papa, I promise you, all you have arranged about me, and all your
wishes for me, shall be carried out,” said Lucy, with a very slight
emphasis upon the pronoun, which indicated a mental reservation, but her
father did not notice this. His voice, already enfeebled, took a
coaxing, beseeching tone.
“I’ll not fear anything, I’ll try not to fear anything, if you’ll give
me your promise. Give me your promise, Lucy,” he said, and Lucy repeated
with more effusion, when she saw the feverish uneasiness in which he
was, the promise she had already made.
“Except about Jock,” she said, within herself; but even if she had said
it aloud her father’s thoughts were too much bent on the general
question to have remarked this. Ford, who was very anxious too, beckoned
to her from behind the screen, and whispered, “Get him to sign it, ask
him to sign it!” with the most energetic gesticulations; but how could
Lucy press such a request upon her father? They were all anxious in the
house that evening, and Mrs. Ford sat up all night, and her husband lay
on the sofa in his clothes, fearing a midnight summons, but it was not
till the next evening that the blow came. When their anxiety had been
softened, and their precautions forgotten, the loud jar and tinkle of
the bell once more woke little Jock in his little bed, and Ford from his
comfortable slumbers; and this time it was no false alarm. Old Trevor
was seized at last by the paralytic attack which had been, hovering over
him for sometime. Ford going hastily for the doctor caught a bronchitis
which kept him in bed for a week (just, his wife said, like a man--when
he is most wanted), but the old man had his death-stroke. The house
changed all at once, as sudden and dangerous illness always changes the
abode it dwells in. All thought, all consideration were merged in the
sick-room. For the first few days not even the affairs which he had left
unsettled were thought of. The poor chilly blue-and-white drawing-room
in which he had spent his days stood vacant, colder, and more
commonplace than ever, yet with a pathos in its nakedness. The
blotting-book, with the big blue folio projecting on every side, still
lay on the writing-table where it had lain so long; but nobody touched
it except the house-maid who dusted it daily, and was often tempted to
take the sheaf of untidy papers to light her fire. What could it have
mattered if she had lighted her fire with them? The work upon which the
old man had spent so much of his fading life was of little importance
now. No one thought of it except Ford, who at the worst of his
bronchitis mourned over the uncompleted, document.
“Will he ever come to himself, doctor? Will he ever have the use of his
faculties?” he moaned; but even this no one could tell.
The old man lay for more than a week in this state of unconsciousness;
but after a time began to give faint indications of returning
intelligence. He could not move nor speak, but his eyes regained a gleam
of meaning, and very awful it was to see this reawakening, and to guess
at the desires and feelings that awoke dimly, coursing like lights and
shadows, a dumb language upon his countenance. One night Lucy felt that
his eyes were fixed upon her with more meaning than before, and the
three anxious people gathered round the bed, questioning and consulting
each other.
He was like a prisoner, making faint half distinguishable gestures
beyond the bars of his prison--questions on which deliverance might
depend, but which the watchers could not understand. Presently the
efforts increased, the powerless ashy old hand which lay on the
coverlet, all the fingers in a helpless heap together, began to flicker
in vague movement. Old Trevor’s eyes had not been remarkable for any
force of expression, for nothing indeed, save for the keenness of his
seeing when he was well. They had been small and sharp, and of a reddish
gray, with puckered eyelids, making them smaller than they were by
nature. Now they seemed to stand out enlarged and clear, and full of a
spiritual force, which was partly weakness and partly the feverish dumb
impotence of a desire to which he could not give words. They all
gathered closely round, as anxious and not less helpless than he. Lucy
in her inexperience was driven desperate by this crisis. She knelt down
by the bedside, speaking to him wildly, clasping her hands, and
beseeching, “What is it? What is it? Oh, papa, what is it? Try and speak
to me,” she cried. This hopeless kind of interrogation went on for some
time without any result, and they had all subsided again into the
quietness of despair, when Lucy was suddenly enlightened by a movement
of the old man’s crumpled fingers, which he had managed to curve as if
holding a pen. “He wants to write,” she said, hurrying to find a pencil
and paper, but these were rejected by an indignant gleam from the
sufferer’s eyes.
“It is pen and ink he wants,” Lucy cried in desperation, yet tidy still;
“dear papa, this will be easier, and will not make stains; not that! Oh,
what is it, then you want? what is it he wants? can no one guess what it
is?”
“It is of no use,” said Ford; “he wants to write, but he can’t, that’s
the whole matter: he has something to tell us, but he can’t. It’s the
will, he has never signed the will. Doctor, is he fit? would it be any
good?”
The doctor had just come in, and stood shaking his head.
“Let him try,” he said; “I suppose it can’t do any harm, at least.”
They thought they saw a softening of satisfaction in the patient’s eyes,
and Ford ran to get the papers, while they all gathered round more like
conspirators about to drag some forced concession from the dying, than
anxious attendants seeking every means of satisfying a last desire. Then
the old man’s lips began to move. To his own consciousness he was
evidently demanding something, struggling with his eyes almost bursting
from his head. They raised him up, following the imperative demand made
by his face, and put the familiar document before him. His eyes, they
thought, brightened at the sight of it; something like a smile came upon
his ashy and somewhat contorted countenance. Though he was supported
like a log of wood by Ford and Lucy, yet his skeleton figure, raised
erect, took an air of dominance and energy. He had reigned in a
fantastic visionary world where everything was subject to his will when
he had composed these papers, and something of the same sentiment was in
his aspect now. He clutched the pen in that bundle of bony fingers, then
gave a glance of triumph round upon them all, and dabbed down the pen
upon the paper with that skeleton hand.
What had he put there? A blot, nothing more.
A perception that he had not succeeded, a gleam of anguish went over his
face; and then grasping the pen with increased energy in a wildly
renewed effort, he brought it down in a sea of ink, with a helpless daub
as unmeaning as before. Then a groan came from his shriveled bosom; he
let the pen drop, and dropped himself like a log of wood.
The doctor had been standing by all the time, shaking his head; he
interfered now in a passionless, easy tone.
“There is no harm done,” he said; “it could not have stood had he
succeeded; nobody could have said his mind was in a fit state. Don’t
take it away, but wait and have patience. After this he may mend, most
likely he will mend.”
“Papa,” cried Lucy, close to his ear, “do you hear that? You are not to
mind, you will still be able to do it. Do you hear, papa?”
The old man made no response. Another groan, the very utterance of
despair, broke from him. His eyes closed, his bony fingers fell on the
coverlet, a collection of contracted joints, helpless as they had been
before. He made a half fling of intended movement, without strength to
carry his intention out. What he wanted was evidently to turn his head
from the light, to turn the countenance to the wall; what image is there
which speaks more eloquently of that despair which is moral death? The
spectators stood by mournfully, with but half a sense of the full tragic
meaning of the scene, yet vaguely impressed by it, feeling something of
the horrible sense of failure, tragical, yet stupefying, which invaded
all the half-awakened faculties of the chief sufferer. Even now they
were but half aware of it, Lucy looking on with infinite pity and awe,
struggling to assure the half deafened ear that it did not matter, that
all would be well, while the Fords quickened by self-interest, realized
with a dull dismay the loss, the misfortune, which would affect
themselves. But the real tragedy remained concentrated in that worn-out
old body and imprisoned soul. How much of his life was in those
elaborate plans and settlements and he had failed at the last moment to
give them the necessary warrant. The old man closed his eyes, and, so
far as his will went, flung himself away from the light, turned his face
to the wall, yet could not do even that, in the prostration of all his
powers.
“If he can sleep, he may wake--himself,” the doctor said doubtfully. It
was just as likely he might not wake at all. But the light was carefully
shaded, and the nurse, who had no anxiety to disturb her, and the calm
of professional serenity to keep her composed, took the place of the
other watchers. The doctor, who was interested in an unusual “case,” and
who was a young man, as yet without much practice, offered to Ford, who
was excited and worn out, to remain, that there might be help at hand,
and a professional guarantee in case of any new incident; and this being
settled, sent all the other watchers to rest. Lucy, though she would
fain have stayed with her father, fell asleep--how could she help it?
after so many broken nights--the moment her young head touched the
pillow. The Fords were more wakeful, and retired, more to consult
together than to sleep, talking in whispers, though nothing they could
have said on the upper floor could have reached the sick-room, and full
of alarm and trouble as to the consequences of the future. Mrs. Ford,
for her part, employed this moment of relief chiefly in crying and
mourning over “their luck,” which no doubt would be enough to secure
that the old man should die without signing the charter of their
privileges. But even the whispering and weeping came to an end at last,
and all was still in the house, where the doctor occupied the forsaken
drawing-room, so bare and chilly, and the nurse watched in the silent
chamber, and old Trevor lay between life and death.
The only one of the family who could not rest was little Jock. Who does
not remember that sleeplessness of childhood which is more desolate and
more restless in its contradiction of nature, and innocent vacancy than
even the maturer misery of wakeful nights all rustling full of care and
thought? Jock had been waked out of his first sleep by the muffled
coming and going, the sound of subdued steps and whispering voices. He
had heard a great deal which “the family” are never supposed to hear. He
heard the doctor’s whispered conference with the Fords in the passage.
“I can say nothing with certainty,” the doctor had said; “if he can
sleep he may be himself in the morning, and able to attend to his
business.” “Or he may pass away,” Mr. Ford had said; “at the dawning.
That is the time when they get their release.” Pass away! Jock wondered,
with a shiver, what it meant. Visions flitted before his eyes of his
father’s figure, like that of Time, which he had seen on an old almanac,
his gray locks flying behind him, and a long staff in his hand. Where
would he go to in the dark, or at the dawning? Jock tried to turn his
face to the wall, away from the long mysterious window, which attracted
his gaze in spite of himself, and through which he almost expected to
see some weird passenger step forth. His door was open, as he liked to
have it, and the faint light shining through it usually afforded him a
little consolation; but on this particular night, among his vague
horrors, this too became a dangerous opening, through which some
terrible figure might suddenly appear. He was obliged to turn round
again, to keep both door and window within sight. And all kinds of
visions flitted before him. The noise of a wagon far off on the road,
across the common, suggested the dead-cart of the Plague, rolling
heavily, stopping here and there to take up its horrible load. He seemed
to hear the bell tinkle, the heavy tramp of the attendants; and at any
moment the child felt the door might be pushed open, and some one come
to take him away, and toss him among all those confused limbs and dead
faces. Or was it his father whom they would seize as he “passed away,”
with his gray hair blown about by the winds. Then Jock’s imagination
changed the theme, and he was in the valley of death with Christian,
hearing all those horrible whispers on every side, and looking into the
mouth of hell. He did everything he could to get to sleep; he counted,
as far as his knowledge of numbers would go, and said to himself all the
poetry he knew; but all was of no avail. When he began to see the walls
of his little room grow more distinct round him in a faint blueness,
Jock was not encouraged by the prospect of day-break. He thought of what
Mr. Ford had said, and of the people who were “released” at the dawning,
and he could not bear it any longer; he sprung from his bed, and rushed
toward the light in the passage, a light which was more cheerful, more
reassuring, than the pale beginning of the day. The door of his father’s
room was ajar, and the light was burning within, and a faint glimmer as
of firelight. Jock crept in, trembling and shivering, in his little
white night-gown, like an incarnation of the white, cold, tremulous,
infantile day.
Jock stole in very quietly, feeling protection in the warmth and
stillness; he edged his way in the shadow of the curtains, drawing
instinctively toward the fire, but afraid of being seen and turned out
again. He was afraid, yet he was very curious and anxious about the bed,
in which he knew his father was lying. The curtains at the head were
thrown back, twisted and pushed out of the way to give more air; and
there the pale gray head of the old man revealed itself on the pillow,
lying motionless. Jock stopped short with a sob in his throat, and
terror, too intense for expression, in his soul. His father had not
“passed away;” but whether he was alive or dead, Jock could not tell.
The nurse was dozing in the stillness, in her chair by the fire. The day
was rising, penetrating, even here, between the closed curtains, with
that chill, all-pervading blueness; it was the moment when every watch
relaxes, when the strain is relieved, and weariness makes itself felt.
Not a sound was to be heard, except now and then the ashes falling, and
the breathing of the strange woman in the big chair, who was almost as
alarming an object to Jock as his father. The child stood shivering, his
mouth half open, to cry, the sob arrested, by pure terror, in his
throat.
And whether it was that the sob escaped unawares, or that some sense of
the presence of another living creature in the room, that subtle
consciousness with which the atmosphere seems to penetrate itself, of a
living and thinking soul in it, reached the old man on the bed, it is
impossible to say; but while Jock stood watching, his father suddenly
opened his eyes, and turned, ever so little, yet turned toward him. Jock
was not aware that the old man had been up to this time unable to move,
but his imagination was excited, and the instantaneous revival into
awful life of the mute figure on the bed produced the strangest effect
upon him. A wild scream burst from his lips; he ran out to the stairs
crying wildly. “He has got his release,” Jock cried, not knowing what he
said.
The cry woke the nurse, brought the young doctor, drowsy and confused,
from the next room, and Lucy flying, all her fair locks about her
shoulders, down-stairs. The Fords followed more slowly--the very maids
were roused. But the release which the old man had got was not of the
kind anticipated by his companions. He was liberated from the disease,
which nobody had hoped; he had recovered his speech, though his
utterance was greatly changed and impeded; and, though one side remained
powerless, he retained the use of the other. He was even so much himself
as to chuckle feebly, but quietly, when the doctor returned a few hours
later, and pronounced him to be almost miraculously better. “I’ll
trouble you, doctor, to witness it,” the old man said, babbling over the
words, and looking with his enlarged but dimmed eyes at the papers by
his bedside. “I’ve got something to add; but I’ll not put off and cheat
myself, not put off and cheat myself again.” This they thought was what
he said. And thus the will got signed at last.
He lingered for some time after, continually endeavoring to resume his
old work, and now and then becoming sufficiently articulate to give full
evidence of the perfect possession of his faculties. But within a week a
third seizure carried off the old man without power of protest or
remedy. His unexpressed intentions died with him, but the words, “I’ve
something to add,” were the last he said.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE READING OF THE WILL.
Little Jock Trevor had never been a favorite with his father; there had
been between them nothing of the caressing intercourse which generally
exists between a very old father and a young child. He was not the pet
or plaything of the old man, who had remorselessly sentenced him to as
complete a separation as was possible from his sister. But,
nevertheless, Jock had grown up literally at his father’s feet, and the
world became suddenly very vacant and strange to him when the familiar
figure was withdrawn. The little fellow did not understand life without
this central point of stability and power in it; he had been used to the
old man’s presence, to the half-comprehended talks which went on over
his head, and to the background of that mysterious aged life filled with
so many things beyond Jock’s understanding, which yet afforded depth and
fullness to his strange perceptions of the mysterious world. He and his
books had lain in the foreground in a varying atmosphere of visions, but
behind had always been that pervading consciousness of something more
important, a dimly apprehended world of fact. So it happened that, of
all the household at the Terrace, it was little Jock who felt his
father’s death the most deeply; his nerves had suffered from contact
with that still more mysterious dying which he could not understand. He
could not get out of his childish mind the impression made upon him by
the sudden opening, in the dreadful silence of his father’s eyes. He who
had spent all his life alone could be left alone no longer; he followed
Lucy about wherever she went, holding tightly by her hand. There was no
one to interfere, or to prevent the hitherto neglected child from
becoming the chief interest of the house. He felt the loss far more,
though it was to his immediate advantage, than Lucy did, who cried a
little when she woke every morning at the recollection, but put on her
crape with a certain melancholy pleasure in the completeness and “depth”
of her mourning. Mrs. Ford, though she cried too, could not but admire
and wonder at these black dresses covered with crape, which she felt it
would have been a pleasure to old Mr. Trevor to see, so “deep” were
they, and showing so much respect. It was almost like widows’ mourning,
she declared, deeper far than that which ordinary mourners wore for a
parent; but then, when you considered what Lucy had lost--and gained!
But little Jock got no satisfaction out of his hat-band; he found no
comfort in anything but Lucy’s hand, which he clung to as his only
anchor. He went to the funeral holding fast by her, half hidden in her
dress. The by-standers were deeply touched by the sight of the young
girl so composed and firm, and the poor little boy with his scared eyes.
Many an eye was bent upon them as they stood by the grave, two creatures
so close together that they looked but one, yet, as all the spectators
knew, so far apart in reality, so unlike each other in their prospects.
Was it possible that she, a girl, was to have everything and he nothing,
people asked each other with indignation; and, notwithstanding the fact
that all Farafield knew it was Lucilla Rainy’s money which made Lucy
Trevor an heiress, still it would have shocked public opinion less if
the boy had inherited the larger share, though he was, as old Trevor was
so feelingly aware, an insult to Lucilla Rainy. So strong is prejudice
that the moral sense of the population would have felt it less had poor
Lucilla’s money been appropriated to make an “eldest son” of her
successor’s child.
The funeral had attracted a great following. The shop-keeping class,
many of whom had received their education at old John Trevor’s school,
and the upper class, of whom several had received lessons from him, and
who were in general powerfully moved by the acquisition into their ranks
of a new and unknown personage, a great heiress, who henceforward, they
made no doubt, would take her fitting place among them, filled the
church and church-yard, and looked on at the ceremony, if not with much
sympathy, yet with great interest. Almost everybody, indeed, was there.
A carriage from the Hall followed the procession from the house, and
Lady Randolph herself arrived from the station before the service in the
church was over, and followed to the grave, though no one had expected
such a compliment, carefully dressed in black, and with a gauze veil
which, Mrs. Ford remarked, was almost as “deep” as crape. It gave Lucy a
certain satisfaction to see, though it was through her tears, the crowds
of people: they were paying him due respect. In that, as in everything,
respect was his due, and he was getting it in full measure. She felt
that he himself would have been pleased had he been there: and it was
very difficult to believe that somehow or other he was not there, seeing
how everything went on. He would have chuckled over it had he seen it;
he would have felt the compliment; and Lucy felt it. When, however, she
saw how large a party accompanied her home after all was over, and
understood that she was to go into the drawing-room and hear the will
read among all these people, Lucy could not but feel that it was very
“trying,” as Mrs. Ford said; but yet she did it dutifully, as she was
told, not feeling that there was any choice left her, or that she could
refuse to do whatever was thought necessary. It was difficult to
disengage herself from Jock, and persuade him that it was best for him
to lie down on the sofa down-stairs and allow himself to be read to. He
consented at last, and then Lucy felt that the loss of his small hand
clinging to hers took away a great part of her strength; but she was
not a girl who stopped to consider what she could or could not do. She
did what she was told, always a more satisfactory rule.
There were a great many people in the room when Lucy went in, leaning,
much against her will, on Mrs. Ford’s arm. She was quite able to walk by
herself, and did not indeed like the careful and somewhat fussy support
which was given her, but she put up with it, looking straight before
her, not to meet the compassionating looks which Mrs. Ford thought it
part of her _rôle_ to address to the orphan. “Yes, my darling, it’s a
great trial for you,” Mrs. Ford kept saying, “a great trial, my love,
but you will be supported if you are brave; and I am sure you will be
brave, my dearie-dear.” Now it was not Mrs. Ford’s custom to call Lucy
her darling and her dearie-dear, which confused the girl; but all the
same she resigned herself. Some one rose when she came in and folded her
in a large embrace. Floods of black silk and waves of perfume seemed to
pass over her head, and then she emerged, catching her breath a little.
This was Lady Randolph, who was large, but handsome and comely, and
filled up a great part of what space there was to spare. Seated at a
little distance was Mrs. Stone, who showed her more delicate sense of
Lucy’s “trial” only by giving her a look in which pity was tempered by
encouragement, and a slight friendly nod. Besides these ladies, whom she
identified at once, there seemed to Lucy to be a cloud of men. All were
silent, looking at her as she came in; all were in black, black gloves
making themselves painfully apparent on the hands of the ladies. It was
before the time when black paws became the fashion on all occasions.
Even Mr. Ford wore black gloves; it was an important part of the general
“respect.” After awhile, even the men became comprehensible to Lucy.
There was Mr. Rushton, the town clerk, and Mr. Chervil, from London, and
another lawyer with a large blue bag, whom she did not know. Seated near
these gentlemen, with an amiable, patronizing air which seemed to say,
“I am very glad to countenance you, but what can I have to do here?”
was, to the surprise of most of the company, the rector, who had so
placed himself that, though he did not know what he was wanted for, he
had the look of being a kind of chairman of the assembly; while near the
door, sitting on the edge of his seat, holding his hat in one hand, and
brushing it carefully with the other, was Mr. Williamson, the Dissenting
minister. Mr. Williamson did not at all know how he was to be received
in this company. They were all “church people,” even the Fords, though
they had begun on other principles. And John Trevor had just been
buried, though he was a stanch old Nonconformist, with the ceremonials
of the church. Mr. Williamson did not know whether to be defiant or
conciliatory. Sometimes he smiled at his hat, smoothing it round and
round. The hat-band had been taken off, and carefully folded by to take
home to his wife; in this point he had taken example by the rector, who
was very well used to the sort of thing, and did not like anything to be
wasted. Clergymen’s wives are very well aware that hat-bands are always
made of the richest of silk.
Mr. Rushton made a little explanation informing the company that their
late worthy friend had wished them all to hear at least one part of his
will, and to accept a trust which it had been his great desire to
confide to them; and then the reading began. It is always a curious
ceremonial, and often affords scope for the development of strong
emotions; but in this case it was not so. There was great curiosity on
the subject, but no anxiety. Once, indeed, when the testator requested
each person present to accept fifty pounds for a ring, a little
involuntary liveliness, a rustle of attention, ran through the room.
Though Lady Randolph and Mrs. Stone, the rector, and Mr. Williamson, had
nothing in common with each other, they exchanged an involuntary glance,
and the corners of their mouths rose perceptibly. Fifty pounds is not
much, but there are few people who would not be pleased to have such a
little present made to them quite unexpectedly. Their mouths relaxed a
little, there was a softening of expression, and it would be impossible
to deny that Mr. Trevor rose several degrees in their opinion. But
beyond this little wave of pleasurable sentiment there was no emotion
called for, except surprise.
The will took a great deal of reading: it was a very long document, or
succession of documents, for the very enumeration of the codicils took
some time. These were all read in a clear monotonous voice which brought
a softening haze of drowsiness on the assembly. Perhaps no individual
present fully realized all the provisoes. Some of them were hid in
technical language, some confused by being mixed up with long details of
the money and property bequeathed. The first and chief body of the will,
which bequeathed three thousand pounds in the funds to the testator’s
son, and all the rest of his property to his daughter, “as the only heir
and descendant of her mother, my wife, Lucilla Rainy, through whom the
property came,” was brief and succinct enough. It had none of the
rambling elaboration of the later additions. When John Trevor had
executed it he had been still a strong man, very energetic in the
management of, his own affairs, but not dominated by any master idea. It
was plain justice, as he apprehended it, but he had not begun to frame
the theories which filled his later days. As the will was read, the door
opened and Philip Rainy came into the room. There was a slight general
stir, a common movement, very faint, but universal in disapproval of the
entrance of any intruder. Every one of those people, with no right that
they knew of to be there, felt a thrill of indignation go over them at
the sight of a stranger. What business had he to be present? But after
the stir there was an equally general pause. Lady Randolph, the only one
who did not know Philip, looked at the lawyers. But the lawyers made no
response. The voice of the reader went on again, the hearers fell into
their previous half drowse of attention; and the young man who had
nothing at all to do with it, but who was the nearest relation of the
orphans, stood in his black clothes leaning against the door. And there
was not any drowse about Philip; he listened, and he made out every
word.
When the codicils approached a conclusion, the drowse disappeared from
the company in general. It began to introduce their own names, which is
a sure way of interesting people. When the clause was read, which
described the future course of Lucy’s life, how it was to be spent and
where, there was a little stir among those who were immediately
concerned. Lady Randolph sat up more erect in her chair, and held her
head higher with a complacence and sense of importance which it would
have been impossible to express more delicately; the Fords, less
well-bred, looked at each other, and Mrs. Ford began to cry. The
spectators all listened keenly; their surprise and their curiosity rose
to a higher heat. Then came the appointment of the marriage committee,
at which the little thrill which had been visible in the others
communicated itself to all the company. Each individual sat up,
straightened his or her back, holding up their several heads, and
listened with a sense of importance and satisfaction, mingled with, in
some of them, a perception of the ludicrous side of the arrangement; and
after this there was little more.
During the whole of the proceedings Philip Rainy, undisturbed and
undisturbing, stood up leaning against the door. It was all new to him,
and much of it was far from agreeable; but he made no sign. He had no
business to be there--all these strangers, he could not but feel with a
little bitterness, had come by invitation, and had a right to the place
they occupied; but he had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless it was
something, it was a tacit acknowledgment that he had something to do
with it that no one remonstrated or took any notice of his presence. And
he took no notice, made no remark; but listened with the keenest
attention. Yes, there was one on whom none of the provisions were lost,
who never felt drowsy, but listened with his very ears tingling, and his
mind concentrated upon what he heard; he missed nothing, the technical
wording did not confuse him, each new particular stirred up his thoughts
to a rapidity and energy of action such as he had never before been
conscious of. He stood betraying nothing, looking at all the complacent
assembly, which regarded him as an outsider; and as each new detail was
read, swiftly, silently opposed to it in his mind a system of
counteraction. All these people with their little glow and sense of
satisfaction were to him like so many lay-figures round the table:
dream-people not worth taking into consideration. But on the other side
he seemed to see old Trevor chuckling, and waving a visionary hand at
him. “There is not a loop-hole to let you in,” the old ghost seemed to
say; and Philip ground his teeth, and said within him, “We shall see.”
As for the members of the marriage committee, those of them who were not
previously aware of the charge committed to them were filled with amaze,
and showed it each in his or her own way. Mrs. Stone and the Fords sat
fast, with a half smile on their face, by way of showing that to them
the idea was already familiar. But Lady Randolph was considerably
disturbed. She pushed back her chair a little, and looked round with a
certain dismay, her eyes opening wider, her lips parting, her breast
heaving with a half sigh, half sob of surprise. “All these people!” she
seemed to say, giving a second critical look round. The rector was still
more surprised--if that were possible; but he took his surprise in a
genial way. He began to laugh gently, under his breath as it were. He
was not a relation, nor even a friend, and he was not called upon to be
very serious on the death of old Trevor. He laughed, but quietly and
decorously, only enough to express a certain puzzled consternation and
sense of absurdity, yet consciousness that old Trevor had shown a
certain good sense in choosing himself. As for Mr. Williamson, he was
thunderstruck; he left off smoothing his hat; he, too, looked round him
bewildered, as if for instruction. How had his name been placed on such
a list? and he ended with a furtive glance at the rector, who was the
member of the company who interested him most, when the voice of the
reader stopped there was a curious momentary pause.
“This is a very astonishing arrangement,” said the rector, rubbing his
hands; “an extremely strange arrangement. I don’t see how we are to
carry it out. Don’t you think there is something a little odd--I mean,
something eccentric--there always was a certain eccentricity, eh? don’t
you know? in the character--”
“Our departed friend,” said Mr. Williamson, clearing his throat, “had
full possession of his faculties. I saw him the day before his seizure;
his intellects were as clear--I am ready to give my testimony
anywhere--as clear--as yours, sir, or mine.”
It was not very distinctly indicated to whom this was addressed; the
rector cast a slight glance at the speaker, as though he might have
shrugged his shoulders; but he was too polite to do so. “But,” he went
on, as though he had not been interrupted, “but this is too
extraordinary; I scarcely knew Mr. Trevor; why he should make me one of
the guardians of his daughter in such an important matter I can not
understand; and associate me with”--he paused again, and then gave
another glance round--“so many others--perhaps better qualified.”
“If Dr. Beresford means me--” Mr. Williamson began, with a flush on his
face.
“I mean no one in particular--I mean everybody--I mean that the whole
idea is preposterous. Why,” said the rector, bursting into a little
laugh, “it is like an old play; it is like an invention in a romance; it
is like--”
“Oh-h!” said Mrs. Ford, drawing in her breath. She had not intended to
speak in such fine company; but this was too much for her; and it had
always been believed by those who knew her most intimately that she was
still a Dissenter in her heart. “Oh-h!” she said, with a little shudder.
“When you consider that poor Mr. Trevor was carried out of this house,
feet foremost, this very day, and before the first night that folks
should laugh--”
The rector got very red. “I beg your pardon,” he said, sharply, not with
an apologetic voice. Mr. Williamson began once more to smooth his hat.
There was in him a suppressed smile from the sole of his shoe to the top
of his head, and the rector was aware of it, but could not take any
notice, which discomposed that dignified, clergyman more than if it had
been a greater matter.
Mrs. Stone here interfered; naturally her sympathies were all with the
Church; but she liked, at the same time, to show her superior
acquaintance with the testator’s wishes. “If you will allow me,” she
said, “I had the advantage of hearing from poor Mr. Trevor himself what
he meant. He did not wish to deprive his dear daughter of the advice of
one who would be her spiritual instructor. He was--not a Churchman; but
he was a man of great judgment. He considered that the rector had a
right to a voice in a matter so important. But,” said Mrs. Stone
suddenly, seeing Lady Randolph eager to interfere, “perhaps this is
scarcely a moment to discuss the matter; and in the presence of--”
“Not at all the moment,” said Lady Randolph, rising up and shaking out
her flowing skirts. “These gentlemen must all be aware that Miss Trevor,
in the meantime, is my first thought. Our presence is no longer
necessary, I believe, my dear,” the great lady said, offering her arm to
Lucy, who was thankful to be released. All the men stood up, the rector
still red, and Mr. Williamson still smoothing his hat. The departure of
the ladies had the air of a procession. Lucy was very timid and very
sick at heart, longing to escape, to rest, to cry, and then to prepare
herself quietly for whatever change might be coming; but she had no need
of Lady Randolph’s arm. Even when the heart is breaking, a mourner may
be quite able to walk; and Lucy was not heart-broken, only longing to
cry a little, and give vent to her natural gentle sorrow for her poor
old father. But Lady Randolph drew the girl’s hand within her arm, and
held it there with her other hand, and whispered, “Lean upon me, my poor
child.” Lucy did not lean, feeling no need of support, but otherwise
obeyed. Philip Rainy opened the door for the darkly clothed procession.
He too thought it right to assert himself. “I should like to see you,
Lucy,” he said, “afterward,” taking no notice of the great lady, “about
Jock.” The name, the suggestion, gave Lucy a shock of awakening. She
stopped short, to Lady Randolph’s surprise and alarm, and turned round
suddenly, withdrawing her hand from the soft constraint of that pressure
upon it. They all paused, looking at her, almost in as great surprise as
if something inanimate had detached itself from the wall and taken an
independent step.
“Please, Mr. Rushton,” Lucy said timidly, but clearly, “there is one
thing I want to say. I will do everything--everything that papa wishes;
but about Jock--”
“About Jock?” they all came a little nearer, looking at her. Mrs. Stone
put forth a hand to pat the girl’s shoulder soothingly, murmuring, “Yes,
dear--yes, my love, another time,” with amiable moderation. But Lady
Randolph would not permit any interference. She took her charge’s hand
again. “My dear,” she said, “all these arrangements can be settled
afterward by your friends.” Lady Randolph had no idea what was meant by
Jock.
“But I must settle this first,” Lucy said. She was very pale, and very
slight and girlish, looking like a shadow in her black clothes; but
there was no mistaking her quiet determination. She stood quite still,
making no fuss, with her eyes fixed upon the two lawyers. “I will do
every thing,” she repeated, “only not about Jock.”
“That is what I am here for, Lucy,” said Philip Rainy. “I am your
nearest relative. It is I who ought to have the care of Jock.”
At this point all turned their attention to Philip with sudden
intelligence in their faces, and some with alarm. The nearest relative!
Lucy, however, did nothing to confirm the position which Philip felt it
expedient thus strongly, and at once, to assert. She looked at him with
a faint smile, and shook her head.
“He has nobody really belonging to him but me. Mr. Rushton, please, I
will do every thing else, but I can not give up Jock.”
“We’ll see about it; we’ll see about it, Lucy,” Mr. Rushton said. And
then Lady Randolph, a little impatient, resumed her lead. “I can not let
you exert yourself so much,” she said, with peremptory tenderness. “I
must take you away; all this will be settled quite comfortably; but my
first thought is for you. I must not let you overexert yourself. Lean
upon me, my poor child?”
And thus, at last, the black-robed procession filed away.
CHAPTER XVII.
GUARDIANS.
The ladies went away, the men remained behind; most of them took their
seats again with evident relief. However agreeable the two halves of
humanity may be to each other in certain circumstances, it is a relief
to both to get rid of each other when there is business on hand. The
mutual contempt they have for each other’s modes of acting impedes
hearty co-operation, and the presence of one interferes with the other’s
freedom. The men took their seats and drew a long breath of relief, all
but Philip, the unauthorized member of the party, who felt that with
Lucy his only legal right to be here at all was gone.
“Well,” said the rector, intensifying that sigh of relief into a kind of
snort of satisfaction, “now that we may speak freely, Rushton, you don’t
expect that rubbish would bear the brunt of an English court of law? It
is all romancing; the old fellow must have been laughing at you in his
sleeve. Seven trustees to decide whom the girl is to marry! His mind
must have been gone; and you can’t imagine for a moment that this is a
thing which can be carried out.”
“I don’t see why,” said Mr. Rushton calmly; “more absurd things have
been carried out. He wants his girl to be looked after. She will have
half the fortune-hunters in England after her, like flies after a
honey-pot.”
All the men assembled looked at the town clerk, he was the only one
among them who could possibly have any interest in the question. The
rector appreciated this fact with unusual force; he had daughters only,
whereas Raymond Rushton was a likely young fellow enough. They were all
somewhat suspicious of each other, all except the personage who had read
the documents, and took no part in the matter, and Mr. Chervil, a London
attorney, with little time to spare, and not much interest in anything
but the money, which was his trade.
“Of course there will be fortune-hunters after her. He ought,” said the
rector, who was given to laying down the law, “to have appointed a
couple of trustworthy guardians, as other people do, and left it in
their hands. Such an arrangement as this, no one can help seeing, is
positively absurd.”
Here Ford cleared his throat expressively, with a sound which drew all
eyes toward him. But the good man, having thus protested inarticulately,
was shy, and shrunk from speech. He retreated a step or two with
involuntary precipitation. And the only defender old Trevor found was in
Mr. Williamson, who, nevertheless, had no desire to pit himself against
the rector: he would have liked, on the contrary, to be liberal and
friendly, and to show himself superior to all petty feeling; but he
could not help taking a special interest in everything his clerical
brother, who did not admit his brotherhood, did or said. Opposition or
friendship, it might be either one or the other, but indifference could
not be between them. Accordingly, as soon as the rector had said
anything, Mr. Williamson was instantly moved to say the reverse.
“We must not forget,” he said, putting down his hat on the floor, “that
our late lamented friend was carried out of this place only to-day. To
call his arrangements absurd so soon is surely, if I may say so, not in
good taste.”
“Oh, as for good taste--” cried the rector imperatively, with a sneer
upon his lips; but he stopped himself in time. He would not get into any
altercation, he said to himself; it was bad enough to be confronted with
Dissenters, to have one of these fanatics actually sitting down with
him at the same table, but to suffer himself to be led into a
controversy! “As for that,” he said, “my mind is easy enough. But here
is a very simple question--”
“Shall you serve, Dr. Beresford, or do you decline it?” Mr. Rushton
said.
This was a question more simple still. The rector turned round and
stared at the other with a confused and bewildered countenance. This was
not at all what he meant. He paused for a moment, and reflected before
he made any answer: would he serve, or did he decline it? Very simple,
but not so easy to answer: would he have a finger in the pie, or give it
up altogether? would he accept the mysterious position, and keep the
dear privilege of control, and the power of saying who was not to marry
Lucy Trevor, though he cared little for Lucy Trevor, or would he show
his sense of the folly of the arrangement by rejecting any share in it?
It was, though so simple, a difficult question, much more difficult than
to set down the old man, who was not a Churchman, as a fool. It did not
please him, however, to accept the latter alternative; he was a man who
dearly liked to have a finger in every pie.
“Oh, ah! indeed! yes, to be sure. That is how you put it,” he said.
“Yes, that is the only way to put it,” said Mr. Rushton; “we can’t
compel any one to accept the charge, but we have a few names behind with
which to fill up, should any one object. My client was full of
foresight,” he added, with a smile; “he was very long-headed,
wrong-headed too, if you like, sometimes, but sharp as a needle. He
thought his little girl a great prize.”
“And so she will be,” said the rector, almost with solemnity; and he was
silent for a moment, as if in natural awe of Lucy’s greatness; but
within himself he was mentally vowing that, if Rushton tried to run his
boy for such large stakes, he, the rector, would take care that he did
not have it all his own way. Dr. Beresford, though he was an excellent
clergyman, was not above the use of slang now and then, nor was he too
good for a resolution which had a little of the vindictive in it. “Must
we be called together to be consulted?” he said, with a laugh; “there’s
something of the kind in an old play. Will the candidate appear before
us, and state his qualifications?” The rector again permitted himself to
laugh, but nobody responded. Mr. Rushton, though he condemned the will
in private, had sufficient professional feeling to decline to join in
any open ridicule of it, and Ford, who felt himself in the dignified
attitude of a mourner, allowed nothing to disturb his seriousness. Mr.
Williamson was smoothing his hat with disapproving gravity, polishing it
heavily round and round, as though he found some carnal tendency in it
which had to be repressed.
“In my opinion, there is nothing to laugh at,” he said; “it is a grave
responsibility. The choice of a God-fearing Christian man to be the
guide of the young lady, under Providence, and the trustee, as it were,
of a great fortune--”
“Oh, not so bad as that; we have not got to choose him, only to
blackball him,” said Mr. Rushton; “and if you think old Trevor intended
that any husband should be the trustee of his daughter’s fortune, that
is a mistake, I assure you. She has more power in her hands than ever a
girl had; even now before she is of age she is allowed liberties--ah!”
Mr. Rushton stopped short, for Philip Rainy had stepped forward with the
evident intention of saying something. They all looked at Philip. He was
well known to every one present--regarded favorably by the rector, as
one who had seen the evil of his ways, and with a grudge by Mr.
Williamson, as a deserter from the Nonconformist cause, and with
careless friendliness by Mr. Rushton, as a man who was only a rising
man, and to whom he was conscious of having himself given a helping
hand. To Ford, Philip was a member of the family, who rather set himself
above the family, and therefore was the object of certain restrained
grudges, but yet was a Rainy after all; thus the feeling of the company
about him was mingled. Nevertheless, when they suddenly turned upon him,
and recalled themselves to a recollection of his presence and his
position, and all that was in his favor, and the indications of nature,
which pointed him out as so likely a candidate, they all instinctively
forestalled the future, and on the spot blackballed Philip, who stood
before them unconscious of his fate.
“I do not wish to intrude,” he said, “though if any one has a right to
know about my cousins I have. I am their nearest relation. I am”--and
here he put on a certain dignity, though the Rainys were not a noble
race--“I believe, the head of the family since my father’s death. But
what I want to say is this: if you, as his legal guardians, do not
object, I should like to take charge of Jock.”
“Who is Jock?” said the rector, in an undertone. There was no one to
answer but Mr. Williamson, who replied in the same tone, without looking
at him. “The little boy.” It was the first distinct communication that
had passed between them. Dr. Beresford looked at the Nonconformist with
a humph of half-angry carelessness and turned away; but yet he could not
help it, he had distinctly realized the presence of the minister of
Bethesda, which was a great thorn in his side. On former occasions he
had said, “I know nothing about that sort of people;” but that advantage
was now taken from him. He had become acquainted with the man, though he
was his natural enemy.
“Take charge of Jock? with all my heart,” said the lawyer. “You could
not do anything that would please me more; he has been one of our
difficulties. Look here, Chervil, here is the very best thing that could
happen. Mr. Rainy, a relation, a--a gentleman in the scholastic
profession;” here he stopped and made a little grimace. “There will be a
moderate allowance for him” he continued, with a laugh; “all that is
easy enough; but there’s his sister to be taken into consideration, you
know.”
“If I have your consent, I think I can manage Lucy,” said Philip,
calmly. He spoke with great distinctness, and he meant them all to
understand him. It was as if a thunder-bolt had been thrown in their
midst: a young fellow like this, nobody in particular, to call the
heiress Lucy! Mr. Rushton called her so himself, and so did Ford, and
the minister, but all at once such familiarity had come to sound
profane. It was quite profane in young Rainy, a mere school-master, to
speak so familiarly of that golden girl. They all drew back with a
distinct shiver. As for the rector, he again ventured on a little laugh.
“You are a bold fellow, Rainy,” he said, “to talk of a young lady whom
we all respect so much, by her Christian name.”
“I have known her all my life, doctor; we are cousins.” There was no
idea of this great respect then. “I will speak to her at once.”
The way in which the matrimonial committee drew in their breath made a
distinct sound in the room. Speak to her, good heavens! a
school-master--a nobody! “You will remember,” said Ford, with solemnity,
“that this is the day of her father’s funeral. To speak to her--about
any such matters--”
“What matters?” Philip knew very well what they meant; but he liked to
play upon their apprehensions. “You may be sure,” he said, with
malicious gravity, “I shall say nothing to distress her. She knows me,
and I think she has confidence in me.”
“And you forget,” said Mr. Chervil, who was cool, and had his wits about
him, “that it’s only about little Jock.”
“To be sure, to be sure, it is not about anything very important,” said
the committee, in full accord, “it’s only about little Jock.”
And then they all laughed, but not with a very good grace. There was no
fault at all to be found with him, an honest, honorable, rising young
man--and the girl had no right to anything better; but what was the use
of appointing a committee of seven to watch over this momentous event,
if Lucy’s fortune was to fall like a ripe apple from the tree into the
mouth of Mr. Philip Rainy? The rector, who had thought the stipulations
so absurd, and had asked, almost with indignation, whether any one could
ever hope to carry them out, even he looked with indignation at Philip.
It was like cutting the ground from under their feet, settling the whole
business before it had even begun. It was a thing not to be tolerated at
all. There was not a word more said by anybody about the unnecessariness
of Mr. Trevor’s precautions after this specimen, as they all felt it, of
the dangers to be gone through.
While this was going on upstairs, Lady Randolph led Lucy into Mrs.
Ford’s sitting-room, “as if it had been her own,” that excellent woman
said, though she was very willing, on the whole, that her parlor should
be made use of, and indeed, for long after took special care of the
chair upon which Lady Randolph had sat down. Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Stone
followed. There was a pause after they had all seated themselves, for
these two other personages were somewhat jealous in their eagerness to
hear every syllable that fell from Lady Randolph’s lips, and Lady
Randolph studiously ignored them. It was she who for the moment was
mistress of the situation; she put Lucy tenderly upon the sofa, and drew
a chair close to it.
“You are doing too much,” she said; “after all the excitement and grief
you want rest, or we shall have you ill on our hands.”
“That is what I am always telling her, my lady,” said Mrs Ford.
Mrs. Stone smiled. “Lucy will not get ill,” she said, “her strength is
intact; I don’t think Lady Randolph need have any fear on that account.”
But Mrs. Stone’s interference was not relished by any one. Lady Randolph
glanced slightly at her but took no notice; while Mrs. Ford was somewhat
irritated that Lucy should be thought robust and able to bear a great
sorrow without suffering. They were all very anxious to persuade the
girl to “put up her feet,” and take care of herself.
“A change, an entire change is what you want,” Lady Randolph said, “and
indeed I think that is what we must do. It does not matter if you are
not prepared; of course you will want a great many things, but they can
be got better in London than anywhere else. I should like you to come
with me at once.”
Lucy, who had been half reclining on the sofa cushions to please her new
friend, here raised herself with an energy which was not at all in
keeping with her supposed exhaustion. “At once!” she said with alarm,
not perceiving at the moment that this was not complimentary to Lady
Randolph. When she perceived it, Lucy’s politeness was put to a severe
test. She had a little awe of her future guardian, and she was very
dutiful, more disposed by nature to do what she was told than to rebel.
She added faintly a gentle remonstrance. “I thought there would have
been a little time to get ready; the dress-maker has only sent a few of
the things; and then,” she said, as if the argument was final, “we have
had no time at all to get Jock’s things in order. I would have to wait
for Jock.”
“Jock!” said Lady Randolph, with the greatest surprise.
And then there was another pause. “I told you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford,
“that her ladyship knew nothing about Jock, that she would never hear of
taking a little boy into her house. A young lady is one thing, but a
little boy--a little boy is quite different; I told you her ladyship
would never hear of it.” In the satisfaction of having known it all the
time, Mrs. Ford almost forgot the inconveniences or the position. Lucy
sat bolt upright upon her sofa, disregarding all the fictions about
necessary rest, and looked round upon them with a little spark in each
of her blue eyes.
“My love,” says Mrs. Stone in a low tone, “you have always intended and
wished to send Jock to school; you must not forget that--”
There was nothing hostile to the new reign in these two women, at least
not in this respect. Their deprecation and soothing were quite sincere.
But Lady Randolph was a woman who had all her wits about her. She
watched every indication of the thorny new ground which she was treading
with a watchful eye; and she saw that Lucy’s expression changed from
that of quiet gravity and sadness into an energy which was almost
impassioned. The girl’s hands caught at each other, her lips quivered,
every feature moved. “He is all I have,” Lucy cried out suddenly,
“everything I have! and he is such a little, little fellow. Oh, don’t
mind petting me--what do I care for dresses or things? but I want Jock;
oh, let me have Jock!”
“Hush, hush, Lucy; hush, dear,” whispered Mrs. Stone, with sympathetic
looks, and Mrs. Ford put her handkerchief to her eyes and vowed,
sobbing, that she would take every care of him. They were both half
frightened by the sudden vehemence which was unlike Lucy. And at this
moment there was a knock at the door, and Philip Rainy put in his head.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but may I speak to Lucy for a moment? I
thought you would like to know that they have no objections, Lucy--not
the least objection. I am to have Jock. I told Mr. Rushton that I felt
sure you would trust him to me.”
Lucy felt that she had no longer any power of speech. She put her hands
together instinctively, and gave Lady Randolph a piteous look; her heart
swelled as if it would burst. Was it a judgment upon her for not being
heart-broken, as perhaps she ought to have been, for the loss of her
father? To have little Jock taken away from her was like tearing a piece
of herself away.
But Lady Randolph had all her wits about her. It was not likely, if the
sight of this comely young man who called the heiress Lucy, had alarmed
even the men upstairs, that a woman would be less alive to the danger.
She took Lucy’s hand into her own, and pressed them kindly between hers.
“I don’t know this gentleman, my dear,” she said, “and I don’t doubt he
is very kind; but I am sure it would be mistaken kindness to separate
these two poor children now. Just after one great loss, she is not in a
fit state to bear another wrench. No. I don’t know who Jock is, and I
have not much room in my little house; but you shall have your Jock, my
dear. I will not be the one to take him from you,” Lady Randolph said.
This was a thing which no one had so much as thought of. They all gazed
at her with wonder and admiration, while Lucy, in the sudden relief,
fell a-crying, more subdued and broken down than she had yet shown
herself. While the girl was being caressed and soothed, Mrs. Stone went
away, finding no room for her own ministrations. She said, “That is a
very clever woman,” to Philip Rainy at the door.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE NEW LIFE.
Lady Randolph made haste to strike while the iron was hot. She _was_ a
clever woman, conscious enough (though, perhaps, no more than other
people) of her own interests, and with schemes in her mind (as everybody
had) of other interests to be served through the heiress, whom it had
been one of the successes of her later life to obtain the charge of;
but, having got this, she had no other intention than to treat Lucy
kindly, and to make her life, which would add so many comforts to Lady
Randolph’s, pleasant and happy to herself. The best way to do this was
to win the girl’s heart. Lady Randolph had not been seized with love at
first sight for her new charge; but she was rather prepossessed than
otherwise by Lucy’s appearance, and she was anxious to get hold of her
and secure her affections with as little delay as possible; and when she
informed Mrs. Ford, as she sipped the cup of tea which that excellent
woman prepared for her, that she was going to pass the night at the
Hall, and that to return to that scene of her happier life was always “a
trial” to her, she had already touched a chord of sympathy in Lucy’s
heart.
“What I should like,” Lady Randolph said, “would be that you should come
with me, my dear. It would be a great matter for me. The Hall belongs to
Sir Thomas now, my nephew, you know. He is very kind to me, and I look
upon him almost as a son, and his house is always open to me; but when
you remember that I was once mistress there, and spent a happy life in
it, and that now I am all alone, meeting ghosts in every room--”
Lucy’s heart came to her eyes. It was all true that Lady Randolph said,
but perhaps no such statement, made for the purpose of calling forth
sympathy, ever achieves its end without leaving a certain sense of
half-aroused shame in the mind of the successful schemer. Lady Randolph
was touched by the warmth of feeling in the girl’s eyes, and she was
half ashamed of herself for the conscious exaggeration which had called
it forth. Mrs. Ford was very sympathetic.
“I have never been so bad as that,” she said, “I have always had
company; I have never lost an ’usband, like you, my lady; but I feel for
your ladyship all the same.”
“And I shrink from going back,” said Lady Randolph, “and going all
alone. I think if Lucy could come with me, it would be a great thing for
me; and we should have time to make acquaintance with each other; and
Mrs. Ford, I am sure, would look after all the things, and bring them
and the little brother to meet us at the station to-morrow. Will you
begin our life together by being kind to me, Lucy?” she said, with a
smile.
There were difficulties, great difficulties, to be apprehended from
Jock; but Lucy could not refuse such an appeal; and this was how it
happened, that, to the great surprise of Farafield, she was seen in her
little crape bonnet and veil (much too old for her, Lady Randolph at
once decided) driving in the gray of the wintery afternoon, through the
chilly streets--the day her father was buried! there were some people
who thought it very unfeeling. When it was mentioned at dinner in the
big house in the market-place inhabited by the town clerk, Mrs. Rushton
was very much scandalized.
“The very day of the funeral!” she cried; “they might have let her keep
quiet one day; for I don’t blame the girl--how was she to know any
better? I always said it was a fatal thing for Lucy when that old fool
of a father chose a fashionable fine old lady for her guardian. Oh,
don’t speak to me, I have no patience with him. I think, from beginning
to end, them never was such a ridiculous will. If it had been me, I
should have taken it into court; I should have had it broke--”
“You might have found it difficult to do that. How would you have had it
broke, I should like to know?” her husband said.
“Ladies’ law,” said Mr. Chevril, who was very busy with his dinner, and
did not care to waste words.
“It is not my trade,” said Mrs. Rushton, “that’s your business. I can
tell you I should have done it had it been in my hands. But it’s not in
my hands; a woman never has a chance. You may talk of ladies’ law, but
this I know, that if we had the law to make it would not be so silly. A
woman would have known what was for the girl’s true advantage; we would
have said to old Mr. Trevor, Don’t be such an old fool. We should have
told him boldly, such and such a thing is not for your girl’s advantage.
Had any of you men the courage to do that? And the result is, Lucy is in
the hands of a fashionable lady who can’t live without excitement, and
takes her out to drive on the day of her father’s funeral. I never heard
anything like it, for my part.”
This indignation, however, was scarcely called for by the facts of the
case; and yet, the event was very important for Lucy. There was not much
excitement, from Mrs. Rushton’s point of view, in the afternoon drive
along the wintery roads to the Hall, which was nearly five miles out of
Farafield. The days were still short, and February afternoon was rainy
and gloomy, and the latter part of the way was between two lines of bare
and dusky hedge-rows, with here and there a spectral tree waving darkly
against the unseen sky; not a cheerful moment, nor was the landscape
cheerful; an expanse of damp and darkening fields, long lines of vague
road, no light anywhere, save the glimpses of reflection in wet ditches
or pools of muddy water. Lady Randolph shivered, wrapping herself close
in her furs; but for Lucy all was full of intense sensation and
consciousness, which might be called excitement, though its effect upon
her was to make her quieter and more outwardly serious than usual. From
the moment when she stepped into the carriage, Lucy felt herself in a
new world. The life she had been used to lead wanted no comforts, so far
as she was aware, but the rooms at the Terrace had possessed no charm,
and the best vehicle with which Lucy was acquainted was the shabby fly
of the neighborhood, which lived at the livery-stables round the corner,
and served all the inhabitants of the Terrace for all their expeditions.
Lucy felt the difference when she suddenly found herself in the soft
atmosphere of luxury which surrounded her for the first time in Lady
Randolph’s carriage, a little sphere by itself, a little moving world of
wealth and refinement, where the very air was different from the muggy
air of the commonplace world; and as they drove up the fine avenue, with
all its tall trees rustling and waving against the faint grayness of the
sky, and saw the great outline of the Hall dimly indicated by irregular
specks of light, Lucy felt as if she were in a dream, but a dream that
was more real than any waking certainty. She followed Lady Randolph into
the great hall and up the wide spacious staircase, with these mingled
sensations growing more and more strongly upon her. It was a dream: the
noiseless servants, the luxurious carpets in which her foot sunk, the
great pictures, the space and largeness everywhere, no single feature of
the place escaped her observation. It was a dream, yet it was more real
than all the circumstances of the past existence, which now had become
dreams and shadows, things which were over. She stepped not into a
strange house only, but into a new life, when she crossed the threshold.
This was the life her father had always told her of; he had told her it
would begin when he died, and had prepared her to take her place in it,
always holding before her an ideal sketch of the position which was to
be hers; and now it had come. The very fact that her entrance into this
new world was made on his funeral day gave to the new life that aspect
of springing out of the old which he had always impressed upon her. She
had lost no time, not a day, and transition was natural, in being so
sudden and so strange.
The Hall was a beautiful old house, stately in all its details, huge,
and ample, and lofty. To go into it was like walking into a picture.
There was a great mirror in the hall, which reflected her slim figure in
its new crape and blackness stepping dubiously forward, making her
think for a moment that it was some one else she saw, a girl with a pale
face, strange to everything, who did not know which way to turn. Lady
Randolph took her upstairs to a dim room, pervaded by ruddy firelight,
and with glimmering candles lighted here and there. “You shall have this
little room to-night, for it is near mine,” Lady Randolph said. Lucy
thought it was not a little but a large room, bigger than any bedroom in
the Terrace, and more comfortable than anything she had ever dreamed of.
The badly built draughty rooms in the Terrace were not half so warm as
this soft, silken-cushioned nook. Lucy lay down doubtfully on the sofa
as her new friend ordained, but her mind was far too active and her
imagination too hazy to permit her perfect rest. Lady Randolph’s maid, a
soft-voiced, noiseless person, came to her and brought her tea, opening
the little bag she had brought, and arranging everything she wanted, as
Lucy’s wants had never been provided for before. All this had a
bewildering, yet an awakening effect upon her. She lay for a little
while upon the sofa warm and still, and cried a little, which relieved
the incipient headache over her heavy eyes. Poor papa! he was gone as he
had always planned and intended, and had left her to begin this new
life, which he had drawn out and mapped before her feet. And how many
things he had left her to do, things which it overawed her to think of!
A flutter of anxiety woke in her heart, even now, as she wondered how
she should ever be capable of doing them by herself without guidance, so
ignorant as she was and inexperienced. But yet she would do them. She
would obey everything, she would follow all his instructions, Lucy vowed
to herself with a thrill of resolution, and a dropping of tears, which
relieved and at the same time exhausted her. But the exhaustion was a
land of refreshment. And after awhile Lady Randolph came back, after
Lucy had bathed her eyes and smoothed back her fair hair, and took her
down-stairs.
“I am glad Tom is away,” Lady Randolph said, “we will have it all to
ourselves. To-morrow I will show you the house, and to-night we shall
have a little quiet chat, and make friends.”
She gave Lucy’s hand a little pressure with her arm, and led her out of
one softly lighted room into another, from the drawing-room, to the
dining-room, where they sat down, in the midst of the surrounding
dimness, at a shining table, all white and bright, with flowers upon it,
unknown at this season in the Terrace. Lucy felt a thrill of awe when
the family butler, most respectable of functionaries, put her chair
close to the table us she sat down. Once more she caught a glimpse of
herself in a mirror which reflected her from head to foot, and wondered
who it could be sitting there gazing at her with that little pale
familiar face.
After the meal was over they went back to a little inner drawing-room,
to reach which they had to go through a whole suite of half-lighted,
luxurious rooms, all softly warm with firelight. “This used to be my
favorite room,” Lady Randolph said, sighing as she looked round. It was
called the little drawing-room, and Lady Randolph spoke of it as a
little nook; but it was bigger than the drawing-room at the Terrace.
Here the girl was set down in a comfortable chair by the fire, and
listened while Lady Randolph told of her former life here, and all she
had done. “Tom is very kind,” she said; “but how can I come here without
meeting ghosts, the ghosts of all my happy days?”
Lucy listened with that devout attention which only youth so innocent
and natural as hers can give to the recollections of one who has “gone
through” these scenes of actual life which are all mystery and wonder to
itself. Lucy had no ghosts in her memory; her father was not far enough
off from her, nor was her sense of loss so strong as to make her feel
that the world was henceforward peopled with sad recollection; but there
was enough enlightenment in the touch of natural grief to make her
understand. She was glad to be allowed to listen quietly--to feel the
ache in her heart softened and subdued, and the lull of great exhaustion
falling over her. That ache of natural, not excessive sorrow, is almost
an additional luxury in such a case. It justifies the languor, and gives
an ennobling reason for it. And in a mind so young the very existence of
sorrow, the first touches of experience, the sense of really
experiencing in its own person those emotions which it has heard of all
its life, which are the inspiration of all tragedies, and the theme of
all stories, carry with them an exquisite consciousness, which is near
enjoyment, though it is pain. Lucy was perhaps in her own constitution
too simply matter-of-fact to feel all this, yet she did feel it vaguely.
She was no longer a school-girl, insignificant and happy, but a pale
young woman in deep mourning who had taken a first step into the
experiences of life. She leaned back in her chair with that ache in her
heart which she was almost proud of, yet with a sense of luxurious
well-being round her, warmth, softness, kindness, and her hand in Lady
Randolph’s hand. Her shyness had melted away under the kind looks of her
new friend; Lucy was too composed to be very shy by nature, but even the
silence was not embarrassing to her, which is the greatest test of all.
It was easy after that to go on to talk of herself a little. Lady
Randolph had become honestly interested in her young companion; Lucy was
in every way so much better than she had expected. Even the hand which
she had taken into her own was, now she had time to think of it, an
agreeable surprise. Lucy’s hand was small and soft, and as prettily
shaped as if she had been born a princess. These indications of race,
which are so infallible in romance, do not always hold in actual life.
The old school-master’s daughter had no beauty to speak of; but her hand
was as delicate as if the bluest blood in the world ran in her veins.
Lady Randolph felt that Providence had been very good to her in this
respect, for, indeed, she could not but feel that a large red coarse
hand was what might have been expected in the little _parvenue_. But
Lucy was not coarse in any particular; she would never come to the pitch
of refinement which that princess reached who felt a pea through fifteen
mattresses; but her quiet straightforwardness could never be vulgar.
This certainty relieved her future chaperon from her worst fears.
“My house is not like this,” Lady Randolph said; “London houses are
small; but I try to make it comfortable. I have partly arranged your
rooms for you; but I have left you all the finishing touches. It will
amuse you to settle your pretty things about you yourself.”
“I have not any pretty things,” said Lucy; “I have nothing but--” Jock,
she was going to say; but she was not sure of the prudence of the
speech, seeing Jock was her grand difficulty in life.
“Never mind,” said Lady Randolph, “nothing can be easier than to get
them; and you must have a maid--unless indeed there is one that you
would like to bring with you. I should prefer a new one, a stranger who
would not make any comparisons, who would easily fall into the ways of
my house.”
“I have no one,” said Lucy, eagerly; “I have never been accustomed to
anything of the kind. I never had a maid in my life.”
“Well, my dear, it has not been a very long life. We must find you a
nice maid. Of course you will not go out this year; but there will be
plenty of things to interest you. Are you very fond of music? or
anything else? You must tell me what you like best.”
“I can play--a little, Lady Randolph, not anything to speak of,” said
Lucy, with the instinct of a school-girl. She did not even think of
music in any higher sense.
“Then that is not your _spécialité_; have you a _spécialité_, Lucy?
Perhaps it is art?”
“I can draw--a very little, Lady Randolph.”
Lucy’s questioner laughed. “Then I am in hopes,” she said, “great
hopes, that you are a real, honest, natural, ignorant girl, like what we
used to be. Don’t say you are scientific, Lucy; I could not understand
that.”
“I am very sorry,” said Lucy, with confusion; “Mrs. Stone gave me every
advantage, but I never was quick at learning. I am not even a great
reader, Lady Randolph; I don’t know what you will think of me.”
“If that is all, Lucy, I think I can put up even with that.”
“But Jock is!” cried Lucy, seizing the opportunity with sudden temerity.
“You would not believe what he has read--every kind of history and
poetry, though he is so little. And he has never had any advantages.
Papa always thought me the most important, because of my money; but
now,” said Lucy, with a little excitement, “now! It is the only thing in
which I will ever go against him--I told him so always; so I hope it is
not wicked to do it now; what I want most is to make something of Jock.”
Now Lady Randolph was not interested in Jock. Her warmth of sympathy was
a little chilled by this outburst, and the chill reacted upon her
companion. “We shall have plenty of time to talk of this,” Lady Randolph
said; “it is getting late; and you have had a very exhausting day. I
think the first thing to be done is to have a good night’s rest.”
Next day there was a great gathering at Farafield station, when the
carriage from the Hall drove up with Lady Randolph and her charge. The
Fords had arrived, bringing Jock, a pallid little figure all black, in
unimaginable depths of mourning, and with a most anxious little
countenance; for Jock had spent a miserable night--not crying, as is the
case generally with children, but framing a hundred terrors in his
imagination, and half believing that Lucy had been spirited away, and
would come back for him no more. The convulsive clutch which he made at
her hand, and the sudden relaxation of all the lines of his eager little
face as he recovered his sheet-anchor, his sole support and companion,
went to Lucy’s heart. She was almost as glad to see him. It was natural
to feel him hanging upon her, trotting in her very footsteps, not
letting her go for a moment. Philip Rainy was also there to bid his
cousin good-bye; and in the sight of everybody he took her by the arm
and led her apart, and had a few minutes’ earnest conversation with
Lucy. This talk was almost exclusively about Jock, but it was looked
upon with great surprise and jealousy by several pairs of eyes. For Mrs.
Stone had also come to the station to bid her pupil farewell, and she
was accompanied by her nephew, Mr. St. Clair, who stood looking his
handsomest, and holding his head high over the group in the pleasant
consciousness of being much the tallest and most imposing personage
among them. There was also a group of school-girls, under the charge of
mademoiselle, all ready to bestow kisses and good-wishes, and a few easy
tears upon Lucy. And Mr. Rushton had come to see his ward off, with his
wife and their son Raymond in attendance. All the elder people looked on
Philip Rainy with suspicion; but all the more did he hold Lucy by the
sleeve, talking to her, and keeping the rest of her friends waiting.
When she did get to the carriage at last it was through a tumult of
leave-takings, which made the very guards and porters tearful. Mrs. Ford
stood crying, saying, “God bless you!” at intervals; and Mrs. Stone
folded her pupil in a close embrace. “Remember, Lucy, that you are
coming back in six months, according to your good father’s will; and I
hope you will not have forgotten your old friends,” she said, with a
mixture of affection and authority. Mr. St. Clair stood with his hat
off, smiling and bowing. “May I say good-bye, too? And good luck!” he
said, enveloping Lucy’s black glove in his large soft white hand. He was
the tallest and the biggest there, and that always makes an impression
upon a girl’s imagination. Then the Rushtons came forward and took her
into their group. “I felt that I must come to give you my very best
wishes,” Mrs. Rushton said; “and here is Raymond, your old playfellow,
who hopes you remember him, Lucy. He only came home last night, but he
would come to see you off.” Then the girls all rushed at their comrade,
whom they all envied, though some of them were sorry for her. “You will
be sure to write,” they cried, with one voice and a succession of hugs.
“And, oh, Lucy!” cried Katie Russell, “please go and see mamma!” It was
with difficulty that she was helped into the carriage after all these
encounters, a little disheveled; smiling and crying, and with Jock all
hidden and wound up in her skirts. But the person who extricated her and
put her into the carriage was Philip, who held steadily to his superior
rights. He was the last to touch her hand, and he said, “Remember!” as
the train began to move, as solemnly as did the solemn king on the
scaffold. This cost Philip more than one dinner-party, and may almost be
said to have damaged his prospects at Farafield. “Did you ever see such
presumption,” Mrs. Rushton said, “pushing in before you, her guardian?”
And he was not asked to the Rushtons for a long time after, not till
they were in absolute despair for a stray man to fill a corner. It was
like the dispersion of a congregation from some special service to see
all the people streaming away. And Lucy was the subject of a hundred
fears and doubts. They shook their heads over her, all but the
school-girls, who thought it would be too delightful to be Lucy. It was
thus that Lucy set out upon the world.
CHAPTER XIX.
LADY RANDOLPH’S MOTIVE.
The past seemed entirely swept away and obliterated from Lucy when she
found herself in Lady Randolph’s London house, inhabiting two rooms
charmingly and daintily furnished, with a deft and respectful maid
belonging to herself, at her special call, and everything that it was
desirable a young lady of fortune should have. The allowance made for
her was very large, so her father had willed, and her new guardian
employed it liberally. Needless to say that Lady Randolph was not
herself rich; but she was not greedy or grasping. She liked dearly the
large additional income she had to spend, but she had no wish to make
economies from it at Lucy’s cost. Economies, indeed, were not in Lady
Randolph’s way. She liked a large liberal house. She liked the sense of
a full purse into which she could put her hand without fear of the
supply failing (who does not?). She liked the power of moving about as
she pleased, of filling her house with visitors, and making herself the
cheerful beneficent center of a society not badly chosen. She was
willing to give her charge “every advantage,” and to spend the large
income she brought with her entirely upon the life which they were to
lead together. Old Trevor was shrewd, he knew what he was doing, and his
choice carried out his intention fully. Lady Randolph was pleased to
have a great heiress to bring out, and she was anxious to bring her out
in the very best way. Her object on her own side was, no doubt, selfish,
in so far that to live liberally was pleasant to her, and to spend
largely a kind of necessity of her nature. But all this largeness and
liberality, which were so pleasant to herself, were exactly what was
wanted, according to her father’s plan, for Lucy, to whom Lady Randolph
communicated the advantages procured by her money with all the lavish
provision for her pleasure which a doting mother might have made. In all
this there was a fine high-spirited honorableness about Lucy’s new
guardian. She scorned to save a penny of the allowance. And we are bound
to add that this course of procedure did not approve itself (what
course ever does?) to Lady Randolph’s friends. While Lucy was being
established in those luxurious yet simple rooms, which were good enough
for a princess, yet so little _fine_, that Lucy’s simplicity had not yet
found out how delicate and costly they were, Lady Randolph’s small
coterie of advisers were censuring her warmly down-stairs.
“You ought to lay by half of it,” old Lady Betsinda Molyneux was saying
at the very moment when Lucy, with tranquil pleasure, aided by Jock, in
a state of half-resentful, half-happy excitement, was putting a set of
pretty books into the low book-shelves that lined her little
sitting-room; “you ought to lay by one half of it. Good life! a girl
like that to get the advantage of being in your house at all! Instead of
petting her, and getting her everything that you can think of, she ought
to be too thankful if you put her in the housemaid’s closet. If you
don’t show a little wisdom now I will despair of you, my dear,” the old
lady said. She was an old lady of the first fashion; but she was, all
the same, a very grimy old lady with a mustache, and a complexion which
suggested coal dust rather than _poudre de riz_. Her clothes would have
been worth a great deal to an antiquary, notwithstanding that they were
all shaped, more or less, in accordance with the fashion; but they gave
Lady Betsinda the air of an animated rag-bag; and she wore a profusion
of lace, clouds of black upon her mantle, and ruffles of white about her
thin and dingy neck; but it would have been a misnomer, and also an
insult, to call that lace white. It was frankly dirty, and toned to an
indescribable color by years and wear. She was worth a small fortune
where she stood with all her old trumpery upon her; and yet a clean old
woman in a white cap and apron would have been a much fairer spectacle.
Her rings flashed as she moved her quick bony wrinkled hands, which were
of a color as indescribable as her lace. It would have been hard to have
seen any signs of noble race in Lady Betsinda’s hands; and yet the queer
old figure hung round with festoons of lace, and clothed in old black
satin as thick as a modern party-wall, could not have been anything but
that of a woman of rank. Her garments smelled not of myrrh and
frankincense, but of camphor, in which they were always put away to
preserve them; and the number of times these garments had been through
the hands of Lady Betsinda’s patient maid, and the number of stitches
that were required to keep them always in order, was more than anybody,
except the hard-worked official who had charge of the old lady’s
wardrobe, could say.
“I think so, too,” said a small and delicate person who was seated in a
deep low chair upon the other side of the fire. She was not old like
Lady Betsinda. She was a fragile little pale woman approaching fifty,
the wife of an eminent lawyer, and a little leader of society in her
way. She wrote a little, and drew a little, and sung a little, and was a
great patroness of artists, to whom, it need not be said, Mrs.
Berry-Montagu was very superior, gracious to them as a queen to her
courtiers; while young painters, and young writers, and young actors
were very obsequious to her, as to a woman who could, their elders told
them, “make their fortunes.” And there was more truth than usual in
this, for though Mrs. Berry-Montagu could not make anybody’s fortune she
could do something to mar it, and very frequently exercised that less
amiable power, writing pretty little _critiques_ which made the young
people wince, and damning their best efforts with elegant depreciation.
These were two of the friends who took Lady Randolph’s moral character
and social actions under their control. Most women, especially those who
are widows, have a superintending tribunal of this description, before
which all their actions are judged; and nowhere does the true dignity of
the woman who is married come out with more imposing force than in such
circumstances. Lady Betsinda was vehement; she was old and the daughter
of a duke, and had a very good right to say what she pleased, and keep
the rest of the world in order. But Mrs. Berry-Montagu was, so to speak,
two people. Her views were enlarged, as everybody acknowledged tacitly
by her possession of that larger shadow of a husband behind her, and she
had a great, unexpressed contempt for all women who were without that
dual dignity. A smile of the softest disdain--nay, the word is too
strong, and so is derision also much too potent for the delicate subdued
amusement with which she contemplated the doings of the _femme sole_ of
all classes--hovered about her lips. This did not spring from any
special devotion on her part to her husband, or faith in him, but only
from her consciousness of her own good fortune and dignity, and the high
position she occupied in consequence of his existence. We have given too
much space to the description of Lady Randolph’s privy council. Has not
every solitary woman in society a governing body which is much, the
same?
“I think so, too,” Mrs. Berry-Montagu said; “you ought really to think
of yourself a little; self-renunciation is a beautiful virtue; but then
we are not called upon to exercise it for everybody, and a girl of this
description is fair game.”
“If I were a hunter,” said Lady Randolph.
“Oh my dear, don’t tell me, you are all hunters,” said the little lady
in serene superiority. “What do you take her for? You are not one of the
silly women that want a girl to take about with them; to be an excuse
for going to parties therefore you must have an object. Now, of course,
we don’t want to know, till you tell us, what the object is; but in the
meantime you ought, it is your duty, to derive a little advantage on
your side from what is so great an advantage on hers.”
“That’s speaking like a book,” said Lady Betsinda, “but I like to be
plain for my part: you ought to lay by half, my dear. You want to go to
Homburg when the season’s over, that stands to reason; and when you come
back you’ve got dozens of visits to pay--the most expensive thing in the
world; and, after all, this won’t last forever, there will come a time
when she will marry or set up for herself that’s quite common nowadays
girls do it, and nobody thinks any harm.”
“Oh, she will marry,” said Mrs Berry Montagu, with a significant smile.
“Most likely she’ll marry; but not so sure as it once was,” said Lady
Betsinda, nodding her old head; “women’s ways have changed; I don’t say
if it is better or worse, but they have changed; and anyhow it is your
duty to look after yourself. Now, don’t you think it her duty to look
after herself? Disinterestedness and so forth, are all very fine. We
know you’re unselfish, my dear.”
“Every woman is unselfish, it is the appropriate adjective,” said Mrs.
Berry-Montagu; “but you must recollect that you have no one to look
after your interests, and that, however it goes against you, you _must_
take yourself into consideration.”
“Oh, this is all much too fine for me!” cried the culprit on her trial.
“Rather congratulate me on having been so lucky. I might have found
myself with a vulgar hoyden, or a little silly _parvenue_ on my hands;
and here is a quiet little well-bred person, as composed, and with as
much good sense--I am afraid with more good sense than I have myself.”
“Yes, she will make her own out of you. You are just a little simpleton,
Mary Randolph, though you’re twice as big and half as old as me. She’ll
turn you round her little finger. Isn’t your whole house turned upside
down for her and her belongings? Why, there was a child about--a big
pair of eyes, not much more--you are taking him _pardessus le marché_?
She is capable of it,” cried the old lady, shaking a cloud of camphor
out of her old satin skirts in impatience, and appealing to her
colleague. Mrs. Berry-Montagu put some _eau-de-Cologne_ on her
handkerchief and applied, it tenderly to her nose.
“You continue to use patchouly. I _hoped_ it had gone _completely_ out
of fashion,” she said.
“It isn’t patchouly. I have my things carefully looked after; that’s why
they last so well. I have little bags of camphor in all my dresses. It
is good for everything. Many people think it is only moths that camphor
is useful for, but it is good for everything, and a very wholesome
scent. I hate perfumes myself.”
“Who is the little boy?” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, with a languid smile.
“Ah, that is the sore point,” said Lady Randolph. “There is a little
brother.”
This was echoed by both the ladies in different tones of amazement.
“Then how is it that _she_ has the money?” Lady Betsinda asked “It came
from Lucy’s mother, the boy had nothing to do with it; he has not a
penny. Poor child! I can see Lucy is disturbed about him. He has three
thousand pounds, and nothing more.”
“Dear Lady Randolph, how good you are,” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, with
gentle derision; “what can you want with a child like this in your
house?”
“What can I do? Lucy would be wretched without him; he is the only tie
she has, the only duty. What am I to do?”
Mrs. Berry-Montagu shook her head softly, and smiled once more--smiled
with the utmost significance. “You must, indeed, see your way very
clearly,” she said, with that gentle languor which sat so well upon her,
“when you burden yourself with the boy.”
“I don’t know what you mean by seeing my way,” Lady Randolph said, with
some heat. An uncomfortable flush came upon her face, and something like
consciousness to her manner. “I had no alternative. Taking Lucy, I was
almost bound to take her brother too, when I found out her devotion to
him.”
“Ah, you’re too good, too good, my dear; you don’t think half enough of
your own interests,” said Lady Betsinda. “If the girl had come to me
I’ll tell you what I should have done. I’d have been kind to her, but
not too kind. I’d have let her see clearly that little brothers are sent
to school. I’d have given her to understand that I was doing her a great
favor in having her at all. She should not have wanted for anything. I
don’t advise you or anybody to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,
but to make her the chief interest, and everything to give way to her,
that’s what I would never do.”
“I am afraid I shall have to take my own way, so far as that goes,” said
Lady Randolph, roused to a little offense.
“Yes, dear, of course you will take your own way, we all do,” said Mrs
Berry-Montagu, giving her friend a kiss before she went away, “and I
don’t doubt it will all come right in the end.”
The two visitors went out together, and they stopped to talk for a
moment before they parted at the door of the little stuffy brougham
which carried Lady Betsinda from one place to another.
“I suppose she has something in her head,” said the old lady. And, “Oh,
who can doubt it?” said the other; “Sir Tom!”
Was it true? Lady Randolph was very angry and impatient as she turned
from the door, after the kiss which she had bestowed on each. Women have
to kiss, as men shake hands, it is the established formula of parting
among friends, not to be omitted, which would imply a breach, because of
a little momentary flash of irritation. But the cause of her anger was
not so much what they had said to her as that word of mutual confidence
which she knew would pass between them at the door: was it true? If it
had not been so Lady Randolph would not have divined it. She paced up
and down her pretty drawing-room, giving one glance from the window to
see, as she expected, the one lady standing at the door of the little
carriage, while the wrinkled countenance of the other bent out from
within. She saw Lady Betsinda give a great many nods of intelligence,
and her heart burned within her with momentary fury. Often it happens
that the worst of the pang of being found out is the revelation it makes
to one’s self. Lady Randolph meant no harm; not to introduce her nephew
to Lucy would have been, in the circumstances, a thing impossible; and
who could expect her to be responsible for anything that might follow?
When an unmarried man meets a nice girl there is never any telling what
may happen. And Lucy was certainly a nice girl, notwithstanding her
ignorance and simplicity and her great fortune. To be sure, any
connection of this kind would be a _mésalliance_ for Tom; but even these
were common incidents, and took place in the very highest circles. If
this was fortune-hunting, then fortune-hunting was simple nature, and no
more. After awhile the irritation died away. She sat down again and took
up the book she had been reading when that committee of direction came
in and began their sitting upon her and her concerns. Lady Randolph was
about sixty, a large and ample woman with no pretense at juvenility; but
her eye was not dim or her natural force abated. There was only a small
proportion of gray--just enough to give it an air of honest reality--in
her abundant hair. As she sat and read a sentence or two, then paused
and mused a little with the book closed over her hand, she recovered her
composure. “What good will it do _me_?” she asked herself triumphantly.
Had she been seeking her own advantage her conduct might have been
subject to blame; but she was not seeking her own advantage. Should any
marriage come to pass it would deprive her, at one stroke, of all the
comfort which Lucy’s allowance brought her. She would be giving up, not
gaining anything. When this thought passed through her mind it seemed a
full answer to all possible objections, and she resumed her reading with
the feeling that she had put every caviller to silence, and nobly
justified herself to herself. “What advantage would it be to me?” the
words twined themselves among those of the book she was reading, and
appeared on every page more visible than the print. “What good would it
do to me? I should suffer by it,” she said.
While Lady Randolph was thus employed down stairs Lucy and Jock were
seated together at the window of the pretty little sitting-room, which
had been so carefully prepared for the girl’s comfort and pleasure. It
was high up, but it had a pretty view over the gardens of the
neighboring square, where soon the trees would begin to bud and blossom,
and where even now the birds began to hold colloquies and prelude, with
little interrogative pipings and chirpings, till it should be tune for
better music, while in front, though at some distance down, was the
cheerful London street, in which there was always variety to eyes
accustomed to the Terrace at Farafield. They had not tired yet of its
sights and sounds, or found it noisy, as Lady Randolph sometimes did.
The house was situated in one of the streets heading out of Grosvenor
Square, and all sorts of things went past, wheelbarrows full of flowers,
flowers in such quantities as they had never seen in the country,
tradespeople’s carts of every description, German bands, all kinds of
amusing things.
“Here is another organ,” cried Jock, with excitement; and he added, with
a scream of delight, “it’s got a monkey! and there is another little boy
on a pony,” the child added, with a sigh, half of pleasure, half of
envy. “What a long, lovely tail it has got! and here are two carriages
coming, and a big van with a great picture outside. Did you think there
were as many things in London, Lucy? There is something passing every
minute, and every day.”
“Oh, yes, I knew,” said Lucy, with calm superiority, from the other end
of the room. “I told you all about Madame Tussaud’s, don’t you remember,
before you went there? I read all that book about London,” she said,
with modest pride.
“It isn’t a book,” said Jock, “it is only a guide. What a funny thing it
is that you can read that, and you don’t care for stories, or histories
either.”
Then there was a little pause. The boy on the pony cantered away, the
big furniture-van with the landscape painted upon it, lumbered along so
slowly that its interest was more than exhausted, the carriages drew up
at a house out of sight. There was a momentary lull, and Jock’s interest
flagged. He turned round, recalled to himself by this recollection of
his favorite studies.
“Am I always to live here?” he asked suddenly.
Now, this was a question that had much troubled Lucy’s mind; for,
indeed, Jock had not been expected, and his presence somewhat disturbed
the arrangements of Lady Randolph’s household, while, on the other hand,
Lucy had already given to her little brother the position which every
woman gives to some male creature, and consulted his wishes with a
servility which sometimes was ludicrously inappropriate, as in the
present instance. She could not bring herself to hurt Jock’s feelings by
suggesting that it would be better for him to go to school, though this
conviction had been gaining upon her as her own mind calmed, and the
child himself recovered his spirits and courage. Lucy’s heart began to
beat a little faster when her little autocrat broached the question. She
came up to him and began to stroke and smooth the limp locks, which
would not be picturesque, whatever was done to them.
“That is what vexes me a little, Jock; I don’t know. You ought to be
getting on with your education, and Lady Randolph is very kind; but she
did not know you were coming--”
“Nor me either,” said Jock, regardless of grammar. He had got over this
painful uprooting of his little life, but even at eight, such a
disturbance of habits is not easily got over. There was no white rug to
lie down upon, no old father always seated there to justify the strange
existence of the child, and Lady Randolph, shocked by his indiscriminate
reading, had provided him with good-little-boy books, which did not at
all suit Jock. He mused a little, gazing down into the street, and then
resumed. “Nor me fit her. I would like some other place; I would like
you and me to stay always at home, as we used to do. I would like--”
Jock paused again, not very clear what it was that he would like, and
Lucy looked vaguely over his head, waiting for the utterance of her
oracle. Poor little oracle, for whom there was no certain and settled
place! She stroked his hair softly, with infinite tenderness, in her
half-motherly, half-childish soul, to make him amends for this wrong
which Providence had done him. She did not know what to suggest, nor
what place to think of, but watched him to divine his wishes, as if he
had been double and not half her age.
“I would like,” said Jock, some gleam of association recalling to him
one fable among the many that filled his memory, “to be a giant like
that one you told me the story about, you never told me the end of that
story, Lucy. I’d like to be able to go where I liked, and travel all
over the world, and meet with black knights, and dwarfs, and armies
marching--”
“There are no dwarfs nor giants nowadays,” said Lucy, “but you will be
able to go where you like when you are a man.”
“It’s so long to wait till you are a man,” said the child, peevishly.
“I’d like you and me to go away together and nobody to stop us. I’d like
to be cast away on a desert island,” he cried, with a sudden perception
of paradise; “that’s what I should like best of all.”
“But I don’t think I should like it at all.”
“There!” he cried, “that is always how it is; you and me never like the
same things. I suppose it is because you are a girl.” This Jock said
more regretfully than contemptuously, for he was very fond of his
sister, and then he added, with a little sigh, not of sorrow, but of
resigned acceptance of a commonplace sort of expedient, not absolutely
good, but the best in the circumstances, “I suppose you had better send
me to school.”
CHAPTER XX.
THE RUSSELLS.
“That is just what I was thinking,” Lady Randolph said, “we can do two
things, Lucy, two benefits at once. I know just the place for little
Jock! since he wants to go to school--with a poor lady whom you will
like to help--and,” she added, with a little softening of compassion,
“where you could go to see him often; and he could come--” this addition
was less cordial. Lady Randolph was a woman too easily led away by her
feelings. She thought of her committee, and restrained herself. “Katie
Russell must have told you about her mother. She has taken a house at
Hampstead, or one of those places, and is trying to set up a little
school. We are all on the outlook for Indian children, or, indeed,
pupils of any kind. Jock will be quite happy there. She will take an
interest in him as your brother, I have got her address somewhere. Shall
we go and look her up to-day?”
Lucy’s eyes, before she replied, traveled anxiously to Jock’s face to
read that little chart of varying sentiment, and take her guidance from
it. But Jock’s face said nothing. He could not any longer lie on the
hearth-rug, but he was doubled up in a corner by the fire, reading, as
usual, one of the books with which Lady Randolph had thought it proper
to supply him--a proper little story about little boys, supposed to be
adapted to the caliber of eight years old. Perhaps it was more fit for
him than the “History of the Plague,” but he did not like it so well.
“I think that would be very nice, Lady Randolph,” said Lucy, doubtfully.
“Well, my dear, we can but go and see. Jock is too young to judge for
himself; but he can come, too, and tell you how he likes it. Mrs.
Russell is very kind, I believe. She is, also, rather feeble, and does
not know quite so well what she would be at as one could wish. She is
always changing her plans. It may help to fix her if we take her a
pupil. It is a great blessing,” Lady Randolph said, with a sigh, “when
people know their own mind--especially poor people who have to be helped
by their friends.”
“I wonder,” said Lucy, “if it is more difficult to be poor than to be
rich.”
“Oh, there can be little doubt about that--for women, at least. I am not
in the least sorry for the butchers and bakers--they have their
trade--or for our house-maids, which is the same thing; but you and I,
Lucy. If anything were to happen, if we were to lose all our money, what
should we do?”
“I should not be afraid,” said Lucy, quietly, “for you know I was born
poor, but to have a great deal of money, and not know how to employ
it--that was always what papa said. He gave me a great many directions;
but I don’t know if I understood them, and sometimes I do not feel sure
whether he understood. Life is different here and at the Terrace, Lady
Randolph.”
“Very different, my dear; but you need not bewilder your poor little
head just yet. You will be older, you will have more experience before
you have any occasion to trouble yourself about the employment of your
money. I have no doubt all the investments are excellent--your father
had a good business head.”
“It was not about investments I was thinking,” Lucy said. “I have no
power over them.”
“Nor over anything else, fortunately, at your present age,” Lady
Randolph said, with a smile. “We may all be very thankful for that; for
I fear, unless you are very unlike other girls, that you would throw a
good deal of it away.” Lucy did not smile, or take any notice of this
pleasantry. Her next remark was very serious. “Don’t you think,” she
said, “that it is very wrong for me to be so rich, when others are so
poor?”
“A little Radical,” cried Lady Randolph, with a laugh. “Why, Lucy, I
never thought a proper little woman like you would entertain such
revolutionary sentiments.”
“You see,” said Lucy, very gravely, “it is upon me the burden falls;
every one feels most what is most hard upon themselves.”
Lady Randolph laughed again, but this time with a puzzled air.
“Hard upon you!” she said. “My dear, half the girls in England--and the
men, too--would give their heads to have half so much reason to
complain.”
“Men, perhaps, might understand better, Lady Randolph; but it is
altogether very strange. Papa must have known a great deal better; but
he did nothing himself. All that he wanted, so far as I can make out,
was to make more and more money; and then left the use of it--the
spending of it--to a girl that knows nothing. I never took much thought
of this while he was living, but I feel very bewildered now.”
“Wait a little,” Lady Randolph said, “you will find it very easy after
awhile; and, when you marry, your husband will give you a great deal of
assistance. In England you can never be at a loss in spending the
largest income; and the more you have, the more satisfactorily you can
spend it, the better return you have for your money. It is among us poor
people that money is most unsatisfactory. It never brings so much as it
ought,” she said, with that air of playfulness which, on such subjects,
is the usual disguise for the most serious feeling. Lucy looked up at
her with a gravity that disdained all disguise.
“But you do not mean to say, Lady Randolph, that _you_ are poor?”
This question brought the color to Lady Randolph’s face. “You are very
downright, my dear,” she said, “but I will be honest, too. Yes, Lucy, I
am poor. The allowance that is made for you is a great matter for me.
Without that I should not have dreamed--My dear, you must not think I
mean anything unkind--”
“Oh, no; you could not have cared for me even had I been nicer than I
am,” said Lucy, “for you had never seen me. Then I am rather glad it is
so, Lady Randolph; but you should not give me so many things.”
Lady Randolph laughed, but the moisture came into her eyes. “Lucy, I
begin to think you are a darling,” she said.
“Do you?” cried Lucy, with a warm flush which gave her face a certain
beauty for a moment. “But I am afraid not,” she said, shaking her head.
“Nobody ever said that. I am glad, _very_ glad that you think you will
not mind having me; and it is very, very kind of you to do so much for
me. But I should be quite as happy if you liked me, and did not buy so
many things for me. Is it vulgar to say it? I am almost afraid it is. I
never had anything half--not a tenth part so nice at the Terrace as you
give me here.”
“You were a little school-girl then, and now you are a young lady--a
great heiress, and must begin to live as such people do.”
Lucy shook her head again. “I am only me,” she said, with a smile, “all
the same.”
“Not quite the same; but to leave these perplexing subjects, what is to
be done about your own studies, Lucy?”
“Must I have studies?” she asked, with a tone of melancholy; then added,
submissively, “Whatever you think best, Lady Randolph.”
“My dear, you are far too good. I should like you to have a little will
of your own.”
“Oh, yes, I have a will of my own. If you please, I do not wish to have
any more lessons. I will read books; but they all said I never would
play very well, and I can not draw at all. I can speak French a little,
but it is very bad, and I have done about twenty German exercises,” Lucy
said, with a shudder.
“Poor child! but I fear you must go on with these dreadful experiences.
Perhaps a good German governess for a year--”
Lucy shuddered again. She thought of the Fraulein at the White House,
with an inward prayer for deliverance. The Fraulein knew everything, all
her own business, and other people’s special branches, even better than
her own. Her very spectacles shone with knowledge.
“They can not be _all_ like each other,” Lucy said, “and I will do
whatever you like, Lady Randolph.”
There was never a girl so docile and obedient. Lady Randolph almost
regretted the absence of all struggle, till her eyes fell upon little
Jock in the corner, holding his book somewhat languidly. Jock did not
care for this correct literature; the last thing in the world that he
had any acquaintance with was the doings of children at school.
“Do you like your story-book, Jock?”
“No,” said Jock, concisely.
He let it drop from his hand; he did not even feel very deeply desirous
of knowing what was the end.
“I am sorry for that; I hunted it up for you out of my old nursery.
Nobody had touched the things for thirty years.”
“It is very pretty--outside,” Jock said, eying the gilding, “but I don’t
care much about little boys,” he added, with dignity, “I don’t know what
it means.”
“That is because you are so little, my dear.”
“Oh, no, because I--don’t understand it. I have read much nicer books;
the ‘History of the Plague,’ that was what I liked best, better than
‘Robinson Crusoe,’ as good as the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’”
“How old-fashioned the child is!” Lady Randolph said. “Will you come
with us to see the school where Lucy wishes you to go?”
“Lucy did not wish it,” said the boy, “it was me, I told her. I will go,
because I suppose it is the right thing. You can’t grow up to be a
giant, or even a common man, without going to school. I do not like it
at all, but it is the right thing to do.”
“You are a wise little man,” said Lady Randolph, “and do you think you
may perhaps grow up a giant, Jock?”
“Not in tallness,” Jock said.
He looked at her with something like contempt, and she was cowed in
spite of herself. His very reticence impressed her, for he relapsed into
silence, and gave no further explanation, not caring even to describe in
what, if not in tallness, he expected to be a giant; and the two sat and
looked at each other for a minute in silence. They looked very unlikely
antagonists, but it was not the least important of the two who was most
nervous. Lady Randolph felt as if it was she who was the inexperienced,
the uninstructed one. She did not like to venture out of her depth
again.
“Will you go and get your hat and come with us? You must be very kind to
Lucy, and not worry her. You know she does not want you to leave her;
but also, you know, little Jock--”
Lady Randolph looked at him with a little alarm, feeling that his big
eyes saw through and through her, and not knowing what weird insight
might be in them, or what strange thing he might say.
But Jock’s answer was to get up, and put away his book.
“I am going,” he said.
It was the old lady who was afraid of him. She sat and watched him, and
was glad when he was gone. Lucy was comprehensible and manageable, but
the child dismayed and troubled her. Poor little forlorn boy! There was
no home for him anywhere, no one to care for him but Lucy, who no doubt
would form, as people say, “other ties.”
It was a bright morning in March, the skies full of the beauty of
spring, the air fresh with showers, the sun shining; the buds were
beginning to swell on the trees, and primroses coming out in the
suburban gardens. Jock looked somewhat forlorn, all by himself, in the
front seat of the carriage, buttoned closely into his great-coat, and
looking smaller than ever as his delicate little face looked out from
the thick collar; opposite to Lady Randolph’s portly person, in her
great furred mantle, he looked like a little waxen image; and he sat
very stiffly, trying to draw up his thin little legs beneath him, but
now and then receiving a warning glance from Lucy, who was extremely
nervous about his manners. They were both amused, however, by the long
drive across London, and up the hill toward the northern suburbs. Lady
Randolph did not know the way. She took almost as much interest as they
did in the animated streets.
“Jock, little Jock, there is the heath. Do you see the big furze
bushes?” she said. “How strange to see a place so wild, yet so near
town!”
“It is not so good as our common,” Jock said. Yet school took a more
smiling aspect after he had got a glimpse of the broken ground and wild
vegetation.
They drew up at last after a troublesome search (for Lady Randolph’s
coachman would not have betrayed any knowledge of that out-of-the-way
locality for worlds, it was as much as his reputation was worth) before
a little new house with a bay-window and a small square patch of green
called a garden. Through the bay-window there was a dim appearance
visible of some one seated at a table writing; but when the carriage
stopped there was evidently a great commotion in the house, and the dim
figure disappeared. Some one hastily opening an upper window, a sound of
bells rung, and of noisy footsteps running up and down the stairs, were
all audible to the little party seated in the carriage, who were amused
by all this pantomime.
“She will have a headache,” Lady Randolph said, “as soon as she sees
us.”
Lucy, for her part, felt that to sit at her ease, and witness the
flutter in the house, of excitement and expectation, was scarcely
generous. She was relieved when the door opened. It wounded her to see
the disdain of the footman, the scorn with which he contemplated the
house, and the maid who came to the door; all this penetrated her mind
with a curious sense of familiarity. Mrs. Ford, too, would have been
greatly excited had a pair of prancing horses drawn up before her door,
and a great lady in furs and velvet been seen about to enter; and Lucy
knew that she herself would have rushed out of the parlor, had she been
sitting there, and would have been apt to fly to an upstairs window and
peep out upon the unwonted visitor. She felt all this in the person of
the others, to whom she was coming in the capacity of a great lady. She
had never felt so humble or so insignificant as when she stepped out of
the carriage, following Lady Randolph. Jock grasped at her hand as he
jumped down. He clung to it with both his without saying a word. He did
not feel at all sure that he was not now, this very moment, to be
consigned to separation and banishment, and the new life of school for
which he had offered himself as a victim. He contemplated that
approaching fate with courage, with wide-open, unwinking eyes, but all
the same at the descent of Avernus, at the mouth of the pit, so to
speak, clung to his only protector, his sole comforter. She stooped down
and kissed him hurriedly as they crossed the little green.
“You shan’t go if you do not like it, Jock.”
“But I am going,” said the child, with courage that was heroic; though
he clung to her hand as if he never would let it go, all the same.
Mrs. Russell was a pretty, faded woman, with hair like Katie’s, and the
same blue eyes; but the mirth was out of them, and puckers of anxiety
had come instead. She had put up her handkerchief to her forehead when
Lucy entered the room. She had a headache, as Lady Randolph divined.
There was a little flush of excitement upon her cheeks. When Lucy was
introduced to her she gave the girl a wistful look first, then made an
anxious inspection of her, returning again and again, Lucy felt, to her
face. Was not there in that look the inevitable contrast which it was so
impossible to help making?
“Is this,” she said, “the young lady Katie has written to me about?” She
added, faltering, after a moment, “the dear young friend who has been so
kind to her?” and again she turned a questioning, wistful look upon
Lucy, whose fate was so different.
“Indeed,” said Lucy, “I could not be kind, I wish I could; but I like
Katie very dearly, Mrs. Russell.”
“Ah, my dear, if I may call you so,” cried the poor woman with the
headache, “that is the very sweetest thing you could say,” but all the
same her eyes kept questioning. What had the heiress come for? What had
Lady Randolph come for? When visitors like these enter a very poor
house, should not some pearls and diamonds fall from their lips, some
little wells of comforting wealth spring up beneath their feet?
“How does the school go on?” said Lady Randolph; “that is the cause of
our visit, really. I heard of a little boy--but how does it go on? Did
you settle about those Indian children?”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Russell, “there is nothing so hard to get as Indian
children; they are the prizes; if one can but get a good connection in
that way, one’s fortune is made; but there are so many that want them.
It seems to me that there is nothing in all the world but a crowd of
poor ladies fighting for pupils. It will be strange to you, Miss Trevor,
to hear any one talk like that,” she added.
She could not help, it would seem, this reference to Lucy; a girl who
was made of money, who could support dozens of families and never feel
it. It was not that the poor lady wanted her money, but she could not
help feeling a wistful wonder about her, a young creature whose fate was
so different! When one is very poor it is so natural to admire wealth,
and so curious to see it, and watch its happy owners, if only to note in
what way they differ. Lucy did not differ in any way, at which poor Mrs.
Russell admired and wondered all the more.
“But you have some pupils?” Lady Randolph said.
“Yes, three in the house, and six who are day-scholars. Bertie tells me
it is not such a bad beginning. I tried for little boys, because there
are so few, in comparison, that take little boys; and Bertie teaches
them Latin.”
“I thought your son was to get a situation.”
“Yes, indeed, but some one else got it instead; one can hardly grudge
it, when one knows how many poor young fellows there are with nothing.
He is writing,” Mrs. Russell said, with some pride.
“Writing!” Lady Randolph echoed with dismay, mingled with contempt.
Their points of view were very different. To the mother, fortune seemed
to be hovering, doubtful, yet very possible, over the feather of her
boy’s pen; to the woman of the world, a little clerkship in an office
would have been much more satisfactory. “You should not encourage him
in that; I fear it is not much better than idleness,” Lady Randolph
said, shaking her head.
“Idleness! look at Mr. Trollope, and all those gentlemen; it is a fine
profession! a noble profession!” said the poor lady fervently; but she
added, with a sigh, “if he could only get an opening, that is the hard
thing. If he only knew somebody! Bertie takes the Latin, and Mary the
English, and I superintend, and give the music lessons.”
“And you are getting on?”
The poor woman looked the rich woman (as she thought) in the face, with
eyes that filled with tears. She could not answer in words before the
strangers. She mutely and faintly shook her head, with a pathetic
attempt at a smile.
Both Lucy and little Jock saw the silent communication, and divined it,
perhaps, better than the elder lady. As for Lucy, her heart ached with
sympathy, and a flood of sudden resolutions, intentions, took possession
of her; but what could she do? She had to keep silent, holding Jock’s
little hand fast, who stood by her knee.
“I thought you might perhaps have an opening for the little boy I heard
of. He is a delicate child, and peculiar; he would require a great deal
of special care. If you think you have time--”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Russell, the pink flush deepening on her cheeks, “plenty
of time! And I think I may say for myself that I am very good with
delicate children. I take an interest in them. I--you would like to see
Bertie, perhaps, about the Latin?” Mrs. Russell rang her bell hastily.
She was feverishly anxious to conclude the bargain without loss of time.
“Will you tell Mr. Bertie I want him?” she said, going to the door, to
anticipate the maid, who was not too anxious to reply. “I am here,
mother,” they heard in a youthful bass--at no great distance--evidently
the house was all in a stir of expectation. Mrs. Russell came back with
a little nervous laugh. “Bertie will be here directly,” she said. “I
would ask you to step into the school-room, and see them; but the truth
is they are all out for a walk. Mary has taken them to the heath. It is
so good for them--and it was such a beautiful day--and my headache was
particularly bad. When my headache is very bad, the voices of the
children drive me wild.” Poor soul! as soon as she had said this, she
perceived that it was a thing inexpedient to say. But by this time the
door had opened again, and introduced a new figure. He came in with his
hands in his pockets, after the manner of young men. He, too, was like
Katie; but his face was cloudy, not so open as hers, and his features
handsomer. He stood hesitating, his eyes going from one to another; to
Lucy first--was not that natural? Then he straightened himself out, and
took a hand from one of his pockets, and presented it to Lady Randolph.
He was eager too, but with a suppressed bravado, as if anxious to show
that he did not mean it, and was himself personally much at his ease.
“So this is Bertie!” said Lady Randolph. “What a long time it must be
since I have seen him! Why, you are a man now; and what a comfort it
must be to your mother to have you with her!”
Mrs. Russell clasped her thin hands. “Yes, it _is_ a comfort!” she said.
“What should I do if Bertie were away?”
Lucy was in the position of a spectator while all this was going on, and
though she was not a great observer, something jarred in this little
scene, she could not tell what. She surprised a glance from the mother
to the son, which did not chime in with her words, and Bertie himself
did not respond with enthusiasm. “I don’t know if I am a comfort,” he
said; “but here I am anyhow, and very glad to see an old friend.”
“I hear you are coming out as a literary character, Bertie?”
“I am trying to write a little; it seems the best trade nowadays. I
believe there are heaps of money to be made by it,” he said, with that
air of careless grandeur which is so delightful to the unsophisticated
imagination, “and not much trouble. The only thing is to get one’s hand
in.”
“That is what I was telling Lady Randolph,” said his mother, her thin
hands clasping and unclasping; “to get an opening--that is all you
want.”
“But you require to be very clever, Bertie,” said Lady Randolph, gravely
disapproving, “to make anything by writing. I have heard people say in
society--”
“No,” said the young man, “not at all, it is only a knack; there is
nothing that costs so little trouble. You want training for every other
profession, but anybody can write. I think I know what I am about.”
Then there was a momentary silence, Mrs. Russell looked at her son with
wistful admiration, not unmingled with a furtive and painful doubt,
while Lady Randolph contemplated him with a severity which was
resentful, as if poor Bertie’s pretensions did her, or any one else, any
harm. This pause, which was somewhat embarrassing, was broken by Jock,
whose small voice, suddenly uplifted, startled them all.
“Is it stories he writes, Lucy? I would like to learn to write stories.
I think I will stay here,” he said. But Jock was confused by the
attention attracted by his utterance, and the faces of all those
grown-up people turned toward him. “I can’t write at all yet,” he said,
growing very red, planting himself firmly against Lucy, and facing the
company, half apologetic, half defiant. Between pot-hooks and novels
there is a difference; but why should not the one branch of skill be
learned as well as the other? Jock knew no reason why.
CHAPTER XXI.
POWER.
This visit made a turning-point in Lucy’s life. She returned home very
thoughtful, more serious than usual--a result which seemed very easily
comprehensible to her experienced friend. To part with her little
brother was another trial for the girl; what wonder that it should bring
back the grief that was still so fresh? Lucy said nothing about it;
which was quite like her, for she was not a girl who made much show of
her feelings. But it was not either her past sorrow--or the present
“trial” of parting with Jock that moved Lucy--something else worked in
her mind. The very sight of the poor household with all its anxieties,
the struggle for existence which was going on, the hopes most likely to
produce nothing but disappointment, struck a new chord in her. She was
more familiar with the level of commonplace existence on which they were
struggling to hold their place than with the soft and costly
completeness of life on Lady Randolph’s lines. The outside aspect of the
house had carried her back to the Terrace; the busied and somewhat
agitated maid who opened the door, unaccustomed to such fine company,
the flutter and flurry of expectation throughout the house, no one
knowing who it was who had come, but all expecting some event out of the
way, had made Lucy smile with sympathy, yet blush to think that such an
insignificant personage as herself was the stranger received with so
much excitement. So far Lucy knew and recognized the state of feeling in
the house; but she had never known that struggle of poverty which was
everywhere visible, and it went to her heart. This occupied all her
thoughts as she went back; and when she got home she disappeared into
her own room for a long time, somewhat to the surprise of Lady Randolph,
who, as so often happens, was specially disposed for her young
companion’s society. Lucy sent even Jock away. She dispatched him with
Elizabeth, her maid, to buy something he would want before going to
school; and bringing her little old-fashioned desk to her little
sitting-room, sat down with it before the fire. It was a cold day,
though bright, and Lucy thought, with pain that was almost personal, of
the sputtering of the newly lighted fire in Mrs. Russell’s cold
drawing-room, and of all the signs of poverty about. Why should people
be so different? She opened the desk, which was full of little relics of
her girlhood; little rubbishy drawings which the other girls, at Mrs.
Stone’s, had done for her; and even little French exercises and virtuous
essays of her own, all religiously put away. The desk was a very common
little article, opening in two unequal divisions, so as to form a blue
velvet slope on which to write; a thing much more adapted to be laid out
upon one of the little tables in the Terrace drawing-room than to have a
place here, where everything was so much more refined.
But all Lucy’s little secrets reposed under that blue velvet; and in a
drawer which shut with a spring, and was probably called secret, there
was a packet of much more importance than Lucy’s little souvenirs. She
opened it with tremulous care. It was a bundle of memoranda in her
father’s handwriting, done up with a bit of string, as was his way. He
had tied them up himself, directing her to read them over frequently.
Lucy had never touched the sacred packet up to this moment; her awe had
been greater than her curiosity. Indeed, there had been little ground
for curiosity, for she had heard him read, as they were written, all
these scraps which were the studies for his great work of art, the will,
into which old Mr. Trevor had concentrated his mind and the meaning of
his life. She had heard them, listening very dutifully; but yet it was
as if she had not heard at all, so lightly had they floated over her--so
little had she thought of them. She had been entirely acquainted with
all his plans for her, and all the serious occupations he had planned
out; but she had taken them calmly for granted, as things not affecting
her for the moment. Now, however, quite suddenly, Lucy realized that she
was not a helpless person, but powerful for aid and assistance to her
fellow-creatures even now, young as she was. She gave but one glance,
half-smiling, to Maude Langton’s drawings, and Lily Barrington’s
pincushion, and the pen-wiper made for her by Katie Russell; then took
out her little bundle of scrappy papers, the string of which she untied
carefully and with difficulty, with a reverent thought of the old man
whose withered fingers had drawn it so tight. It was with some
difficulty that Lucy found, among the many memoranda in her hands, the
one she sought. They were all embodied in the will. She found the
stipulations about her residence, half in high-life, half in what Mr.
Trevor called a middling way. And about her marriage, an event so
distant and improbable that Lucy smiled again in maiden calm, wholly
fancy free, as the world met her eye. At last here it was. She shut the
others carefully into the desk, and began to read. And it was so
remarkable a document that it will not be amiss if we give it here.
This, as we have said, was but the memorandum, the rough draught,
afterward put into more formal language in the will itself:
“The fortune which my daughter Lucy is to inherit, having been made by
her uncle James Rainy, as may be said, out of nothing--that is to say,
without any but the smallest bit of money to begin with, all by his own
industry and clear-headedness--and very honestly made, though perhaps
not without being to the detriment here and there of another person, not
so clever as he was--it is my desire that his heiress should _give back_
a part of it to her fellow-creatures, from whom it came. For, however
honestly money is made, it is quite clear, to anybody that will examine
the question, that if it is nothing more than buying in the cheapest
market and selling in the dearest, it must always be taking something
off the comfort of other people. The best of men can’t do less than
this; and I am sure James Rainy was one of the best of men. But as it
came out of nothing, and out of the pockets of other people, I think it
but right that James Rainy’s niece should give it _back_--a part of it,
that is to say. I wish it clearly to be understood that the half of the
Rainy property, whatever it may amount to when I die--and I hope I have
been able to add a little by great attention to business, and giving up
my whole thoughts to it--is to be kept intact, and not to be touched in
any way, making a very good fortune for Lucy and her heirs forever. But
the other half she shall be free to dispose of, giving it back to the
community, out of which it came. Foreigners are not to be eligible,
though part of it was no doubt made out of foreigners; but the kind that
come fluttering about rich folks in England, and carrying off a great
deal of our money, are not the kind among whom James Rainy made his
fortune, and I say again foreigners are not to be eligible. Most people
would say that, having a great deal of money to give away, the thing to
do would be to establish hospitals, and give large subscriptions; but I
don’t believe in subscriptions for my part. Besides that is the common
way. What I want Lucy to do is to give the money to individuals or
families whom she comes across, those that really want it. I wish her to
remember that I don’t tell her to do this in order to please herself,
nor to make herself look like a great personage, nor to get applause or
even gratitude. Applause she is not to get, since this part of my will I
require to be kept secret as far as possible, and every gift to be kept
an absolute secret from all but my executors, and the receivers of the
bounty; and gratitude she must not expect. It is a poor thing to look
for it, and I don’t much believe in it for my part. What she has to do
is a simple duty, having a great deal more money than she can ever know
what to do with. And she is not to give little dribbles of money which
encourage pauperism; but when she sees a necessity to give enough,
liberally, and without grudging. If it’s to a man to set him up in
business, or help him on in whatever his trade may be; and if it’s a
woman, to give her an income that she can live on, and bring up her
children upon, with economy and good management. I don’t want any one to
get damage by what she gives, as happens when you give a ten-pound note,
or a fifty, or even a hundred. Let her give them enough--she has plenty
to draw upon--according to their position and what they are used to;
capital that can be of real use in business, or an income that can be
managed, and made the most of. It is giving the money back to those from
whom it came. I also require that my daughter Lucy should be left the
fullest liberty of choice. She must satisfy my executors that the case
is a necessitous one; but nothing more. She is not bound to give
guarantees of any kind, or a good character even, or testimonials from
other people. The thing is to be between herself and those she gives to.
She will make many mistakes, but she is very sensible, and she will
learn in time.
“I further stipulate that my said daughter Lucy is to enter upon the
possession of this right as soon as I am dead, whether she is of age at
that period or not. I expect of her obedience to all my rules for seven
years, as far as regards herself; but in this particular she is to be
perfectly free, and no one is to have any power of control over
her--neither her guardians, nor her husband when she gets one. This is
my last wish and desire.”
She had known vaguely that this was how it was; but when Lucy had heard
the paper read by her father’s own lips, she had not paid very much
attention to it. It was so far away--so unlike anything that lay in her
placid girlish life, which, at that time, had no power whatever in it,
except to buy Jock a new book now and then out of her pocket-money. Lucy
fancied she could see herself sitting quiet and unmoved over her
knitting, listening as a matter of duty, not thinking much of what it
was that papa wrote down in these interminable papers. How placidly she
had taken it all! It had been nothing to her; though she had received
from him a certain gravity of reflection, and sense of the incumbrances
and responsibilities of her wealth, yet that had come chiefly since his
death, and she recalled the easy calm of her own mind before that event
with surprise. Now, as she read these words over again, which had
floated so calmly over her before, a thrill of warm life and excitement
ran through her being. She had it in her power to change all that, to
make poor Mrs. Russell comfortable, to lift her up above all necessity.
Was it possible? Lucy’s heart began to beat, her mind trembled at the
suggestion--it made her head giddy. That nervous, tremulous woman so
full of self-betrayals, letting the spectators see against her will how
anxious she was, how full of fear, even in professing herself to be full
of hope. Was it possible that a word from Lucy would smooth away half of
her incipient wrinkles, correct the anxious lines round the corners of
her eyes, and calm her whole agitated being? Lucy felt her head go round
and round with that sense of delightful incomprehensible power. She
could do it, there was no doubt or question; and how willing she would
be to do it, how glad, how eager? She put her papers back again, with
her whole frame tingling and in commotion. A girl is seldom so excited,
except by something about a lover, some shadow of the new life coming
over her, some revelation of the mysteries and sweetness to come; but
Lucy had never been awakened on this subject. She knew nothing about
love, and cared less, if that can be believed, but the very breath was
taken away from her and her head made giddy by this sudden consciousness
of power.
Next day Lucy had a visitor, in the morning, before there was any
question of visitors, when she and Jock were seated alone. It was Mary
Russell, with a little flush on her face, and somewhat, breathless, who
appeared behind the maid when the door opened. Mary was the plainest one
of the family, a girl with a round cheerful face, and no special beauty
of any kind--not like her handsome brother, who had the air of a man of
fashion, or Katie, who was one of the prettiest, girls at Mrs. Stone’s.
It was not Mary’s _rôle_ to be pretty; she was the useful one of the
family. In most cases there is one member of a household specially
devoted to this part; and if it had happened that Mary had grown up
beautiful, as sometimes happens, no doubt her claims would have been
steadily ignored by the rest of the family, who thought of her in no
such light. She was the one who did what the others did not like to do.
She came in with a little hesitation, with a blush and shy air of
deprecating anxiety. The blush deepened as she met Lucy’s surprised
look; she sat down with an awkwardness that was not natural to her. She
was scarcely seventeen, younger than Lucy; but had already learned so
much of the darker side of life. Yet there was in Mary none of the
self-contrasts nor the anxious adulation of her mother. She had so much
to do, she had not time to think how much worse off she was than this
other girl, her contemporary in life.
“I came to see--when it would suit you to send--Master Trevor,” Mary
said, faltering a little. “Mamma feared--that perhaps you might be
discouraged by seeing that the house was not--But I will see that he is
very well taken care of, and--regular with his lessons. I am always with
them. It is a holiday to-day, that is why I have come out.”
(The family had taken fright after Lucy had gone; they had doubted the
possibility of so much good fortune coming their way; they had trembled
with apprehension lest a letter should reach them next morning informing
them that some other school had been recommended to Lady Randolph, or
that Miss Trevor feared that the air of the heath would be too keen for
her little brother; and Mary had, as usual, put herself in the breach.
“I will go and find out,” she had said; “they can not eat me, at the
very worst.” This was Mary’s way; the rest of the house waited and
fretted, and made all around them miserable, but she preferred to cut
the knot.)
“You see, Miss Trevor,” she continued, “mamma is very anxious to get a
good connection. I do not care so much, for my part; but it is
gentlemen’s sons she wants, and she thinks that if we were known to have
your brother--”
“But I am nobody,” said Lucy, “and Jock is--Papa was only a
school-master himself. He was not even a good school-master. He taught
the common people; and I don’t think that having Jock would make much
difference.”
Mary looked at her with wistful eyes.
“He is your brother,” she said.
“But, indeed, indeed, I am nobody,” cried Lucy, “scarcely a lady at all,
only allowed to live here, and be well thought of, because I have a
great deal of money. I am not so good as you are; even Katie, though she
was known to be poor, they said at school, ‘She is one of the Russells.’
Now that could never be said of me; I am not one of the anybodies,” Lucy
said, with a little smile. “I have nothing but my money,” she added,
eying Mary with great earnestness; “it is good for something; there are
some things, indeed, that it can do;” here she paused, and looked at the
other girl again very doubtfully, almost anxiously. Mary did not know
what it meant. She had come as a supplicant, wistfully desirous of
making a good impression upon the rich and fortunate heiress. Only to be
connected in the most superficial way with this favorite of fortune
would do them good, her mother thought. But she was deeply puzzled by
Lucy’s look at her, which was wistful too.
“Yes, there is a great deal that it can do,” said Mary. “When one has so
very, very much, it is as good as being born a princess. It is better to
be of a good family when you have only a little, but when you are as
rich as--as an ‘Arabian Night,’ what does it matter? Other boys would
come from other prosperous places if it were known that you had brought
your brother.”
“I wish,” cried Lucy, “oh! I wish that I could do more than that.”
Mary’s cheeks grew crimson; she tried to laugh.
“That is all we want, Miss Trevor. We want only a good connection, and
to get our school known.”
In a moment the characters of the two girls had changed; it was the
heiress that was the supplicant. She looked very anxiously in the
other’s eyes, who, on her side, understood somehow, though she knew
nothing about it.
“We are getting on,” said Mary, with that flush of generous pride and
courage; “oh, I am not afraid we shall get on! There may be a struggle
at the beginning, everybody has a struggle, but we have only got to
stand firm, and not to give in. Mamma gets frightened, but I am not a
bit frightened; besides, she is not strong, and when people are not
strong everything tells upon them. Of course we shall have a
struggle--how could it be otherwise--there are so many poor people in
the world; but in the end all will come right; and, Miss Trevor,” she
added, with a little flush of excitement, “if you don’t think our house
is good enough, never mind. We should like to know, but I don’t wish to
urge you, if you are not satisfied. We don’t want any to come who is not
satisfied; all the same we shall get on.”
Lucy looked at her almost with envy.
“Yes,” she said, shaking her head, following out her own thoughts. “I
suppose it is true that there are a great many poor people in the
world.”
“Oh, so many!” Mary said; “poor women struggling and struggling to
live. Though we are struggling ourselves, it makes my heart sore; there
are so many worse off than we are. But we must get on, whatever happens.
I tell mamma so. What is the use of fretting, I say, all will come right
in the end; but she can not keep her heart up. It is because she is not
strong,” Mary said, a tear coming furtively to her eyes.
“I know what papa meant now,” said Lucy. “I had never thought of it. It
is a sin for one to have so much, and others nothing. If it could only
be taken and divided, and everybody made comfortable--so much to you,
and so much to me, and every one the same--how much better, how much
happier! but how am I to do it?” she said, clasping her hands.
Mary stood opening her blue eyes, then laughed, with youthful and
frankness, though far from free of tears. “How strange that you should
say that! I thought it was only poor people and Radicals that said that.
You can’t be a Radical, Miss Trevor? But it would be no good,” said the
sensible girl, shaking her head; “even I have seen enough to be sure of
that. If we had all the same one day, there would be rich and poor again
the next. It is in people’s nature. But this is a long way off from what
I came to ask you,” she said, dropping her voice, with a little sigh.
Jock had been in the room all the time. He was one of the children whom
no one ever notices, who hear everything, and bide their time. He came
forward all at once, startling Mary, who turned to him in alarm, with a
little cry. “Are you fond of the ‘Arabian Nights’?” he said. “I am not
so very fond of them now--they are for when you are quite little, when
you don’t know anything. When I come, I will tell you quantities of
things, if you like. I can tell you all Shakespeare. I told Lucy; she
does not know much,” Jock said, with genial contempt.
“Perhaps you will think I don’t know very much; but I shall teach you
your lessons,” said Mary, with tremulous satisfaction, yet a little
pedagogic assertion of her own superiority. Jock looked at her with
attention, studying this new specimen of the human race.
“You must not think he is naughty,” said Lucy, interposing eagerly. “He
is a very good boy. Though he is so little, he knows a great deal. And
he always understands. You may think he is a trouble with his stories,
and the fairy books he has read. But he is no trouble,” his sister
cried, “he is the greatest comfort. I don’t know what I should have done
without Jock; and I am sure you will like him too. We are going to get
him his things this afternoon, and to-morrow I am to bring him,” Lucy
added, in her usual tranquil tones.
“Then that is all right,” said Mary. She thought it was all her
doing--that the question had been a doubtful one, and that it was the
decided step she had taken which had secured this important little
scholar. He was to pay better than any of the rest, and he was, it might
be hoped, the first of a better connection. Mary got up to go home with
a satisfaction in her supposed success, which was almost triumph. She
did not envy Lucy, though she was an heiress. She saw a long perspective
of new boys filing before her, and a handsome house and big playgrounds,
and an orderly prosperous establishment. These were the things that were
worth wishing for, Mary Russell thought. As for Bertie and his book, she
shrugged her youthful shoulders at them. But she believed in herself,
and in the little boys to come. “We shall have a struggle,” she
repeated, with a smile, “as everybody has; but we shall get on.” She did
not envy Lucy; but Lucy, perhaps, feeling the tables turned, was not so
magnanimous. She was half vexed that the success of the Russells was so
certain, and that here was no case for her to interfere. Alas, there was
nothing for her to do but to wring her hands and stand helpless upon her
mountain of money, while all those poor people whom Mary knew struggled
unaided, yet “got on” at last, without any help of hers.
CHAPTER XXII.
HOW THE RUSSELLS GOT ON.
Lucy was permitted to take Jock to Hampstead by herself in Lady
Randolph’s brougham next day. They had spent the morning buying things
for him, a school-boy dressing-case, a little desk, various books, and
an umbrella--possessions which, up to this time, had been considered too
valuable for the child, of whom nobody took any special care. He went to
his new home with such an abundance of property as elated even Jock,
though he was not given to trivialities. He had a watch too, which was
more than property, which was a kind of companion, a demi-living thing
to console him when he should be dull; and the child bore up with great
heroism in face of the inevitable parting. Indeed, Jock regarded the
whole matter in an extremely practical common sense way. Lucy herself
was disposed to be tearful during the long drive. She held him close to
her side, with her arm round him. “You will be good, Jock,” she said;
“you will not be silly, and read books, but do your lessons and your
sums, and everything. Promise me that you will do your lessons, Jock.”
Jock eyed his sister with that indulgent contempt, which her want of
discrimination often produced in him. “Of course I will do my lessons,”
he said; “it is you who are silly. What else should I go away for?
People must do lessons, it appears, before they grow up. If I didn’t
mean to do them,” Jock said, with a full sense of his own power of
deciding his fate, “I should stay at home--I shouldn’t go.”
This silenced Lucy for the moment; but she was not so confident as he
was. “When you get dull, dear, and when there is nobody to talk to, and
when you begin to feel lonely”--the tears got into Lucy’s eyes again as
she added line after line to this picture-- “then I am afraid, I am
afraid you will begin to read, you will forget about everything else.”
Jock drew himself away from her arm with a little offense; he looked at
her severely. “I am not just a baby--or a girl,” he said indignantly.
Then he added, softening, “And I don’t mean to be dull. I will tell Mary
a great deal. It will do her good. You don’t mind so much about things
when you have a great many other things in your head.”
Once more this oracular utterance silenced his sister for the moment;
and then with natural inconsistency she resented his philosophy. “I did
not think you were so changeable. You are quite pleased to have Mary:
you don’t care for leaving me. It is I that will be lonely, but you
don’t mind a bit!” cried Lucy. Jock sighed with the impatience which his
elders so often show when a woman is unreasonable. “Don’t you _want_ me
to learn lessons then?” he said.
But as this protest was uttered the carriage drew up before Mrs.
Russell’s house, where all was expectation, though there was no peeping
at windows or signs of excitement, as on the first visit. The
drawing-room, which was like poor Mrs. Russell herself, limp and
crumpled with the wear and tear of life rather than old, had been rubbed
and dusted into such a measure of brightness as was possible. There was
a pot of crocuses at the window, and tea upon the table; and the whole
family were assembled to do honor to the visitor. There was nothing
slipshod about Bertie now; his hair was carefully brushed, all the
details of his appearance anxiously cared for. “For who can tell what
may happen?” his mother said; “we never know what an hour may bring
forth;” and inspired by this pious sentiment she had counseled Bertie,
nothing loath, to buy himself a new necktie. His whole life might be
altered by the becomingness of its tint and the success of its
arrangement. Do not girls perpetually take these little precautions? and
why not young men too? And they all stood up to receive Lucy, and
regarded her with a kind of admiring adoration. “Give Miss Trevor this
chair--it is the most comfortable.” “Mother, a little more cream for
Miss Trevor, and some cake.” They could not do too much for her. “Katie
is so happy that we have seen you; she writes to me this morning, that
all will go well with us now we know her dear, dear Lucy.” “We have all
known you by name so long,” Bertie added; “it has been familiar in our
mouths as household words.” Lucy was abashed by all this homage; but how
could she help being a little pleased too? Mary was the only one who did
not chime in. “I suppose Katie thinks you lucky,” she said; “I don’t
believe in luck myself.” And then Lucy made a little timid diversion, by
asking about Mr. Bertie’s book. Was it finished yet? and would it soon
be published? It is pleasant to be courted and applauded; but somewhat
embarrassing when it goes too far.
“He has not got a publisher yet; is it not strange,” cried Mrs. Russell
indignantly, “that, whatever genius you may have, or however beautifully
you may write, it is all nothing, nothing at all without a publisher? He
may be just an ignorant man, just a tradesman--not in the least able to
understand; indeed, I hear that they are dreadful people, and cheat you
on every side (and authors are a great deal too generous and too
heedless, Miss Trevor, they allow themselves to be cheated); but however
beautiful your book may be (and Bertie’s book is lovely), not one step
can he move, not one thing can he do, till one of these common dreadful
men--oh!” cried the indignant mother, “it is a disgrace to our age--it
is a shame to the country--”
“They are necessary evils,” said Bertie with magnanimity; “we can’t do
without them. You must not think it quite so bad, Miss Trevor, as my
mother says. And after all one is independent of them as soon as one has
got a hearing; _ce n’est que le premier pas_--”
“If Lady Randolph chose, she might easily get him an introduction,” said
Mrs. Russell; “but it is out of sight out of mind, Miss Trevor. When you
do not want anything, there are numbers of people ready to help you; but
when you do--Lady Randolph might do it in a moment. It would not cost
her anything; but she forgets; when you are out of the way everybody
forgets.”
“We must not say that, mother. It was she who brought us our celestial
visitor.”
“That is true, that is true,” Mrs. Russell cried.
Lucy did not know what to think or how to reply; she had never been
called a celestial visitor before, and it was impossible not to be
pleased by all this kindness and admiration. But then it was
embarrassing, and she saw Mary in the background laugh. She felt half
disposed to laugh too, and then to cry; but that was because she was
parting with Jock, who, little monster, did not shed a tear. Lucy dried
her own eyes almost indignantly; but even on her side the effect of the
parting was broken by the assiduous attentions with which she was
surrounded. She was so confused by having to take Bertie’s arm, and thus
being conducted to the door, and put into the carriage, that she could
not give Jock that last hug which she had intended. Mrs. Russell stood
on the steps, and kissed her hand. “You will come soon again, come as
often as you can. You will do us all good, as well as the little
brother,” Mrs. Russell said. And Bertie put his head into the carriage
to tell her that he would come himself and bring her news of Jock. They
both spoke and looked as if Lucy were indeed a celestial visitor, a
being of transcendent excellence and glory. She could not but be
conscious of a bewildering sense of pleasure; but she was ashamed of so
much devotion. She was not the least worthy of it. Could they be
laughing at her? But why should any one be so cruel as to do that?
For the moment, however, all Lucy’s personal excitement in the
consciousness of being able to change the circumstances of the poor
lady, who had at first sight appealed so strongly to her sympathies, was
subdued, and turned into the humiliation and shame of an officious
person who has been offering unnecessary aid. She shrunk back into
herself with a hot blush. Had she, perhaps, wanted to appear as a great
benefactor in the eyes of the Russells? was it pride rather than pity?
Lucy, though she had so little experience, was wise enough to know that
undesired help is an insult, a thing that everybody resents. She was
deeply disappointed and ashamed, not knowing how to excuse herself for
her rash impulse of liberality, liberality which these high-spirited and
hopeful people would most likely never have forgiven her for thinking
of. She locked away her father’s memoranda again in the secret drawer.
“Oh, papa! papa!” she said to herself, “how could you think it would be
so easy?”
He had thought money was everything, but it was not what he thought.
Lucy was glad that she had not written to Mr. Chervil about it as she
had intended, for most likely he would have laughed at her, or perhaps
been angry. Evidently the only thing for her to do was to “read,” as
Lady Randolph advised her, and try to learn German, and keep as quiet as
possible. It was dull, very dull, without Jock, but Lucy was of a
patient disposition, and reconciled herself gradually to her life.
On the whole, however, this life was a life full of pleasantness to
which the most exacting young person might easily have reconciled
herself. Lady Randolph was very kind--indeed, as time went on, she got
to like Lucy very sincerely, appreciating the good qualities of a girl
who brought so much into the establishment and took so little out, who
gave no trouble at all, as the servants said, rather despising her for
it. But Lady Randolph did not despise her. She knew the value of a
companion who was always contented, and aspired after no forbidden
pleasures of society, and did not so much as understand the A B C of
flirting. Such a girl was of rare occurrence in the world, or, at least,
so persons of experience, accustomed to think the worst of all classes
of their fellow-creatures, said. A girl who was always willing to do
what she was told, and who set up no will of her own, and had no
confidential visitor, except Mr. Chervil, who was one of her legal
guardians, was a charge with whom any chaperon might be pleased;
provided all went as well next year, when Lucy came out; but Lady
Randolph piously reflected that no one could tell what might happen
before that. Lucy excited no strong feeling: there was little in her
(except her fortune) to take hold of the imagination; but her quiet
presence was always soothing and pleasant. Lady Randolph professed to go
little into society that season, “saving herself up,” as she said, for
the next, when it would be her more arduous duty to take Lucy out. But
though she did not go out much, that did not prevent her from enjoying a
great many dinner-parties, and even occasionally “looking in” upon some
dear duchess’s ball; and Lucy spent many quiet evenings at home, in
which her chief amusement was to hear the carriages of the people who
were enjoying themselves roll up and down the street, and in wondering
how she would like it next year, when she would be enjoying herself too.
She did not at all dislike these quiet evenings, and, on the whole, her
life passed very pleasantly as the spring grew into summer, and the
season came to its prime. She rode in the morning, sometimes in the
park, when Lady Randolph could find suitable companions for her, and
often going as far as Hampstead, where Mary Russell looked out upon her
from the school-room window with cheerful friendliness; and Bertie, not
very sure of his skill, came out to put her on her horse when she was
ready to go, and bit his young mustache with envy and anger against
fate, which had denied him all such indulgences. Bertie, however, was
buoyed up by a great confidence; his book was going through the press;
he had got the opening he wanted; and presently, presently! he said to
himself, his time of humiliation would be over. Lucy had no idea of the
effect of her visits upon the household. The little pupils, who were not
very answerable to Mary’s rule, hearing it often called in question, ran
to the window when they heard the sound of the horses’ feet, and they
too looked with envy upon little Jock, who now had a pony, and
frequently went out with his sister. The little boys looked after Jock,
some with admiring eyes, while others scowled at his unusual privileges.
“Why has that little beggar got a pony and us not?” the urchins would
say indignantly; and Mrs. Russell was not, with all her refinement, much
better than the boy who said this, who was the son of the grocer, taken
on reciprocal terms, and whose presence was felt to be a humiliation to
the establishment. Mrs. Russell never saw Lucy ride away without drying
her eyes.
“To think _my_ girls should be toiling while old Trevor’s daughter--”
She looked out eagerly for Lucy’s coming, but this was the unfailing
sentiment with which she greeted her. “The ways of Providence are
inscrutable,” the poor lady said, “when I remember her mother, who was
nothing but nursery-governess at the Brown-Joneses’, an old maid! when
we used to call in mamma’s carriage.”
“If you were so much better off than her mother, she has a right to be
better off than we are; it is only justice and fair play,” said Mary.
“Oh, child! child! hold your tongue, what can you know about it?” her
mother said, with red eyes, while Bertie gnawed his mustache.
The young man stood and looked after Lucy, waiting to wave his hand to
her as she turned the corner. She looked very well on horseback. If he
had not felt that indignant envy of her, that sense that a trumpery bit
of a girl had no right to be so much better off than he, he would have
almost admired Lucy as she rode away. She was the representative of so
many things that he did admire; wealth, luxurious case, an undeniable
superiority to all care. That she should be set up on that pinnacle,
high enough to impress the whole world with her greatness, while he,
clever, and handsome, and well born, attracted attention from nobody,
was one of those things which are so incredible in their
inappropriateness as to fill the less fortunate with indignant
astonishment; but presently, presently! the young man said to himself.
Meantime he was very irregular in giving the little boys their Latin.
The proofs took up a great deal of his time, and it was scarcely to be
expected that a young author, on the verge of success and fame, could be
as particular, in respect to hours, as a nameless pedagogue. Mrs.
Russell fully felt the force of this argument. She did not see how
Bertie could be expected to give himself up to the children every day.
The Latin lessons came down to three times, then twice a week, and it
was never quite certain when it might suit Mr. Russell to give them.
“They shall have another half hour with me at their music, or, Mary,
give them a little more geography; geography is very important, of far
more consequence, at their age, than Latin,” the head of the
establishment would say; and though the sight of Miss Trevor arriving on
her fine horse, with her groom behind her, had a great effect upon the
neighborhood, and the parents of the day-scholars were pleased to think
that their little boys were at the same school as this fine young lady’s
brother, yet after awhile there were remonstrances from these
commonplace people. The boys, they complained, did not “get on.” “What
do they mean by getting on? we are not bound to furnish intellects to
our pupils,” Mrs. Russell said, assuming something of the same
imperiousness which answered with Mrs. Stone; but, alas! it did not
answer at Hampstead, and but for the hope of that book which was coming
out directly, the poor lady would have seen a very dismal prospect
before her. But the book was to make amends for everything, it was to
bring both money and peace.
“There is another boy gone,” said little Jock. “I’m very glad, he was
one that laughed when you talked of anything. I told him about Macbeth,
and he laughed. He’s gone, that fellow; and Shuckwood’s going--”
“They seem all to be going,” said Lucy, alarmed.
“Oh, no, you know, there’s me. I’m the sheet-anchor, they say; but what
is a sheet-anchor? She is often crying now,” said Jock; “I can’t tell
why. It can’t be because of the fellows leaving. They are a set of
little--cads.”
“Jock, where did you learn such words? you never spoke like that
before.”
“Oh, it is being with those fellows,” said Jock. “If I were bigger I’d
lick half of them; but I couldn’t lick half of them,” he added,
reflectively, “for there’s only five now, and when Shuckwood is gone,
and the one with the red hair, there will be three. But then one is me!
there will only be two others left. You know, Lucy, Russell, the man
himself, Mary’s brother, has made a book, and it’s all in print.”
“Yes, I know. I hope he will make some money by it, and make poor Mrs.
Russell more happy.”
“Money!” This was an idea Jock could not fathom; he pondered it for a
time, but did not arrive at any clear comprehension of it. “Will he go
and knock at all the doors, and sell it like--the milkman?” asked the
child, with much doubt in his tone. The milkman was striding cheerfully
along with his pails, uttering a mysterious but friendly howl at every
door, and furnishing Jock with the simile. He thought the milkman a very
interesting person, but he did not realize Bertie Russell in the same
trade. “I don’t think he would do it,” Jock said confidentially; “and if
it was only one book, it would not be much good. I should like to be a
peddler with a heap of books; then you could read the rest, and sell
them when you had finished them. But, Lucy,” cried the child, “what I
would like best of all would be to ride on, and on, and on, like this,
and never stop, except at night, to lie on the grass, and tell stories,
like that book about the knight and the squire, and the manciple. What
is a manciple?” Jock asked, suddenly impressed by the charms of the
unknown word.
“I can’t tell in the least, I never heard of it, Jock. Doesn’t it vex
poor Mrs. Russell when the boys go?”
“When the fellows, leave? oh, I don’t know. I tell you they’re not much
of fellows; I don’t see why she should care,” said the little ignoramus
serenely. “I wish they were all gone, then Mary would have time to
improve her mind.”
“Poor Mary! has she so much to do?”
“She is always having the fellows for something. When we have not Latin
we have geography. And we don’t often have Latin. Russell, he’s busy, or
he’s got a headache. The fellows say--”
“What little gossips! Tell me what Latin you have learned, Jock.”
“Oh, nothing at all. Penn-a, penna-ah--or perhaps it’s penn-ah--penn-a,
I never can remember. It is far easier just to say pen, as you do, Lucy.
And then we have counting; two times three is six, three times
three--I’ll tell you that another time; the pony jumps about when I try
to do arithmetic in my head.”
“But they are always very good to you, Jock? you are happy there?” This
was the burden of all their talks, the constantly-recurring chorus.
This time Jock, who usually said, “Oh, yes,” with indifference to the
question, laughed, which was rare with him.
“She says I am always to say Mr. Bertie is very kind,” says Jock.
“That’s Russell, you know: the fellows all call him Russell. She says,
when you ask, I am to say he takes great pains with me.”
Lucy was perplexed, but it was not right to show her perplexity, she
thought.
“And does he?” she said.
“I don’t know what it means, he never says anything at all. Do you
think, if we were to ride long enough, we could ride, ride, right into
the sun, Lucy? there where it touches the heath--look! The sky _must_
touch somewhere, if we could only ride as far.”
“Let us try,” said Lucy.
Jock’s revelations were very unsatisfactory. It was just as sensible,
she thought to pursue the sunshine, and follow the point where the sky
must touch, as to get any light thrown upon the one point which she was
anxious to investigate. Lucy’s mind had been greatly exercised upon this
subject. It was impossible to mistake the signs of growing poverty and
squalor in the house, and she, who felt that she had in her hand the
power of turning anxiety and trouble into ease, was greatly disturbed,
not knowing what to do.
Mrs. Russell’s eyes were generally red now; but then they were weak, she
said; and the house got to look more and more untidy. It was a begrimed
little maid who opened the door, and the red-haired boy was gone, and
the one who squinted, and the little fellow with the curls. Lucy went in
with her brother, when they had finished their ride, and was met by the
mistress of the house, all tremulous, clasping and unclasping her hands,
with a nervous smile.
“You must rest a little, Miss Trevor,” she said, “after your long ride,
and take something; won’t you take something? I have made a little space
in the drawing-room,” she added, seeing, with the quick instinct of the
unfortunate, that Lucy’s eye had been caught by the big vacancy in the
room, which had never been too full of furniture; “my poor piano, it was
too big, much too big. I did not like to part with it, it was a relic of
the days when--my rooms were not so small,” she said, with a pretense at
a smile. “But you will be glad to hear, Miss Trevor, we have heard of a
much better house, when--I mean as soon as--we are quite sure about the
book.”
“It will not be long now?” said Lucy. “Mr. Bertie told me the printing
was very nearly done.”
“No, it will not be long. We might take it now, for that matter, for I
don’t entertain any doubt on the subject. But Bertie is always so
modest. Bertie insists that we must make quite sure. You see, Miss
Trevor, a work like his, a work of imagination, succeeds at once, if it
is going to succeed,” she added, with a little laugh. “Other kinds of
books may take a long time to gain the public ear, but that--one knows
directly. So I say to Bertie, we really might venture. It is just round
the corner, Miss Trevor, a much larger, handsomer house. But, on the
other hand, this is a long way from the center of everything. It might
be better to move into Mayfair, or even Belgravia. He will want to be
nearer the world. So, on the whole, we think it best to wait a little;
and it does not do to move in the season, everything is so dear.”
“And the little boys?” said Lucy. Her mind was bewildered by the
contrast between what she was hearing and the visible signs of misery
around.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Russell, “as for Jock, you must not trouble yourself in
the least. We are quite fond of him, he is such a little original. And
Mary is very independent-minded; she will never take anything from her
brother, though a better brother never existed! Mary will want something
to occupy her, and so long as I have a roof over my head, little Jock
shall never want a home. You may be quite easy on that point. I am
telling Miss Trevor, Mary, that we are thinking of removing,” she said,
as her daughter came in.
Mary did not look in high spirits.
“Are you, mamma? I should not mind the house, if other things were
comfortable,” Mary said. Her eyes were heavy, as if she had been
weeping, and she avoided Lucy’s look.
“That is because some of the little boys are going away,” said Mrs.
Russell nervously. “Mary is always so anxious. We shall be glad to rid
of them, my love, when Bertie’s book is out.”
Mary did not make any reply. She gave her shoulders an imperceptible
shrug; and what between the daughter’s unresponsiveness and the mother’s
tearful and restless profusion of words, Lucy did not know what to say.
When she went out, Bertie appeared with his hat on, and a packet of
papers in his hand, and walked by her as she rode slowly along the steep
little street. “These are the last of the proofs,” he said to her,
holding them up. “I am going to take them myself for luck. I hope you
will think of me kindly, Miss Trevor, and wish me well.”
“Indeed, I will. I wish it may be--the greatest success that ever was.”
“Thanks; that should bring me good fortune. I want you to do me a favor
too. Let me give it all the better chance by putting your happy name
upon it. I am sure it is a happy name, a lucky name, bringing good,” he
added fervently, “to all who invoke it.”
“Indeed, Mr. Russell,” said Lucy, troubled, “I do not know what you
mean.”
“I want,” he said, “to dedicate it to you.”
“To me!” Lucy’s simple countenance grew crimson. She did not quite
understand the half pleasure, half repugnance that seemed all at once to
flood her veins to overflowing. The color rushed to her face. She was
flattered; what girl would have been otherwise? But she was more
embarrassed than flattered. “Oh, no, Mr. Russell, please not. It is too
much. I have no right to such a compliment.”
“Then I don’t know who has,” he said. “You sought us out when we were
very low, and gave us courage. That was the thing we wanted most. My
mother is not encouraging, Miss Trevor. She is very good; but she is so
anxious--so easily cast down.”
“She is in very great hopes now, Mr. Russell.”
“Oh, yes; poor mother--too great. I don’t know what she thinks is
coming. A fortune--a king’s ransom. And she will be disappointed. I feel
sure she will be disappointed--even if I succeed. I shall have to think
of getting connections, forming friends, helping myself on in the world,
instead of muddling always here.”
Then there was a moment of silence, and the sound of the horse’s hoofs
on the stones came in, ringing in Lucy’s ears. And these words raised up
echoes of their own. Lucy’s young soul got perplexed among them. But she
said nothing, and after a moment he went on.
“Of course I will help them; but I must think of what is to be done
next, and I must be in a place where I can see people--not out here. You
are so reasonable, you will understand me, Miss Trevor. It is hard to be
living among people who do not understand. I will bring you one of the
first copies, if you will let me--the very first, if I have my way,” he
said, looking up at her with a glow on his face. As she sat on her
horse, swaying a little with the movement, she looked the most desirable
thing in all the world to Bertie Russell. To think a girl the best thing
you could become possessed of, the most valuable and precious, the
highest prize to be aspired to, the creature who can bestow everything
you most wish for--is not that being in love with her? If so, Bertie
Russell was in love; and he looked at her as if he were so. Lucy’s cheek
was a little flushed with surprise, with the confusion of her thoughts,
and he interpreted this so as to chime in with the excitement he had
himself given way to. It was a genuine excitement. Heavens! if he could
but win that girl to be his! what more would there be to wish for? He
put out his hand and gently touched and stroked her horse’s neck. This
meant the most shy caress to herself, and Lucy felt it so, with a thrill
of alarm she could not tell why.
“I am afraid I must go on now,” she said, feeling a blush come over her
face again; and he took off his hat, and stood watching as she quickened
her pace along the road, calling after her, “I may come then and bring
the first copy?” His heart jumped up within him as he saw the color on
Lucy’s face. Could she, in her turn, a simple girl not used to much
attention; have fallen in love? If so, there would be nothing strange in
that. A fine young fellow--a young man of genius about to blaze upon the
world. Nothing could be more natural; but the idea made Bertie’s heart
beat. It would be the most fortunate--the most desirable of all things.
It opened up a perfect heaven of hope and blessedness before his feet.
As for Lucy, she rode home with her heart quaking and trembling and full
of many thoughts. She did not entertain any doubt of the success of the
book, any more than the author of it did, or his mother. But what she
had heard from both sides opened Lucy’s eyes. Poor Mrs. Russell! what
wild fancy possessed her, making her so feverishly confident in the
midst of all those signs of trouble? Youth is intolerant, yet, Lucy was
reasonable. She saw some excuse for Bertie too. And now her duty seemed
to her very clear. After all her vicissitudes of feeling, she had come
back to the starting-point. This made her heart beat, not any thought of
the handsome young author. She would have to tell Mrs. Russell herself
of what she was about to do. It would be a difficult mission, Lucy
thought to herself, with something of a panic; yet it must be done. And
when she thought of the house over which such a cloud of trouble and
anxiety and approaching ruin seemed to hang, and of Mrs. Russell’s
excitement, and Mary’s pale cheeks, her heart smote her for delaying.
She must not allow her guardian to hold her hand, or her own timid
spirit to shrink from her work. Would it not be better to have it done
before the moment came when this poor woman could be undeceived? While
she rode back through the suburban roads, Bertie, subduing his pride,
took the aid of an omnibus, and made his way to the publisher’s--his
head in the air, his mind full of ecstatic visions. He composed a
hundred dedications as he rolled and rumbled along, smiling to himself
at the idea of the author of “Imogen” being seen on an omnibus. “Why
not?” he asked himself. A man of genius, a future lord of society and
the age, may go where he will without derogating from his dignity. If
all went well, if all went as every indication proved it to be going,
other vehicles than omnibuses were waiting for Bertie, golden chariots,
cars of triumph. His present humility was a pleasantry at which he could
not choose but smile.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DEDICATION.
A very short time after this Lucy received the parcel of books which had
been promised her. The season was growing to its height, and no time had
been lost in putting the three volumes into the flimsy cloth binding
which places the English novel on a platform of respectability, elevated
far above its contemporary of other nations. The author did not bring
her the first copy with his own hands, as he had vowed to do. Bertie had
been afraid--he had done a thing which was perhaps too daring, and he
did not venture to appear in his own person, to meet, perhaps, the storm
of Lady Randolph’s displeasure, perhaps the alarmed reproachfulness of
Lucy herself. He sent it instead, and awaited the reply with a heart
which could scarcely beat higher with any personal excitement than it
did with the tumult of hope and fear with which he awaited the issue of
his first publication. It seemed to the inexperienced young fellow that
the issues of life and death were in it, and that his fate would be
fixed one way or another, and that without remedy. His doubt of Lucy’s
reception of his offering, therefore, added but a slight element the
more to a tumult of feeling already almost too great to be controlled.
He brought it himself to the door, but would not go in; leaving a
message that the parcel was to be given to Miss Trevor at once. Lady
Randolph and she, for a wonder, were dining alone, and the parcel was
undone when the dessert was placed on the table, and lay there in a very
fashionably artistic binding, of no particular color, with “Imogen”
scrawled in large uneven letters on the side. The ladies both took it
up with great interest. A new book, though so many of the community have
ceased to regard it as anything but a bore, is still interesting more or
less to every little feminine circle that knows the author. Lady
Randolph was going out to a succession of parties after dinner, and
among them to a great intellectual gathering, where all the wits were to
be assembled. “I must tell Mrs. Montagu about it,” she said; “I must
speak to everybody about it. It is very attentive of the young man to
send it at once. We must do what we can for him, Lucy. We must ask for
it at all the libraries, and tell everybody to ask for it, and I will
speak to the critics. I will speak to Cecilia,” she said, taking up the
first volume. But after a momentary interval, a change came over Lady
Randolph’s face. She uttered the invariable English monosyllable “Oh!”
in startled and troubled tones; then turned upon her companion hastily:
“Did you know of this, Lucy? My dear, my dear, how wrong! how imprudent!
Why did not you mention it to me?”
Lucy was eating her strawberries very quietly, looking with a pleased
expectation at the two other volumes of the book. It seemed to her a
fine thing to be an author, to have actually written all that; and she
was a little proud in her own person of knowing all about him, and felt
that she would now have something to talk about when Lady Randolph’s
visitors tried her, as they were in the habit of doing, on divers
subjects. When they talked to her about Lady Mary’s small and early
party, or the duchess’s great assembly, Lucy had often found it
embarrassing to repeat her humble confessions of ignorance to one after
another, and to admit that she had not been there or there; and did not
understand the allusions which were being made; and she did not know
enough about music to speak of the opera, nor about pictures to prattle
about the Exhibitions, as she heard other girls do; but now she would
have something to say. “Have you seen the new novel? It is written by a
gentleman we know.” With that to talk about, Lucy felt that she might
even take the initiative and _begin_ the conversation with any one who
did not look very clever and alarming, and this gave her a serene
satisfaction. Also she was to spend the evening all by herself, and a
new story was a nice companion. She was aroused from these agreeable
thoughts by that “Oh-h!” uttered upon two or three notes by Lady
Randolph, and looked up to see her friend’s countenance entirely
changed, severe as she had never seen it before. “Did you know of this?
Why did you not mention it to me?” Lady Randolph said, She was holding
out the book for Lucy’s inspection, and the girl looked at it with
instinctive alarm, yet all the calm of innocence. This was what she
read:
TO THE ANGEL OF HOPE,
LUCY,
TO WHOSE NAME IN REVERENCE
I PREFIX NO TITLE.
THIS FIRST EFFORT OF A MIND
WHICH HER GENTLE ENCOURAGEMENT
HAS INSPIRED WITH CONFIDENCE
IS INSCRIBED.
Lucy’s eyes grew round with amazement, her lips dropped apart with
consternation. She looked from the book to Lady Randolph, and then to
the book again. After a moment, the color rushed to her face. “Lucy! Oh,
you do not suppose he means _me_?” she said aghast.
“Whom could he mean else? Did you know anything about it? Lucy, don’t
let me think I am deceived in you,” Lady Randolph said, with great
vehemence. She was more excited than seemed necessary; but then, no
doubt, she had a very serious sense of responsibility, in regard to a
ward so precious.
“I am very sorry,” said Lucy; “I suppose I do know; he said he would
dedicate the book to me, and I said, oh, no, don’t do that; but then we
spoke of something else, and I thought of it no more.”
After awhile Lady Randolph found herself capable of smiling, when she
was fully convinced of the girl’s innocence. “What a good thing you are
not _out_, my dear. I can’t be sufficiently thankful you are not out.
You see by this, Lucy, what a dangerous thing it is to be kind to
anybody. You, with your prospects, can not be sufficiently careful. Have
you ever thought that you are different from other girls? that there are
reasons why I must take a great deal more care of you--I, who think
girls ought always to be taken care of?” Lady Randolph said.
“I know that I have a great, deal of money,” said Lucy quietly. “I
suppose, Lady Randolph, that is what you mean?”
“My dear, if it were only in novels, you must have read that girls who
have great fortunes are run after by all sorts of unworthy people; and
innocent girls like you are apt to be deceived when people are civil.
Lucy, my love, this is a great deal too broad a compliment,” said Lady
Randolph, very solemnly, laying her hand upon the book; “you must not
be taken in. No man who really cared for you, no _nice_ man, would have
held you up to the notice of society in this way.”
“Cared for me?” said Lucy, “but I never supposed he did that. Why should
he care for me?”
Lady Randolph looked at her charge with great perplexity of mind. Was
this innocence, or was such simplicity credible? Had the girl never
heard of fortune-hunters? All girls in society were aware of the dangers
which attended an heiress; but Lucy had not been brought up in society.
She did not know what to think; finally, however, she determined that it
was better, if they did not already exist there, to put no such ideas
into the head of her _ingénue_. For Lady Randolph, who had no clew to
the graver cares which occupied Lucy’s mind, had not thought of her, as
yet, in any character except that of _ingénue_. She stopped herself in
the half-completed sentence which she had begun before this reflection
me to her aid. “He must want you to think he cares--it is a beginning
of--” Here she stopped, and laughed uneasily. “No, no, I dare say I am
wrong. It is my over-anxiety. Let us say it is only an indiscretion.
Young men are always doing things which are _gauche_ and inappropriate.
And you have so much good sense, Lucy--” Lady Randolph got up and came
behind Lucy’s chair, and gave her a hasty kiss. “I have perfect
confidence in your good sense. You will not let your head be turned by
fine words, as so many girls do?”
Lucy looked up with surprise: at the haste and almost agitated impulse
of her careful guardian. Lady Randolph was dressed for her parties in
black velvet and lace, with the _rivière_ of diamonds which Lucy
admired. She was a stately personage, imposing to behold, and yet, as
she stood, somewhat excited, anxious, and deprecating by the side of the
little fair-haired girl in her black frock, Lucy felt a conviction of
her own superior importance which was painful and humiliating to her.
The uneasy sparkle in the eye, the glance of anxiety in the face of the
lady; who, in every natural point of view, was so much above herself,
made her unhappy. How much money can do! Was it this, and this only
which disturbed the balance between them, and made Lady Randolph’s
profession of faith in her sound as apologetic? She rose to follow
upstairs with a confused sensation of pain. She had been trained,
indeed, to think her fortune the chief thing in the world, but not in
this point of view. The drawing-room was dim and cool, the windows all
open, the night air blowing in over the boxes of mignonette and geranium
in the balconies. The sounds from without came softened through the
soft air, but yet furnished a distant hum of life, an intimation of the
great world around, the mass of human cares and troubles and enjoyments
which were in full career. Lady Randolph placed Lucy in her own chair by
the little table with the reading-lamp, and gave her Bertie’s book, with
a smile. “No, I don’t think it will turn your head,” she said; “read it,
my love, and you will tell me to-morrow what you think of it. How I wish
I could take you with me! and how much more I shall enjoy going out next
year when you are able to go with me, Lucy!” She gave her another kiss,
with a little nervous enthusiasm, and left the girl seated there in the
silence with many wonderings in her mind. Lucy sat and listened with the
novel in her hand while the carriage came to the door, and Lady Randolph
drove away. Other carriages passed, drew up in the street below, took up
and set down other fine people going here and there into the sparkling
crowds of society. Many an evening before, Lucy had stolen behind the
curtain to watch them with a country-girl’s curiosity, pleased even to
see the billowing train visible through a carriage-window, which
betrayed the fine evening toilettes within. But this evening she did not
move from her chair. There was so little light in the room that the
windows mysteriously veiled in filmy drapery added something from the
dim skies outside to the twilight within. A shaded lamp stood in the
back drawing-room, making one spot of brightness on a table. Her
reading-lamp, with its green shade, condensed all the light it gave upon
her hand with the book in it, resting upon her knee. But her face was in
the dimness, and so were her thoughts. She was not so angry with Bertie
as Lady Randolph had been for his dedication. It was intended to be
kind--what could it be but kind? Perhaps he had divined the attitude
which, in intention at least, she had taken toward his family. Lucy’s
thoughts had never turned the way of love-making. She had not as yet
encountered any one who had touched her youthful fancy. It was no virtue
on her part; she sat like one on the edge of the stream musing before
she put her foot into the boat which might lead her--whither? But, in
the meantime, the thoughts in her heart were all serious. Was she not
pausing too long, lingering unduly upon the margin of her life--not
doing the work which had been put into her hands to do?
Lucy had got so deep in these thoughts that she did not hear the noise
and jar with which a hansom cab came to the door; or, at least, hearing
it, paid no attention; for it is very difficult to discriminate in a
street whether a carriage is stopping at number ten or number eleven,
and hansom cabs were not commonly heard at Lady Randolph’s at night.
Even the movement in the house did not rouse her; she had not the ease
of a child in the family, though she was of so much importance in the
house. She sat quite still, feeling by turns a refreshing breath steal
over her from the windows, watching the flutter of the curtains, and the
glimmer of the stars, which she could see through them, through the
upper panes of the long windows; and vaguely amused by the suggestion
furnished to her mind by the passing carriages, the consciousness of
society behind. She was so well entertained by this, and by her own
thoughts, which were many, that she had scarcely opened the book. She
held it in her hand; she had looked again at the dedication, feeling
half flattered, half annoyed, and had read a page or two. Then, more
interested, as yet, in her own story, or in this pause, so full of
meaning and suggestion, before it began, had closed again upon her
fingers the new novel. Could anything in it be so wonderful as her own
position, so full of that vague question which, in Lucy’s mind, was more
a state than a query? She dallied with the book, feeling herself a more
present and a more important heroine than any imaginary Imogen.
Lucy did not even hear the door open. It was opened very quietly far
away in the dimness, at the other end of the room, and the new arrival
stood looking in for at least a minute before he could make out whether
any one was there. There was no light to show his own figure in the dark
doorway, and he saw nothing except the lamp in the first room and the
smaller one with its green shade, by which Lucy in her black dress was
almost invisible. He paused for a minute, for he had been told that
there was some one there. Then, with a bold step, he came in and closed
the door audibly behind him. “Nobody, by Jove!” he said, an asseveration
quite unnecessary; then threw himself into a chair which stood in front
of the table on which was the larger lamp. The sensation with which Lucy
woke up to the discovery that a stranger, _a gentleman!_ had come into
the room, not seeing her, any more than till the moment when he became
audible she had seen him, was one of the most extraordinary she had ever
experienced. She raised herself bolt upright in her chair, half in
alarm; but Lady Randolph’s chairs, it need scarcely be said, did not
creak, and Lucy’s dress was soft, with no rustle in it. “Nobody, by
Jove!” the individual said; and nothing contradicted him. It seemed to
Lucy that she instantly heard her own breathing, the beating of her
watch, her foot upon the footstool, as she seemed to hear in
exaggerated roundness and largeness of sound the _thud_ with which he
threw himself into that chair, the movement with which he drew it to the
table, the grab he made across the table at a newspaper that lay there.
“Well, here’s the news at all events,” the stranger said. As he stooped
over the newspaper, his head came within the circle of the lamp. Lucy
scarcely dared to turn hers to look at him. There was the outline of a
head, a mass of hair, a large well-defined nose, a couple of large hands
grasping the paper. Lucy’s first impulse was half, but only half alarm;
but she was not at all nervous, and speedily reminded herself that it
was very unlikely any dangerous or unlawful stranger should be able thus
to make his way past Robinson, the butler, and George, the page, into
Lady Randolph’s drawing-room. There could not be anything to fear in
him; but who was he, and how came he there? And what was Lucy to do? She
sat as still as a mouse in Lady Randolph’s chair and watched. Was it
quite honorable to watch a man who was not aware of your presence? But
then how to get away? Lucy did not know what to do. She felt more
disposed to laugh than anything else, but dared not. Perhaps after
awhile he would go away. She held her breath and sat as still as a
mouse. A _gentleman!_ utterly unknown and appearing so suddenly in a
feminine house--it was embarrassing; but certainly it was rather amusing
too.
The stranger was not a quiet gentleman, whatever else he might be. How
he pushed his chair about! how he flung the paper from one side to
another, turning it over with resounding hums and hems! How could any
one be so noisy? Lucy, who was afraid to stir, watched him, ever more
and more amused. At last he tossed the paper back upon the table. “News!
not a scrap!” he said to himself, and suddenly throwing a large pair of
arms over his head, gave such a yawn as shook the fragile London house.
Did Lucy laugh? She feared that the smallest ghost of a giggle did burst
from her in spite of herself. It seemed to have caught his ear. He
suddenly squared himself up, turned his chair round, and put on an
aspect of listening. Lucy held her breath; he turned straight toward her
and stared into the dimness. “By Jove!” he said again, to himself. The
soft maze of curtains fluttered, the night air blew in. No doubt he
thought it was these accidental sounds that had deceived him. But
suspicion had evidently been roused in his mind. After a minute he rose,
a large figure, making the house creak, and cautiously approached the
window. He passed Lucy, who had shrunk back into her chair, and went
beyond her to look out. One or two carriages were rolling along the
street, and Lucy felt this was her opportunity, the way of retreat being
now clear. She got up softly, with the utmost precaution, while he stood
with his back to her, then turned to flee.
Alas! Lucy’s calculations failed her; her foot caught the footstool, her
book fell out of her hand with a noise that sounded like an earthquake,
the stranger turned upon her as quick as lighting; and there she stood,
blushing, laughing, confused, prettier than Lucy Trevor had ever looked
in her life before.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she cried; and he said, “by Jove!” taking out
of his pockets the hands which had been thrust down to their depths.
“It is I who ought to beg your pardon,” he said. “I am afraid I have
frightened you. Robinson told me I should find--some one here; but the
room seemed empty. I hope you will begin our acquaintance by giving me
your forgiveness. I am Tom Randolph, the nephew of the house.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy, regaining her composure and seriousness, “and I
am Lucy Trevor, whom Lady Randolph is so kind as to take care of. It is
I who ought to apologize, for I saw you--I saw you directly; but I did
not know what to do.”
“You must have thought it very alarming, a savage like myself coming in
and taking possession. I am much obliged to you for taking it so
quietly. My aunt is out, I hear. I wonder when she has you to bear her
company, Miss Trevor, that now and then she can’t make up her mind to
stay at home.”
“Oh, but society has claims,” said Lucy, repeating the words she had
heard so often with matter-of-fact and quite believing simplicity. To
her horror and surprise the new-comer replied with a laugh:
“We have all heard that, and let us hope, Miss Trevor, that the votaries
of society are rewarded for their devotions. You don’t share the
_culte_?” he said.
“I! I am not _out_, and besides I am in mourning,” said Lucy, looking at
her crape.
“I beg your pardon; won’t you take your seat again, and let me feel my
sins forgiven? Did I interrupt your reading? A new novel is much more
interesting than an old--or, let us say, a middle-aged savage.”
Sir Thomas Randolph saw Lucy look at him when he said this: already did
she want to make sure that the savage was not more than middle-aged? He
thought so, and he was satisfied.
“It is not that I care for the novel; I had not begun it yet. It is
written,” said Lucy, trying her new subject, “by a--gentleman we know;
but, perhaps, as you have just come home, you may want dinner, or
something, Mr.--I mean Sir Thomas?”
“You have heard of me, I see.”
“Oh, yes; Lady Randolph so often speaks of you; but I am not much used
to people with titles,” Lucy said.
“Do you call mine a title? not much of that. We are commoners, you know;
and I hear that whenever there is anything very wicked wanted in a
novel, it is always found in a baronet; that is hard upon us, Miss
Trevor. I wonder if there is a wicked baronet in the novel you have got
there.”
“I have not read it yet; it is written,” said Lucy, hesitating, “by a
gentleman we know. Lady Randolph is going to speak to everybody about
it, and we hope it will be very successful.”
Lucy could not keep herself from showing a little consciousness. He took
it up and she was very much alarmed lest he should see the dedication.
She had never thought it would affect her, yet here, already, she had
quite entered into Lady Randolph’s feelings. Fortunately he did not see
it, though he turned over the volume in his large hands. He was large,
all over, as different as it was possible to conceive from Bertie, who
was slight and dainty, almost like a girl. Lucy was not sure that she
had ever seen a man before so near, or spoken to one of this kind. He
was so unlike the other people of her acquaintance that she could not
help giving curious looks at him under the shade of the lamp. He did not
keep still for a moment, but threw his bigness about so that it filled
the room, sometimes getting up and walking up and down, taking up the
chairs as if they were toys. He was a creature of a new species. She did
not feel toward him as Miranda did to Ferdinand, who was probably an
elegant stripling of the Bertie kind, but she was interested in the new
being, who was not beautiful; he was so unlike anything she had ever
seen before.
CHAPTER XXIV.
SIR TOM.
The days that followed were full of this big person. Lucy found his
company so pleasant that she lingered, to her own great consternation,
talking to him, till Lady Randolph returned; no, not talking very much
to him, but yet telling him various things about herself, which she was
greatly surprised to recollect afterward, and hearing him talk, which he
did with a frankness and freedom equally unusual to her. When she heard
Lady Randolph’s brougham draw up at the door, Lucy fairly jumped from
her chair in alarm and wonder. What would Lady Randolph say? would she
be angry? A sentiment of honor alone kept her from running away; and her
look of innocent panic greatly amused Sir Tom.
“Are you afraid?” he said, with that great but harmonious laugh which
softly shook the house. “Is she so hard upon you? Never mind, she is
fond of me, though you would not think it, and there will be a general
amnesty to-night.”
“Oh, I am not afraid,” Lucy said, with a smile. But she said to herself,
what will Lady Randolph think? the dedication first, and now to sit up
and chatter to a gentleman! But Lady Randolph’s voice had never been so
soft, nor her countenance so genial. She was so glad to see “Tom” that
she saw everything in the most favorable light. At least this was the
interpretation Lucy put upon her cloudless graciousness.
“Don’t hurry away,” she said, “or Tom will think you are glad to escape
now your post of entertainer is over;” and she kissed Lucy with a warm,
natural tenderness which went to the girl’s heart. She went upstairs,
indeed, altogether in a state of unusual and pleasant commotion. She had
never met anybody in her life like Sir Tom. He told her of a hundred
places he had been at, of his long journeys, and acquaintance with all
sorts of things and people; bringing in the wide atmosphere of a big
world into the four walls, which was all the sphere Lucy knew. How
pleasant it was! It had stirred her altogether, with curiosity and
interest, and amusement and admiration, yet with the amiable derision of
a tidy, orderly girl for the man’s faculty of disarranging everything,
which made the balance a little more even. He had seen every kind of
wonder, but he could not sit down in a chair without ruffling up all its
cover, and hooking on its ornaments to his buttons. This made her laugh,
and disposed her to take care of Sir Tom, and pilot him to safe chairs,
on which there were no antimacassars. She had felt perfectly at her ease
with him, almost more than with Mr. Rushton, for instance, whom she had
known at home; and the little agitation of his arrival, and the novelty
of him generally, drove all her other ideas out of Lucy’s head. After
she had gone to bed even, she could not but smile in the darkness to
hear his big step coming upstairs, and his cheerful good-night to his
aunt, which sounded up and down the narrow London staircase, so that
everybody in the house shared it. “Good-night, Sir Tom,” Lucy said
within herself and laughed. The house felt more safe, better taken care
of, with this new-comer in it. It was enlivening to think that he would
be there in the morning, with his cheery voice. “Provided he does not
upset the house,” Lucy said to herself. She had not been aware that she
had so much love of fun in her. As for Lady Randolph, she was glad to
see Sir Tom. He was all she had to represent her family, and she was as
fond of him as a mother. Perhaps the relationship of aunt made her
accept his roving and lawlessness with more composure than a mother
would have done, and they were the best friends in the world. When Lucy
left the drawing-room, Lady Randolph gave her nephew a keen and anxious
look; but it was not till some time after that the new inmate was talked
of. Then it was Sir Tom himself who opened the subject:
“That’s a jolly little girl you’ve got.”
“Oh, Tom!” his aunt cried, throwing all her breath into that
exclamation; “I am so glad to hear you say so.”
He laughed. “Do you suppose I am thinking of ulterior steps?” he said;
“but I like her. She _is_ a jolly little girl.”
And Lady Randolph, too, went to bed very happy, thinking Sir Tom’s big
“good-night,” as it went booming up the staircase, as pleasant as any
music. Her heart swelled as with the most generous of sentiments; she
thought if she could but see the old Hall revived by new money, the rich
new life-blood of gold untold, such as would soon be in Lucy’s
possession, poured into the family veins, she thought she would die
happy. And what could Lucy’s dearest friend desire better for her? Mrs.
Russell, poor lady, thought the same thing of her son.
And next day, and for some days after, the house was like a new place.
He went and came, out to his clubs, to the world outside, and back
again, bringing news, public and private, bringing the breath of the
general existence, in a manner entirely novel to Lucy. She had heard a
great many stories of contemporary life in Lady Randolph’s drawing-room
before, scraps of politics, which she paid no attention to, and tales of
this one and the other, whom she did not know or care for; but whether
it was something in the personality of Sir Tom, or that he told these
stories better, or that the larger life which he brought into the house
harmonized them and gave them a human attraction, it would be hard to
say; but it is certain that they assumed a totally different character
to Lucy. Somehow they did not seem gossip from his lips. Lady Betsinda
suggested scandal in every line of her eager old face; but who could
call that gossip which fell from the bearded lips of the good-natured
adventurer, the man who had friends everywhere, among American Indians
and African savages, as well as in the clubs? It is impossible to tell
what a difference he made in the house, his very step on the stair
brought variety, change, a difference, a relief from monotony, to which
no one could remain insensible. The river of life had flowed slowly,
partially frost-bound by chills to come in Lady Randolph’s veins, and
not loosed from the spring icicles in Lucy’s; but when this torrent of
full existence, warm and mature, came in, the stream was at once in
flood, neither partial age nor developing youth being beyond its
influence. Lucy was so much amused, so occupied with the change in the
house, that the Russells and their concerns faded from her recollection.
“Imogen” was put away on a side-table; and she had never required to
make use of that subject for conversation: Have you seen the new novel?
There was a much more easy one at hand: “Do you know Sir Thomas?” was
now the question with which she took the initiative; and Lucy found a
power of language she had never dreamed of possessing, in describing his
travels and the things he had brought home. Sir Thomas had shot a
lion--actually a lion--and had brought back its magnificent skin as a
trophy. She got a little pink tinge on her cheeks, which was very
becoming, as she described it. This gave her quite a little _succès_
among Lady Randolph’s visitors, who had hitherto found her very
elementary; and already there were jokes about Pygmalion and Galatea,
and about the sunshine, which made buds open and birds sing. Lady
Randolph, looking on watchfully, would have preferred that the spell had
not worked quite so quickly. But as for Lucy she was delighted by her
own awakening, and pleased to find herself enjoying everything, even the
talk. The house was so much more cheerful now Sir Tom was in it. She put
off her usual visit to Jock for a whole week. To be sure there were
various reasons for that, for Lucy did not know how to meet Bertie
Russell after the dedication, and felt that to speak of it, even to his
mother, was difficult. What could she say? It was very “kind,” but then
it was, as Lady Randolph said, “too broad.” Lucy did not like to think
of it. She did not know how to meet the young man who had called her an
Angel of Hope, and addressed her, even in print, as Lucy; and yet when
they met she would be obliged to say something to him. Her embarrassment
on this point had been greatly increased by the fact that Sir Tom had
found the dedication out, and had “made fun” of it. He was mischievous,
though Lucy did not like to think he was unkind. Sometimes he would
refer to the Angel of Hope in a way which covered her with confusion,
alarming her with a possibility of betrayal; but it was only to tease
her, and she did not, on the whole, dislike Sir Tom’s teasing. On one of
these occasions, however, she was so much frightened that she
remonstrated. “Please,” she said, “do not tell any one it is me.
Perhaps, after all, it is not me; Lucy is not an uncommon name. And oh,
Sir Thomas, _if_ you please, do not talk of it when any one is here.”
“I am afraid it must be you,” Sir Thomas said, “there could not be two
with the same characteristics; but you may trust me, Miss Lucy, I will
not tell, no, not for anything that might be offered me. Wild horses--”
“You are laughing at me,” she said.
“Would you have me cry? But I should like to punch the young fellow’s
head. He had no right to do it. It was like a cad to do it; even in
gratitude, he ought not to have exposed you to anything that might be
disagreeable; besides, Miss Lucy, it is taking a base advantage of other
fellows who can not write books.”
Lucy was not quite sure what he meant by this, but she replied very
gravely,
“I am afraid it is the only thing he can do. Do not laugh, please, it is
very serious. I am very anxious to know how it turns out.”
“Then you take a great deal of interest in him?”
“I take a great deal of interest in _that_. They all depend upon it; and
also for other things. Do you think he will make much money by it, Sir
Thomas?”
“I have not an idea; the only thing I know about literature is that I
was offered something if I would write my travels. I have been in a good
many out-of-the-way places, you know, and then I am pretty well known;
but, unfortunately, I could not, so that money got lost, more’s the
pity.”
“It was a great pity,” said Lucy, with feeling. “How strange it seems,
you who can not write are offered money for it, and he who can write is
kept so uncertain! It seems always to be like that. There is myself,
with a great deal too much money, and so many people with none at all.”
Sir Thomas laughed; the frankness of the heiress amused him beyond
measure.
“Have you a great deal too much money?” he said.
“Yes, did you not know? But it will not be so much,” Lucy said, with an
involuntary burst of confidence, “after awhile.”
This puzzled him quite as much as anything he could say puzzled her. He
did not know what to make of it, for there was no jest, but perfect and
candid gravity in Lucy’s tone. He thought it best, however, to take it
as a mere girlish levity and threat of extravagance to come.
“Do you mean to make it go then?” he said. “Don’t! Take my advice; I
have a good right to give it, for I have paid for my experience. Don’t
throw your money away as I have done.”
“Have you thrown it away? I am very sorry. I--wonder--” Lucy looked at
him doubtfully, almost wistfully. Was she going to offer him some of
hers? he asked himself. He was at once amused and touched, and full of
expectation as to what she would say next; but Lucy changed her tone. “I
will not throw it away,” she said, quietly. “Papa directed me, before he
died, what to do with it. It is a great responsibility;” and here she
paused and looked at him once more. Was she going to confide some secret
to him? Sir Thomas was very much puzzled, indeed, more than he
remembered ever to have been puzzled by any girl. He was a man over
thirty, a man of large experience, but this young creature was a novelty
to him.
“I should like to see how you will spend your fortune,” he said. “I
shall watch what you do with it. Mine went before I took time to
consider the responsibility. Marriage is not the only thing that one
does in haste and repents at leisure. I am very sorry now, I can tell
you, that I was such a fool when I was young.”
“I--wonder--” Lucy said again, softly, to herself. She could not help
longing to tell somebody her secret, somebody that would feel a little
sympathy for her--why not this big, kind, genial stranger, who was quite
unlike all the rest of her people? who would surely understand, she
thought. But Sir Thomas did not in the least understand. He thought she
would have liked to give him some of her money, and, indeed, for his own
part, he would not have had the slightest objection to accept the whole
of it, as his aunt had planned and hoped; but a portion would be
impossible. He laughed, looking at her, in his turn, with kindness in
his amusement.
“Are you meditating some benevolence?” he said. “But, Miss Lucy,
benevolence is a very doubtful virtue. You must reflect well, and take
the advice of your business people. You must not be too ready to give
away. You see, though I have not known you long, I am disposed to take
upon me the tone of a mentor already, an uncle experienced and elderly,
or something of that sort.”
“Indeed, that is just what I should like,” Lucy said, simply.
This was a dreadful dash of cold water in his face. It is one thing to
call yourself experienced and elderly, and quite another to be taken at
your word. He laughed again, but this time at himself, and accepted the
position with a curious sense of its inappropriateness which was all the
more vivid because she did not seem to see it to be inappropriate at
all.
“Well,” he said, “that’s a bargain. When you want to do anything
angelically silly, and throw away your money, you are to come and
consult me.”
“Do you really mean it?” said Lucy, with most serious eyes.
“I really mean it, and there is my hand upon it,” he said. She put her
hand into his with gentle confidence, and he held it for a moment,
looking at the slender fingers. Lucy, as has been said, had, though she
had no right to it, a pretty hand. “What a little bit of a thing,” he
said, “to have so much to give away.”
“Yes,” Lucy said, with a long breath that was scarcely a sigh, and
without the vestige of a blush of embarrassment, “it is a great
responsibility.” She was as sincere and serious as if she had been an
old woman, Sir Thomas felt, and he laughed and let the little hand drop.
His fatherly flirtation, a mode which he had known to be very
efficacious, had no more effect than if he had been a hundred. This
failure tickled his sense of humor, far more than success would have
pleased him otherwise.
“That girl is a little original,” he said, when he talked her over with
Lady Randolph; but, meantime, it was very certain that they were the
best of friends.
They were seated at breakfast on Saturday morning, rather more than a
week after his arrival. Lucy had been making up her mind that she could
make no further excuse to herself, but must go to Hampstead that day,
and was trying, as she drank her coffee, to compose little speeches fit
for the occasion. Sir Thomas was half hidden behind the newspaper, and
Lady Randolph cast a glance now and then, as she finished her breakfast,
at the pages of a weekly review, supposed to be the most _spirituel_ of
its kind, the first in fashion and in force.
“Oh!” she cried, suddenly. “Lucy, here is something interesting; here is
a notice of ‘Imogen.’ You must take it out to the Russells; for once
Cecilia has been as good as her word.” Lucy was in the midst of a
carefully turned sentence by which she meant to assure Mrs. Russell
that she felt Bertie’s “kindness.” She looked up with lively
interest--then, “Good heavens!” Lady Randolph cried.
“What is the matter, aunt?” said Sir Tom; he put out his big hand and
took it from before her, with the license of his privileged position.
“We others are most anxious to hear, and you keep it to yourself. Shall
I read it aloud, Miss Lucy?”
“No! no!” Lady Randolph cried, putting out her hand. She was pale with
fright and trouble, but Sir Tom did not pay any attention; he did not
notice her looks, and what was there in Bertie Russell to make anything
that could be said about his book alarming to these ladies? He took it
up lightly.
“I must see this Russell,” he said, “that you are so much interested in.
What right has the fellow to make you anxious?” he was looking at Lucy,
who was, indeed, curious and interested, but no more. “Now, if you are
not good,” he said, looking at her, “I shall keep you in suspense.”
But Lucy did not accept the challenge. She smiled in reply, with her
usual tranquillity.
“It is Mrs. Russell who will be in suspense,” she said; and with a
little friendly nod at her he began to read. It was the kind of review
for which this organ of the highest literature was famous. This was what
Sir Thomas read:
“‘We have so often had occasion to point out to the female manufacturer
of novels the disadvantages which attend her habitual unacquaintance
with the simplest rules of her art, that it is a sort of relief to find
upon the title-page of the most recent example of this class of
productions a name which is not feminine. The occurrence is rare. In
this branch of industry, at least, men have shown a chivalrous readiness
to leave the laurels growing low, and therefore within the reach of the
weaker vessel, to the gathering of woman. She has here had the chance,
so often demanded, of proving her powers, and she has not been reluctant
to avail herself of it. Almost as appropriately feminine as Berlin wool,
or the more fashionable crewels, the novel of domestic life has acquired
a stamp of virtuous tedium, or unvirtuous excitement, which are equally
feminine, and we sigh in vain for a larger rendering even of the
levities of existence, a treatment more broad, a touch more virile.’
“There’s for you, Miss Lucy,” said Sir Tom, pausing; “how do you like
that, my excellent aunt? He puts your sex in their right place. There’s
a man now who feels his natural superiority, who contemplates you all
_de haut en bas_--”
“Oh, don’t read any more, Tom; it is not worth your while to read
anymore.”
“Ah, you are hit!” he said, “Hurrah! the iron has entered into your
soul.”
“‘Half a dozen pages of “Imogen” will, however’ (he continued, reading),
‘be enough to make any reader pause who is moved by this natural
sentiment. What! he will ask himself, was there no little war in hand
demanding recruits? no expedition to discover the undiscoverable? even
no stones to break on the road-side, which could have given Mr. Albert
Russell a bit of manly work to do--that he must take up with this
industry reserved for the incompetent?’”
Here Lucy uttered a long drawn “Oh!” of alarm. It had not occurred to
her ignorance that there could be any malice in it.
“‘We must give him credit, however, for a courage and liberality beyond
that of his feminine contemporaries in the freedom with which he has
mixed up what is apparently a personal romance of his own with this
production of his genius. Whether the young lady who is poetically
addressed as the Angel of Hope will relish the homage so publicly paid
to her is a different matter. We can but hope that, since the art he has
adopted is little likely, we fear, to reward his exertions, the other
patronesses to whom he devotes himself may be more kind, and that the
owner of the pretty Christian name which is presented without the
conventionality of a Miss or Mistress--’
“Hallo!” said Sir Tom. He had been reading on, without any particular
attention to what he read, until the recollection of what it meant
suddenly flashed upon him. He grew very red, put down the paper, and
looked at his companions. “By Jove!” he cried.
“I told you not to read it,” cried Lady Randolph. “Never mind, Lucy, my
love, nobody will know it is you. Oh, I could kill the presumptuous,
impertinent--And that woman is worse!” she cried, with vehemence. “She
who knew all about it; I will never forgive her. She shall never enter
this house.”
“Woman?” said Sir Thomas, “what woman? By Jove!” here he got up and
buttoned his coat, “whoever the fellow is he shall have my opinion of
him before he is much older.”
“Sit down, Tom, sit down. If it was a fellow whom you could knock down
there would be no great harm done; no fellow ever wrote _that_,” cried
Lady Randolph, with that fine contempt of masculine efforts which is
peculiar to women. “Oh, I know the hand! I know every stroke! But never
mind, never mind, my dear child, nobody will connect you with it;
unless the ‘Age’ gets hold of it, and gives us all a paragraph: there is
nothing more likely,” she cried with tears of anger and annoyance. As
for Sir Thomas, he paced about the room in great perturbation, saying,
“By Jove!” under his breath.
“A woman! then there is nothing to be done,” he said. “Oh, no; you can’t
knock her down, more’s the pity! or call her out. But, Tom, if you will
think, it is just as well, it is far better; we can’t have any talk got
up about that innocent child.”
“Lady Randolph, is it me you are thinking of? What harm can it do me?”
said Lucy, who had grown pale, but was puzzled and frightened, and did
not quite understand why all this excitement should be.
“What harm, indeed!” cried Lady Randolph, “so long as you don’t mind it,
my darling! She is the only one that has sense among us, Tom.”
“That is all very well,” Sir Tom said. “She is too young to understand;
it is meant for an insult. There’s the harm of women getting their
fingers into every pie. You can’t kick them. By Jove! isn’t there any
other way that one can serve her out?”
“Sir Thomas,” said Lucy, “you laughed at me about it yourself.”
“So I did; I am ready to laugh at you, my dear little girl, any moment;
but I should like to see another man do it,” he cried.
Lady Randolph looked at him in dismay. What could he mean?--to speak
with such kindly familiarity, as if she were his cousin, at the least.
(Though Lady Randolph professed to be a connection, yet this link was
not even known to Sir Tom.) Would not the heiress be alarmed? would not
she suspect and divine? She turned her eyes furtively toward Lucy, more
troubled than before.
But Lucy took it all very calmly. She showed no consciousness of too
much or too little in her new friend’s address. She smiled at him with
grateful confidence, without even a blush. What was there to blush for?
Then her face clouded over a little.
“Will it hurt the book? Will he get no money for it?” she said.
CHAPTER XXV.
A BAD RECEPTION.
Lucy rode to Hampstead that morning, Sir Thomas, to her great surprise,
volunteering to go with her. He had some one in those regions whom he
too wished to see, he said. Lucy was not sure whether she was most
pleased or disconcerted by this companionship; but the ride was all the
more agreeable. He was, as usual, very kind; friendly, and brotherly--or
rather, as she thought, taking his own statement frankly, like an uncle,
an elder, experienced, but altogether delightful friend, to whom she
could say a great many things, which it would have been impossible to
say to one near her own age and condition.
Oddly enough Lucy was mysterious to Sir Thomas, the only person with
whom she felt inclined to be confidential. She hovered about the edge of
her secret, asking herself whether she should confide in him, half
betraying herself, then drawing back, more from shyness than want of
faith in him. She had known him so short a time, perhaps he would think
it bold and presuming of her to thrust her confidences upon him. This
hesitation on her part gave her an attraction which was not at all
natural to her. The touch of the little mystery added what was wanting
to the simplicity, and good sense, and straightforward reasonableness of
Lucy’s character. What was it that lay thus below the surface? Sir
Thomas asked himself. What did she want to confide to him? there was
certainly something; was it some entanglement or other, some girlish
engagement perhaps with this fellow, who had been base enough to expose
her to the remarks of the world? It seemed to Sir Tom that this was the
most natural secret, the most probable embarrassment that Lucy could
have; and with great vehemence of disdain and wrath, he thought of the
“cad” who had probably inveigled the girl into some sort of promise, and
then proceeded to brag of it before all the world. Thus Sir Thomas
Randolph, out of his much experience, entirely misconstrued these two
young persons who had no experience at all. Bertie Russell was not a
young man of very elevated character, but he was not a “cad;” neither,
very far from it, was Lucy a fool; but then Sir Tom--though he was full
of honest instincts and good feeling, and would not himself (though he
thought it no harm to lay siege to an heiress, when the chance fell in
his way) have done anything which could be stigmatized as the act of a
cad--still judged as the world judges, which is, after all, a
superficial way of estimating human action; and he was as entirely
wrong, and blundered as completely in the maze of his own inventions, as
the greatest simpleton could have done; which is one of the penalties of
worldly wisdom, though one which the wise are most slow to learn.
Notwithstanding, he made her ride very pleasant to Lucy. He talked upon
all sorts of subjects, not allowing her mind to dwell upon the annoyance
of the morning. And though this annoyance was not at all of the kind he
imagined, it was still good for her not to be left to invent little
speeches to be made to Mrs. Russell, or to imagine dialogues that might
never take place. Lucy’s mind had been in a good deal of excitement when
they set out. She had resolved to make the plunge, to announce her
intentions to Mrs. Russell and though there was nothing but good in
these intentions, still it requires almost as much courage to inform a
person who has no natural claim upon you that you mean to provide for
her as it does to interfere in any other way in the concerns of a
stranger; or at least, this was how Lucy felt. Her heart beat; had she
been a poor governess going to look for a situation she could not have
been more nervous about the result of the interview. But the summer
morning was exhilarating, and Sir Thomas talked to her all the way. He
told her of a great many other rides taken in very different
circumstances; he took her for little excursions, so to speak, into his
own life; he made her laugh, he led her out of herself. When she reached
Mrs. Russell’s door she had almost forgotten how momentous was the act
she was about to do. “I will come back for you,” Sir Tom cried waving
his hand. He did not come up the steep bit of a street. How kind he
was--not oppressing her with too much even of his own company! Lucy had
not known how she was to get rid of him when she reached the house.
The house looked more neglected than ever when Lucy went in. She could
not but notice that as soon as she appeared, the blind of the
dining-room, which faced the street, was hurriedly drawn down. She
could, it was true, command it as she sat there on her horse; but she
was wounded by the suggestion that she might intend to spy upon them, to
look at something which she was not wanted to see. In the hall, outside
the door of this closed room, a breakfast-tray was standing, though it
was noon. The grimy little maid was more grimy than ever. She showed
Lucy into the faded drawing-room where the blinds were drawn down for
the sun, which, however, streamed in at all the crevices, showing the
dust and the faded colors. There were flowers on the table in a trumpery
glass vase, all limp and dying. A shabby, miserable room, of which no
care was taken, and which looked like the abode of people who had lost
heart, and even ceased to care for appearances. Lucy’s heart sunk as she
looked round. She who was so tidy, with so much bourgeois orderliness in
her nature, felt all this much more than perhaps an observer with higher
faculties would have done. It looked as if it had not been “touched”
this morning, and it was with a pang of pity that Lucy regarded the
evident disorganization of a house in which the chief room, the woman’s
place, “had not been touched” at noon of a summer day. It almost brought
the tears to her eyes. And she had a long time to wait to note all the
dust, the bits of trimming torn off the curtains, the unmended holes in
the carpet. She even looked about furtively for a needle and thread; but
there were no implements of work to be seen, nothing but the fading
flowers all soiled with decay, a fine shabby book on the undusted table,
the common showy ornaments all astray on the mantel-piece. About a
quarter of an hour passed thus before Mrs. Russell came in, with eyes
redder than ever. Mrs. Russell could not be untidy though her room was.
She had the decorum of her class, whatever happened; but her black gown
was rusty, and the long streamers of her widow’s cap had been worn
longer than was compatible with freshness. She held herself very stiffly
as she came in and gave Lucy the tips of her fingers. The poorer she was
the more stately she became. There was in her attitude, in her
expression, a reproach against the world. That she should be thus poor,
thus unfortunate, was somebody’s fault.
“Your little brother is out, Miss Trevor, with the others. He thought
you had quite given him up, and were coming no more.”
“Oh, Jock could not think that.”
“Perhaps not Jock; but I certainly did, who have, I hope, some
experience of the world,” said the poor lady in her bitterness. “It is
quite natural; though I should have thought Lady Randolph had sufficient
knowledge of what is considered proper, to respect your recent mourning;
but all these old formalities are made light of nowadays. When one sees
girls dancing in crape! I wonder if they don’t feel as if they were
dancing over their relations’ graves.”
“Dear Mrs. Russell,” said Lucy, “I have not been dancing. I did not come
because--because--It was Lady Randolph that was vexed. I am much
obliged, _very_ much obliged to Mr. Bertie for being so kind; but Lady
Randolph thought--”
“Yes, I never doubted it,” cried Bertie’s mother, with an outburst, “I
never doubted it! I told him it was imprudent at the time, and would
expose him to unjust suspicions; as if _he_ was one to scheme for
anybody’s money! much more likely her own nephew, her dear Sir Thomas,
whom she is always talking of! But Bertie would do it, he said where he
owed gratitude he never should be afraid to pay it. And to think that
the very person he wished to honor should turn against him; and now he
is ruined altogether--ruined in all his prospects!” the poor mother
cried amid a tempest of sobs.
“Ruined!” cried Lucy, aghast.
“He is lying there, in the next room, my poor boy. I thought he would
have died this morning--oh, it is cruel, cruel! He is quite crushed by
it. I tell him it is all a wicked plot, and that surely, surely, there
will be some honest man who will do him justice! But, though I say it, I
don’t put any faith in it, for where is there an honest critic?” cried
Mrs. Russell; “from all I hear there is not such a thing to be found.
They praise the people they know--people who court them and fawn on
them; but it isn’t in the Russell blood to do that. And the worst of
all,” she said, with a fresh flood of tears, “the worst of all--the
thing that has just been the last blow--is that you have not stood by
him, Lucy, you that kept on encouraging him, and have brought it all
upon him.”
“_I_ brought it all upon him!” Lucy’s consternation was almost beyond
words.
“Yes, Miss Trevor,” said the poor lady, hysterically. “He would never
have done it had not you encouraged him--never! And now this is what is
brought against him. Oh, they can not say a word against his talent,”
she said; “not a word! They can not say the book is not beautiful; what
they say is all about _that_, which was put into please _you_--and you
have not the heart to stand up for him!” the mother cried. She was so
much excited, and poured forth such tears and sobs, that Lucy found
herself without a word to say. The trouble, no doubt, was real enough,
but it was mixed with so much excitement and feverish exaggeration that
the girl’s sympathetic heart was chilled; and yet she had so much to
say. “But he must not put up with it,” cried Mrs. Russell; “he shall not
put up with it if I can help it. He must write and tell them. And there
is not one word of real criticism--not one word! Bertie himself says so;
nothing but joking and jeering about the dedication. But I know whose
hand that is--it is Lady Randolph who has done it. I knew she would
interfere as soon as she thought--‘Bertie,’ I said, ‘don’t--don’t, for
heaven’s sake! You will bring a hornet’s nest about your ears.’ But he
always said ‘Mother, I must.’ And now to think that the girl herself,
that has brought him into all this trouble, should not have the heart to
stand up for him! Oh, it just shows what I’ve always said, the
wickedness and hollowness of the world!”
Then there was a pause, through which was heard only the sound of Mrs.
Russell’s sobbing. Lucy sat undecided, not knowing what to do. She was
indignant, but more surprised than indignant at the accusation; and she
was entirely unaccustomed to blame, and did not know how to defend
herself. She sat with her heart beating and listened, now and then
trying to remonstrate, to make an appeal, but in vain. At last, the
moment came when her accuser had poured forth all she had to say. But
this silence was almost as painful as the unexpected violence that
preceded it. To be accused wrongfully, if terrible, has still some
counterbalancing effect in the aroused _amour-propre_ of the innocent
victim; but to watch the voice of the accuser quenched by emotion, to
hear the sobs dying off, then bursting out again, the red eyes wiped,
then filling--all in a silence which her own lips were too much parched
with agitation to permit her to break, was almost more hard upon Lucy.
She had become very pale, and she did not know what to say. More
entirely guiltless than she felt herself, no one could have been. She
was so innocent that she had no defense to make; and the attack took
from, her all the thoughts of which her mind had been full. All the more
the silence weighed upon her. It was terrible to sit there with her eyes
on the floor, and say nothing. At last she managed to falter forth, “May
I see Jock, Mrs. Russell, before I go?”
“I suppose you will want to remove him,” Mrs. Russell said. “Oh, I quite
understand that! I expected nothing less. The brother of a rich heiress
is out of place with a poor ruined family. Everything is forsaking us.
Let him go, too--let him go, too!”
“Indeed,” said Lucy, recovering her composure a little. “I was not
thinking of that. I meant only--”
“Never mind what you meant, Miss Trevor; it is better he should go.
Things have gone too far now,” said the disturbed woman. “All the rest
are going--we shall have to go ourselves. Oh, I thought it would not
matter so long as my Bertie--God forgive them! God forgive them!” she
said, with trembling lips. “I thought it would all come right, and
everything succeed, when my boy--But we are ruined, ruined! I don’t know
where we are to turn or what we are to do.”
“Mrs. Russell, will you let me say something to you?” Lucy said. This
cry of distress had restored her to herself. “I meant to have said it
before; it is not because of what has happened. It was all settled in my
mind before; I was only waiting till I could arrange with my guardian.
Mrs. Russell, papa left some money to be given away--”
Here she made a little pause for breath. Her companion made no remark,
but sat, lying back in her chair, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
“It was a good deal of money,” said Lucy. “He told me I was not to throw
it away, but to give enough to be of real use. I thought--that you would
like to have some of it, Mrs. Russell; that--it might do you a little
good.”
Mrs. Russell let her handkerchief drop, and stared at Lucy with her poor
red eyes.
“If you would let me give you part of it--I can not tell how much would
be enough; but if you would tell me, and we could consider everything.
It is lying there for the use of--people who are in want of it. I hope
you will take some of it. I should be very _thankful_ to you,” said
Lucy, with a little nervous emphasis. “It is there only to be given
away.”
Lucy had felt that it would be a difficult communication to make, but
she had no fear of any refusal. She did not venture to look up, but kept
her eyes fixed on the carpet, though she was very conscious,
notwithstanding, of every movement her companion made. The girl was shy
of the favor she was conferring, and frightened in anticipation of the
thanks she, would probably receive; if only it could be settled and paid
without any thanks! When her own voice stopped she became still more
frightened. The silence was unbearable, and Lucy gave an alarmed glance
toward the sofa. Mrs. Russell was gasping for breath, inflating her
lungs, apparently, in vain, and struggling for utterance. This struggle
ended in a hoarse and moaning cry.
“Oh, what have I done, what have I done, that it should come to this?”
“Mrs Russell! you are ill. Are you ill?” Lucy cried, alarmed.
“Oh, what have I done, what have I done, that it should come to this?”
she moaned. “Am I a beggar that it should come to this? to offer me
money in my own house? money, as if I were a beggar in the street? Oh,
don’t say anything more, Miss Trevor, don’t say anything more.” Here she
got up, clasping her hands wildly, and walked about the room like a
creature distracted, as, indeed, between pride and shame, and
wretchedness and folly, the poor woman almost was. “Oh, why didn’t I
die! why didn’t I die when _he_ died?” she cried. “It is more than I can
bear. I, that was a Stonehouse, and married a Russell, to be treated
like a beggar on the street. Oh, my God!” cried the excited creature,
“have I not enough to bear without being insulted? I can starve, or I
can die, but to be insulted--it is more than I can bear.”
Lucy was confounded. She stumbled to her feet, also, in overwhelming
distress. She had meant no harm, heaven knows! She had not meant to
wound the most delicate feeling. It was a view of the matter which had
never occurred to her.
“I must have said something wrong--without meaning it,” she faltered. “I
don’t know how to speak, but I did not mean to make you angry; oh,
forgive me! please forgive me! I mean nothing but--”
“This is what it is to be poor,” Mrs Russell said. “Oh, I ought to thank
you for it, that among other things, I never would have known all the
bitterness of being poor but for this; and yet I never held out my hand
to ask anything,” she cried, beginning to weep. “I never thrust my
poverty on anybody. I did all I could to keep up--a good appearance; and
to hope--” here the sobs burst forth again beyond restraint--“for better
days.”
“What is the matter?” said Bertie pushing open the door. He was
carelessly dressed in an old coat, his hair in disorder, his feet in
slippers, he who had always decorated himself so carefully for Lucy’s
eyes. He did not take the trouble to open the door with his hand, but
pushed it rudely with his person, and gave Lucy a sullen nod and
good-morning. “What are you making such a row about, mother?” he said.
“Oh, Bertie, Miss Trevor has come--to offer me charity!” she cried,
“charity! She sees we are poor, and, because she is rich, she thinks she
can treat me, me! like a beggar in the street, and offer me money, Oh,
Bertie! Bertie! my boy!” the poor woman threw her arm round him, and
began to sob on his shoulder, “what has your poor mother done that she
should be humbled like this?”
“Charity!” he said; then looked at Lucy with an insolent laugh that
brought the color to the girl’s face; “it is, perhaps, conscience
money,” he cried. Then putting his mother away from him “Go and lie
down, mamma, you have had excitement enough this morning. We are not
beggars, whatever Miss Trevor may think.” Bertie’s eyes were red, too;
he was still at the age when tears, though the man is ashamed of them,
are not far from the eyes when trouble comes. “Naturally,” he said, “we
all stand upon what we have got, and money is what you have got, Miss
Trevor. Oh, it is a very good thing, it saves you from many annoyances.
We have not very much of it, but we can do without charity.” His lip
quivered, his heart was sore, and his pride cut to pieces. “Money is not
everything, though, perhaps, _you_ may be excused for thinking so,” he
said. He wanted to retaliate on some one; the smarting of his eyelids,
the quiver which he could not keep from his lips, the wounds of his
pride still bleeding and fresh, all filled him with a kind of blind
fury and desire to make some one else suffer. He would have liked to
tear his Angel of Hope to pieces in the misery of his disappointment.
Was it not her fault?
As for Lucy, she stood like a culprit before the mother and the son,
looking at them with a pathetic protest in her eyes, like that with
which an innocent dumb creature appeals against fate. She was as much
surprised by all this storm of denunciation as a lamb is by the blow
that ends its life. When they were silent, and it was time for her to
speak, she opened her lips and drew a long troubled breath, but she
could say nothing for herself. What was there to say? She was too much
astonished even for indignation.
“I--will go, if you please, and wait for Jock in the street,” was all
she found herself able to say.
And just then the voices of the children, to her great relief, were
audible outside. Lucy hurried away, feeling for the moment more
miserable than she had ever been in her life before. There were but
three little boys now, and Mary, who had come in with them, was standing
a little in advance, listening, with an anxious face, to the sound of
the voices in the drawing-room. Mary was hostile, too; she looked at
Lucy with defiant eyes.
“Oh, is it really you, at last, Miss Trevor?” she said.
Poor Lucy felt her heart swell with the sting of so much unkindness. She
cried when Jock rushed forward and threw himself upon her.
“You are the same at least,” she said, with a sob, as she kissed him.
“May he come out with me? for I can not stay here any longer.”
The other girl, who did not know the meaning of all this, was shaken out
of her sullenness by the threatening of another calamity. Mary had
nothing to do with the quarrel. She grew, if possible, a little more
pale.
“Do you mean that he is to go--for good?” she said, looking wistfully at
the diminished band, only three, and there had been ten! It was all she
could do to keep from crying, too. “I have always tried to do the best I
could for him,” she said.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A RECEPTION OF A DIFFERENT KIND.
Lucy rode home without waiting for Sir Thomas, with a heavy heart. She
said very little when she got back. To Lady Randolph’s questions she had
scarcely anything to reply. In Lady Randolph’s eyes the chief person to
be considered was Lucy, whose name had been so cruelly brought before
the public. When it did occur to her that the poor young author might be
cast down by the cruel comments upon his first production, it is to be
feared that the verdict “served him right,” was the one that occurred
first to her mind. Only in the course of the afternoon, when Lucy’s
increased gravity had made a distinct impression upon her, did she
express any feeling on this point. “Of course I am sorry for his
mother,” she said; “a silly woman, no energy, no resource in her; but it
will wound her of course. How are they getting on with their school?
That little girl, Mary, that was the only one that seemed to me to be
good for anything. Are they getting on any better with their school?”
Lucy shook her head. She could not muster courage to speak, the tears
were in her eyes.
“Ah!” said Lady Randolph. Lucy’s emotion had a very disturbing effect
upon her: but it moved her not to compassion for Mrs. Russell, but to
suspicion against Bertie. “I never thought it would come to much,” she
said. “It seems so easy to start anything like that. They had their
furniture, and what more did they want? Indian children! one would think
it rained Indian children; every poor lady with no money thinks she can
manage to make a living out of them--without calculating that everybody
in India, or almost everybody, has poor relations of their own.”
But she was kind, notwithstanding her severity. There are few people who
are not more or less kind to absolute suffering. Though she thought Mrs.
Russell silly, and considered that her son had been served rightly (if
cruelly), and was impatient of the foolish hopes on which their little
establishment had been founded, still she could not be satisfied to
leave the poor lady whom she had known in her better days to want. “I
will speak to Tom,” she said. “If Bertie could but get some situation,
far better than writing nonsensical books, something in the Customs, or
perhaps the post-office. I believe there are a great many young men of
good families in places like that--where he could get a settled income,
and be able to help his mother.”
Lucy made no reply to this suggestion. She brightened a little in the
evening, when Sir Tom came in bringing all his news with him; but she
was not herself. When she was safe in her room at night, she cried
plentifully, like a child as she was, over her failure. Perhaps her
heart had never been so sore. Sorrow, such as she had felt for her
father, is a different thing--there had been no cross or complication
in that; but in this all her life seemed to be compromised. This dearest
legacy that had been left her, the power of making others happy, was it
to be a failure in her hands? She had never contemplated such a
probability. In all the books she had read (and these are a girl’s only
medium of knowledge) there had been no such incident. There had been
indeed records of profuse gratitude; followed by unkindness and
indifference; but these had never alarmed Lucy. Gratitude had been the
only thing she feared, and that the recipients of the bounty should
forget it was her chief hope. But this unexpected rebuff threw Lucy down
to the earth from those heights of happy and simple beneficence. Was it
her fault? she asked herself; had she offered it unkindly, shown any
ungenerous feeling? She examined every word she had said--at least as
far as she could recollect them, but she had been so much agitated, so
overwhelmed by the excitement and passion of the others, that she could
not recollect much that she had said. All night long in her dreams she
was pleading with people who would not take her gifts, and blaming
herself for not knowing how to offer them. And when she woke in the
morning, Was it my fault? was the first question that occurred to her.
It seemed to assail the very foundations of her life. Was not this her
first duty, and if she could not discharge it, what was to become of
her? What would be the value of all the rest?
She was sitting in the sitting-room in the morning, somewhat
disconsolate, pondering these questions. A bright, still morning of
midsummer, all the windows open, and shaded by the pretty striped blinds
outside, which kept out the obtrusive sunshine, yet showed it brilliant
over all the world below; the windows were full of flowers, those city
plants always at the fullest perfection, which know no vicissitudes of
growth or decay, but fill the luxurious rooms with one continuous bloom,
by grace, not of nature, but the gardener. It was the hour when Lucy was
supposed to “read.” She had not herself any great eagerness for
education; but no woman who respects herself can live in the same house
with a young girl nowadays without taking care to provide that she shall
“read.” Lucy had need enough, it must be allowed, to improve her mind;
but that mind, so far as the purely intellectual qualities were
concerned, did not count for very much in her being. To be more or less
well-informed does not affect very much, one way or other, the
character, though we fear to utter any dogmatism on such a subject. She
was reading history, poor child; she had a number of books open before
her, a large atlas, and was toiling conscientiously through a number of
battles. Into the very midst of these battles, her thoughts of the
earlier morning, which were so much more interesting to her, would
intrude, and indeed she had paused after the Battle of Lepanto, and was
asking herself, not who was Don John of Austria, or what other great
personages had figured there, which was what she ought to have done, but
whether it could possibly be her fault, and in what other form she could
have put it to succeed better, when suddenly, without any warning, a
knock came to her door. She sat very bolt upright at once, and thought
of Don John before she said “Come in.” Perhaps it was the lady who was
so kind as to read with her--perhaps it was Lady Randolph. She said,
“Come in,” and with no displeasure at all, but much consolation, closed
her book. She was not sorry to part company with Don John.
To her great surprise, when the door opened it was neither Lady Randolph
nor the lady who directed her reading, but Mrs. Russell, with the heavy
crape veil hanging over her bonnet, her eyes still very red, and her
countenance very pale. Lucy rose hastily from her chair, repeating her
“Come in,” with the profoundest astonishment, but eagerness. Could it be
Jock who was ill? could it be--Mrs. Russell smiled a somewhat ghastly
smile, and looked with an anxious face at the surprised girl. She took
the chair Lucy gave her, threw back her veil, and the little mantle from
her shoulders, which was crape, too, and looked suffocating. Then she
prepared for the interview by taking out her handkerchief. Tears were
inevitable, however it might turn out.
“You will be surprised to see me,” Mrs. Russell said.
Lucy assented, breathless. “Is there, anything the matter with Jock?”
she said.
“It is natural you should think of your own first,” said the visitor,
with, a little forced smile. “Oh, very natural. We always think of our
own first. No, Miss Trevor, there is nothing the matter with Jock. What
should be the matter with him? He is very well cared for. My poor Mary
gives herself up to the care of him. She lies awake with him and his
stories. Mary is a--She is the best daughter that ever was--” the mother
said, with fervor. Now, Mary was generally in the background among the
Russells, and Lucy was perplexed more and more.
“It is by Mary’s advice I have come,” Mrs. Russell said, putting her
handkerchief to her eyes. “It has been very difficult for me, very
difficult to make up my mind to come, Miss Trevor. Mary says she is sure
you meant--kindly--yesterday. I don’t know how to refer to yesterday.
Everything that passed is written here,” she said, putting her hand upon
her breast, “as if it were in fire--as if it were in fire! Oh, Miss
Trevor! you don’t know what it is when a woman has kept up a good
position all her life, and always been able to hold her head high--you
don’t know what it is when she has to give in, and allow herself to be
spoken to as one of the poor!”
Here she began to cry, and Lucy cried, too.
“I did not mean it,” she said, fervently; “indeed, indeed, I did not
mean it. If I said anything wrong, forgive me. It was because I did not
know how to speak.”
“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Russell, drying her eyes, “perhaps it was so.
You are very young, and you have not had much experience; and, as Bertie
says, you have so much money, that it is no wonder if you think a great
deal of it. But you shouldn’t, Miss Trevor, you shouldn’t. Money is of
great use; but it is not everything.”
Here the poor lady paused and glanced round the room, in every point so
dainty, all the details so perfect, everything fresh, well chosen,
adapted to the corner it filled; and the flowers so abundant, and so
sweet. “Oh,” she said, “it wants no arguing. Money tells for so much in
this life. Look at my Mary. She is younger than you are, she is clever
and good, yet look at her, and look at you. I think it will break my
heart!” Lucy made no reply. After all it was not her fault that she had
a great deal of money, that she was a great heiress. There was no reason
why that fact should break Mrs. Russell’s heart. “If I had not had it,”
she faltered, apologetically, “some one else would have had it. It would
not have made any difference if it had been another girl or me.”
“Oh, yes, it would have made a great difference. When you don’t know the
person, it never feels quite so hard. But I don’t blame you--I don’t
blame you. I suppose every one would be rich if they could; or, at
least, most people,” said Mrs. Russell, with a tone which seemed to
imply that she herself would be the exception, and superior to the
charms of wealth.
At this Lucy was silent, perhaps not feeling that she had ever wished to
be poor; and yet who, she thought within herself, knew the burden of
wealth as she did? it had brought her more trouble than pleasure as yet.
She felt troubled and cast down, even though her girlish submission
began to be modified by the faintest shy gleam of consciousness that
there was something ludicrous in the situation, in her visitor’s
disapproval, and her own humble half acknowledgment of the guilt of
being rich.
“Miss Trevor,” Mrs. Russell said, with trembling lips, “though I wish
you had not found it out, or that, if you did, you had not taken any
notice of it, which is what one expects from one’s friends, I can not
deny that you are right. We have lost almost everything,” she said,
steadying her voice in dreary sincerity. “We have been fighting on from
hand to mouth--sometimes not knowing where next week’s bills were to
come from. Oh, more than that--not able to pay the week’s bills; getting
into debt, and nothing, nothing coming in. I kept up, always hoping that
Bertie--Bertie with his talents--Oh, you don’t know--nobody knows how
clever he is! As soon as he got an opening--But now it seems all ended,”
she added, her voice failing. “These people--oh, God, forgive them--they
don’t know, perhaps, how wicked it is--these envious cruel people have
half killed my boy; and I have not a penny, nothing, Miss Trevor,
nothing; and the rent due, and the pupils all dropping away.”
Lucy rose and came to where the poor woman sat struggling with her
emotion. It was not a case for words. She went and stood by her, crying
softly, while Mrs. Russell leaned her crape-laden head upon the girl’s
breast and sobbed. All her defenses were broken down. She grasped Lucy’s
arm and clung to it as if it had been an anchor of salvation. “And I
came,” she gasped, “to say, if you would really be so kind--oh, how can
I ask it!--as to _lend_ us the money you spoke of--only to _lend_ it,
Miss Trevor, till something better turns up--till Bertie gets something
to do. He is willing to do anything now; or till Mary finds a situation.
It can’t be but that we shall be able to pay you, somehow--And there is
the furniture for security. Oh, I don’t know how to ask it. I never
borrowed money before, nor wished for anything that was not my own. But,
oh, Lucy, if you really, really have it to do what you like with--The
best people are obliged to borrow sometimes,” Mrs. Russell added,
looking up wistfully, with an attempt at a smile, “and there is nothing
to be ashamed of in being poor.”
But this was an emergency for which Lucy’s straightforward nature was
not prepared. She had the power to give she knew; but to lend she did
not think she had any power. What was she to do? She had not imagination
enough to conceive the possibility that borrowing does not always mean
repaying. She hesitated and faltered. “Dear Mrs. Russell, it is there
for you--if you would only take, take it altogether!” Lucy said, in
supplicating tones.
“No,” said her visitor, firmly, “no, Lucy, do nor ask me. You will only
make me go away very miserable--more miserable than I was when I came.
If you will _lend_ it to me I shall be very glad. I don’t hesitate to
say it will be a great, great service--it will almost be saving our
lives. I would offer to pay you interest, but I don’t think you would
like that. I told Bertie so, and he said if I were to give you an
I--O--U--I don’t understand it, Lucy, and you do not understand it, my
dear; but he says that is the way.”
“There was nothing about lending, I think, in the will,” said Lucy, very
doubtfully; “but,” she added, after a moment, with a sudden gleam of
cheerfulness, “I will tell you how we can do it. I am to be quite free
to do what I please in seven years--”
“In seven years!” poor Mrs. Russell’s face seemed to draw out and
lengthen, as she said these words, until it was almost as long as the
period, though it did not seem easy to see by what means the fact could
affect her present purpose. Lucy nodded very cheerfully. She had quite
regained her courage and satisfaction with her fate.
“I will _give_ it you for seven years,” she said, going back to her
seat, “and then you can give it me back again; there will be no need for
I--O--what? or anything of the sort. We will be sure to pay each other,
if we remember--”
“I shall be sure to remember, Miss Trevor,” said Mrs. Russell, almost
sternly; “a matter of business like this is not a thing not to be
forgot.”
“Then that is all settled,” cried Lucy, quite gayly. “Oh, I am so glad!
I have been so unhappy since I was at Hampstead. I thought it must be my
fault.”
“Not altogether your fault,” said Mrs. Russell. “Oh, you must not blame
yourself too much, my dear, there was something on both sides; you were
a little brusque, and perhaps thinking too much of your money. I should
says that was the weak point in your character; and we were proud--we
are too proud--that is our besetting sin,” she said, with an air of
satisfaction.
Mrs. Russell dried the last lingering tears from the corners of her
eyes, everything had become tranquil and sweet in the atmosphere once so
laden with tragic elements; but still there was an anxious contraction
in her forehead, and she looked wistfully at the girl who had so much in
her hands.
“I know,” said Lucy, “you would like it directly, and I will try to get
it at once. I will send it to you, if I can, to-night; but perhaps not
to-night, it might be too late; to-morrow I think I could be quite sure.
And then we must fix how much,” said Lucy, with something of that
intoxication of liberality which children often display--children, but,
alas! few people who have much to give. “How many thousand pounds would
do?”
Mrs. Russell was stupefied, her eyes opened mechanically to their
fullest width, her lips parted with consternation.
“Thousand pounds!” she echoed, aghast. The poor soul had thought of
fifty, and a hundred had seemed to her something too magnificent to be
dreamed of.
“One thousand is only fifty pounds a year,” said Lucy, “sometimes not
that, I believe; it is not very much. What I had thought of was five or
six thousand, to make two hundred and fifty pounds a year. Mrs. Ford
used to say that two people could live upon that. It is not much, I
know, but it would be better, would it not?” the girl said,
persuasively, “to have a little every year, and always know you were
going to have it, than to have a sum of money only once?”
Mrs. Russell looked at the simple young face, all glowing with renewed
happiness, till she could look no longer, it seemed to dazzle her. She
covered her face with her hands.
“Oh, Lucy, I do not know what to say to you. I have not deserved it, I
have not deserved it,” she said.
At luncheon Lucy was a changed girl. She had never looked so happy, so
bright; the clouds had blown entirely away from her face and her
firmament. She had written a letter to her guardian as soon as Mrs.
Russell, her head light and giddy with sudden relief from all her
trouble, had gone back to Hampstead in the omnibus, to which she had to
bend her pride, protesting mutely by every gesture that it was not a
thing she had been used to. No more had been said about the paying back.
The idea of an income had stunned this astonished woman, had almost had
upon her the effect of an opiate, soothing away all her cares and
troubles, wrapping her in a soft stupor of ease and happiness. Could it
be true? She had given up, without any further murmur or protest, the
conditions she brought with her, and which she had meant to insist upon.
Lucy’s final proposal had taken away her breath; she had not said
anything against it, she had made no remonstrance, no resistance. Her
mind was confused with happiness and ease, and the yielding which these
sensations bring with them. So poor a care-worn woman, distracted with
trouble and anxiety, she had been when, with her veil over her face to
hide the tears that would come against her will, she had been driven
down the same long slope of road, sick with hope, and doubt, and terror,
feeling every stoppage of the slow, lumbering machine a new agony, yet
half glad of everything which delayed the interview she dreaded, the
self-humiliation which she could not escape from. How different were her
feelings now! She could not believe in the wonderful good fortune which
had befallen her; it removed all capability of resistance, it seemed to
trickle through all her veins down to her very feet, upward to nourish
her confused brain, a subtle calm, an all-dissolving dew of happiness.
Provided for! was it possible? was it possible? She did not believe
it--the word is too weak, she was incapable of taking in the
significance of it mentally at all; but it penetrated her and soothed
her, and took all pain from her, giving her an all-pervading
consciousness of rest.
As for Lucy, she listened to Sir Tom’s gossip with that eloquent
interest and ready amusement which is the greatest flattery in the
world. All his jokes were successful with her, her face responded to him
almost before he spoke. Lady Randolph could scarcely believe her eyes;
the success of her scheme was too rapid. There was terror in her
self-gratulation. Would Tom care for such an easy conquest? and if the
guardians could not be got to consent to a marriage, was it possible
that this could go on for seven years? She would have preferred a more
gradual progress. Meanwhile, Lucy took an opportunity to speak apart to
this kind new friend of hers, while Lady Randolph was preparing for her
usual drive.
“May I ask you something?” she said, after she had actually--no other
word would describe the process--_wheedled_ him up to the drawing-room
after luncheon. It was not often Sir Thomas came to luncheon, and Lucy
thought it providential.
“Ask me--anything in the world!” he said, with the kind smile which
seemed, to Lucy to warm and open up all the corners of her heart. It got
into the atmosphere like sunshine, and she felt herself open out in it
like a flower.
She stood before him very gravely, with her hands folded together, her
eyes raised to his, the utmost seriousness in her face, not at all
unlike a girl at school, very innocent and modest, but much in earnest,
asking for some momentary concession. He had almost put his hand
paternally upon the little head, of whose looks he was beginning to grow
fond, though, perhaps, in too elder-brotherly a way. It was while Sir
Tom’s experienced heart was in this soft and yielding state that the
little girl, raising her soft eyes, asked very distinctly,
“Then would you lend me a hundred pounds, if you please?”
Sir Thomas started as if he had been shot.
“A hundred pounds!” he cried, with consternation in every tone.
Lucy laughed with the happiest case. There was no one with whom she was
so much at home.
“It is only till to-morrow. I have written to Mr. Chervil to come, but
he can not come till to-morrow,” she said.
“And you want a hundred pounds to-day?”
“If you please,” said Lucy, calmly; “if you will lend it to me. It would
be a pleasure to have it to-day.”
Sir Tom’s face grew crimson with embarrassment; had he a hundred pounds
to lend? he thought it very unlikely; and his wonder was still more
profound. This little thing, not much more than a child; what on earth
could she want, all at once, with a hundred pounds? He did not know what
to say.
“My dear Miss Lucy,” he said (for though this title was incorrect, and
against the rules of society, and servant-maidish, he had adopted it as
less stiff and distant than Miss Trevor). “My dear Miss Lucy; of course
I will do whatever you ask me. But let me ask you, from the uncle point
of view, you know, is it right that you should want a hundred pounds all
in a moment? Yes, you told me you had a great deal of money; but you
have also a very small number of years. I don’t ask what you are going
to do with it. We have exchanged opinions already, haven’t we? about the
pleasure of throwing money away. But do you think it is right, and that
your guardian will approve?”
“It is quite right,” said Lucy, gravely; “and my guardian can not help
but approve, for it is in papa’s will, Sir Thomas. Thank you very much.
I am not throwing it away. I am _giving it back_.”
“What does the little witch mean?” he asked himself, with consternation
and bewilderment but what could be done? He went out straightway, and
after awhile he managed to get her the hundred pounds. A baronet with a
good estate and some reputation, even though he may have no money to
speak of, can always manage that. And Lucy accepted it from him quite
serenely, as if it had been a shade of Berlin wool, showing on her side
no embarrassment, nor any sense that it was inappropriate that he should
be her creditor. She gave him only a smile and a thank you, and
apparently thought nothing more of it. Sir Thomas was fairly struck dumb
with the adventure: but to Lucy, so far as he could make out, it was the
most every-day occurrence. She sent her maid to Hampstead that
evening--dressing for dinner by herself, a thing which Lucy, not trained
to attendance, was always secretly relieved to do--with a basket of
strawberries for Jock, and a letter for Mrs. Russell, and the girl’s
face beamed when she came down-stairs. They took her to the opera that
evening, where Lucy sat very tranquilly, veiled by the curtains of the
box, and listened conscientiously, though she showed no signs of
enthusiasm. She had a private little song of her own going on all the
while in her heart.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LUCY’S FIRST VENTURE.
While Lucy’s mind was thus soothed and comforted by the consciousness of
doing her duty, a very different effect was produced upon her father’s
executors, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, regarded her attempt to
fulfill the commands of the secret codicil with mingled consternation
and fury. Mr. Chervil, who, being at hand, was the first representative
of these legal authorities to be appealed to on the matter, had obeyed
her first call with some surprise, and had been, as was not unnatural,
driven nearly frantic by the quiet intimation given him by the little
girl, whom he looked upon as a child, that she intended to use the power
intrusted to her.
“What do you know about Codicil F?” he said. “I don’t know that there is
any Codicil F. I don’t believe in it. You are under a mistake, Miss
Lucy;” but when she made it apparent to him that her means of knowing
were unquestionable, and her determination absolute, Mr. Chervil went a
step further--he blasphemed. “It is against every law,” he said. “I
don’t believe it would stand in any court. I don’t feel that I should be
justified in paying any attention to it. I am sure Rushton would be of
my opinion. It was a mere piece of folly, downright madness, delusion--I
don’t know what to call it.”
“But whatever it is,” said Lucy, with great prudence, putting forth no
theory of her own, “what papa said is law to me.” And though his
resistance was desperate she held her own with a gentle pertinacity.
Lucy’s aspect was so entirely that of a submissive and dutiful girl; she
was so modestly commonplace, so unlike a heroine, that it was a long
time before he could believe that this little creature really meant to
make a stand upon her rights. He could scarcely believe, even, that she
understood what those rights were, or could stand for a moment against
his denial of them. When he was driven to remonstrance, a chill of
discouragement succeeded the first fury of his refusal. He tried every
oratorical art by sheer stress of nature, denouncing, entreating,
imploring all in a breath.
“It is like something out of the Dark Ages,” he cried. “It is mere
demoralization. You will make a race of paupers, you will ruin the
character of every person who comes near you. For God’s sake! Miss Lucy,
think what you want to do. It is not to give away money, it is to spread
ruin far and wide--ruin of all the moral sentiments; you will make
people dishonest, you will take away their independence, you will be
worse than a civil war! And look here,” cried the executor, desperate,
“perhaps you think you will get gratitude for it, that people will think
you a great benefactor? Not a bit of them! You will sow the wind and
reap the whirlwind,” he cried, wrath and despair driving him to that
great storehouse of poetry with which early training still supplies the
most commonplace of Englishmen.
Lucy listened with great attention, and it was an effort for her to
restrain her own awe and respect for “a gentleman,” and the almost
terror with which his excitement, as he paced about her little dainty
room, shaking the whole house with his hasty steps, filled her. To see
her mild countenance, her slight little form, under the hail-storm of
his passion, was half pathetic and half ludicrous. Sometimes she cried,
sometimes trembled, but never gave in. Other stormy interviews followed,
and letters from Mr. Rushton, in which every argument was addressed both
to her “good sense” and “good feeling;” but Lucy had neither the good
sense to appreciate their conscientious care of her money nor the good
feeling to allow that her father had in this particular acted like a
fool or a madman. She was wise enough to attempt no argument, but she
never gave in; there were moments, indeed, when the two men were in
hopes that they had triumphed; but these were only when Lucy herself was
wavering and discouraged in regard to the Russells, and unable to decide
what to do. The evening after her final interview with Mrs. Russell she
sent for Mr. Chervil again; and it was not without a little panic and
beating of her heart that Lucy looked forward to this conclusive
meeting. She had to prop herself up by all kind of supports, recalling
to herself the misery she had seen, and the efforts to conceal that
misery, which were almost more painful still to behold, and, on the
other hand, the precision of her father’s orders, which entirely suited
the case: “If it is a woman, let it be an income upon which she can live
and bring up her children;” nothing could be more decided than this.
Nevertheless, Lucy felt her heart jump to her mouth when she heard Mr.
Chervil’s heavy yet impetuous feet come hastily upstairs.
And Mr. Chervil, as was natural, made a desperate stand, feeling it to
be the last. He made Lucy cry, and gave her a great deal of very
unpleasant advice; he went further, he bullied her, and made her blush,
asking, coarsely, whether it was for the son’s sake that she was so
determined to pension the mother? for she had been obliged to give him
full particulars of the Russell family and their distresses. It was a
terrible morning for the poor little girl. But if the executor ever
hoped to make Lucy swerve, or to bully her into giving up her intention,
no mistake could be greater. She blushed, and she cried with shame and
pain. All the trouble of a child in being violently scolded, the hurts
and wounds, the mortification, the sense of injustice, she felt, but she
did not yield an inch. Lucy knew the power she had, and no force on
earth would have turned her from it. He might hurt her, that was not
hard to do, but change her mind he could not; her gentle obstinacy was
invincible; she cried, but she stood fast; and naturally the victory
fell to her, after that battle. From the beginning Mr. Chervil knew well
enough that if she stood out there was nothing to be done, but it seemed
to him that fifty must be more than a match for seventeen; and in this
he was mistaken, which is not unusual. When, however, all was over, the
capitulation signed and sealed, and Lucy, though tearful, intrenched
with all her banners flying upon the field of battle, a new sensation
awaited the discomfited and angry guardian of her possessions. He
thought he had already put up with as much as flesh and blood could
bear, but it may be imagined what Mr. Chervil’s feelings were when his
ward thus addressed him, putting back a little lock of hair which had
got out of its usual tidiness during the struggle (for though there was
no actual fighting--far be it from us to insinuate that the angry
guardian went the length of blows, though he would have clearly liked to
whip her, had he dared--agitation itself puts a girl’s light locks out
of order), and pursuing a last tear into the corner of her eyes:
“I want a hundred pounds, if you please, directly; I borrowed it
yesterday,” said Lucy, with great composure, “from Sir Thomas, and I
said I would pay it back to-day.”
“You--borrowed a hundred pounds--from Sir Thomas!” His voice gurgled in
his throat. It was a wonder that he did not have a fit; the blood rushed
to his head, his very breath seemed arrested. It was almost as much as
his life--being a man of full habit and sanguine temperament--was worth.
“Yes,” said Lucy’s calm, little soft voice. There was still occasionally
the echo of a sob in it, as in a child’s voice after a fit of crying,
but yet it was quite calm. “Will you write a check for him, if you
please?”
“You will drive me mad, Miss Lucy, before you have done!” cried the
excited executor, “all for this woman, this young fellow’s mother, this
object of your--And you go and borrow from another man, borrow,
actually--money--from another man, you, an unmarried girl! Oh, this is
too much! I must put your affairs in Chancery! I must wash my hands of
you! borrow money--from a man!”
“But I don’t know who else I--could have borrowed it from. Sir Thomas is
not just a man; he is a friend. I like him very much, there is nobody so
kind. If I had asked Lady Randolph she would have insisted upon knowing
everything; but Sir Thomas understands me--a little,” Lucy said.
“Understands you--a little? Well, it is more than I do,” cried her
guardian; but when he came to think of it, this complication silenced
him, for if the young fellow at Hampstead had been the object of any
childish infatuation Sir Thomas could not have been brought into it in
this way; and if she had a fancy for Sir Thomas, it was clear the young
fellow at Hampstead must be _out_ of it. She could not possibly, at her
age, be playing off the one against the other. So Mr. Chervil concluded,
having just as little confidence in the purity and simplicity of Lucy’s
motives, as everybody else had; and he gave the check with groans of
suppressed fury, yet bewilderment. “You don’t know the world, Miss
Lucy,” he said, “though you are very clever. I advise you not to borrow
from gentlemen; they are apt to fancy, when a girl does that sort of
thing--And I will not have it!” he added, with some violence. “You are
my ward and under age, notwithstanding that mad codicil. If it were not
that a great part of the money would go to your little brother in case
we broke the will, by George, I should try it!” the outraged executor
said.
“Would it--to Jock? Oh, that would be a blessing!” cried Lucy, clasping
her hands; then she added, the light fading from her face, “But that
would be to go against everything papa said, for Jock is no relation to
my Uncle Rainy. Of course,” said Lucy, with delightful inconsistency,
“when I can do what I like, in seven years’ time, Jock shall have his
full share, and if I were to die he would be my heir; you said so, Mr.
Chervil, that made my mind quite easy. But I shall not be able to borrow
from Sir Thomas again,” she added, with a laugh, “because he will not be
here.”
What could the guardian do more? There was no telling what might happen
in seven years; before seven years were over, please God, she would be
married, and trust her husband to guard against the dividing of the
fortune! It would be better, Mr. Chervil concluded, to put up with the
loss of a few thousand pounds than to risk the cutting up of the whole
property, and the alienation of a great part of it from poor Rainy’s
race. Besides, the executor knew that to break the will would not be an
easy matter. The codicil might be eccentric, but old Trevor was sane
enough. He growled, but he wrote the check, and submitted to everything,
though with an ill grace. Lady Randolph offered luncheon to the
gentleman from the city, and was pointedly ceremonious, though civil.
“Miss Trevor is rather too young to have such lengthened conferences
with gentlemen,” she said, “though I have no doubt, Mr. Chervil, I can
trust you.”
“Trust me, my lady! Why, I am a man with a family!” cried the astonished
executor. “I have daughters as old as Miss Lucy.” He was confused when
Sir Tom’s large laugh (for Sir Tom was here again, much amused with the
little drama, and almost making his aunt angry by the devotion with
which he carried out her scheme) showed him the folly of this little
speech, and added awkwardly, “I don’t suppose she will come to any harm
in your hand, but she’s a wild madcap, though she looks so quiet, and as
obstinate--”
“Are you all that?” Sir Thomas said, looking at Lucy with the laugh
still in his eyes. “You hide it under a wonderfully innocent exterior.
It is the lion in lamb’s clothing this time. I think you must require my
help, aunt, to manage this dangerous young lady.”
“Oh, I can dispense with your help,” Lady Randolph said, with a little
flush of irritation. Decidedly things were going too fast and too far;
under the very nose of the executor, too, who, no doubt, kept a most
keen outlook upon all who surrounded his precious ward. “I am not afraid
of Lucy, so long as she is let alone and left to the occupations
suitable to her age.” And with this her ladyship rose from the table,
and with some impatience bade her young companion get ready for their
drive; though, as everybody could see, even through the closed blinds
which kept the dim dining-room cool, it was hours too early for any
drive.
“Just, a word to you, Sir Thomas, if you’ll permit me,” Mr. Chervil
said. “That dangerous young lady, as you call her, will run through
every penny she has, if she is allowed to have her own way. If you would
be so kind as to _not_ encourage her it would be real friendship,
though she mightn’t think so. But as long as any one backs her up--”
Sir Thomas opened his eyes wide. “Ah, I see! you took what I said _au
pied de la lettre_,” he said, with languid contempt. Now the executor
was little experienced in the French or any foreign tongue, and he did
not know what the foot of the letter meant. He cried, “Oh, no, not at
all!” apologetically, shocked by his own boldness; and went away
bewildered all round, and much troubled in his mind about the stability
of the Rainy estate. Mr. Chervil was the most honorable of trustees--his
own interest had nothing at all to do with his opposition. But
prodigality in business matters was, to him, the master sin, above all
those of the Decalogue. There was, indeed, no commandment there which
ordained, “Thou shalt not waste thy money, or give it injudiciously
away.” But Mr. Chervil felt that this was a mere oversight on the part
of the great lawgiver, and one which prudent persons had a right to
amend on their own account. Mr. Chervil, who here felt an unexpressed
confidence that he was better informed (on matters of business) than the
Almighty, was very sure that he knew a great deal better than old
Trevor. He scouted the old man’s ideas as preposterous. That craze of
his about _giving it back_ was evident madness. Give it back! the thing
to be done was exactly the contrary. He himself knew the way of doubling
every pound, and building up the great Rainy fortune into proportions
colossal and magnificent. But he did not think of any advantage to
himself in all this. He was quite content that it should be the little
sedate figure of the girl which should be raised, ever higher and higher
into the blazing heaven of wealth upon that golden pedestal, heaped with
new and ever-renewed ingots. And not only was this, his ambition,
perfectly honest, but there was even in a way something visionary in it,
an ideal, something that stood in the place of poetry and art to Mr.
Chervil. It was his way of identifying the highest good, the most
perfect beauty.
A fortune does not appeal to the eye like a statue or picture; but
sometimes it appeals to the mind in a still more superlative way. Old
Trevor’s executor felt himself capable of working at it with an
enthusiasm which Phidias, which Michael Angelo could not have surpassed.
“_Anch’ io pittore._” I too have made something all beautiful, all
excellent, all but divine, he would have said, had he known how. And
when he contemplated the possibility of having his materials taken from
him piecemeal, and scattered over the country to produce quite
inappreciable results in private holes and corners, his pain and rage
and disappointment were almost as great as the sentiments which would
have moved the fierce Buonarotti had some wretched bungler got into his
studio, and cut knobs off the very bit of marble in which already he saw
his David. Therefore it was not altogether a sordid sentiment which
moved him. There was in it something of the desperation of a sincere
fanatic, as well as the regret of a man of business over opportunities
foolishly thrown away.
And Lucy, if the truth must be told, got no particular satisfaction out
of the proceeding. She thought it right to suggest, though very timidly,
that instead of the bigger house which poor Mrs. Russell’s desperation
had been contemplating, a smaller house, where she could herself be
comfortable, would be the best; and the suggestion was not graciously
received. The family indeed which she had so greatly befriended
contemplates her with a confusion and embarrassment which made poor Lucy
wretched. Mary, the one of them whom she had always liked best, avoided
the sight of the benefactor who had saved them all from destruction.
When she appeared reluctantly, her cheeks red with shame, and her eyes
with crying, she could scarcely look Lucy in the face. “Oh, Miss Trevor!
I wish you had not done it. We should have struggled through and been
honest,” Mary exclaimed, averting her eyes; and then she fell a-crying
and begged Lucy’s pardon with half-angry vehemence, declaring she hated
herself for her ingratitude. Wondering, bewildered, and sad, Lucy stole
away as if she had been a guilty creature from the house to which she
had given a little fortune, ease, and security, and comfort. Had she
made enemies of them instead of friends? Instead of making them happy
she seemed to have destroyed all family accord, and put everything
wrong. Nor was this all the trouble the poor girl had. She had scarcely
got back from that mission of uncomfortable beneficence, when she saw,
by the general aspect of affairs in Lady Randolph’s drawing-room that
something was wrong. Lady Randolph herself sat bending, with quite
unaccustomed energy, over a piece of work, which Lucy had got to know
was her refuge when she was annoyed or disturbed--with a flush under her
eyes, which was also a sure sign of atmospheric derangement. Sir Thomas
was pacing about the room behind backs, and as Lucy came in she saw him
(which even in a moment of violent commotion disturbed her orderly soul)
tear a newspaper in several pieces, and throw it into the basket under
the writing-table--a _new_ newspaper, for it was Saturday. What could he
mean? Near Lady Randolph was seated old Lady Betsinda full in the light,
and looking more like a merchant of old clothes than ever; while Mrs.
Berry-Montagu had her usual place in the shadow of the curtains; the two
visitors had the conversation in their hands.
“My dear Mary Randolph,” Lady Betsinda was saying, “you ought to have
taken my advice. Never have anything to do with authors; I say it to
everybody, and to you I am sure if I have said it once I have said it a
hundred times. They are a beggarly race; they don’t print by
subscriptions nowadays, but they do far worse. If they can not get as
much out of you as they want they will make you suffer for it. Have not
I told you? When you’re good to them, they think they pay you a
compliment by accepting it. A great many people think it gives them
importance to have such persons about their house; they think that is
the way to get a _salon_ like the French, but there never was a greater
mistake. Authors, so far as I’ve seen, are the very dullest people
going; if they ever have an idea in their heads they save it up
carefully for their books.”
“What would you have them to do with it, Lady Betty? Waste it upon you
and me? Most likely we should not understand it,” said the other lady,
with her soft little sneer. “Come in, come in, Miss Trevor, and sit and
learn at Lady Betty’s feet.”
Lady Randolph bent toward the speaker with a rapid whisper.
“Not a word to Lucy about it, for heaven’s sake!” she said.
Mrs. Berry-Montagu made no reply; almost all that could be seen of her
was the malicious gleam in her eyes.
“Come and learn wisdom,” she said, “at the feet of Lady Betsinda. When
we have a university like the men, there shall be a chair of social
experience, and she shall be voted into it by acclamation,” Lady
Betsinda was a little deaf, and rarely caught all that was said, but she
made no show of this imperfection, and went on without asking any
questions.
“I have met a great many authors in my day,” she said; “they used to be
more in society in my time. Now it has become a sort of trade, I hear,
like cotton-spinning. Oh, yes, cotton-spinners, my dear, get into
society--when they are rich enough--and so do the people that write, but
not as they used to do. They are commoner now. It seemed so very clever
once to write a book; now, I hear, it’s a great, deal more clever not to
write. I don’t give that as _my_ opinion; ask Cecilia Montagu, it is she
who tells me all the new ideas.”
“Have I said so? It is very likely,” said that lady, languidly. “It
repays one for a great deal of ingratitude on the part of the world, to
have a friend who remembers all one says.”
“Oh, I have the best of memories,” said Lady Betsinda; “and, as I was
saying, if you don’t go down on your knees to them they punish you. I
was reading somebody’s life the other day--I remember her perfectly
well, one used to meet her at Lady Cheddar’s, and one or two other
places--rather pretty and lackadaisical, and very, very civil. Poor
thing! one saw she was there on sufferance; but if you will believe
me--perhaps you have read the book, Cecilia Montagu? you would think she
was the center of everything, and all the rest of us nowhere! And so
poor Lady Cheddar, a really nice woman, will go down to posterity as the
friend of Mrs. So-and-so, whom she asked out of charity! It is enough,”
said Lady Betsinda, with indignation, “to make one vow one will never
read another book as long as one lives.”
“Mrs. So-and-so!” said Lady Randolph, “I remember her very well. I think
everybody was kind to her. There was some story about her husband, and
poor Lady Cheddar took her up and fought all her battles--”
“And has been rewarded,” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, softly satirical,
“with immortality. Good people, what would you have more? Fifty years
hence who will know anything about Lady Cheddar except from the life of
Mrs. So-and-so? And so it will be in--another case we know of. After
all, you see that, though you make so little account of them, it is the
poor authors who hold the keys of fame.”
“As for the other case, that is not a parallel case at all,” Lady
Betsinda cried. “Mrs. So-and-so was bad enough, but she did not put poor
dear Lady Cheddar in the papers. No, no, she never put her in the
papers; and Lady Cheddar was a woman of a certain age, and people did
not need to be told what to think about her. These papers are a
disgrace, you know; they are dreadful, nobody is safe.”
“But what should we do without them?” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, lifting
up her languishing eyes.
“That’s true enough,” said Lady Betsinda, softening; “one must know what
is going on. But about a young girl, you know; I really think about a
young girl--”
Here Lady Randolph interposed with rapid and alarmed dumb-show, and Sir
Thomas made a stride forward, with such a lowering brow as Lucy had
never seen before. What could be the matter? she wondered; but there the
discussion stopped short, and she heard no more.
This was the matter, however: that one of the newspapers of which
society is so fond had taken up the romantic dedication of “Imogen,”
and with an industry that might have been praiseworthy (as the police
reports say) if employed in a better cause, had ferreted out a still
more romantic edition of the story. It was not true, but what had that
mattered? It gave a fancy sketch of Lucy, and her heiress-ship, and her
rusticity, and described how the young novelist was to be rewarded with
the hand of the wealthy object of his devotion, a devotion which had
begun while she was still poor. Lucy had not learned to care for
newspapers, and it was not at all difficult to keep it from her. But Sir
Thomas gave all belonging to him a great deal of trouble to soothe him
down, and persuade him that nobody cared for such assaults.
“It is quite good-natured; there is no harm intended,” Lady Randolph
said; “we all get a touch now and then.”
“If that is no harm a punch on the head is still more innocent,” said
Sir Thomas, savagely, and it was almost by force, and solely because of
the fact that this would be still worse for Lucy, that he was
restrained. But Lucy never heard of it, and the article sold off at
once, before a month was out, the whole edition of “Imogen.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GOING HOME.
And now the period of Lucy’s first experiment in life was over. From all
the delicacies with which Lady Randolph’s care had surrounded her, and
from the atmosphere of refinement to which she had grown accustomed, it
was now the moment to descend and go back to the homely house which Jock
and she instinctively still called “home.” He had come in from Hampstead
a day or two before, and lived with Lucy in her little sitting-room,
while all the packing went on. The limit of the six months had been
relaxed a little, to suit Lady Randolph’s convenience, who considered
(as did her doctor) that after the fatigues of the season Homburg was a
necessity for her. On ordinary occasions Lady Randolph spent a month at
the Hall before she went to Homburg: but she had not thought it prudent
this year to take Lucy there, so they had stayed in town till the parks
were like brown paper, and the shutters were up in all the houses. This
was a thing that had not happened to Lady Randolph for a long time, and
she felt that she was something of a martyr, and that it was for Lucy’s
sake. However, at last the long days came to an end. Parliament, rose,
and everybody, to the last lingering official, went out of town. Sir
Thomas, who had been at various places in the interval, and whose
absence had been a real affliction to Lucy, came back again for a day or
two before the final break-up. He was not going to Homburg, he was going
to Scotland, and it had been arranged that he should act as escort to
Lucy on her journey, as Farafield and his own house were on his way to
the North. Lady Randolph was not quite sure that she liked this
arrangement; the “whole thing,” she said to herself, “had gone too far.”
Tom was not prudent; to show his hand to the rest of the guardians at
once, and put them all on their guard, was foolish; and as for waiting
seven years! Lucy might do it; Lucy, who, her maternal guardian thought,
already showed all the signs of being in love; but Tom! he would have a
dozen other serious devotions before that. Sir Tom was fond of platonic
relationships--he did not want to marry, not being able, indeed, to
afford that luxury, yet he liked the gentle excitement of a sentimental
friendship. He liked even to feel himself just going over the edge into
love, yet keeping himself from going over. He had kept himself from
going over so many times, that he knew exactly what twigs to snatch at,
and what eddies to take advantage of; therefore it is not to be supposed
that there could be much danger to him from a simple girl. But certainly
he had gone further than was at all expedient, Lady Randolph’s very
anxiety that this time he should be brought to reason, should not catch
at any twig, but allow himself to be really carried by the current to
the legitimate end, made her unwilling to see matters hurried. Lucy
would make him a very nice little wife, and, if he married, his aunt
knew that he was far too good a fellow not to be a kind husband; but
that Lucy’s simple attractions (even including her fortune, which was a
charm that would never fail) could hold him for seven years, was not a
thing to be hoped for. She spoke to Sir Tom very strongly on the subject
the evening before they separated. Lucy and little Jock--who always was
a troublesome inmate to Lady Randolph because of his very quietness, the
trance of reading, in which she never could be sure that he was not
listening--had gone upstairs early. London was very warm and dusty in
these August days; the windows were open, but the air that came in was
not of a very satisfactory description. Most of the houses were shut up
round about, and in the comparative quiet sounds from the Mews behind
were frequently audible. In short, there was about the district the
uncomfortable feeling that the appropriate inhabitants had gone, and
only a swarm of underground creatures were left, to come forth blinking
from their coverts. In-doors the furniture had all been put into
pinafores, the pretty nothings on the tables had been laid away, the
china locked up in cabinets. Lady Randolph was starting by the morning
mail-train.
“You know, Tom,” she said, “I am not at all sure that it is wise for you
to go down with Lucy to-morrow.”
“Why, aunt? You know it is on my way,” he said, with a twinkle in his
eye.
“Oh, stuff about it being on your way. You know it would not be on your
way at all unless you liked to go.”
“Well!” Sir Thomas said, “and after--” he never indulged in the
vulgarity of French; but he was given to literal translations, which is
more aggravating, and neither one thing nor another, as Lady Randolph
said.
“Well, it is just this: most of the guardians live in Farafield, and
they will be immediately put on their guard if they see you much with
her. There are the Rushtons, the lawyer people, and _that_ Mrs. Stone,
who keeps a school. They will both be in arms against you instantly.
That father of Lucy’s was an old--I don’t want to be unkind to anybody
that is dead and gone, but--
“Most likely he thought it would be better for her not to marry,” said
Sir Thomas, tranquilly.
“What folly! well, it would be just like him. I don’t think the will
would stand if it were ever brought in to a court of law. There were the
maddest provisos! However, unless it can be broken we must hold by it;
and, Tom, you must let me say it, you ought to go more cautiously to
work.”
“Is it worth the trouble?” he said, indifferently. “My dear aunt, before
a man takes the pains to work cautiously he must have set his heart on
the prize with some fervor.”
“And haven’t you done so, Tom? Why, I thought you were going too
far--and too fast. I did not see any doubt, or want of warmth, I assure
you. Fervor! well, perhaps fervor is a strong word; that means
difficulty to get over, and resistance, and a struggle perhaps. Poor
little Lucy! I don’t think there will be much resistance on her part.”
“I am not at all so sure of that,” he said.
“Why, Tom! Poor child! we can’t blame her. She is only seventeen; and
you have a way--Ah, my boy, it is not want of experience that will balk
you. You have a way of speaking, and a way of looking. And Lucy is as
simple as a little dove, there is no concealment about her. She thinks
there is nobody like you.”
“Well, perhaps you are right. She thinks there is nobody like me,” said
Sir Tom, with something of that softening of vanity which makes a man’s
countenance imbecile when he thinks he is admired: “but,” he added, with
a little laugh, “Lucy is no more in love with me than--I am with you.
Like her, I think there is nobody like you--”
“Oh, Tom--Tom, you are a deceiver! My dear, that is nonsense. There is
no tie between her and you. The very first night I saw it. Fancy her
sitting up to chatter to you--and chattering, she who is so quiet! Why,
she is a great deal more open, more at her ease with you than with me.”
“All so many things against me,” he said; “she is not in love with me,
as I tell you, any more than I am with you.”
Lady Randolph was struck with great surprise, and so many things poured
into her mind to be said that she was silent, and did not say anything,
looking at him with confused impatience, and able to bring out nothing
save a “but--but,” of bewilderment. At last she enunciated with
difficulty and hesitation, “If this is true, which I can’t believe, do
you mind, Tom?”
“Not much,” he said, then laughed, and looked her in the face. “You do
not understand me, aunt. I think it quite likely that if it were put
before her as a suitable arrangement, Lucy might make up her mind to
marry me. She is beginning to get perplexed in her life. She has been on
the point of confiding in me two or three times.”
“What?” said Lady Randolph, in great excitement. She could not think of
anything but love about which a girl could be confidential, and Bertie
Russell, like a Jack-in-the-box, suddenly jumped up in her anxious
brain. But Sir Thomas shook his head.
“That is exactly what I can not tell you,” he said. “I thought it might
be some entanglement with that young fellow of the book; but it is not
that. It is quite possible she might marry me--”
“Well, but, Tom, why should you be so very particular? Think what it
would be for the estate. You might pay off everything, and regain the
first position in the county. You ought to have the first position in
the county. What is Lord Langton in comparison with the Randolphs? A
nobody; and all this that girl could do. Only think what her fortune
could do. I am not mercenary--I don’t think I am mercenary--but when you
just realize it. Oh, how often I have said to myself, your uncle had no
right to marry me. He ought to have married somebody with money. And now
if you can set it right, why, oh, why, should you have any absurd
scruples? Of course, Lucy would be very glad; and she would make you a
good little wife. She is not impassioned--she never will be out of her
wits about any one; if that is what you want, Tom.”
“No, I don’t think that is what I want,” he said; “but in the meantime
we need not quarrel about it; for you know there are the guardians to be
taken into consideration, and it would be foolish to show one’s hand.
And then there is plenty of time. One ought to go cautiously to work.”
He laughed as he quoted all her own little speeches to her. But for her
part Lady Randolph could have cried--how difficult it is to be patient
when you are anxious! She had been alarmed by what she thought a too
hasty progress; now she was cast down to the depths of trouble by this
sudden suggestion that no progress at all had been made. She did not
know what to do. It was no use speaking to Tom, so self-willed was
he--always taking his own way. She had no patience with him. _Of course_
Lucy liked him--how could she help it? And to think that he would run
the risk of losing all that for the merest fantastic nonsense! Oh, she
had no patience with him! But when he only laughed and made a joke of it
all what was the use of saying anything? Poor Lady Randolph! She could
not let things take their own way. She was unhappy not to be able to
guide them, and yet she knew that she could not guide them. Either they
would go on too quickly or they would not go on at all.
The effect of this conversation was, that she started in a much less
cheerful and hopeful state of mind for that yearly renovation at
Homburg. She tried to make a parting effort for Sir Tom, when she said
good-bye to Lucy, who was to leave by a later train. “If Tom stays at
the Hall, and there is anything you want advice about, never hesitate to
apply to him, my love,” she said; “you may have every confidence in him,
as much confidence as in myself.”
“Oh, yes, Lady Randolph,” said Lucy, with the warmest sincerity. “I
should ask him anything--he has always been so kind to me.”
“It is more than kindness--he has a real interest in you, Lucy; and you
need never fear to trust Tom. He has a heart of gold, and he is the
truest friend in the world,” Lady Randolph said. She kissed her charge
with fervor. Could she say more? When she turned round who should be
watching her but Tom himself, with that twinkle in his eye. The poor
lady felt as if she had been detected. She made her exit quite
crestfallen, while Sir Thomas paused to tell Lucy he would come back
for her half an hour before the train started. “It is not everybody that
would make himself a railway porter for your service, is it, Miss Lucy?”
he said, laughing. “Depend upon it, however specious other people may
look, it is ‘Codlin’s the friend.’” He went out after his aunt, still
laughing; but as for Lucy, she looked after him somewhat bewildered. Her
reading was not her strong point, and she could not think what “Codlin”
had to do with it, or who that personage was.
But what a different Lucy it was that took possession of a special
carriage reserved for her own party, to Farafield, with her maid and
mountain of luggage, from the humble little Lucy, with two black frocks,
who had come to town with Lady Randolph in February. Her groom, with her
horses and Jock’s pony, had gone the night before. Jock himself,
embracing a big book, was the thing of all her surroundings that was the
least changed. Lucy’s mind, indeed, was not altered, as were her outward
circumstances, but it had expanded and widened, so that she became a
little giddy as the journey approached its close, half pleased, half
alarmed to think of the old life, the familiar streets, the old white
parlor with its blue curtains, and the view from the window across the
common to Mrs. Stone’s school. Sir Thomas, who had traveled with her
part of the way, now departing to the smoking-carriage, now coming to
inquire into her comfort and the progress she was making in the novel
with which he had thoughtfully provided her, joined the party at the
last important station.
“You have scarcely read twenty pages,” he said, reproachfully, “after
all my care in choosing you a pretty book. You have read five times as
much, Jock.”
Jock looked up on being addressed. Though he was many fathoms deep below
the surface, he always heard when he was spoken to, and often when he
was not spoken to. He was lying across the arm of one seat, with his
book lying on the cushions of another, in a dark blue valley below him.
He gave a sidelong look of disdain to his questioner.
“Do you count your pages?” said Jock, with contemptuous satire. “I can
tell by what the reading is.”
“Hush, Jock! I was not reading at all,” Lucy said, “but thinking.”
“And what might the thinking be? regretting town, or welcoming the
country? We’ll give her, Jock, two pennies for her thoughts.”
“You know,” said Lucy, “it is not either town or country I was thinking
of. I was thinking of Lady Randolph’s, and all that was new to me there;
and of some things I have had to do, and how I have lived so different
from everything before, and now coming back--home. It always was home, I
can’t call it anything else; but it will be different again. There is no
more papa. That does not make me unhappy,” said Lucy, the tears coming
into her eyes, “for it was what he always trained me to expect; but it
will be dreary to go into the house and to find that he is not there,
sitting by the fire--with the will.”
“The will?” Sir Thomas had no fear to be thought inquisitive, his face
was full of kindly interest and sympathy.
“Did I never tell you? that was all his thought. It was his amusement,
as long--well, as long as Jock could remember. Don’t you recollect,
Jock, how he would sit and write a little bit, and rub his hands, and
read it to me when I came in? That is how I know so well all he wished
me to do. He would put down his newspaper when something occurred to
him, and write it down. It pleased him more than anything. Don’t you
think it is a great pleasure, when any one is gone, to know exactly what
they wished you to do?”
“It is a great bondage sometimes,” Sir Thomas said.
“I don’t think I shall feel it a bondage. But somehow going back is
almost stranger than going away. The rooms at the Terrace will look
small; and it will not be prettily furnished; and I shall not have Lady
Randolph to talk to, nor the carriage, nor the visitors--”
“These things are easily got, even the visitors. As for Lady Randolph,
perhaps you can put up with me instead. I am very fond of being talked
to, and you know she recommended me as her substitute.”
“That is very true,” said Lucy, with her usual calm; “but then you are
going to Scotland to shoot. You are only here on your way.”
“There is no saying, if you consult me a great deal, and give me a great
many interesting subjects to think about how long I may linger on my
way.”
“Oh, as for that!” said Lucy, “there is one thing--very interesting; but
then I am not sure if I should tell it to any one, though it would be a
great, a very great comfort. I tried to tell Lady Randolph once, and ask
her--and I have wanted so much to tell you--to ask you--”
“Well, I am a sort of an uncle, you know; that was the relationship we
decided upon,” Sir Thomas said.
Lucy did not say anything. She laughed, looking at him with a very
winning confidence and trust in her eyes. They were quite unabashed in
their modest gaze, conscious of no timidity, but there was a gentle
affection in them which touched him. However, they were now drawing very
near Farafield, and even her composed heart began to beat. She called
Jock, very reluctant to be roused from his book, to look at the
church-tower, the spire of the town hall, the big roofs of the market.
“I don’t want to see them,” Jock said; all he wanted was his story.
Perhaps it was _her_ story that made Lucy so animated, one not yet
written in any book.
Sir Thomas had intended to take Lucy home, to see her in her old-new
habitation, and make himself acquainted with her surroundings; and to
this end he had telegraphed to his servants to send a carriage to meet
the train. But Sir Thomas had formed no idea in his mind of the real
aspect of the other side of Lucy’s life; and it had not occurred to him
that the people with whom she was going to stay had a right to guide
her, equal to that which his aunt exercised. It was a shock to him to
see that respectable couple who stood on the very edge of the station
waiting for the train, and moved along by its side, panting yet beaming,
as it gradually came to a standstill. “Welcome back, my darlings!
welcome home, Lucy and Jock!” the woman said. She had not the least
pretension to the title of lady. She was enveloped in a large shawl,
though it was summer, and she was red and hot. She seized Lucy in her
arms, pushing him away as he helped the girl out of the carriage. “Oh,
my pet! we have been counting the days, Ford and I; and a’n’t you
thankful to get home after being banished among strangers?” Sir Thomas
was confounded. He had thought Lucy was to be pitied for the fantastic
arrangement which transferred her from his aunt’s house to the care of
the old servants, or poor relations, where her position and surroundings
would be so different; but the suggestion that she had been banished
among strangers took him altogether by surprise. He had been about to
take Lucy to the carriage which was waiting; but in a moment she was
separated from him, surrounded by these strange people, and drawn in the
midst of them toward a fly which was standing near. It was a curious
lesson for Sir Tom. He stood aside and looked on while she was taken out
of his hands and deposited in the shabbier vehicle, with a sense of the
ludicrous which struggled with a less agreeable feeling. There was
another group on the platform to whom Lucy’s arrival was very
interesting. This was the Rushton family, the lawyer himself, with his
wife on his arm, and a tall youth, clad in a light summer suit, with
his hands in his pockets, who lounged up and down the railway station
after his parents, looking very much out of place, and somewhat ashamed
of himself. Mrs. Rushton dashed boldly in, into the midst of the
salutations of the Fords. “I must say a word to Lucy,” she cried. “We
have just come in for a moment to welcome you home. Here, is your
guardian, Lucy, and Raymond, your old playfellow.” It was all that Sir
Tom could do not to laugh out. But the laugh was not pleasurable. He
thought that anything more artless than this presentation of the old
playfellow at the very earliest moment could not be; but yet what was he
himself doing, and what were his inducements to give so much time and
attention to this little girl? It was like a scene in the theater, but
so much more dramatic than scenes in the theater often are. Lucy, in the
midst, so eagerly secured by Mrs. Ford, so effusively embraced by the
other lady, the leader of the opposition forces; while old Ford stood
jealously on one side, and Mr. Rushton, with his hand held out, looked
genial and affectionate on the other. The Fords were gloomy,
concentrating their whole attention on the opposing band, whereas the
Rushtons, who were the assailants, were directing all their smiles and
caresses to Lucy, ignoring her relations. “Ray--Ray--I know you are
dying to shake hands with Lucy--come quick and say, how d’ye do. There
is no time for any more just now; but I felt I must come just to give
you a kiss, and bid you welcome,” said Mrs. Rushton. The lawyer for his
part, shook a finger at her. “Fine stories Chervil has had to tell about
you, my young lady,” he said.
“Lucy,” cried Mrs. Ford in sharp tones, “the fly is waiting, and I am
ready to drop. Whoever wishes to see you can come and see you at the
Terrace.”
As for Lucy herself, she was so anxious to be civil to everybody, and so
unaccustomed to the conflict that had thus suddenly sprung up around
her, that she could not tell what to do. She looked round wistfully
toward Sir Tom, who, for his part, stood quite outside the immediate
circle round her, smiling to himself with that quick perception of the
“fun” of the situation, which was, Lucy thought with vexation, the chief
thing he thought of. She felt wounded that he should laugh at her; but
then he was always laughing. Little Jock, on the other side, was a
spectator too; but a scene has a very different aspect according as you
look upon it from above or from below. Jock was low down among the feet
of all these people. Mrs. Rushton nearly brushed him away with her ample
gown; Ray all but knocked him down as he came forward sheepishly to
shake hands with Lucy. There was something savage in the energy with
which little Jock clutched at his sister’s dress. “I say, can’t they let
us alone? I want to get home--I want to get home,” cried the little
fellow. Nobody took the slightest notice of little Jock. Sir Tom, in the
distance, laughed more and more in his mustache, but ruefully. He came
forward at last and lifted Jock out from among the other people’s legs.
“Come and stand here with me, old fellow; you and I are left out in the
cold,” said Sir Tom. The tall man and the tiny boy stood out of the
crowd and watched while Lucy was hustled into the fly, Sir Tom laughing,
Jock alarmed and gloomy. “She’s going away without _me_,” Jock said with
a _naïf_ consternation. Sir Thomas laughed. “Your day and mine is over,
old man,” he said.
But Jock at least was not to be forgotten. “Jock, Jock! where are you?”
Lucy cried, anxiously looking out. The child pulled his hand out of Sir
Tom’s and rushed away; then the whole party were packed inside the fly,
Ford with his knees up to his chin bolt upright, Mrs. Ford sunk back
into a corner, loosening her bonnet-strings, and “worrited” beyond all
description, while Mrs. Rushton stood kissing her hand on the platform.
“If you please, Sir Thomas, what am I to do?” said a troubled voice as
he looked after them. Then Sir Tom laughed out. It was Lucy’s maid, who
had been left behind with a number of small matters. He put her into the
carriage with secret glee, and sent her off after her mistress. Old
Trevor himself could not have made a more grotesque contrast between the
old life and the new; how the old man would have chuckled had he seen
it! the great heiress shut up in the close fly--the somewhat frightened
maid ensconced in the luxurious corner of the open carriage glittering
along with a pair of fine horses, and all the prance and dance with
which the coachman of a county family thinks it right to maintain the
credit of his house in a country town--following the dustiest and
stuffiest of flies. This was carrying out his principles on their
broadest basis. Sir Thomas chuckled too; it was a piece of malice after
his own heart. “If that’s so, let’s show fight,” he said to himself.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE TERRACE.
Four persons in a fly on a hot August day, one of them large, and warm,
and “worrited,” another very tall, with knees up to his chin, do not
make a very agreeable party. Lucy, unaccustomed to traveling, had the
whirl of the railway still in her head, and its dust oppressing her
lungs and spirits; and she had the sensation of rush, and hurry, and
crowding, which was peculiarly disagreeable to her orderly mind, and the
uncomfortable consciousness of having abandoned her kind companion
without a word. Indeed she seemed suddenly to have ceased to be a free
agent. She had lost her independence, and even her personality, and had
been carried off like a bale of goods, like a boy long-lost and suddenly
found again, but no way consulted as to what was to be done with it. Was
it this, or was it the mere vulgarity and discomfort of her
surroundings, that made her heart sick? The fly had been the only
vehicle she had known until six months ago, and the Fords her constant
companions, and friendly notice from Mrs. Rushton, a thing highly prized
and thought of. And she had only been six months away! But as Lucy drove
in at the gloomy gateway of the little inclosure, which separated the
Terrace from the road, and saw the well-known door open, and looked up
wistfully at the well-known windows, there was no revulsion of happier
feeling. “Here we are at home, Jock,” she said faintly, trying to feel
as happy as she ought to do. “Is it?” said Jock indifferently. His
little face was blank too; they had both fallen out of the clouds, down
from the heights, and the contact with mother earth was hard. Lucy felt
ashamed of herself that this should be, but she could not help it. It
was all so different. Was it possible that the “Aunty Ford” of old was
like this? Mrs. Ford was still wearing her mourning. She had crape
flowers upon her bonnet, awful counterfeits of nature, corn flowers with
stamens of prickly jet. Her shawl was huddled up about her neck, she had
taken off her black gloves, as it was so warm, and her face was of a
fine crimson. As for Ford, on the contrary, he was neatness itself. He
wore a little checked tie very stiffly starched, and his waistcoat, and
the thin legs which were so prominent, were of checked black and white
in a large pattern. Mourning is not so necessary for a man as for a
woman. Mrs. Ford’s crape flowers, with which her bonnet bristled, were
intended for the highest respect. Lucy’s depressed sensations were
enlivened by a wondering doubt whether she could prevail upon the good
woman to abandon these unearthly flowers. Mrs. Ford was talking all the
way. “Did you see those Rushtons,” she said, “making a dead set at Lucy
the very first moment? one would have thought they would have had more
pride, and that Raymond, that son of theirs! as if Lucy, with the best
in London at her feet, would look twice at a Raymond? Oh, yes, you’ll
see, they’ll be all down upon you like locusts, Lucy; not a young man
in the town that won’t be thrown at your head. It is your money they’re
after--only your money. What is that carriage following behind us? It is
coming here, I declare; it’s somebody that has got scent of you
already--that’s what it is to be an heiress; but it can’t be so bad as
what you’ve gone through in London.”
“It is only Elizabeth,” said Lucy; “Oh, how like Sir Tom! he has put her
in the carriage; Elizabeth--that is my maid. Would you rather I had not
brought a maid, Aunt Ford?”
“A maid--I never see the use of them. You could have had Jane to help
you when you wanted any extra dressing,” said Mrs. Ford, with gloom on
her countenance. “What did I tell you, Ford? I said Lady Randolph would
be sending some spy to keep a watch upon us. Do you call that a maid?
sitting up as grand as possible in the carriage, as if she were the lady
and you the servant. It’s like Sir Tom, is it? I don’t doubt but it’s
like Sir Tom, _he’s_ well enough known about here. He’s not one you
should ever have spoken to, or sat down in the same room with him, if my
consent had been asked. Many’s the story I could tell about Sir Tom, as
you call him; oh, I don’t doubt it’s quite like him! and many a one he
has ruined with his smiling ways.”
Jock had not been able so much as to open his book while he rattled
along the Farafield streets in the fly, but he had not paid much
attention to what was going on; now, however, moved by the practical
necessity of getting out of the carriage, he awoke to what was going on
around him. He had heard the voice of Mrs. Ford in this same key before.
And he looked up suddenly with a surprised but serious countenance.
“Why is Aunty Ford scolding, and us just come? Is it you, or is it me,
Lucy?” the little fellow said.
“Me scolding! God forbid!” cried the excited woman, and instead of
getting out of the fly, she cried, and then, in a voice broken with
sobs, entreated their pardon. “It’s all my anxiety,” she said, “I can’t
abide that anything but what’s good should come to you. I’d like to keep
you safe, like the apple of my eye; and that’s what Ford thinks too.”
This scene was rather an unpleasant beginning to the second chapter of
life on which Lucy was now entering. She stood on the pavement before
the familiar door, and tried to occupy the attention of Elizabeth, and
keep her from observing Mrs. Ford’s agitation and tears. Elizabeth was
too refined a person to take any notice. She was the very last
improvement in the way of a maid, and could have written her mistress’s
letters had that been desirable, a most useful attendant to ladies
“whose education had been neglected.” Lady Randolph had not been at all
sure of Lucy’s grammar or her h’s when she secured such a treasure. But
fortunately Elizabeth’s superiority went so far as to have convinced her
of the inexpediency of taking any notice of her employer’s private
affairs. She turned her back upon the fly, where Mrs. Ford was sobbing.
She had the air of seeing nothing.
“Sir Thomas made me come in the carriage, Miss Trevor. I could not help
it,” she said.
“It makes me so happy to see you at home again,” Mrs. Ford said,
commanding herself. “It is silly, I know, but I can’t help crying when I
am happy. Come and carry in Miss Lucy’s things, Jane. Isn’t it a
pleasure to see her back again? And you follow me, my darling, and I’ll
let you see what we have done for you,” she said, with some triumph.
Lucy went upstairs with a serious face. She thought she knew what she
would find there, everything the same, no difference except in one
thing--the old man sitting by the chimney-corner, with the big blue
folios open on the writing-table, spreading the “Times” on his knees,
rubbing his hands as she came in, looking up at her with his spectacles
pushed up on his forehead. He would not be there, but the place would be
full of him and of his image. She took Jock’s hand into hers, and led
him upstairs. It was a pilgrimage upon which the two orphan children
were going. “Come and see where papa used to sit,” she said. She had
never made great demonstrations of sorrow, but her heart was full of her
father and tears were in her eyes.
Mrs. Ford received them at the door with a look of triumph; but it was
with consternation that Lucy saw what had happened. The whole room had
been transmogrified. The Fords had given all their minds, and a great
deal of money, which was of more immediate value, to the great work.
Wherever it had been blue now it was pink. White curtains, very stiff
with starch fluttered at the windows. There was a great deal of gilding
about--gilt cornices, gilt chairs, gilt cabinets, and over the
mantel-piece an enormous gilt frame inclosing a portrait of old Trevor,
which the good people had caused to be painted by a local artist from an
old daguerreotype, all with the kind intention of giving pleasure to
Lucy. She gave a cry of dismay as she came in. Her father’s chair and
his writing-table--objects which would have recalled him so much more
tenderly than this portrait--had been carried away. In their place was
what the upholsterer called a “lady’s chair,” covered in one of the
newest and most fashionable _cretonnes_, stout little cupids disporting
themselves on a pink ground, and a gilt and highly decorated work-table.
Lucy stood at the door of the room with the checked tears feeling very
hot and heavy behind her eyes.
“This is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, restored to good humor by
the satisfaction with which she regarded her work; “everything in it has
been done for you. We have been working at it these three months and
more. If you had but heard us talking--’Do you think she would like
this? and do you think she’d like that?’ and Ford would say, ‘I saw a
little cabinet in William’s would just please Lucy,’ or ‘There’s some
new curtains at Hemsdon’s are the very thing.’ We’ve done nothing else
these three months. I declare I don’t think I ever slaved so much in my
life--to get carpets that matched and a nice chintz, and the rugs and
everything. But we kept the two old white rugs. Mr. Hemsdon said they
were beauties. I was determined,” said the good woman, “that you should
find something just as pretty as your fine London drawing-rooms. ‘She
sha’n’t come home and find nothing but a dingy old place to sit in, and
think my Lady Randolph’s is a paradise,’ is what I said to Ford, and he
backed me up in everything. And now here it is, Lucy, my darling, and
it’s all for you, and I hope you’ll be as happy in it as I and Ford wish
you to be. I couldn’t say more if I were to talk from this to
Christmas,” Mrs. Ford concluded with a tremulous warmth of enthusiasm
which arose partly from the delightful consciousness of giving her
charge a pleasant surprise, and partly from a quiver of uncertainty as
to whether Lucy’s delight would be equal to the occasion. She added
instantaneously, in a tone which was ready to be defiant, “You may have
seen finer in London: I can’t say; but this I know, you’ll find nothing
like it in Farafield, search where you may!”
“Thank you, Aunt Ford,” said Lucy faintly. “It is very pretty--but--I
was thinking of papa.”
These words checked the rising disappointment and displeasure in the
mind of Mrs. Ford, who, if not very refined in her perceptions, was
kind, and had a sincere if jealous affection for the girl committed to
her care. She took Lucy into her arms and consoled her with much petting
and caressing. “Yes, my pet, I knew you would feel it. Yes, my petty! Of
course it brings it all back. But after the first you’ll find the change
of the furniture very comforting,” Mrs. Ford said.
Lucy did not know what to say when the first pangs of recollection were
over. She went round the room and looked at everything, and did her best
to praise. Six months ago she would have thought it all beautiful. Even
now she had no opinion on the matter, or taste that she was aware of;
but she had been six months away in a different atmosphere, and nothing
could undo or change that fact. She said everything she could to show
her gratitude. Whatever might be said about the curtains or the carpets,
the kindness was indisputable; and it was all very pretty, probably
quite as nice as the other way; but it was different. That was all that
was to be said--everything was different. She placed herself in the
lady’s chair which stood in the place of her father’s old seat, and
found it very comfortable. It was not comfort that was wanting; it
was--Lucy did not know what--it was different. Where she sat she could
see, through the windows and lines of the curtains, the White House
shining in the afternoon sunshine, and the road across the common, still
green with all the freshness of summer. It was very different from the
burned-up parks and the rows of London houses, but not in the same way.
“It is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, not quite satisfied with the
commendation she had received. “For my part, there is nothing I like so
well as my own parlor. It may be vulgar, but that’s my taste. I don’t
want to be moving about all day long from the drawing-room to the
dining-room. I like to feel myself at home. But you are young, and
that’s a different thing. You have to do as other people do. There’s one
thing--just one thing I can’t give in to: I can’t begin at my time of
life to be eating my dinner when I should be having my tea; tea’s far
more to me than any dinner, I never was a great eater, and as for wine,
I can’t abide it. A cup of tea and a bit of toast--that’s what I like.
I’ll see to your dinner if you wish, like in your poor papa’s time, but
I can’t change, that’s just the one thing I can’t do.”
“I do not care for dinner,” said Lucy; “I will do whatever you do, it
does not matter to me.”
“If that’s so,” said Mrs. Ford brightening, and she came up to her
charge and kissed her affectionately, “whatever we can get, or whatever
we can do to make you happy, Lucy, you have only to say it: never mind
the expense. If there is one thing you have a fancy for more than
another, if it should be game, or whatever it is, you shall have it. And
this room is yours, my pet. You’ll excuse me sitting here; I think
there’s nothing like my parlor; but when you want me you can always send
for me. And here you shall always find everything kept nice; and as for
a cup of tea, whenever you want it--I shouldn’t wonder if you were kept
very short up there.”
Mrs. Ford jerked her thumb over her shoulder by way of indicating Lucy’s
former abode. “I know what fine ladies are,” she said: “a fine outside
and not much within. Horses and carriages and all that show, and footmen
waiting, and silver dishes on the table, but not much inside.”
“Lady Randolph was not like that,” Lucy said faintly. She did not know
whether to laugh or to cry; but her companion took her hesitation as a
proof of the correctness of her own judgment, and was triumphant.
“I know ’em,” she said. “I don’t give myself any airs Lucy, but I know
you’ll find nothing like that here. No show, but everything good, and
plenty of it, and not so much fuss made about you--for we’ve got no ends
to serve, Ford and me--but if there’s a thing you want you shall have
it; that is our way, and I don’t see but what you may be very happy
here. Keep all these folks that will be gathering round you, and making
believe to adore you, at a distance, and keep yourself to yourself, and
don’t put your faith in the Rushtons, nor the Stones, nor any of the
Farafield folks; and I don’t see, Lucy my pet, but what you may be very
happy here. And now, my darling, I’ll go down-stairs and see after the
tea.”
Lucy was left alone accordingly, seated in the familiar room, so changed
and transformed, and looking out somewhat drearily upon the common,
which had not changed, which she had crossed so often in those old days
that were never to come back, that could not come back, neither the
simple habits of them, nor the gentle ease of mind and happy ignorance
of everything beyond their quiet round. It was not a cheerful programme
which her present guardian had traced for her, and Lucy, sitting very
still, not caring to move, in the most strangely complete and depressing
solitude which she had ever been conscious of, went further in her
thoughts than Mrs. Ford. Had it all been a mistake? Her father’s
favorite theory, his pet whim about her, his determination to divide her
life between the different worlds of society, one part of it on the
higher level, one on the lower, was that to prove itself at once a
hopeless blunder? Lucy felt too much dulled and stupefied by the sudden
change to be able to think about it; a sensation as of a sudden fall, a
precipitate descent down, down, into a world she no longer understood,
pervaded her being. Lady Randolph’s world had not been a very lofty one;
was it possible that it was the mere external change from one kind of
house to another, from a companion who dressed with exquisite taste to
one who huddled on her common clothes anyhow, and wore crape flowers in
her bonnet; from old, soft, mossy Turkey carpets to brilliant modern
Brussels, that gave her this sensation of downfall? Lucy did not ask
herself the question, nor did it even suggest itself in any formal way
to her mind, only a vague sense of the impossibility of the return, the
radical change in all things, the space she had traversed which could
not be gone back, overwhelmed her vaguely. If it had been a poor country
cottage, a rustic farm-house, real poverty to contrast with the soft
surroundings of wealth, the contrast might have been salutary, and it
might have been natural. But the Terrace was nothing but a vulgar,
unintelligent copy of the house she had come from, the life set before
her now was but a poor imitation of that she had left, but narrowed and
limited and shut in, cut off by jealous precautions from all the human
fellowship that made the other attractive. Ford and his wife, in their
little stuffy parlor, at their teatable, eating their toast and their
shrimps, were as respectable in themselves as Lady Randolph at the head
of the pretty table covered with flowers, softly lighted, and
noiselessly served. Probably they were more honest, more strictly
sincere, than she, and their love for Lucy was a very genuine love, more
profound than her easy affections. But how was it? Lucy could not
tell--to step down all in a moment from Lady Randolph to the Fords was
something incomprehensible and impossible. She could not go back these
six months, the new life had claimed her; she was not capable of
resuming the old where she had left it off. This feeling humiliated and
depressed her, she could not tell how or why. Had they been living in a
little cottage in the country, had they been quite poor, so that she
should have had homely services to do for them, help to give, that would
have been practicable; but to come back to the Terrace with her maid,
and her horse, and her groom, and her new habits, to have all the
indulgences without any of the graces of existence! Lucy sat sadly in
the pink room, all newly bedizened and fine, dressed out by ignorance
and kindness for her pleasure, but not pleasing her at all, and
pondered, dreary and down-hearted. Was it possible that papa himself had
not understood? that he did not know what the real differences were, but
had made to himself some picture of extravagant splendor on the one
side, to be tempered by the Fords and their respectable parlor on the
other? Alas! Lucy felt more and more, as she reflected, that poor papa
did not understand. It made her heart sore to sit in the place where he
had sat, and to contemplate this, and to feel that perhaps, as Sir
Thomas had said, to follow out all those regulations of his, which she
had thought a happiness and consolation, might turn out nothing less
than a bondage. Everything seemed somewhat blank before her, as she sat
thus solitary. She knew the routine so well, there was no margin of the
unexpected, no novelty to carry her on. She had been so deep in thought
that she had not felt a pull at her dress several times repeated. At
last Jock could have patience no longer.
“I say,” he cried, looking up from his old position upon the great white
rug, “Lucy, it is not any good to think.”
Lucy was not greatly given to that exercise of thinking, and, to tell
the truth, she had not found it to be of very much use.
“What makes you say so, Jock?”
“Oh, because I have tried--often,” said the little fellow; “before we
went away from here, and after, when I went to school. It’s no good, you
never find out anything; you wonder and wonder, but you never know any
better. Do you think now,” said Jock, with a gleam of moisture in his
eyes, “that _he_ ever sees us now, or hears what we are talking about? I
wonder--often--”
“I--hope so, Jock,” said Lucy; but as she remembered what she had just
been thinking she faltered a little, and was not so sure that this was
desirable, as in the abstract it seemed to be.
“I wonder,” said the little boy--thoughts such as had filled her mind
had perhaps been vaguely floating across his firmament also. “I
wonder--if he would miss his funny old table and his big blue paper if
he were to come back now.”
“He has now something better; we will not think of that any longer,”
said Lucy, drying her wet eyes.
“But we have got to think of it,” said Jock, reflectively contradicting
himself; “that is funny, everything is funny. There is Aunty Ford at the
foot of the stairs calling us to go down to tea.”
CHAPTER XXX.
HOME AND FRIENDS.
That very evening, notwithstanding her supposed fatigue, the little
world of Farafield was roused to welcome Lucy. The rector and his wife,
going out for a drive in the cool of the evening, drew up their pony at
the door, and left a card and their kind regards, and hoped Miss Trevor
was not tired with her journey; and a little later, when Lucy and Jock
were preparing to stroll out as they had been in the habit of doing,
upon the common, they were stopped by a visit from Mrs. Rushton and her
son and daughter. “We always come out after dinner in the hot weather,”
the visitor explained, “and it is so delightful to have an object for
our walk. I hope you have had a good rest, my dear. What a pleasure,”
said Mrs. Rushton, taking Lucy’s hands in hers, and looking at her with
enthusiasm, “to see you at home again and looking so well!”
Lucy was confused by the warmth and _effusion_ of this unexpected
greeting. Her guardian’s wife had never taken much notice of her in the
old days; but she was pleased at the same time, for affection is always
pleasant, and it was agreeable to find that she had more friends than
she was aware of. Raymond, of whom she remembered nothing, except that
she had seen him at the railway station, was an ordinary young man,
still in his morning suit, by license of the summer, and the
after-dinner walk; and wholly undistinguishable from any other young man
in that universal garb. He said, “How d’ye do?” and taking his right
hand out of his pocket, presented it to her, not without embarrassment.
Lucy gave it him back at once with a great inclination to laugh. She
felt herself a great deal older, and more experienced than Raymond,
though he was two-and-twenty and had taken his degree.
“I hope you will not find Farafield dull,” said Mrs. Rushton; “we must
do what we can to make you like us, Lucy. Have you seen a good deal of
society in town? Oh, I know you could not go out; but Lady Randolph is
always having company. I suppose you would meet her nephew, Sir Thomas.
I hear he is expected at the Hall.”
“Yes,” said Lucy. “He is on his way to Scotland. He came down here with
us to-day.”
“Oh, he is on his way to Scotland? Isn’t this a little out of the way to
Scotland, Ray? I know when _we_ went we had to go a hundred miles round,
your father said, to get to that big junction; but we can’t always
calculate on Sir Thomas. He is a gay deceiver; with that jolly laugh of
his, didn’t you quite fall in love with him, Lucy? I always say he is
the most dangerous man I know.”
“I like him very much,” Lucy said.
“And so does Ray. He is quite captivating to young people. He has always
been so kind to Ray. One forgets the little stories that are current
about him when one comes under the spell. Did you like his aunt equally
well, Lucy? Opinions are divided on that score.”
“She was very kind to me,” said Lucy; “no one ever took so much care of
me. She did not talk of it, but one felt all round one--”
“But still you did not care for her? That is what I have always
heard--very kind, and that sort of thing; but not attractive.”
“Indeed, I am very fond of Lady Randolph,” Lucy said, with a flush of
annoyance. Her visitor laughed and coughed, confused and disconcerted,
though Lucy could not tell why.
“Oh, I only say what I have heard!” she said. “I don’t know much of her
myself. Sir Thomas is the only member of the family whom I know; and I
always frankly admit I think him charming--whatever may be his little
faults.”
All this time Raymond stood swaying about from one leg to another, with
his hands in his pockets. He had received the best of educations, as his
mother proudly declared; but this had not conferred ease of manner or
social grace. Lucy could not help longing that he would sit down; but it
seemed to be against the young man’s principles. He stood between her
and the window, swaying about like a cloud upon the wind, but solid
enough to shut out the light. Miss Rushton was a very big girl of
sixteen in short frocks, who kept half behind her mother, and took
shelter under her wing.
“And what are you going to do, my dear, now you have come back? I hope
we shall see a great deal of you. You will find yourself a little lost
here just for the first The Fords are excellent people, but you will
find yourself a little lost. You must run over to us whenever you feel
dull. To-morrow there is some croquet going on--are you fond of croquet?
You must come early and have a game, and stay to dinner. In this hot
weather we never dress for dinner, for we always have a walk in the cool
of the evening. Is that a bargain?” said Mrs. Rushton graciously. “And
you must bring little Jock. Do you walk with him as you used to do,
Lucy? I think, as a girl, you were the very best sister in the world.”
“Jock and I ride,” said Lucy; “he was always fond of riding. Lady
Randolph sent the horses and the groom, and Jock’s pony. She thought I
might have them here.”
“Certainly, Lucy,” Mrs. Rushton said, with many nods of her head. “That
I am sure your guardians would approve. And what a lucky thing for you,
Ray! Now you can get up all sorts of delightful parties. Emmy is
beginning to ride very nicely too, and you like it, don’t you, dear?
They will be so glad to join. I am so delighted to have found something
in which you can all join.”
“It will be very jolly,” said Raymond. That and “How d’ye do?” was all
that he contributed to the conversation. And Emmy said nothing at all,
except, in shy murmurs of assent, and stifled explosions of laughter
when her mother said anything she thought amusing. The two young people
preceded Mrs. Rushton down-stairs when she had said all she had to say;
but she came back again, once more seized Lucy’s two hands, and added a
parting word in her ear.
“I see that friend of yours, that Mrs. Stone, coming this way. She is
very well in her own place, Lucy; oh, very nice! I thought she behaved
badly to me about Emmy; but that is neither here nor there. Everybody
speaks very highly of her--in her own place. But you must not let her
get you into her hands, dear. She is dreadfully managing, and by hook or
by crook she will have her own way. But you are in a different sphere
altogether. Don’t forget, my dear Lucy, that you are in a different
sphere. I felt that I must just say this. You know what an interest I
take in you. Dear child!” said Mrs. Rushton with enthusiasm, giving Lucy
a sudden and tender kiss of irrestrainable feeling; “who would not take
an interest in you, so young and so nice and so lonely? Till to-morrow,
dear--”
Mrs. Stone met Mrs. Rushton going down. “So it is true that Lucy has
come back,” said that able tactician. “I heard a rumor, and was coming
to inquire, when they told me she was here.”
“Just come. My husband being her guardian, I felt that she had a special
claim upon me, poor dear child. I am afraid she is tired with her
journey, and agitated with all the associations. I have only been there
a moment; I would not stay. I felt it was kindness to postpone a longer
visit.”
“Thank you for the hint,” said Mrs. Stone, calmly pursuing her way
upstairs; and she too took Lucy into her arms, if not with enthusiasm,
yet with the most affectionate interest; she kissed her, and then held
her at arm’s length, and looked into her face, “You are very welcome
back, my dear,” she said, “but, Lucy, there is something new in your
face.”
“Is there?” said Lucy faintly. “I am a little tired; and then there are
so many other things that are new.”
Mrs. Stone looked round the room, with such disdain of the shop
upholstery as was natural to a woman who possessed a parlor furnished
with Chippendales. She said, “Ah, I see they have been doing something
here;” then added, “Lucy, you must not trifle with me; it is not that.
But,” she said, “your hat is on the table; you were going out? it is a
sweet evening, and we can talk just as well on the common. Come, and we
will discuss the whole matter out of doors.”
Lucy was grateful to be released, for the night was warm, and Jane, Mrs.
Ford’s maid, had come up with a taper in her hand, and was threatening
to light the gas. Mrs. Ford was determined that Lucy should want for
nothing, and no consideration of time or season was permitted to
interfere with the proper hours for doing everything in this
well-regulated house. Therefore, though it was somewhat late for Jock,
Lucy put on her hat gratefully, and suffered her hand to be drawn
through the arm of her considerate friend, and drew a long and grateful
breath as she got out upon the breezy sweep of the common, which even in
the twilight showed a faint flush of the heather. “How sweet it is! this
is the one thing which is unchanged,” she said.
“Do you find the place changed, Lucy?”
“Perhaps it is me, Mrs. Stone.”
“You should say I, my love. Yes, no doubt it is you, Lucy. It could not
be otherwise; you have been in so different a sphere, and how could you
help feeling it? I think I can understand you. Lady Randolph is--well, I
don’t know what she is. I confess that I have a little prejudice against
her.”
“Indeed, you should not have any prejudice,” said Lucy earnestly; “she
is so good and so kind--oh, far too good and kind for anything I
deserve.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Stone with a smile. “I understand; a woman with a great
deal of tact, Lucy, who knows what is best for you, and takes her
measures accordingly; oh, yes, I am quite sure Lady Randolph is highly
refined, and a thorough lady, and would do nothing that was unbecoming,
whereas our good Mrs. Ford is just--Mrs. Ford, and a very good woman. I
think it would have been better, Lucy--we have all our little
vanities--if your excellent father had sent you to me.”
“Yes,” said Lucy with a sigh; but there was no enthusiasm in the assent.
Mrs. Stone was slightly disappointed. She gave the girl’s arm a soft
pressure.
“You must let us help you to get through this second beginning: things
will never be so bad again. You will get used to the alteration, and
your interests will spring up. What are you doing about little Jock, my
dear?”
“Nothing,” said Lucy; “he is still so little, and I have no one else. Do
you think, really, I ought to send him, such a little fellow, away from
me to some _real_ school? He was at Mrs. Russell’s, but that was not
like a real school, and I went to see him whenever I liked.”
“Ah! perhaps too often,” said Mrs. Stone, with another pressure of her
young friend’s arm. “I have something to say about that after. But,
Lucy, listen. I will tell you what I was thinking. Frank St. Clair, whom
you may remember, my nephew, is coming to stay with me again. He is not
very well, poor fellow! I will tell you his story some time. He has been
unfortunate.”
“He who was so kind, who came to see papa?”
“Your father interested him so much, dear! He used to come back and tell
me all the clever acute things he said. Yes, Frank St. Clair. This is
one of my disappointments, Lucy, Frank was the pride of all our family.
We all seemed to have a share in him; his father died young, his mother
was poor, and we all helped. He was the cleverest boy I ever saw. At
school he was _extraordinary_; no one could stand against him, and you
can imagine how proud we all were. Am I boring you with my story, Lucy?”
“How could you think so? I am like Jock about a story; there is nothing
I like so much, especially if at the end there is was anything--anything
that could be done.”
“I don’t know what you could do, my dear,” Mrs. Stone said, with a
smile, “but your sympathy is sweet. He was not quite so successful at
the University, there is such competition, but still he did very well,
and also in his work at the bar. For he is a barrister,” said Mrs.
Stone, with a thrill of pride in her voice, “he has been called, and was
just at the beginning of his career, when his health failed. Can you
imagine such a disappointment, such a commentary upon the vicissitudes
of life! Just when he was in a position to justify all our hopes his
health gave way.”
“I am so sorry,” Lucy looked up at her friend with the profoundest pity
in her blue eyes, but something else besides, a spark of hidden
interest, the gleam with which an explorer’s eyes shine when he finds
some new sphere of discovery, a new world to conquer. Lucy had not been
very happy in her first venture, but she jumped at the thought of a
second venture, if it might be found practicable. It was she now who
pressed Mrs. Stone’s arm, clinging closely to it “I am so sorry! I hope
he may soon get better. Is there nothing that could be done?”
“Rest is all he wants, my dear, rest and a relief from anxiety, and
something to do quietly, that will not strain him. As soon as I knew you
were coming back I immediately thought of Jock. Poor Frank is very
independent; he would be less unhappy if he had something to do. And it
is providential for you, for Jock must begin to have something done for
his education; I consider it quite providential for you.”
“If Mr. St. Clair would be so kind. But would he like it, a gentleman,
and a lawyer, and so clever?” said Lucy, puzzled. “Jock is such a
little, little fellow.”
“He will take Jock,” said Mrs. Stone, with tranquil assurance. “He would
not take any little boy, of course, but Jock is exceptional, Jock is
your brother, and you know my interest in you, Lucy. Yes, my dear, do
not be afraid, Frank will take Jock. And now that this is settled--and I
wanted to make your mind easy on the subject--let us talk of other
things. What is all this story about the Russells, Lucy? You have not
allowed Bertie to--he has not, I hope, really acquired any--It is so
difficult to speak to you on such a subject, but you know I am a kind of
guardian too. I should not approve of Bertie Russell. I could never give
my consent--”
“To what?” said Lucy, with great surprise. “Is it about his book, Mrs.
Stone? It was not my fault, indeed, it was not any one’s fault. I
suppose he never thought that people would take any notice. It was just
a mistake, a foolish thing to do. I think even Lady Randolph, though she
was so angry, got to see that at last.”
“Then there is nothing more, Lucy; you can assure me, on your word, that
there is nothing more?”
Lucy was more surprised than ever.
“What should there be more?” she said.
Mrs. Stone laughed, and made no reply.
“So Lady Randolph was angry,” she said. “I don’t wonder; so was I. We
all have the same feeling toward you, Lucy,” and here Mrs. Stone laughed
again, evidently perceiving a humorous aspect of the question which was
unknown to Lucy. “We are all so--fond of you, my dear. Did you see much
of the Randolph family when you were there?”
“Only Sir Tom.”
“Only Sir Tom! that makes you smile. By the way, he is all the Randolph
family, I believe: and he is _nice_, Lucy? I have met him, and I thought
him very pleasant; but he has not a very good character, I am afraid. He
has been what people call wild; but now that he is getting old, no doubt
he is mending his ways.”
Mrs. Stone gave Lucy a keen glance of inquiry as she said this; but as
a matter of fact, Lucy at eighteen honestly thought Sir Thomas old, and
made no protest, which satisfied her friend. She said, after a pause,
“Now I have a pleasant surprise to give you. Katie Russell is here; I am
looking for a situation for her. She has finished her education, and I
wish to place her in a thoroughly nice family.”
“Oh,” cried Lucy, with pained surprise, “I thought that Mrs. Russell--I
thought that _now_ they were all to be at home.”
“Since she came into that money? Oh, no, it is not enough for that;
besides, even if it were more than it is, Katie ought to do something to
make a life for herself. It was a great godsend, the money, but it is
not enough for any great change in their life.”
“I thought--it was enough to live on,” said Lucy, feeling a great flush
of shame come over her face. It had not given her much satisfaction in
any way, but to hear that it was a failure altogether struck her a very
keen and unexpected blow.
“Oh, no, my dear, no,” said Mrs. Stone, all unaware of Lucy’s interest
in the matter; “a pittance! merely enough to give them a little more
comfort, joined to what they have.”
Lucy went home rather subdued after this interview. She did not see
Katie, who was out with Miss Southwood, and she was rather glad to
escape that meeting. She called Jock back from his wanderings among the
heather, and led him home, with his little arms twined round hers. Lucy
felt very much subdued, perhaps because she was tired. She drew little
Jock very close to her, and felt something like the twilight dimness
stealing into her mind.
“Are you tired?” she said; “you ought to be in bed. I think I am tired
too; Jock, are you glad to be at home?”
“I don’t know if it’s home,” said Jock, looking up at her with his big
eyes.
“Neither do I,” said Lucy drearily. “But it is all we have for home,”
she added, with a sigh. “Anyhow, it is you and me, Jock; things can not
be so very bad so long as there is you and me.”
To this Jock assented with a reservation.
“I suppose I shall have to go to school, Lucy; all the other fellows go
to school.”
“I have got a tutor for you, dear; you will not have to go away. Mr. St.
Clair, that used to come and see papa. It is providential, Mrs. Stone
says.”
“What, that fat fellow in the black coat? I don’t mind,” said Jock. “I
think he is a duffer, he’s so fat; but I don’t mind. You don’t know what
that means, Lucy.”
“You should not say such naughty words; that is what you learned at
school,” said Lucy, with disapproval. “I don’t think you learned
anything else there.”
“Duffer is not a naughty word: it means just nothing; but I don’t mind
him at all,” said Jock, with indulgence. He was quite willing to undergo
the experiment. “I should like to have another try,” he said.
When they got to the house it was as dark as an August evening ever is,
and Mrs. Ford, with a candle in her hand, was beginning to fasten up the
windows and doors. She had again put on her stern aspect, and looked
very severe and solemn, as she followed them upstairs. “It is a great
deal too late for that child,” she said. “He ought to have been in bed
an hour ago. So you have had visitors, Lucy? I think they might have
been so civil as to ask for me. After all, though the house may be kept
for your convenience, it’s me that am the mistress of it. And I expect
civility, if there’s nothing more to be looked for. I do expect that.”
“I am very sorry, Aunt Ford.”
“You must be something more than sorry. You must let them see you won’t
stand it. As for that Mrs. Rushton, I think she is insufferable. She
wants to keep you in her set. And Raymond, what does he want here the
first evening? _You_ never knew Ray Rushton; whatever they may say,
don’t you put any faith in them, Lucy. She’s a designing woman; and I
mistrust her, bringing her son the first day.”
“You tell me to put no faith in Mrs. Rushton, and she tells me to beware
of Mrs. Stone, and they both shake their heads about Lady Randolph,”
said Lucy, with a smile that was not happy. “If I am to do what you all
tell me, don’t you think, Aunt Ford, I shall be very lonely? for these
are all the friends I have.”
“My pet,” said Mrs. Ford, “don’t you be afraid; you’ll get friends in
plenty; friends always turn up for a girl who is--a good girl,” she
added, after a momentary pause. Perhaps she had not intended originally
to conclude her sentence in this simple and highly moral way.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHANGED.
Lucy spent two or three days after this in comparative solitude. Her
friends, both the Rushtons and Mrs. Stone, agreed in feeling that it
would be indecorous to make any rush at her. It was a suggestion forced
upon each of them by the too great eagerness of the other, and both
concluded that it would be well to adopt a more dignified course, and to
leave her to herself for the moment. Katie Russell had gone on a visit
of two or three days’ duration, and Lucy found herself thus at full
liberty to realize her loneliness. The weather, as it happened, was very
hot, and Jock and she were shut up for the greater part of the day in
the glaring room, where there was no provision for very hot weather, no
sun-blinds or shutters, but everything open to the blazing sun in the
day, and all lighted up with blazing gas at night. When after those long
and weary days, little Jock went tired and cross to bed, unwilling to
go, yet glad to get the day over, his sister sat alone in the pink
drawing-room in the unshadowed flood of the gaslight, and thought with
the tenderest longing of all she had left behind, and with a sinking at
her heart beyond describing, of all that was before her. The Fords were
in their parlor below, which they preferred, he reading his paper, she
mending stockings tranquilly, at the table with its oil-cloth cover.
Lucy had not required any derangement of their habits. She sat with them
meekly at table, without asking for anything beyond what they chose to
give her; but she had found at once that, after the repast was over, she
was expected to return to her own luxurious apartment, the room which
they were proudly conscious had cost more than any other room in
Farafield, not to speak of the trouble that had been taken over it, and
in which there was a piano and books, and all the things with which
girls are supposed to be amused. Lucy had been called upon by two of the
most important people in Farafield, she had taken several walks and one
ride, and many substantial meals had been set before her at their
comfortable table; what could any girl in her senses want more? And now
she had that beautiful drawing-room to return to, where there was
provision for both mind and body, sofas to repose upon and a piano to
play, and books to read, and where she could certainly gratify herself
with the consciousness of being mistress of a room which had not its
equal in Farafield. Mrs. Ford saw no reason why she should give up her
own evening leisure, the purring quiet of that final hour before
bed-time, when she sat content after supper was over, and all the
affairs of the day concluded. She did her duty by Lucy. She bought
sweetbreads, and other delicacies, instead of the beefsteak which was so
much cheaper, and which Ford liked just as well as the greatest dainty.
She spared no expense upon her guest. She was ready to give her a cup of
tea half a dozen times a day. She had planned a variety of puddings,
that there might be something different at every meal; and, to conclude,
she had given Lucy the best of advice. What could she be expected to do
more?
But Lucy sat very disconsolate in front of the shining steel fire-place
filled up with shavings, amid that blaze of gas, without even the little
stir of a fire which might have given companionship at another season.
She felt like a stranded sailor, like some one shipwrecked on a very
clean, bright, polished desert island, where, however, there was not
even the consolation of struggling for your living to keep you alive.
She pondered all things that had happened, and that were going to
happen. It had given her a painful sensation to hear Mrs. Stone speak of
the Russells, and of the money which had come to them, which was just
enough to enable them to live in comfort, as Lucy had intended. Had that
been a failure, that first effort? And then she thought of the new
claimant, the poor gentleman whom Mrs. Stone had hoped might be lord
chancellor one day, and who was only able to be tutor to Jock. Surely it
would be a right thing to give him enough to remove anxiety, as Mrs.
Stone had said. And this time Lucy thought she would take care that
there was enough, that no one should say it was a pittance. This idea
made her face glow with as much shame as if she had cheated these poor
people, to whom she had meant to be kind. How was she to know what was
enough? especially for a gentleman. Oh, Lucy thought, if I could but ask
some one! If some one would but tell me! But who was there whom she
could consult on such a subject? Her guardians, instead of helping her,
would certainly do all they could to hinder. They would put every kind
of obstacle in her way. Instead of aiding her to make her calculations
and ascertain how much was wanted, they would beat her down to the last
penny, and try to persuade her that half of what she wanted to give
would do. How difficult was this commission she held, this office of
dispenser, almoner of posthumous bounty! Oh, if her father had but done
it himself! he was old, he had experience, he must have known much
better than she could know. But here Lucy stopped short and bethought
herself of the conclusion that had been forced upon her, that poor papa
did not understand. The world in which her timid footsteps were finding
out painfully unaccustomed tracks was one of which even his keen eyes
had not found out the conditions. In her stumblings and gropings she had
already discovered more than his threescore and ten years of keen,
imperfect theory had taught him. And now it was her part to suffer all
the inconveniences and vexations which in his ignorance he had fixed
upon her life. It never occurred to Lucy to make any effort to escape
from them, or even to remain quiescent and refrain from doing the
difficult things he had left her to do. She was determined to execute
his will in every detail. Should she die even of this _ennui_ and
loneliness, she would yet bear it until the appointed moment; and,
though she might have no more success than with the Russells, still she
must flounder on. If she could only find somebody to help her, to give
her a little guidance, to tell her how much, not how little, she ought
to give? There was one indeed who might be a help to her, who would
understand. But was it possible that even Sir Tom had deserted her?
Three days, and he had not come to see her? At this thought there came
into Lucy’s eyes something that felt very like a tear.
This, however, was the last of these silent days. In the morning Katie
Russell burst upon her, all radiant with pleasure. “Oh, what a lucky
girl you are!” Katie cried; “you have got all we used to talk of, Lucy,
I never thought it would come true; but here you are, just looking the
same as ever, though you have been living among swells; and come down to
dazzle us all at Farafield, with beautiful horses, and heaps of money,
and everybody after you. To think that all this should have happened to
you, and nothing at all to me!”
Lucy did not like her friend’s tone. What had come over her that
everything seemed to hurt her? “I don’t think very much has happened to
me,” she said. “What has happened was all before I left here.”
Katie shook her head and her curly locks till she had almost shaken them
off. “I know a great deal more than you think. I know what you were
doing in London, and how you went riding about, and turning people’s
heads. What a lucky girl you are, with everything that heart can desire!
I don’t envy you, not wicked envy, because you are always as good as
gold, and never give yourself airs; but you _are_ a lucky girl. You
don’t even know how different we poor ones are. I have never turned any
one’s head,” said Katie, with a sigh.
“Do not talk of anything so silly,” said Lucy, blushing, she did not
quite know why. “I think you are laughing at me; and to laugh at me is
not kind, for I am not clever as you are, and can not make fun of you.
Katie, tell me all about yourself, what you are doing; and tell me how
they all are at Hampstead, and if they have got into the new house.”
“I am doing--I don’t know what I am doing,” said Katie, “dancing
attendance on Mrs. Stone and old Southernwood. They are going to get me
a situation in some _nice_ family. I wish the nice family would turn up,
for I am very tired waiting and wasting my holidays in this old place.
It is nice being here? Oh, I know what you will say it is very nice, and
I am very ungrateful; but though it is nice it is a school, Lucy and
mamma does not want me at home, and I have got no other place to go.
Lady Langton has been very kind; she asked me to go there for three
days. But it’s dreary always coming back to school, for the White House
is only school when all is said. They are all right at Hampstead, so far
as I know. Did you hear what happened? Mamma has come into some money.
It is not a very great sum, but it is a great help. It was some old
relations, that no one had ever thought of, and mamma says it might just
as well have been the double, for they were _dreadfully_ rich. But
anyhow it has been a great help. With what she had before, I believe
they have quite enough to live on now, without doing anything,” Katie
said with a little pride.
To all this Lucy listened with a countenance void of all expression. She
had been half afraid of her friend’s gratitude: but there was something
in this complete ignorance which was very bewildering. And when she
looked at her own generosity through Katie’s eyes, so to speak, and saw
it _on the other side_, she felt, too, that “it might as well have been
the double,” and contemplated her own action with a mixture of shame and
regret, instead of the satisfaction which she had vainly felt at first.
And this little discovery made her first wound smart all the more. A
certain fear crept over her. She would have liked to stop her ears from
further revelations had she been able. But as that was impossible, Lucy
listened patiently, with a blank countenance, trying hard to dismiss all
appearance of feeling from her face.
“Mamma would like me to stay at home too,” Katie continued “She can not
bear me to be a governess. But I could not do it; stay at home and sink
down into Hampstead tea-parties--oh, I could not do it! If I get into a
good family, Maud and the others will stand by me, and I shall have some
fun at least and see life. To have only enough to live on, and to live
at Hampstead, is more than I _could_ put up with. Bertie, he has gone
into chambers; he doesn’t live with mamma now. I don’t blame him, do
you, Lucy? It must have been so slow for him, a young man. And now he
has some money of his own, of course he has himself to think of. He is
_always_”--Katie said slowly, watching her friend’s face--“always
talking of you.”
Lucy did not make any response; but she was surprised by this unexpected
change in the strain, and looked up involuntarily, with a half inquiry
in her eyes.
“Oh, constantly!” said Katie, with a mixture of natural mischief and
more serious purpose, not quite able to give up the pleasure of laughing
at her companion, yet very seriously determined to help her brother. “He
says you are cross about that dedication. How could you be cross about
it? such a lovely dedication, making you into a famous person all at
once! It is just the same as Dante did, and Petrarch, and all the poets,
Bertie says. And it has brought him luck. Lucy, do you mind? He wants so
much to come down here.”
“Why should I mind?” Lucy asked. Bertie Russell had floated out of her
recollection; why should his movements concern her? even the dedication,
and all the annoyance it had brought, affected her no more.
“That is quite true, why should you mind?” Katie said, with some pique.
“One more or less doesn’t matter, when there are so many. He wants to
come down and study the scenery for his next book. He means to lay the
scene here; won’t it be exciting? People will be sure to say he has
studied the characters too.”
“I don’t think there are many characters here,” Lucy said.
“Oh, don’t you think so? If I were to write a book I know whom I should
put in; the Missis and little Southernwood, and that fat St. Clair; and
old mademoiselle finding out everything about everybody. Oh, I should
soon make up a book if I could write--I wish I could write,” cried
Katie, with flashing eyes.
Was it really so? Was Katie vulgar too? Lucy felt herself shrink
involuntarily. She asked herself whether, in the old school girl days,
there had been chatter like this which had not disgusted her, or if
Katie had deteriorated.
“Do not speak so,” she said; “Katie, it is not like you.”
“Oh, yes, it is quite like me. I always was wicked, you were the good
one, Lucy. I hope Bertie will take them all off; and I hope you will not
be cross to him, Lucy; that would take all the heart out of him. Poor
old Bertie! he thinks you are an angel, that is all he knows.”
“I am never cross,” said Lucy, wounded. What had happened to her? Had
her eyes been anointed by that disenchanting touch which turns all the
glories of fairyland into dross and tinsel? or was she really cross with
everybody and out of tune? She could not tell herself which it was.
“You are cross now,” cried Katie, growing red; and then the hasty tears
started to her eyes, and she complained that her friend was “changed.”
What could Lucy say? either it was true, or it was Katie that was
changed. “You are a great lady now,” the girl cried, “with grand friends
and everything you wish for; and I am only a poor governess, not fit
company for you.”
This reproach went to Lucy’s heart. She could not defend herself from
such an accusation; it took her entirely without defense, without the
power of saying anything for herself; and she had never had any quarrels
in the old days. Thus the two girls parted, Katie running across the
common with red eyes, in high dudgeon, though there was so little cause
for it, while Lucy stood at the window looking after her piteously, and
with an aching heart. Changed! yes, everything was changed, either
within or without; but which poor Lucy could not tell. She scarcely knew
how long she stood there, and she was so occupied with Katie and the
pang of this parting with her that she did not see another visitor
approaching from the town, though he was a very welcome visitor indeed.
When she heard his voice coming up the stair her heart jumped with
pleasure. He had not deserted her then, and gone away without seeing
her. She turned round and opened the door of the drawing-room in the
simplicity of her pleasure.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said with fervor; and Sir Tom came in
smiling, with every appearance of being glad to see her too.
“I thought it best not to come too soon,” Sir Thomas said, “or your old
lady did not like the looks of me, Miss Lucy. Perhaps, I thought, she
might like me even worse than my looks; but this is luck to find you
alone.”
“Oh, but I am always alone,” said Lucy, her countenance falling. “This
is not like Grosvenor Street, Sir Thomas; most of the time I see nobody
at all; and when people come they say that I am changed.”
“Somebody has been vexing you,” said Sir Thomas, with his sympathetic
look. “Never you mind, no one who really knows you will think you
changed; and I hope you are happy on the whole, among your old friends.”
Lucy shook her head.
“It is not that they are not kind,” she said; “they are all very
kind--but they will not permit me to think that other people are kind
too; every one bids me to beware of some one else. You laugh, but I
could cry; and it makes me that I don’t know what to do.”
“They bid you beware of me? Well, I suppose that was to be expected,”
Sir Thomas said, with a laugh.
“Oh, not only of you, but of each other; and Aunt Ford warns me against
them all. Well, it is amusing, I suppose,” said Lucy, “but it does not
amuse me,” and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear little girl (I am an uncle, you know), things will mend,” said
Sir Tom. “Come, tell me what they say of me. Did they say I was an
extravagant fool, and had wasted all my living like a prodigal? Alas!
that is true, Lucy. It may be uncharitable to say it, but the ladies are
quite right; and if it were not for that excellent plan of the uncle,
perhaps, as they tell you, it would be better for you to have nothing to
do with me.”
“I do not believe that,” cried Lucy, almost with vehemence. And then she
paused and looked at him anxiously, and, with a crimson color gradually
coming over her face, asked in a low tone, “Sir Thomas, do not be angry;
are you _poor_?”
He grew red, too, with surprise, but then laughed.
“Well,” he said, “yes, for my position I certainly am. When a man has a
great house to keep up, and a number of expenses, if he is not rich he
must be poor.”
“Ah! but I don’t think that could be what papa meant,” cried Lucy, with
a profound sigh.
“I can not tell, nor what you mean either, my little Lucy,” he said. “I
feel very much like an old uncle to-day, so you must pardon the
familiarity; you are so little, and so young, and I am so _flêtri_, with
crows’-feet beyond counting. Lucy, I have come to bid you good-bye, I am
going to Scotland, you know.”
“Oh!” said Lucy, her countenance falling. “I hoped--we hoped--you were
not going directly. So long as you were near, I felt that there was some
one--Must you really go, Sir Tom?”
Neither of them noticed at the moment the sudden familiarity into which
they had fallen, and Lucy’s dismay was so candid that it was all Sir
Tom could do to keep from a caress, such as would have been very
appropriate to his assumed character, but not very consistent with the
partial guardianship he had been trusted with.
“It is very sweet of you to be sorry,” he said, rising and walking to
the window, where he stood looking out for a moment with back to her,
“but I am afraid I must go, at all events, it will be better for me to
go. If you want anything very urgently, write to me, or send me a
telegram; but I don’t suppose you will have any very pressing
necessities,” he said, turning round with a smile.
“No,” said Lucy, very downcast; “oh; it is not that. I have not any
necessities; I wish I had. It is just--it is only--one wants some one to
speak to, some one to tell--”
She was so disappointed that there came a little quiver into her lips
and quaver in her tone. Had he been right? Was it really true that she
was no more in love with him than he was with his old aunt? Sir Thomas
was only human, and an amiable vanity was warm in him. A pleasant little
thrill of surprise and gratitude went through his heart. Was it perhaps
possible? But Lucy made haste to add,
“You are the only person that I could tell something to--something that
is on my mind. My guardians know, so it is not quite, quite a secret;
but no one else knows; and when I go to them they always oppose me--at
least they did everything they could against me the one time, and I
thought if I could tell you, who are a gentleman, and have experience,
it would be such a comfort, and perhaps you could guide me in doing what
I have to do. Papa did not say I was to tell nobody. I am sure he would
have liked me to have some one to stand by me, since you are so kind to
me, Sir Tom.”
“You may calculate upon me, Miss Lucy. What is it? or do you want to
tell me now, when I am going away?”
His tone was cooled, chilled. Lucy did not quite know how, but she felt
it. Almost for the first time since she had known him, Sir Thomas looked
at her with no wavering of expression in his face, no twinkle in his
eye.
“It will perhaps--be a bore to you,” she said, chilled too, and
hesitating.
“You learned that word in town,” he said, melting and relaxing into his
habitual laugh. “Come, tell me; when I know, then I shall be able to
advise, and you will find me infallible. Something guardians oppose?
then I suppose it must be a desire you have to be kind to other people,
Lucy. They could not refuse you any little wants of your own.”
“How clever you are, Sir Tom!” said Lucy lighting up; “that is just
what, it is. Papa left me a great deal of money--I believe it is really
a great deal of money--to give away. Perhaps you may have noticed that I
have been rude, very rude, in asking if people were--poor.”
“You asked _me_ so ten minutes ago,” he said.
“Oh, you must not think I meant--Sir Thomas, papa says in his will--and
he has said it to me often--not to waste the money, giving a little
here, and a little there, but when I could find out a fit occasion to
provide for somebody, to put them quite above want.”
“And the thought crossed your sweet little soul,” he said, with one of
his big laughs, “my dear child! to provide for me.”
“No! Oh, no! I never could have been so impertinent; indeed that was not
what I meant; only it flashed across me how much better, if I could, to
give it to some one I liked, than to some one I knew nothing about and
didn’t care for; but then it was not to be people I cared for--only
people who were poor.”
“Lucy, do you care for me?”
“Very much, Sir Tom,” she said, with a brightness quite unusual to her,
turning upon him eyes which met his with perfect frankness and calm.
Will it be believed that Sir Thomas was utterly disgusted by this quite
candid, affectionate, innocent response?
“Ah! that is precisely what I said,” he muttered to himself, jumping up
impatiently from his chair; then he laughed and sat down again.
“Well, well, tell me how I can help you. This money is to be spent on
the deserving poor. In short, it is a charitable fund.”
“There is nothing about deserving. It is a great deal of money. It is
nearly as much as the half of what I have got. What papa wished was that
it should be _given back_.”
“The half of what you have got!” Sir Thomas stared at her bewildered, in
his mind making a rapid calculation that, with the half of what she had
got, Lucy would no longer be the greatest heiress in England. He was not
sorry. She would still have a great fortune. Somehow, indeed, it pleased
and conciliated him that she should be put down from that high pedestal.
This was his only reflection on the subject. “What are you to do? are
you to establish institutions or build hospitals?” he said.
“Oh, no, nothing of that kind; only to provide for those that want, not
for the very, very poor, at least not always; but for poor people who
are not poor. Do you know what I mean, Sir Thomas?--for those who have
been well off.”
“I understand: like me--poor ladies and poor gentlemen.”
“We were not ladies and gentlemen ourselves. It is not confined to
them,” said Lucy, doubtfully; “families that are struggling to live,
whether they are gentlemen, or whether they are not--clerks like my
Uncle Rainy, or school-masters like papa. Do you consider it very
insulting to offer people money, when you see that they want it very
much?”
“Well, that depends,” said Sir Thomas, recovering his humorous look,
“upon the person who offers and the person to whom it is offered. It
happens so rarely that one has no experience on the subject.”
“Do you remember, Sir Thomas, when I borrowed that hundred pounds?” Lucy
said. “That was for one--it was my first, my very first. She was very
much offended, and then she said she would take it as a loan. I cheated
her into it,” the girl said, with glee; “I told her I could not give any
loans--papa never said anything about loans--but she could give it me
back if she wished when I am my own mistress in seven years. Don’t you
think she will forget before that time? It would be rather dreadful to
have it back.”
“That depends also,” he said; “but I think it very likely that she will
forget. Only take care, take care. Presents of a hundred pounds are very
pleasant things. You will have crowds of claimants if you don’t mind.”
“A hundred pounds!” said Lucy; “oh, it was not an insignificant thing
like that!”
“You think that insignificant? You have princely notions, it must be
allowed. Might one ask--”
“I counted up very closely,” Lucy said. She was drawn along by the tide
of her own confidences; “for it was no use giving a little bit that
would be swallowed up directly, and do no good. You see it was a lady,
and ladies are not so expensive as men. In that case, and it was my
first, it was six thousand pounds.”
“Six thousand pounds!” Sir Thomas sprung to his feet in comical
consternation, as if he had been struck by electricity. “My dear little
girl,” he said, half tragically, half laughing, “do you know what you
are doing? Are you sure this is in your father’s will? and do your
guardians allow it? I feel my head going round and round. Six thousand
pounds! to some one not related to you, a stranger!”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, earnestly, “or it would not be giving it back. My
guardians oppose it as much as ever they can.”
“And I don’t wonder at it!” cried Sir Thomas. “I think I should oppose
it, too; if I were one of them. My dear little Lucy, you are upsetting
the very principles of political economy. Do you know what that means?
You will demoralize everybody you come in contact with. Even I, though
my instincts are not mendicant, it is all I can do not to hold out my
hand for something. I shall be doing it if I stay much longer,” he said.
Lucy looked at him with a dubious, half alarmed look. She never was
quite sure whether he was in jest or earnest, and the possibility, even
the most distant possibility, that he could mean--Even Lucy’s
imagination, however, could not go so far as that. He could read her
doubt in her face, and laughed out.
“I warn you to take care,” he said. “You will be the ruin of all your
friends; but, Lucy, Lucy, this is a very wonderful business; it is like
a fairy tale. You gave away six thousand pounds, and were permitted to
do so at your age? and you mean to do it again--and again?”
“Oh, as often as ever I can,” Lucy said, fervently. “I can not bear to
think how many people may be in want of it, and that I don’t know them,
and don’t know how to find them out. This makes me very unhappy when I
think of it. Perhaps you will help me to find them--”
“No, that I can not promise to do. I warn you I shall be holding out my
own hand presently. On the contrary, I will keep people out of your
knowledge. You will ruin all our principles,” he said.
“But when it is in the will,” cried Lucy. It is inconceivable how much
lighter her heart felt since she had told him. There was a little flush
on her cheeks, and her eye shone with a pleasant light. She could have
gone on talking for hours now that the flood-gates were open. It was so
easy to talk to Sir Tom. His very laugh was kind, he never found fault,
or if he did, that was as pleasant as the rest; she had a kind of frank
admiration of him, and trust in him, such as some girls feel for an
elder brother. The unusual gleam of excitement in her face made the
little quiet Lucy pretty and interesting, and Sir Thomas was flattered
and piqued at once by the enthusiasm of affectionate faith which was in
her eyes. It piqued him, and it pleased him--that he should have all
this, and yet no more. He had got a great deal more in his life and
looked for it, and the absence of it made him a little impatient.
“Well,” he, said, “you will go through the world like a good fairy, and
I hope the good you will do will make up for the demoralization your
want of principle will lead to. But before my principles are ruined,
Lucy, good-bye. I must go. I have written my address there in your
blotting-book, and if you want me, or if you want to ask me anything, be
sure you do it. Thank you for taking me into your confidence. But now I
must go away.”
Lucy got up to say good-bye, but her heart sunk. “Oh, must you go?” she
said; “I am so sorry. While you were here the place was not quite so
lonely. But I hope you will like the shooting very much,” she said with
a sigh, and a sense of real self-sacrifice. Her eyes got moist in spite
of herself; and Sir Thomas bent over her and kissed her forehead, or
rather her hair, in spite of himself. He ought not to have done it, and
he was half ashamed of having done it. “Good-bye, my little Lucy,” he
cried. As for Lucy, she took this kiss “sedately” like the poet’s
heroine. It seemed so natural, she liked him so much; she was glad he
liked her a little, too.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A NEW ADVISER.
Lucy was greatly comforted by the visit of Sir Thomas. It made her sad
to see him go away, and the consciousness that he was no longer within
reach raised for the moment another cloud upon her horizon; but on the
whole it was an exhilaration to her to have spoken to him, to have
shared her secret with him. She had, as she said, tried to communicate
it to Lady Randolph in the early days of their companionship; but it had
been so very far from Lady Randolph’s thoughts that Lucy’s timid hint
had made no impression on her mind. Neither would Sir Thomas have been
capable of understanding had she spoken less plainly than she did; but
Lucy at last had spoken very plainly, and he had understood. He had not
given her any valuable advice. In such circumstances there is very
little advice practicable; but he had understood, which is such a great
matter. She knew no better what to do, how to turn, and how to
distribute the money, than she had done at the first; but yet she was
easier in her mind. She had talked it over, and it had done her good.
Henceforward she was not alone in her possession of this secret. A
secret is a very heavy burden to be borne alone, and, though Lucy had
been restrained by many considerations from asking Sir Thomas’ advice on
the special question which now occupied her mind, she was still
consoled. In case of any break-down he would not blame her; he would
give her his sympathy. In case of any difficulty she could write to him,
or even summon him to her aid. He liked her, which was a pleasure to
think of--liked her as she liked him--though he was so much older, and
of so much more importance in the world. All this was of great comfort
to Lucy. She began to hold up her head, and to feel herself less
abandoned. It was true he had gone away, but that did not matter so
much; he would come back if she wanted his help; and in the meanwhile
time was going, floating on noiselessly and swiftly, and by and by the
Farafield chapter would be over. Mrs. Ford, who had watched for Sir
Tom’s departure very jealously, and who had bounced out of the parlor to
see him go away, and detected a little redness about Lucy’s eyes, was
reassured by hearing her hum little tunes to herself in the latter part
of the day, and talk to Jock with great animation about his new tutor,
and all that was going to happen.
“She didn’t mind after all,” Mrs. Ford said; “how should she, a man old
enough to be her father!” And thus everybody was pleased.
In the afternoon Katie Russell came in, all tearful and penitent, to beg
Lucy’s pardon, and declare that “it was all me.” The pardon was accorded
with great willingness and satisfaction, and Katie stayed and chattered,
and made a lasting peace. She offended Lucy’s taste no longer; or else
Lucy awoke to the fact that her friend was never entirely to her taste,
and that toleration is the most essential of all qualities to
friendship. Katie remained to tea. She told Jock a quite new story,
which he had never heard before, and could not parallel out of his
books; and she beguiled Lucy back into the old world of careless youth.
Lucy’s youth had never been so thoughtless or so merry as that of many
of her comrades. Even Katie, though she had known so many of the
drawbacks of life, had, on the other hand, got a great deal more
pleasure out of it than the heiress had ever known. Sometimes the
pleasures and the pains go together, and it is a question whether those
are best off who hold the middle way between, and have not much of
either. Katie was a more lively companion than Lucy, with her serious
upbringing, her sense of responsibility, and those cares which had been
put so prematurely upon her young head, could ever have been. The pink
drawing-room for the first time became mirthful, and light voices and
laughter disturbed the quiet. “Just listen,” Mrs. Ford said: “Sir
Thomas, for all such a great man as you think him, has not made much
impression there.” Her husband, who had a very high opinion of the
influence of Sir Thomas, uttered a “humph” of protestation from where
he sat in his easy-chair by the fire-place. The grate full of shavings
was not so pleasant as the grate with a good fire in it was in winter;
but it was Ford’s place at all seasons. He said nothing but humph!
having nothing to add to bolster up his opinion. But it would have been
as surprising to him as to his wife had they known that it was he who
was in the right, and that even Lucy’s laugh, her easier mind, her more
cheerful face, owed something to the cheerful presence of Sir Tom, even
though he had gone away.
At tea they were joined by another and unexpected visitor, at the sight
of whom Mrs. Ford threw up her hands. “Philip,” she cried, “I thought
you were abroad. How glad I am to see you! Dear, dear, how little one
knows! I was thinking this very afternoon, when I saw a picture of the
snowy mountains--there, now, Philip’s about there.”
“I have come back,” said Philip; “I was abroad all last month, but a
great many things seemed to call me home. There is a bit to be built on
at Kent’s Lane. And there was Lucy. Oh, how do you do? You _are_ here! I
thought,” he said with frankness which Mrs. Ford thought excessive,
“that I must come back if Lucy was here.”
“I shall be here for six months,” said Lucy, calmly, “I am very glad to
see you, Cousin Philip, but it is a pity you should have come back for
me.”
“I don’t regret it,” said the young man; he did not resemble any of the
others whom Lucy knew. He was not like St. Clair, or yet Raymond
Rushton, who, though the one was fat and the other awkward, had still a
certain naturalness and ease, as if they belonged to the position in
which they were. Philip was a great deal more carefully adapted to his
position in every respect than they were. He had just the clothes which
a man in the country in the month of August ought to wear, and he had
been absent, spending the first part of his holiday “abroad,” as most
men in August would like to be. He had all the cleanness and neatness
and trimness which are characteristic of a well bred Englishman. He was
not fine; there was no superfluous glitter about him--not a link too
much to his watch-chain, not an unnecessary button. In the very best
taste! the only thing against him was that his appearance was too
complete. He had the air of being respectful of his clothes, and very
conscious of them. And he was always on his good behavior, very careful
to commit no solecism, to do exactly what it was right to do. He came in
with his hat in his hand, and clung to it, though all the time it was
apparent in his countenance that he would much rather have left it in
the hall. It was in such matters that Philip Rainy betrayed himself, for
in his heart he felt that it would also have been much more sensible had
he hung up his hat, and not encumbered himself with the care of it. He
sat down on the haircloth sofa, not approaching his chair to the table
round which all the others were seated. He had been brought up upon
bread and butter, and was very well accustomed to the homely tea-table;
but he felt he owed it to himself to keep up a position of independence,
inferring the superior dignity of a late dinner even in vacation time,
and a soul above tea.
“Nothing to eat?” said Ford. “I think you’re wrong, Philip; here is
toast, and there are some nice slices of cold beef; and there’s cake,
but there’s no substance in cake. It is good enough for girls, who live
upon nothing; but a man, except to finish off with, wants something more
solid. Have a bit of cold beef--that’s what I’m taking myself.”
“Let him alone,” said Mrs. Ford; “he don’t want to spoil his dinner. I
hope you haven’t come home on some wild-goose chase or other, Philip. I
hope you have a better reason than just to see Lucy; but, anyhow, you’re
welcome. Lucy has been home only a few days, and she’s not spoiled, nor
much changed, though she might be. I can not say that I think she’s much
changed.”
“Lucy is not one to change,” the young man said; and he looked at her
with an affectionate smile; but somehow, in the very act of going to
her, this look was arrested by the little saucy face of Katie Russell, a
face which was brighter and more mischievous, but not half so strong in
moral beauty as that of Lucy. She caught him, looking at him as the most
timid of young girls may look at a stranger, when under the care of a
most decorous roof and a matron’s ample wings. The young man actually
swerved a little aside, and stopped dead short in what he was saying. It
was as if some one had given him a blow.
“I forgot to introduce you to Miss Russell,” said Mrs. Ford, catching
the look, but not understanding it. “A cousin of ours, Mr. Rainy, Miss
Russell. No, you are right about Lucy; but she has a great many
temptations. There are folks about her that have their own ends to
serve. She is one that many a person envies; but I for one don’t envy
Lucy. I tell her sometimes I wonder how many of her fine friends would
stand by her--My Lady This, and Mrs. That--if she were to lose her
money; _that’s_ what they’re after. And she’s too trusting; the thing
for her would be to keep herself to herself.”
“Indeed,” cried Katie Russell, with sparkling eyes, “it is very cruel
and unkind of you to say so. Lucy knows very well _we_ don’t love her
for her money. What do I care for her money? I was fond of Lucy before I
knew what money meant, and so I would be fond of her,” cried the girl,
with a flush of passion, “if it were all tossed into the sea--and all my
people,” she added, after a moment, “as well as me.”
Lucy had followed this little outburst with pleasure in her mild eyes,
but the last words gave her a shock, as of the real penetrating into the
poetical. Her mind was not quick enough to jump at the subtle mixture of
semi-truth and semi-falsehood in it, but she felt, though she could not
define. There was the bitterest kind of humor in the suggestion, but
Katie, perhaps, did not know, and certainly did not, at the moment, mean
anything different from what she said.
“Susan,” said Ford, with a nod to Philip, “wasn’t meaning anybody in
particular. There is no occasion, Miss Russell, to take offense. Mrs.
Ford was meaning--other persons that shall be nameless,” Ford added,
with a wave of his hand.
“They are all wrong, Philip,” said Lucy. “I wish so very much people
would not speak so. It takes all the pleasure out of my life. Lady
Randolph never talked about my money, never warned me against any one.
Please don’t do it, Aunt Ford!”
“I know,” said Mrs. Ford, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “I’ve
seen it from the very first in your face, Lucy. I’m not a fine lady,
like your Lady Randolph; I can’t put a smooth face on everything and let
you go sailing over a precipice as if it were nothing to me. I am only
one that speaks out plain what is in my mind, and one that has known you
from your cradle, and have no ends of my own, but your interest at
heart. But to be plain and true’s not enough for you any longer. I’ve
known it all this time, I’ve seen it in your face; but I didn’t think
you would put it into words, and before strangers, and me Lucilla
Rainy’s cousin, and one that has known you from your cradle, and nursed
your father on his death-bed; oh, I never thought you could have the
heart to put it into words!”
“Have I said anything wrong?” said Lucy, in great distress. She was
bewildered by the sudden attack, and horrified by the scene, “before
strangers;” for Lucy had all the instincts of respectability, and to see
Mrs. Ford’s tears filled her with pain and involuntary compunction; but
she was not so emotional as to lose her sense of justice. “I did not
mean to say anything wrong,” she repeated, anxiously. Mrs. Ford’s tears
were a little slow in coming; she sniffed, and she held her handkerchief
to her face, which was red with anger and excitement, but she did not
possess, at any time, a great command over tears.
Then Philip took up the part of peace-maker.
“You said yourself, two minutes ago, that Lucy was not changed,” he
said. “Because you think she should be on her guard, you don’t want her
to be unhappy; and if she does not like her friends, how can she be
happy, Mrs. Ford? So good a friend as you are must know that. To be
sure,” said Philip, “we of the Rainy family can’t help being a little
anxious and fussy about our heiress, can we? We think more of her than
other people can, and care more for her.”
“That is the truth, that is the very truth,” cried Mrs. Ford. And thus
the incident blew over in professions that Lucy’s interest and happiness
were all she thought of, on one side, and, on the other, that she meant
to say nothing which could hurt Mrs. Ford’s feelings.
Philip went upstairs with the girls after this, into the pink
drawing-room, where he sat all the evening, forgetting his dinner. He
had come to see Lucy, but it was Katie Russell who took the conversation
in hand; and as he was a very staid young man, not used to the lighter
graces of conversation, Katie’s chatter and the perpetual variations of
her pretty face were a sort of revelation to Philip. He was entirely
carried beyond himself and all his purposes by this new being. Lucy sat
tranquilly in her corner and assisted, but did little more. She was
amused to see her grave cousin laughed at and subdued, and the evening
flew over them, as evenings rarely fly in more edifying intercourse. The
talk and laughter were at their height, when Katie, going to the piano
to sing “just one more song,” suddenly discovered that it was too dark
to see her music, and stopped short with a cry of dismay. “Why, it is
dark! and I never noticed--What will Mrs. Stone think? I came over only
for half an hour, and I am staying all the night. Lucy, good-bye, I must
go now.”
“But you have promised me this song,” Philip said; “there are candles to
be had.”
“And you are not going to run away like that. Jock and I will go home
with you,” said Lucy, “and, perhaps, Philip will come, too.”
Philip thanked his cousin with his eyes, and the song was sung; and then
the little party got under way. It was a warm still night, with a
little autumnal mist softening all the edges of the horizon, and mild
stars shining through with a kind yet pensive softness. Philip Rainy had
been admirable in all the relations of life. He had done his duty by his
parents, by his scholars, and by himself; he had combined a prudent
sense of his own interests with justice to everybody, and kindness to
those who had a claim upon him; and the life which lay behind him was
one which any well-regulated young man might have looked back upon with
pleasure. But all at once it seemed to the young school-master that it
was the dreariest of desert tracks, and that up to this moment he had
never lived at all. He had never understood before what the balmy
atmosphere of a summer night meant, or how it was that the stars got
soft, and came to bear a personal relation to the eyes that looked at
them. What did it mean? He had come to see Lucy, but he barely perceived
Lucy. All the world and all his interests seemed suddenly concentrated
into the little circle in which that one little figure was standing. He
stood beside her, drawn to her by a soft inexplainable influence. He
walked beside her as in a dream, everything was sweet--the night air
that lifted her bright hair and tossed it about her forehead; the
gorse-bush that clung to her dress and had to be disengaged, every
prickle giving him another delicious prick as he pulled them away.
Whether he was dreaming, or whether he had gone clean out of his senses,
or whether this was a new life of which he had never been conscious
before, Philip did not know. When they arrived at the White House, which
they did not do by honest, straightforward means, along the plain road
that led to it, but by a quite unnecessary roundabout--an excursion led
by Jock through all the narrowest byways--a sudden stop seemed to be put
to this chapter of existence. He had a hand put into his for one second,
a succession of merry nods, and farewells waved by the same hand, and
then he stood with Lucy, come to himself, outside a blank door, a
dropped curtain, a sudden conclusion. Philip stood gazing; he did not
seem to have any energy even to turn round. Had it been suggested to him
to lie down there and spend the night he would have thought the
suggestion most reasonable. Had he been alone he would, no doubt, have
lingered, for some time at least. Even as it was, he never knew how long
a time--a minute, or an hour, or perhaps only an infinitesimal moment,
too small to be reckoned on any watch--elapsed before, slowly coming to
himself with the giddiness of a fall, he saw that he was with Lucy, and
that she was turning to go home. Jock was roaming on in advance, a
little moving solid speck in the vague dark, and Lucy moved on, softly
and lightly, indeed, but with no enchantment about her steps. And then
what she said was all of the old world, the antiquated dried-up Sahara
of existence from which Philip had escaped for the first time in his
life.
“It looks a little like rain,” Lucy said; “it is a good thing we are not
far from home.”
“Ah! but it does not so much matter now,” Philip said, with a sigh. “She
would have spoiled her pretty dress.”
“Yes; muslins go at once,” said Lucy; “it is the starch. I didn’t think
it would rain when we came out. But we must not grumble--we have had a
beautiful summer. Does Farafield seem just the same to you, Philip, when
you come home?”
“Farafield! I never saw anything so sweet--the air is softer than I ever
felt it in my life; and the common smells--like Paradise,” cried the
young man in the sudden bewilderment which had come upon him, which he
did not understand.
“Do you think so?” said Lucy, in great surprise; especially the last
point was doubtful; but she thought it was the warmth of local
enthusiasm, and blamed herself for her want of patriotism. “I like it
very well,” she added, with hesitation; “but--_after_ one has been away
the first time, then one sees all the difference. I don’t suppose I
should feel the same again.”
Then there was a pause. Philip did not feel inclined to talk; his mind
was quite abstracted out of its ordinary channel. As they went back he
felt within himself a dual consciousness--he was walking with _her_,
helping her over the stones, disengaging her dress from the prickles;
and at the same time he was walking demurely with Lucy, who required no
such services. The sensible young schoolmaster, had the question been
suddenly put to him, could not, at the moment, have distinguished, which
was true.
But Lucy, curiously enough, was seized with an inclination to open her
mind to her cousin. She had come back to her natural condition, through
the help of Sir Tom and Katie, and she wanted to be friendly. She said,
“I am so glad that you have come home, Philip. You know--so much more
than Aunt Ford knows. Perhaps if you will tell her that everybody is not
thinking of my money--that it is not half so important as she
thinks--she will believe you.”
“Your money!” Philip said, with a gasp--suddenly the stars disappeared
out of the sky; the summer evening became less balmy; there was a moment
of rapid gyration, either of the whole round world itself or of his
head, he could not tell which; and he felt himself strike sharply with
his foot upon a stone in the path, and came to earth and to common life
again, limping and rubbing his ankle. “Confound it!” he said, under his
breath; but perhaps it was his good angel that put that stone in his
way. He came wholly and entirely to himself under the stimulus of that
salutary pain.
“I hope you have not hurt yourself,” said Lucy, with her usual calm.
“Oh, it is nothing,” said Philip, ashamed. “The fact is, I came home
sooner than I intended, thinking--that, perhaps, you might want some
advice. For instance,” he said, grasping at the first idea which
occurred to him, a sort of staff of the practical in this chaos of the
vague and unknown where he had suddenly found himself stumbling, “about
Jock--he is in my way--I might help you about Jock.”
“Oh,” said Lucy, with animation, “thank you, Philip, that is all
arranged. I have got the most delightful plan settled. Mrs. Stone’s
nephew, a poor gentleman who is in bad health; just when he was about
succeeding so finely at the bar--and it is a great thing to succeed at
the bar, isn’t it?--his health gave way; and he is so good as to be
willing to come and teach Jock. I think it is so very kind.”
“Kind!” said Philip at last, thoroughly woke up. He opened his eyes wide
and shook himself instinctively. This was what Mrs. Ford meant, and no
wonder if she made a scene. “This is a strange step to take, Lucy,” he
said, seriously. “I don’t know what it means. I should think, as a
relative, and your father’s successor, and--engaged in tuition” (nature
had brought the word schoolmaster to his lips, but unless you belong to
the higher branches of the profession, you do not like to call yourself
a school-master), “that I had the first claim.”
Lucy was greatly distressed. She had never considered the question
before in this light. “Oh, Philip! I am so sorry. So you should have
had, if I had ever thought! I beg your pardon a thousand times. But
then,” she added, recovering her composure, “you have a great many
boys--it does not matter to you; and this poor gentleman--”
“Poor gentlemen ought not to come to you,” said Philip, with
indignation. “A barrister, a man in bad health--what has he to do with a
small boy? Jock ought to have come to me. I proposed it before you went
to London; it is the best thing for him. I think that your father meant
him to be my successor in Kent’s Lane.”
“Oh, no, no! never that,” said Lucy.
“Is it so much beneath Jock?” Philip said, with a touch of natural
bitterness. “But anyhow, it is I that ought to have the charge of him. I
do not want to be unkind, Lucy; but I think I begin to see what Mrs.
Ford means about your family.”
“Philip!” cried Lucy, indignant; and then she added, almost crying, “You
are all so unjust; and if you say so, too, what am I to do?”
“I will not say anything; but it is what I can not help thinking,” said
Philip, with the stateliness of offense. It seemed to him, he could
scarcely tell how, that he was being defrauded, not of Jock, who was a
trifle, but of all share or interest in Lucy’s future. He had come back
on purpose to look after her, to keep her out of trouble. While he had
been away it had been more and more clear to him that to share Lucy’s
fortune was in a manner his right. It would save him at least ten years,
it would secure his position at once, and he had a right. He had come to
the Terrace that evening full of this idea; and he had played the
fool--he could not but allow that he had played the fool. What were
poetry and the stars and the mild influences of the Pleiades to him? He
was a Rainy, and there was no one who had so much right to share the
great Rainy fortune. The energy of opposition awoke him, which nothing
else, perhaps, could have done. “You will forgive me,” he said, “but you
are only a young girl, and you can not be expected to understand. And it
is quite true what Aunt Ford said, there are always a herd of harpies
after a young girl with a large fortune. You should take the advice of
those who belong to you. You should first consult your true friends.”
Lucy was confounded; she did not know how to reply. Was not Sir Thomas
her true friend? He had not been angry with her when she told him about
that famous scheme for giving the money back. Some floating idea that
Philip would have been able to help her in that respect, that he might
have suggested what, for instance, she should give to St. Clair, had
been in her mind. But Lucy promptly shut up her impulse of confession.
She withdrew a little from his side. He was not ignorant like the
Fords--he was a kind of natural adviser. “But what is the use of
speaking to any one who does not understand?” Lucy said. So they
traversed the rest of the way in silence, Philip occasionally making a
severe remark in the same vein, yet feeling, as he did so, that every
word he said was a sacrifice of his vantage-ground. He wanted to change
his tactics when he saw the evident mistake of strategy he had made. But
such matters are not within our own control; when a false key is struck
it is not easy to get free of it. Philip was ready to curse himself for
his folly; but at the same time his folly and his wrong key-note and the
misadventure of the evening altogether gave him a sense of almost
aversion to his cousin. “What a contrast!” he said to himself. Thus
Lucy, whose simplicity was captivating to such a man of the world as Sir
Tom, made the Farafield schoolmaster indignant and impatient beyond
measure. Sir Thomas would have been in no sort of danger from little
Katie. Thus the world goes on, without any regard to the suitable or
possible. They said “good-night” very coolly to each other, and Lucy ran
upstairs vexed and troubled--for to be disapproved of wounded her. As
for Mrs. Ford, she came out of the parlor, where she now seemed to lie
in wait for occurrences, when she heard them come to the door. “Come
soon again, Philip,” she whispered, “there’s a good lad. I think the
whole town is after her. You are the one that ought to get it all. You
will be kindly welcome if you come every day.”
“I have not a notion what it is you want me to get,” said Philip,
crossly, as he strode away.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
VISITORS.
The day on which these events occurred was the day of Mr. Frank St.
Clair’s arrival at the White House, where he had come dutifully in
answer to his aunt’s summons, to hear of “something to his advantage.”
To do him justice, he was by no means delighted with the project; but he
was dutiful and needy, and there was nothing for it but to submit. He
went the next morning to pay his respects to the heiress and assume the
charge of his pupil. It was not a long walk from the White House, but
Mr. Frank St. Clair was warm when he arrived, being, according to the
euphemism of the day, “out of training,” and glad to sit down and
contemplate the little fellow who was to be the instrument of his
fortune. Jock, who had resumed his position on the white rug, and lay
there, cool and at his ease, while Lucy dutifully read her history, was
by no means inclined to submit to any examination.
“Come and tell me what you can do, my little man,” Mr. St. Clair said;
“let us see which of us knows the most; we are going to teach each
other--you me, or I you. Come and let’s make out which it is to be.”
Jock raised his head from the rug and looked at his questioner with big
eyes. The inspection did not seem to please him. “I know a lot,” he
said, concisely, and dropped his head; his book was more interesting
than the stranger. It was “Don Quixote,” with pictures, which he had in
his hands; this deeply experienced reader had never encountered the work
with these attractions before.
“I told you, Miss Trevor,” said St. Clair, “he sees through me, he knows
my learning is antiquated. If a man has the misfortune to live before
Madvig, what is he to do? Scholarship is the most progressive of all
sciences; which is curious, considering that it is with dead languages
it has to do.”
Lucy raised her mild eyes with no understanding in them. It was in vain
to speak of dead languages to her. “Though he is so little,” she said,
apologetically, “he has read a great many books. That is what he means;
but he has had no education, Mr. St. Clair, except just a little at
Hampstead. He has done nothing but read books--nonsense books,” said
Lucy severely, thinking to reach the culprit, “that could not teach him
anything or do him any good.”
“Reading books is, on the whole, not a bad kind of education,” said St.
Clair. “I see you pursue that way yourself.”
“Oh--but this is history; it is not in the least amusing; sometimes it
is very hard; I can’t remember it a bit; and sometimes I almost go to
sleep: very different,” said Lucy, pointedly, “from the books that Jock
reads; they make him laugh, they make him so interested that he can’t
bear any one to speak to him. He won’t go to bed, he won’t play for
them. _That_ can not be education at all.”
“Very true,” Mr. St. Clair said. “Medicine must be nasty. Might one
know, my friend, what you are reading now?”
Jock raised himself from the rug once more. He did not lose a word
either of the book or the conversation. “I’ve read it before; but this
time I’ve just come to the windmills,” he said.
“The windmills? now what may they be?”
“I told you,” said Lucy, regretfully, “they are all nonsense
books--nothing that is of any good.”
“Because you don’t know,” cried Jock, hotly. “You’ve no business to
speak when you don’t know. _He_ doesn’t think they’re windmills; he
thinks they’re big giants, and they’re just like it--just like
giants--I’ve thought so myself. He thinks they’ve got a lot of poor
people carrying them off to be slaves, and there’s only _him_ upon his
own horse--nobody more; but do you think he’ll let them carry off the
poor people for slaves? He goes at them like a dozen knights--he goes
at them like an army,” cried Jock, his eyes flashing. “I wish I had been
there, I’d have done it, too.”
“Ah, Don Quixote,” said St. Clair. “What! you, Jock! You that know such
a lot--you’d have gone at the windmills, too?”
Jock grew red, for he did not like ridicule. “He didn’t know they were
windmills,” he said.
“Didn’t I tell you, Mr. St. Clair,” said Lucy, “that is all he thinks
about--windmills? what good can windmills do him? unless he were to
learn all about the uses of them, and who began them, and the good they
are to the country; that would be very different from a fairy tale.”
“It is not a bit a fairy tale,” Jock cried, indignant. “It’s a long time
since I read any fairy tales--never any since Prospero and Ariel on the
enchanted island. This is about a man. Fairy tales are very nice when
you are quite little,” he added, with dignity, “just beginning to read
plain; but when you are bigger you like the sense best, for you can
think, I would do the same.”
“You see, Mr. St. Clair, that is just like him; it is not education,”
said Lucy, with mild despair.
“I am not quite clear about that,” said St. Clair, who knew a little
more than Lucy; “but, Jock, you will find a great many more books to
read and men to hear about if you come to me and learn. Leave your tall
gentleman to overcome the windmills, and come and speak to me. Tell me
what you have learned,” he said, holding the child within his arm as he
stood up reluctantly by his side. Lucy looked on with pleased approval,
yet many excuses. “He has never been to school; he was so delicate papa
didn’t like him to be out of his sight,” she said, reddening with much
shame and self-reproach as the real state of the case was elucidated.
When the cross-examination was over Jock, though not at all ashamed,
escaped as quickly as he could from Mr. St. Clair’s detaining arm. He
snatched up his book from the rug, and made assurance sure by putting a
flight of stairs and the closed door of Mrs. Ford’s room between him and
the inquisitor, who laughed and shook his head as the little fellow
bolted. “We must begin from the beginning, I fear,” he said. “He has
been neglected; but after all, there has not been much time lost.”
“I am very sorry he is so ignorant,” said Lucy, deprecatingly; “but, Mr.
St. Clair, papa was old, and I was very young.”
“Yes; no one could expect you to think of it; you are very young now,
Miss Trevor, to have such a charge.”
“Oh, that is nothing,” Lucy said; “many people have had a great deal
more to do. I have heard of girls that have had to work for their
brothers and sisters; indeed, I have been acquainted with some,” she
said, thinking of Mary Russell. “But now that we know of it, it is not
too late to mend it, Mr. St. Clair.”
“Not at all too late;” he was pleased that she should say we. Such a
familiarity of association was all he thought that could be desired. “I
will undertake to put him in the right way--for the moment.”
“Oh,” Lucy said, with disturbed looks, “will it be only for the moment,
Mr. St. Clair? I know it is very good fortune, far more than we could
have expected, to get you at all--and that you should take such a very
little boy.”
“I am very happy to be able to be of any use to you,” St. Clair said,
with a smile; “and if I am not called away--but you well understand that
I can not be at all sure of my time, Miss Trevor. I may be called away.”
St. Clair was ready to laugh at the little formula, and this gave him an
additional air of seriousness, which looked like feeling. “I wish I had
done nothing in my life to be so little ashamed of,” he added, “as
teaching a small boy.”
Lucy looked at him with great respect, and even a little awe. An
innocent girl has a certain awe of a man so much older than herself, so
much more experienced in every way, who perhaps has had mysterious
wrong-doings in his life as well as other things, more momentous and
terrible than any her imagination has ever realized. The things that St.
Clair might have to be ashamed of loomed large upon her in the darkness
of her ignorance, like gigantic shadows, upon which she looked with pity
and a little horror, yet the same time an awful respect. “Mrs. Stone
told me,” she said, with her serious face, “that you had not been well;
that after all your studies and work you had not been well enough--I am
very, very sorry. It must have been a great disappointment.”
“That is exactly what it was; it is very sweet to meet with some one who
understands,” St. Clair said; “yes, it is not so much for myself, but
they had all done so much for me, all believed in me so.”
“But, Mr. St. Clair, with rest and taking care, will it not all come
right?”
“They say so,” he said; “but, Miss Trevor, though you don’t know much of
the hardships of life, you will understand that this is exactly what it
is most hard to do. To rest implies means and leisure, and I ought to be
working night and day.”
“I am very, very sorry,” said Lucy; a great many waves of varying
resolution were passing over her mind--what could she do? would it be
most polite to take notice, to receive such a confidence as if it was
nothing to her? or should she be bold and put forth her powers as a
helper, a wrong-redresser? Jock’s story about the windmills had seemed
very great nonsense to his unlettered sister, yet practically she was in
a strait not dissimilar. She put her lance in rest with a very doubtful
and unassured hand; but if they were giants, as they seemed, she, too,
felt, like the great Spaniard, that to pass them by would be cowardly.
She looked at him wistfully, faltering. “You will think it strange of me
to say it,” she said, her serious face gradually crimsoning from chin to
forehead; “but perhaps you know--that I am--not the same as other girls;
if there were anything that I could do--”
St. Clair grew red too with surprise and mortification; what could the
girl mean? he asked himself; but he answered suavely, “I am sure you are
a great deal better and kinder than most girls--or men either, Miss
Trevor. You have the divine gift of sympathy, which always does one
good.”
“I don’t know if it is sympathy, Mr. St. Clair. Papa left me a great
many directions. He said there were some things I was to try to do; and
if it would be good for you to have leisure, and be able to rest for a
year or two--”
St. Clair was reduced to the level of Raymond Rushton by the utter
confusion which these words seemed to bring into the very atmosphere.
“Oh, by Jove!” he ejaculated faintly, in his dismay. He rose up
hurriedly. She would offer him money, he felt, if he gave her another
moment to do it, and though he was very willing and desirous, if he
could, to get possession of her money as a whole, to have a little of it
thus offered to him seemed the last indignity. “I expect to find Jock a
very amusing pupil,” he said; “not at all like the average little boy.
He shall give me a lesson in literature when I have given him his Latin.
I suspect it is I who will profit the most. The little wretch seems to
have read everything; I wonder if you have shared his studies. He must
have got the taste from some one; it is not generally innate in small
boys.”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy, “not I.” She was disappointed to have the subject
changed so rapidly, and abandoned it with great reluctance, still
looking at him to know why he should so cut her short. “Jock does not
think much of me,” she added, “and all those story-books and plays and
poetry can not be good for him surely. Papa never minded; he was old,
and Jock seemed such a baby it did not seem to matter what he did; it
was not his fault.”
“Oh, I don’t think it was anybody’s fault. But you are reading, I see,
in a steadier way. What is it? history?” Mr. St. Clair approached her
table where she was sitting and looked at Lucy’s book.
“Yes,” she said, with a soft little sigh. “Lady Randolph thought I
ought; and I should be thinking of my French. It is so hard when one is
not clever. I must ask Mr. Stone to let me go to mademoiselle when she
comes back.”
“And may I help you with this?” Mr. St. Clair said. He drew a chair near
her and sat down.
It had not occurred to good Mrs. Ford that any precautions were
necessary, or that she should break up her mornings by being present
during all the talk of the young people. If a girl had to be watched
forever, Mrs. Ford thought, she must be a very poor sort of girl; so
that Lucy’s pink drawing-room was practically open to the world; as
entirely open as if she had been an American young lady, with a _salon_
and visiting list of her own. She was very grateful to Mr. St. Clair
when he sat down beside her. It was so kind. He took up the book, and
asked her if she had seen this and that, other books more readable than
the dry compendium Lucy was studying.
“If you will let me get them for you it will give me the greatest
pleasure,” St. Clair said. “I consider history my great subject. I
should like to help you, if you will let me.” Lucy accepted his offer
with the greatest gratitude. She had found it very dry work by herself.
This was the scene upon which Raymond Rushton came in, very slowly,
crushing his hat in his hands. His mother had prevented him from
signifying the hour of his visit, with a natural fear of the precautions
which Mrs. Stone would certainly have taken to occupy the ground
beforehand; but this prudence, as it happened, did him no good. Raymond,
to tell the truth, was as much relieved as he was annoyed by St. Clair’s
presence. He had felt himself grow red and grow pale, hot and cold, all
the way, as he came along the street, wondering how he was to manage to
make himself agreeable as his mother had ordered him. The very fact that
he was commanded to make himself agreeable hindered any natural effort
he might have been capable of. He did not know how to talk to Lucy. Some
girls saved you the trouble of talking, but she was not one of those
girls, and he did not know how he was to manage to get upon such easy
terms with her as would make flirtation possible--even if he had known
how to flirt, which he did not--at least with Lucy. So, though he was so
far sensible of the importance of the pursuit as to be slightly angry
and alarmed by St. Clair’s presence, he was still more relieved, on the
whole, to feel that he was thus protected, and that there would not be
so much required of him. He came in looking very much embarrassed,
crushing his hat between his hands.
“How d’ye do, Miss Trevor?” he said. “My mother thought I ought to come
and see about our ride. We have fixed Thursday for the picnic, but don’t
you think we might go out to-morrow to see how the horses go together?
Mine,” said Raymond, with a blush, “is rather an old screw.”
“I should like to go--whenever you like. I am very fond of it,” said
Lucy. “Jock and I thought of going a little way this evening, but only a
little way.”
This put Raymond more and more out.
“I am afraid I can’t get my horse to-day. It is too late now to arrange
it.”
“Do you get your horses from the Black Bull?” said St. Clair. “It must
be difficult to make sure of anything there. I go to the Cross Keys,
where you are much better served. The Black Bull,” he added, in an
explanatory tone, “is the place where you get your flies, Miss Trevor.
When the fine weather comes, and a great many people are driving about,
all their horses are put into requisition.”
“Oh, not quite so bad as that,” cried Raymond, reddening; “you don’t
suppose I ride a fly-horse.”
“I know I have done it,” St. Clair said; “when one has not a horse of
one’s own, one has to be content with what one can get; but to feel that
you are upon a noble steed which made his last appearance, perhaps,
between the shafts of a hearse--”
“Oh, hold hard!” Raymond cried; he was sadly humiliated by the
suggestion, and he now began to feel that the presence of this intruder
made his visit of very little use, indeed; “you must not take all that
for gospel, Miss Trevor. A joke is a joke, but a man may go too far in
joking.”
“Which is more than you are likely to do on old Fryer’s horses,” St.
Clair said, laughing. But then he got up, feeling that he had made an
end of his young rival. He was bigger, broader, altogether more imposing
than Raymond. He stood up, and expanded his large proportions, feeling
that anybody with half an eye must see the difference--which, perhaps,
on the whole, was an unwise step; for St. Clair was too much developed
for a young man, and the merest suspicion of fatness, is not that a
capital crime in a girl’s eyes? On the whole, when they stood up
together, Raymond’s slim youthfulness carried the day; but there are no
delusions so obstinate as those which concern our own personal
appearance, and it was with a smile of conscious triumph that the larger
young man spread himself out. As for Raymond he too felt outdone, and
withdrew a little from the competition.
“Emmie has got her pony,” he said. “My mother thinks it will do her a
great deal of good to see how you ride, Miss Trevor.”
“Oh, but I never was considered to ride very well,” Lucy said.
“We think down here that whatever you do is done well,” said St. Clair,
taking the very words out of Raymond’s mouth, with this difference, that
Ray would have uttered them seriously, and would have broken down,
whereas _that_ fellow made a joke of it, and carried off the compliment
with a laugh. “We are not much used to accomplished young ladies from
town down here,” St. Clair added; “and whatever you do is a wonder to
us. ‘When you speak we’d have you do so ever; when you sing we’d have
you buy and sell so, so give alms--’”
From this it will be seen that Mr. Frank St. Clair was possessed of some
of the graces of letters. But the young persons on either side of him
opened their eyes. Ray had a suspicion that there was some sort of
play-acting in it; but Lucy was simply amazed that any one should speak
of her singing when she could not sing at all.
“Indeed,” she said, seriously, “I do not know a note. I never had a
voice, and what was the use of having lessons?” which simple answer,
though it made him laugh, entirely disconcerted St. Clair, and reduced
him almost to the level of Raymond, who had now got one hand into his
pocket and felt more comfortable and at his ease. It was thus that Ray
was left master of the field, somewhat to his own surprise, but at the
same time much to his gratification, too.
“I say, what a queer fellow that is,” Raymond said; “we all want to know
about him. If he’s a barrister, as they say, why isn’t he at his
chambers, or on circuit, or something? To be sure it’s the ‘Long’ just
now; but he seems to be always here.”
“He has overworked himself; he is not able to do anything,” said Lucy
with great sympathy, looking out from the window with a grave face as he
went out through the big gate-way and crossed the road. When he had
reached the edge of the common he looked back, and seeing her, took off
his hat. It gave St. Clair a glow of satisfaction to see Lucy looking
after him. He went on with a lighter step, and, if possible, a broader
chest than ever.
“By Jove! isn’t he fat?” said Raymond, by Lucy’s side; and Lucy, full of
sympathy as she was, could not help remarking the breadth of shadow
which moved with him across the sunshine. She laughed in spite of
herself. The observation was not witty, but Raymond was put into such
high spirits by the laugh he elicited that he burst forth into
scintillations of still more unquestionable wit. “That is because they
pet him so at Mrs. Stone’s. Ladies always do pet one. I should like to
know where he’d find a fly-horse up to his weight. Let us ask him to the
picnic, Miss Trevor, and borrow a beast for him from the brewer. One
elephant upon another,” said Ray.
But Lucy’s amusement did not last through so long an address. She ended
by a sigh, looking after him sympathetically. “I wish one could do
everything one wished!” she said.
“Ah!” Raymond echoed with a sigh. “But you can, I should think, pretty
near. I wish I could do any one thing I wished,” the young man added,
ruefully.
“And that is just my case, too,” Lucy said.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A CROQUET PARTY.
The Rushtons lived in a big old red brick house close to the town hall
in what was still called the market-place of Farafield, though all the
meaner hubbub of the market had long ago been banished to the square
behind, with its appropriate buildings. It was a house of the time of
Queen Anne, with rows of glittering windows surmounted by a pediment,
and though it was in the center of the town a fine old walled garden
behind. To Lucy this garden seemed the brightest place imaginable when
she was led into it through the shady passages of the old house, the
thick walls and rambling arrangement of which defended it from the
blazing of the August skies, which penetrated with pitiless heat and
glare the naked walls of the Terrace, built without any consideration of
atmospheric changes. Mrs. Rushton’s drawing-room was green and cool--all
the venetian blinds carefully closed on one side, and on the other
looking out upon the trees and shady lawn where two or three young
people, girls in light dresses and young men scarcely less summer-like
in costume, were playing croquet. These were the days when croquet
still reigned on all lawns and country places, and nobody had as yet
discovered that it was “slow.” The party was of the usual orthodox kind.
There was a young, a very young curate in a long black coat and a
wide-awake, and a second young man in light clothes with his hands in
his pockets, whom Lucy’s inexperienced eyes with difficulty
distinguished from Raymond Rushton; and two or three girls, one of them
the daughter of the house, Emma, a shy hoyden of sixteen. All these
young people looked with great curiosity at Lucy as she followed Mrs.
Rushton out of the house in her black frock, Jock clinging closely to
her. Jock, though he had a great deal of self-possession on ordinary
occasions, was shy in such an unusual emergency as this. He had never
been at a garden party, he was not used to society, and he did not know
how to play croquet, in all which points Lucy was almost as uninstructed
as he. There was a tea-table set out under an old mulberry-tree, with
garden-chairs and rugs spread out upon the grass. Nothing could be more
pleasant, cool, leisurely, and comfortable. It was indeed a scene such
as might be seen on a summer afternoon in almost every garden with a
good-sized house attached to it, with a lawn and a mulberry-tree,
throughout England. But then Lucy was not much acquainted with such
places, and to her everything was new. They all stood and looked at her
as she followed Mrs. Rushton across the grass--looked at her with inward
sighs and wonderings. To think she should be so rich, while none of the
others had anything to speak of. It did not perhaps go so far as actual
envy; but it was certainly surprise, and a bewildered question why such
good fortune should have fallen to an inconsiderable girl, and not at
all to the others who might have been supposed able to make so much more
use of it. The young men could not help feeling that the enjoyment which
they could have extracted out of so much money would have been far more
than anything a girl could derive from it. Not one of the three perhaps
went any further, or at least went so far as to ask whether there were
any means by which he could appropriate such a fortune, except indeed
Raymond, who was in a most uncomfortable state, knowing that his mother
intended him to begin at once to “pay attention” to Lucy, and not
knowing in the least how to begin. Lucy was put into the most
comfortable chair, as if she had been a dowager, and even Jock was wooed
as he had never been wooed before.
“Oh, you will soon learn how to play,” all the young people said in a
chorus; “it is very easy.”
Lucy thought they were all very kind, and she thought the lawn a kind of
little paradise, with all the sights and sounds of the ruder world shut
out.
“Emmie and I almost live here,” Mrs. Rushton said. “We bring out our
work in the morning; you can’t think how pleasant it is. I wish, my dear
Lucy, that it could have been arranged that you should live with your
guardian instead of those good relations of yours. They are very nice,
but it is always more cheerful where there are young people. I wish it
could be managed. The Fords are excellent people; but they are in a
different rank of society. I was speaking to Mr. Rushton about it, but
he does not seem to think anything can be done; men are so entirely
without resources. You may depend upon it I should find some way in
which it could be done, if it depended on me.”
“I don’t think it could be done, Mrs. Rushton; it is all very exact in
the will.”
“Then I suppose you stand up very firmly by the will--in every
particular, my dear?” Mrs. Rushton said, with a significant look.
“How could I help it?” said Lucy. She preferred looking at the croquet
to discussing the will, and she wished Raymond would go and play, and
not stand by her chair, looming over her. His mother looked at him from
time to time, and when these appeals were made he took his hands out of
his pockets and grew red and cleared this throat. But nothing ever came
of it. Lucy did not know what to say to this embarrassed young man; he
seemed so much further off from her by being so much nearer than Sir
Tom. At length, she asked with some diffidence, “Are you not going to
play?”
“Oh, my mother thought you would like--to walk round the garden.”
“You goose!” cried his mother. “The fact is, Lucy, Ray thought you would
like to see all the old-fashioned corners. They are not like the gardens
at the Hall. Oh, we don’t pretend to anything so fine; but we have heaps
of flowers, and I think that is the chief thing. Ray is devoted to the
garden--he wants so much to show you round.”
And a few minutes after Lucy found herself walking by Ray, who was very
shy, and had not a notion what to say to her, nor had she what to say to
him. He took her along a commonplace path, and showed her the
flower-beds--that is to say, he intimated, with a wave of his hand and a
blush, that here were the roses, and there--“I’m sure I don’t know what
you call these things,” Ray said.
“Are you not very fond of flowers, then? I thought Mrs. Rushton--”
“Oh, yes, I’m very fond of them--some, you know; but I never can
remember the names; it is like songs--I’m very fond of music, but I
never can remember the words.”
This was a long speech, and he felt better after it. However little
inclined you may feel to do your duty, there is a sense of satisfaction
in having done it. “Do you sing?” he added, emboldened by his own
success.
“No,” Lucy said; and then the poor young fellow was balked, and the path
which seemed to be opening before him was cut suddenly short. He gave a
sigh of disappointment, and plunged his hands deeper than ever into his
pockets to seek inspiration there.
“Mamma thinks we should go out to-morrow,” he said.
“Yes?” This monosyllable was interrogative, and gave him encouragement.
He cleared his throat again.
“I could show you some very nice rides--the way to the picnic on
Thursday is very pretty. Were you ever at the old abbey at Burnside?
Quantities of people go--”
“I have passed it,” said Lucy, “when we rode at school.”
“Oh, did you ride at school? I don’t think that could be much fun--all
girls. Picnics are not very much fun either.”
“I never saw one. I should think it would be nice,” said Lucy, with some
doubt.
“Oh, well, perhaps if you were never at one before--I dare say it will
be nice when--when _you_ are there, Miss Trevor,” said Ray, growing very
red; “but then you see I never went with you before.”
Lucy looked at him with some surprise, totally unable to divine why he
should flourish so wildly the croquet-mallet he was carrying, and blush
and stammer so much. She was entirely unaware that she had assisted at
the production of Raymond’s first compliment. She took it very quietly,
not knowing its importance.
“My mother thinks Emmie can ride,” he went on, after a confused pause;
“but she can’t a bit. Some girls are famous--take fences, and everything
you can put before them. There are the Morton girls--I suppose you know
the Mortons?”
“I don’t know any one--except the girls who were at school.”
“Oh, there were some great swells, were there not,” said Raymond, “at
that school?”
Perhaps for the first time Lucy felt a little pleasure in repeating the
names of her school-fellows, information which Raymond received with
awe.
“That’s a cut above us,” he said; “they were all awfully angry at home
because the old ladies wouldn’t have Emmie. I suppose you were
different.”
“It was because of my having so much money,” said Lucy, calmly. “Oh, but
you need not laugh. Mrs. Stone said a girl with a great deal of money
wanted more training.”
“I can’t see that,” cried Raymond; “not a bit. It doesn’t take much
education to spend a great fortune, when a fellow has to make his own
way like me; I should think there was nothing so jolly as to have a lot
of money, so much that you never could get through it; by Jove! I wonder
how it feels,” he said, with a laugh. To this question, if it was a
question, Lucy made no reply. It was the subject upon which she could
talk best; but she was not a great talker, and Raymond was a kind of
being very far off from her, whom she did not understand.
“I don’t think there is much more to see,” he said; “there is not much.
I can’t think what my mother meant to show you in the garden. Would you
like to go back and try a game? I’ll teach you, if you like. I suppose I
may say you will ride to the picnic? Emmie will go (as well as she knows
how), and I--”
“If Jock may come, too.”
“Oh,” cried Raymond, “there will be no want of chaperons, you know. My
mother is coming, and no doubt some more old ladies. It will be all
right, you know,” said the youth with a laugh. This speech made Lucy
ponder, but confused her mind rather than enlightened it. She went back
to the lawn with him into the midst of the croquet-players, with very
little more conversation, and Mrs. Rushton, looking on anxiously,
gnashed her teeth behind the tea-urn. “He did not seem to me to find a
word to say to her,” she lamented afterward; “what’s the good of
spending all that money on a boy’s education, if at the end of it he
can’t say a word for himself.” And her husband answered with those
comforting words which husbands have the secret of. “You had much better
let scheming alone,” he said. “You will put me in a false position if
you don’t mind, and you’ll never do any good to yourself.” We are
ashamed to say the monosyllable was “Stuff!” which Mrs. Rushton replied.
But the afternoon was very pleasant to Lucy; and Jock enjoyed it too,
after awhile, learning the game much more quickly than his sister, and
getting into an excitement about it which she did not share. The little
fellow remained in the foreground brandishing a mallet long after the
party had melted away, and took possession of the lawn altogether,
tyrannizing over the little Rushtons, when Lucy was taken in to dinner
with the grown-up members of the family. “Mrs. Rushton says you may come
with me, Jock,” Lucy said; but Jock resisted strenuously. “It is only
when you go we can have a real game; you are all duffers,” said the
little boy, with a contempt which he was much in the habit of showing to
his sister. Thus they were launched upon life and society in Farafield.
Mrs. Rushton proposed the brougham to Lucy when the time came to go
home, but, on hearing that she would prefer to walk, declared that she
too was dying for a little fresh air, and that the cool of the evening
was delightful. Then they sallied forth in a body, Raymond by Lucy’s
side. It was all very pleasant. He was not a brilliant talker, indeed,
but Lucy did not want anything very brilliant, and what with the little
pricks and stimulants provided by his mother, who walked behind, Raymond
excelled himself. It was cheerful even to see the little party making
its way along the cool twilight ways, with soft interchange of voices
and laughter, little Jock again holding his sister’s hand, while Raymond
was skillfully poked and bantered into talk. If it was a scheme it was
not very deeply laid, and meant nothing cruel. Would not Raymond Rushton
be a perfectly good match for her, should it come to pass? and why
should not Raymond have the great fortune as well as another? His mother
felt all the glow of virtuous consciousness in her breast. He was a good
son, and would make a good husband. In every way, even in respect to
family and position, old Trevor’s daughter in marrying Raymond would do
very well for herself.
CHAPTER XXXV.
POPULARITY.
Lucy found the picnic very amusing. She had never known any of the
delights of society; and the gay party in the Abbey ruins, and the
ride--though Emmie did not know in the least how to sit her pony, and
Raymond rode a tall and gaunt animal of extremely doubtful race, which
might have drawn a fly, or a hearse, for anything his appearance said to
the contrary--was pleasant all the same. The party was not very large,
but it included the best people in Farafield; and among others the
rector and his family, who were all very gracious to Lucy. “You must not
forget that I am partially your guardian,” the rector said. “If you
flirt I have a right to pull you up. If you distinguish one young fellow
more than another I shall probably ask what are your intentions? So
beware,” he cried, laughing and holding up a finger of warning. And all
the rectory girls were as friendly as if they had possessed a brother,
which unfortunately was not the case. “If there had been a boy among us,
of course he should have tried for the prize,” they all said with
cheerful frankness, which Mrs. Rushton did not relish.
Lucy, however, had a guardian who was more alarming than the rector. Out
of civility to her, Philip had been asked, and Philip conducted himself
in a way which called forth the dire displeasure of all who had any
intentions upon Lucy’s peace. He was always appearing wherever she went,
stalking continually across the scene, like a villain in a theater,
appearing suddenly when least expected. “What was the fellow afraid of?”
the rector said; “he had no chance; he was not even in the running.” But
he was Lucy’s cousin, and in this capacity he was privileged to push
forward, to make his way through a group, to call to her familiarly to
“come and see” something, or even to persuade her that the thing she was
invited to do on the other hand was impossible. “You can’t go there,
Lucy, the mud would be up to your knees; come this way and I’ll show you
all you want;” or, “You never will be able for that climb, I will show
you an easier way.” Thus Philip, who had been so irreproachable and
popular, made himself disagreeable in society for the first time.
Perhaps the chief cause of it was that Katie was there. He had taken
himself sharply to task after that, one evening of enchantment, which
was so new and so unusual that he had given way to it without an effort.
The more delicious it was, the more Philip had taken himself to task. He
tried to analyze it, and make out how it was that he had been so deeply
affected. A reasonable man, he said to himself, must be able to give an
account of all the mental processes he passed through; but here was a
mental process which was inexplicable. Every interest, every argument,
pointed to Lucy as the object of his thoughts. And now that he saw Lucy
among other people, and observed the court that was paid to her, it
became intolerable to Philip to think of a stranger who had had nothing
to do with the family, carrying her off and her fortune, which belonged
to the Rainys. He could not think of such a thing with composure. For
himself he liked Lucy well enough, and probably the most suitable
arrangement in the circumstances for both of them would have been the
_mariage de convénance_, which is not allowed as a natural expedient in
England, in name at least. But when he remembered the evening at the
Terrace, when he had been so foolish, Philip could not understand
himself. On various occasions he had attempted to analyze it--what, was
it? Lucy had blue eyes as well as Katie Russell, she was about the same
height. To be sure her hair did not curl, and during the course of his
analysis he recollected with dangerous distinctness the blowing out of
the curls in the soft evening breeze. But who could analyze a curl, or
understand how such an insignificant detail could give softness to the
air, and melody to the wind, and make the very stars in heaven look
their best? One of the rector’s daughters had a great many curls, far
more complete articles than the curls of Katie, but they did not produce
the same effect.
After this unsuccessful attempt at analysis, Philip kept himself away
from Katie, and kept watch upon his cousin. He was determined to
appropriate the one, and if he could help, not so much as to see the
other. It was the easiest way. But these two objects together made the
picnic a very harassing and painful pleasure to the young school-master.
When Raymond Rushton was pushed by his mother’s exertions to Lucy’s
side, Philip did not fail to do his best to hustle him politely away. He
was constantly at hand with an appeal to Lucy, Lucy. At least he was
determined that everybody should see he had a claim upon her, and a
prior claim to all the rest of the world. But still he could not but
remain conscious of the presence of the other girl. In all the guarded
and careful intercourse which he had previously had with society in
Farafield, as a man on his promotion, and anxiously attentive to rules,
Philip had never asserted himself, never put himself into undue
prominence, never presumed upon the kindness of the friends who were at
the same time his patrons, before. But it could not be denied that he
made himself disagreeable about Lucy that afternoon; her name was
continually on his lips. He would let her have no rest. He stepped in
front of everybody, broke up all the groups of which she formed a part,
and followed her with vigilant watch everywhere. Had his relationship to
the heiress turned his head, or was it possible that he thought himself
worthy of all that fortune, that he thought she would choose him for the
partner of her splendor, the company asked each other? “I am sure it is
a thing to which Mr. Rushton for one would _never_ give his consent,”
said the giver of the feast. The rector was not quite so certain. “After
all it would be no _mésalliance_, for they are exactly in the same
position,” he said; but then it was well known the rector looked upon
his association with Lucy’s other guardians as more a joke than a
serious duty. Talks were going on about her in almost every group,
everybody was interested in the great heiress; people wished to be
introduced to her, as if the poor little girl had been a notability, and
so to be sure she was.
The riding party went off rather earlier than the others, and before the
whole party was got under way a considerable time elapsed. Philip had
insisted upon putting his cousin into her saddle himself; he was not
clever at so unusual an office, and he could not help feeling, when she
was gone, that he had not done himself any good by his assiduities. He
was as sensitive as a thermometer to the fluctuation of public opinion,
and he perceived at once that he had done himself harm. The company in
general were not unwilling to let him see that nobody particularly
wanted him, and that though they were kind and invited him, they did not
expect any very great advantage from his presence. Thus Philip spent the
interval in wandering about in a somewhat vague manner, not sought by
any one. He could never tell how it was that, at last he found himself
in one of the carriages by Katie Russell’s side. He had not done it, nor
had she done it, for Katie was greatly piqued by the persistent way in
which he had avoided her, and her pride was up in arms; but when he
turned his head and saw, in the gathering dusk, the little twist of the
curl which he had been so utterly unable to analyze, a sudden change of
sentiment, still farther beyond the reach of analysis, came over Philip.
How was it? nothing more illogical, more unreasonable, ever happened to
a philosophical school-master. Instead of the uncomfortable state of
effort in which he had spent the day, the young man’s soul glided back
in a moment into that curious lull of enchantment which had come over
him at the Terrace. Once more the very air grew balmy and caressing, the
earth smelled sweet, the night wind blew in his face like a caress, and
all the individual sounds about ran into one hum of happiness, and
satisfaction, and peace. No cause for it! only the fact, that it was
_that_ girl, and not another who sat, next him in the break, among all
the chattering and the laughter. Was there ever any cause so inadequate?
but this was how it was. The carriage stopped opposite the Terrace to
put down Katie. She had only a little way to walk from that point to the
White House, which shone faintly through the darkness with a few lights
in the windows. Philip did not quite know how, but somehow he had made
his peace with Katie, and he it was who jumped down to help her out, and
constituted himself her escort. They walked again side by side down the
same enchanted road.
“There is no mist to-night, and not so many stars,” he said; and Katie
answered, “No, not half so many stars,” showing, as he said to himself
afterward, that she remembered too. She was more serious now than after
that first evening at the Terrace, walking along very demurely by his
side, and owning that she was tired. “But we have had a very pleasant
day; don’t you think so, Mr. Rainy?” Katie asked; to which Philip
answered, “Ye-es,” with a little doubt.
“The drive back has been delightful,” he said, “the air is so soft. I
don’t know that I enjoyed so much the first part. It irritates me,
perhaps foolishly, to see the fuss all those people make about Lucy. It
was really too much for me to-day; I felt bound to put a stop to it as
far as I could. Lucy is a very nice girl, but to see them, you would
think there was nobody like her. It makes me angry. I dare say it is
very foolish, for Lucy is sensible enough to know that it is not herself
but her money that so much court is paid to. But the drive home was
worth all the rest put together,” Philip said, with fervor. This made
Katie’s head droop a little with shyness and pleasure.
“It was very nice,” she said, in more guarded tones, and with a little
sigh of content. “But, Mr. Rainy, you must not vex yourself about Lucy.
That is what she has to go through, just as I must go through my
governessing. She is sure to have everybody after her wherever she goes,
but she is so sensible it never makes any difference; she is not spoiled
a bit.”
“Do you think so? do you really think so? that will make my mind much
more easy about her,” said Philip. As if Katie was a judge! This was the
reflection she herself made: and Katie could scarcely help laughing,
under the shadow of night, at the sudden, importance of her own
judgment. But, after all, however young one may be, one feels that there
is a certain reasonableness in any reliance upon one’s opinion, and she
answered with a gravity that was not quite fictitious, that she was sure
of it, and did all she could to comfort Philip, who, on his part,
exaggerated his anxiety, and carefully refrained from all allusion to
that secret unwillingness to let the great Rainy fortune go to any one
else, which had moved him powerfully during the day. They took leave at
the door of the White House, as they had done before, but not till after
a pause and a lingering talk, always renewed upon some fresh subject by
Philip just as she held out her hand to say good-night. He had held that
hand quite two minutes in his, on the strength of some new and
interesting subject which suddenly occurred to him at the last moment,
when Katie, seized with a little panic, suddenly withdrew it and darted
away. “Good-night,” she said, from the door-step, nodding her head and
waving her hand as before, and once more Philip felt as if a curtain had
dropped, shutting out heaven and earth, when the door opened and shut,
and a gleam of light shone out, then disappeared. Analyze it! he could
not analyze it. He had never been so happy before, nor so sad, nor so
fortunate, nor so desolate; but how he could be so ridiculous as to be
moved in this way, Philip could not tell. He went back along the dark
road, going over every word she had said, and every look she had looked.
Lucy’s window shone all the way before him, the light in it glimmering
out from the dark front of the Terrace. It seemed to Philip that he
could not get rid of Lucy. He felt impatient of her, and of her window,
which seemed to call him, shining as with a signal-light. Its
importunity was such, that he decided at last to cross the road and call
at the door, and ask if she had got home in safety. It was an
unnecessary question, but he was excited and restless, half hating Lucy,
yet unable to overcome the still greater hatred he had, and terror, of
seeing her fall into some one else’s hands. When his voice was heard at
the door, Mrs. Ford rushed out of her parlor with great eagerness.
“Come in, Philip, come in,” she cried; “I heard the carriage stop, but
what have you been doing all this time? I just hoped it might be you;”
then she came close up to him and whispered, “Lucy came in in such good
spirits. She said you had been there; she said you had been very
attentive. If you would like to have a horse to ride to go with them, to
cut out that Raymond Rushton, don’t you hesitate, Philip; tell them to
send the bill to me.”
“Is that Philip?” Lucy asked from the stairs, almost before the whisper
was over. He was half flattered, half angry at the cordiality of his
reception. He walked upstairs to the drawing-room, feeling himself drawn
by a compulsion which annoyed him, yet pleased him. The room was very
bright with gaslight, the windows shut, as Mrs. Ford thought it right
they should always be at such a late hour. Lucy had been superintending
Jock, who was audible in his little room behind humming himself to
sleep. “I thought it was your voice, Philip,” she said. “Did you like
it? Thank you for being so kind to me, but I thought sometimes you did
not like it yourself.”
“I liked it well enough, but what I did not like was to see what a
position you have been put into, Lucy,” said her cousin; “that was why I
took so much trouble. It makes one think worse of human nature.”
“Because they are kind to me?” said Lucy, with surprise.
“Because they are--absurd,” said Philip. “You must see very well they
can not mean all that. I should think a sensible girl would be
disgusted. I wanted to show you what nonsense it all was, as if their
whole happiness depended on showing you that water-fall, or the abbey
tower or something. That was why I interfered.”
“I thought,” said Lucy, “it was out of kindness; and that everybody was
kind as well as you.”
“Kindness--that is all nonsense;” Philip felt, as he spoke, that of all
the mistakes of the day none was so great as his attempt to make Lucy
uncomfortable, and to throw suspicion upon all the attention she had
received, including his own; but he could not help himself. “You will
find out sooner or later what their motives are, and then you will
remember what I have said.”
Lucy looked at him very wistfully. “You ought to help me, Philip,” she
said, “instead of making it harder.”
“How do I make it harder? I only tell you that all that absurd adulation
must conceal some purpose or other. But I am always very willing to help
you, Lucy,” he said, softening; “that is what I tried to do to-day.”
When he had administered this lecture, Philip withdrew, bidding her
good-night, without saying anything about the other good-night which had
preceded this. “You may always rely upon me,” he said, as he went away.
“Thank you,” said Lucy, a little ruefully. He was her relation, and her
natural counselor; but how unlike, how very unlike to Sir Tom! She
sighed, discouraged in her enjoyment of this moment, feeling that Philip
was the best person to whom she could venture to confide any of those
Quixotic projects which her father’s will had made lawful and necessary.
He was the very best person who could tell her how much was necessary to
give ease of mind and leisure to a sick young barrister. Philip was the
only individual within her reach who could possibly have satisfied her,
or helped her on this point. She sighed as she assisted at the putting
out the gas. There was nobody but Sir Tom.
Philip did not feel much more comfortable as he went away; he felt that
he had done nothing but scold Lucy, and indeed his inclination was to
find fault with her, to punish her if he could for the contradiction of
circumstances. That she should be capable of taking away all that
fortune and bestowing it upon some one who was a stranger, who had
nothing to do with the Rainys and who would probably condescend to, if
he did not despise, the head of that family, Philip himself, was
intolerable to him. He felt that he ought to interfere, he ought to
prevent it, he ought to secure this wealth to himself. But then
something gave him a tug exactly in the opposite direction. If it had
but been Katie Russell who was the heiress! She was nobody; it would be
madness for him, a young man on his promotion, to marry thus as it were
in his own trade, and condemn himself to be nothing but a school-master
forever. Indeed it would be folly to marry at all--unless he married
Lucy. A young man who is not married has still metaphorically all the
world before him. He is very useful for a dinner-party, to fill up a
corner. In most cases he is more or less handy to have about the house,
to make himself of use. But a man who is married has come out from among
the peradventures, and has his place fixed in society, whatever it may
be. He has come to what promotion is possible, so far as society is
concerned--unless indeed he has the power to advance himself without the
aid of society. Katie Russell was a simple impossibility, Philip said to
himself angrily, and Lucy--she was also an impossibility. There seemed
nothing to be done all round but to rail against fate. When he had
settled this with a great deal of heat and irritation, he suddenly
dropped all at once into the serenest waters, into an absolute lull of
all vexation, into that state of semi-trance in which, though walking
along Farafield Streets, toward Kent’s Lane, he was at the same time
wandering on the edge of the common, with a soft rustle beside him of a
muslin dress, and everything soft, from the stars in the sky, and the
night air blowing in his face, to his own heart, which was very soft
indeed, melting with the tenderest emotion. It could not do any one any
harm to let himself go for this night only upon such a soft delightful
current. And thus after all the agitations of the day, he ended it with
his head in the clouds.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE HARE WITH MANY FRIENDS.
It will be seen from all this that Mrs. Ford was but an indifferent
guardian for an heiress. Her ideas of duty were of a peculiar kind. She
had newly furnished the drawing-room. She had sweetbreads and other
dainties for dinner. If Lucy had been fond of cake, or muffins, or
buttered toast, she might have reveled in them; but it did not occur to
the careful housekeeper to give herself much trouble about Lucy’s
visitors. When Mrs. Rushton called, indeed, Mrs. Ford would sail into
the room in her stiffest silk (which she kept spread out upon her bed,
ready to put on at a moment’s notice) and take her part in the
conversation; but she saw the young men come and go with the greatest
indifference, and did not disturb herself out of her usual habits for
them. Though she entertained the worst suspicions in respect to Mrs.
Stone’s motives, she did not object to St. Clair, neither did she
dislike Raymond Rushton, though she saw through (as she thought) all his
mother’s devices. We will not attempt to explain this entirely feminine
reasoning. It was the reasoning of a woman on a lower level of society
than that which considers chaperons necessary. She saw no harm in St.
Clair’s appearance in the morning to teach Jock, though Lucy, not much
better instructed than Mrs. Ford, was always present at the lessons, and
profited too in a mild way. Mr. St. Clair came every morning, turning
the pink drawing-room into a school room, and pursuing his work with so
much conscience that Lucy herself began to learn a little Latin by
listening to Jock’s perpetual repetitions. She was very anxious that
Jock should learn, and consented to hear all the story about the
gentleman and the windmills, in order to bribe him. “I think he must
have been cracked all the same,” Lucy said. “Oh, I don’t say, dear, that
he was not a very nice gentleman; and after you have learned your
lessons, you can tell me a little more.” Mr. St. Clair made himself of
great use to Lucy too. He brought, her books in which she could read her
history at much less cost than in her dry text-books: and helped her on
in a way for which she was unfeignedly grateful. And after the
intercourse of the morning there was the meeting afforded by that
evening stroll in the half light after tea, which Jock considered his
due. Mrs. Stone too loved that evening hour, and the soft dusk and
rising starlight, and was always to be found on the common with her
light Shetland shawl over her handsome head, under the dutiful escort of
her nephew. The two little parties always joined company, and a great
deal of instructive conversation went on. On one of these evenings, Lucy
had been waylaid by a poor creature with a pitiful story which went to
the girl’s heart. It had already become known in Farafield that there
was in the Terrace a young lady who had a great deal of ready money, and
a very soft heart.
“Who was that woman, Lucy?” said Mrs. Stone, as they met at the door of
the White House. They had been standing there, waiting for her, aunt and
nephew both, watching for her coming. “I suppose she was a beggar; but
you must take care not to give too much in that way, or to get yourself
a reputation among them; you will be taken in on every side, and it will
vex you to be deceived.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, simply. “It would vex me very much, more than anything
else I can think of. I would rather be beaten than deceived.”
This made Mrs. Stone wince for a moment, till she reflected that she had
no intention of deceiving Lucy, but, in reality, was trying to bring
about the very best thing for her, the object of every girl’s hopes.
“Then who was this woman?” she said.
“Indeed, I did not ask her name. She was--sent to me. What do you think
is right?” said Lucy, “to give people money, or a little pension, or--”
“A little pension, my dear child! a woman you know nothing about. No,
no, give me her name, and I will have her case inquired into, and if she
is deserving--”
“I don’t think it is anybody that is deserving, Mrs. Stone.”
“Lucy! my dear, you must not--you really _must_ not, act in this
independent way. What do you know about human nature? Nobody who is not
deserving should be allowed to come near a child of your age.”
St. Clair laughed. “That might cut a great many ways,” he said.
“Perhaps, in that case, you would have to banish most of the people Miss
Trevor is in the habit of seeing.”
“You, for example.”
“That was what I was about to suggest,” he said, folding his hands with
an air of great humility. This beguiled Lucy into a smile, as it was
meant to do; and yet there was a certain sincerity in it--a sincerity
which seemed somehow to make up for, and to justify in the culprit’s own
eye, a good deal of deceit; though, indeed, St. Clair said to himself,
like his aunt, that he was using no deceit; he was trying to get the
love of a good and nice girl, one who would make an excellent wife; and
what more entirely warrantable, lawful, laudable action could a young
man do?
“You are making fun,” said Lucy, “but I am in great earnest. Papa, in
his will, ordered me to give away a great deal of money. He did not say
anything about deserving: and if people are in great want, in need--is
it not as hard, almost worse, for the bad people than for the good?”
“My dear, that is very unsafe, very dangerous doctrine. In this way you
would reward the bad for having ruined themselves.”
“Or make up to them,” said St. Clair, “a little--as much as any one can
make up for that greatest of misfortunes--for being bad.”
Lucy looked from one to another, bewildered, not knowing which to
follow.
“Yes, it is the greatest of all misfortunes; but still that is
sophistry; that argument is all wrong. If the good and the bad got just
the same, why should any one be good?”
“Oh!” said Lucy, with a heave of her breast; but though her heart rose
and the color came to her cheeks, she had not sufficient power of
language to communicate her sentiments, and she was grateful to St.
Clair, who interposed.
“Do you think,” he said, “that any one is good, as you say, for what he
gets? One is good because one can’t help it--or for the pleasure of
it--or to please some one else if it does not please one’s self.”
“For shame, Frank, you take all the merit out of goodness,” his aunt
said.
“Oh, no!” Lucy breathed out of the bottom of her heart. She could not
argue, but her soft eyes turned upon St. Clair with gratitude. Perhaps
he was not quite right either, but he was far more right than Mrs.
Stone.
“Miss Trevor agrees with me,” he said quietly, as if that settled the
question; and Lucy would not have been human had she not been gratified,
and flattered, and happy. She looked at him with a silent glow of thanks
in her eyes, even though in her heart she felt a slight rising of
ridicule, as if it could matter whether she agreed or not!
“This is all very fine,” said Mrs. Stone, “but practically it remains
certain that the people who merit your kindness are those to whom you
ought to give it, Lucy. I did not know your father had left instructions
about your charities.”
“He did not quite mean charities,” said Lucy; “it was that I should help
people who wanted help. He thought we--owed it, having so much: and I
think so too.”
“And therefore you were meditating a pension to the first beggar that
came in your way. My dear child! you will be eaten up by beggars if you
begin with this wild liberality.”
“It was not exactly--a beggar; it is not that I mean.”
“I will tell you what to do,” said Mrs. Stone, “take the names of the
people who apply to you, and bring them to me. I will have the cases
thoroughly sifted. We have really a very good organization for all that
kind of thing in Farafield, and I promise you, Lucy, that if there is
any very hard case, or circumstances which are very pitiful, even though
the applicant be not quite deserving, you shall decide for yourself and
give if you wish to give; but do let them be sifted first.”
Lucy said nothing; to have “cases” which should be “sifted” by Mrs.
Stone, did not seem at all to correspond with her instructions; and
again it was St. Clair who came to her aid.
“The holidays are very nearly over,” he said, “and we have a little
problem of our own to settle. Do you know, Miss Trevor, my aunt
meditates sending me away.”
“Oh!” cried Lucy, with alarm. She turned instinctively to Jock, who was
roaming about the common before them. “But what should we do then?” she
said, with simplicity. The guardians had not yet interfered about Jock’s
training; they had left the little fellow in her hands; and Lucy was
very much solaced and comforted by the arrangement in respect to her
little brother which St. Clair’s delicate health had permitted her to
make.
“You forget that I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I am a ravening lion,
seeking whom I may devour. I am an enemy in the camp.”
“Is that all because he is a gentleman?” said Lucy to Mrs. Stone, with
wondering eyes.
It was not Mrs. Stone who replied, but Miss Southwood, who had now come
out to join them, and who had heard St. Clair’s description of himself.
She nodded her head, upon which was a close “cottage bonnet” of the
fashion of thirty years ago.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “it is quite out of the question, it is not to be
permitted; not one of the parents would consent to it if they knew.”
“The parents do not trouble me much,” Mrs. Stone said, raising her head;
“when I think a thing is right, I laugh at parents. They are perfectly
free to take the girls away, if they object; I judge for myself.”
“But you must not laugh at parents,” said the timid sister. “Maria! you
make me shiver. I don’t like you to say it even on the common, where
there is nobody to hear. There is that child with his big eyes; he might
come out with it in any society. Laugh at--parents! You might as well
say you don’t believe in the--British Constitution, or the--Reformation,
or--even the House of Commons or the Peerage,” Miss Southwood said
hurriedly, by way of epitomizing everything that is sacred.
“The Reformation is quite out of fashion, it is vulgar to profess any
relief in that; and at all times,” said Mrs. Stone, “popular
institutions are to be treated with incredulity, and popular fallacies
with contempt. Frank is not a ravening lion, he wants to devour nobody
but--Jock. Yes, when you do bad exercises he would like to swallow you
at one gulp.”
“Is he going away?” said Jock, whom this reference to himself had roused
to attention. Then he said with authority, “He had better come and live
with us, there’s a spare room; Lucy wants him as much as me. I know
there is something she wants, for she looks at him when nobody is
noticing, like this--” And Jock gave such an imitation of Lucy’s look as
was possible to him.
This strange speech made an extraordinary commotion in the quiet group.
The two sisters and St. Clair sent each other rapid telegraphic messages
by some kind of electricity, which went through them all. It was one
look of wonder, satisfaction, consternation, delight that flashed from
one pair of eyes to the other, and brought a sudden suffusion to all
their faces. As for Lucy, she took it a great deal more quietly. They
had the look of having made a discovery, but she did not betray the
consciousness of one who has been found out.
“Indeed, I hope Mr. St. Clair will stay, I don’t think it would make any
difference to the girls,” she said; and then she added, with a little
excitement, “How strange it will be to see them all back again, and me
so different!”
Grammar had never been Lucy’s strong point.
“Shouldn’t you like to come back?”
Lucy laughed and shook her head.
“I can’t tell,” she said. “I should--and yet how could I? I am so
different. And by and by I should have to go away again. How strange it
is that in such a little time, that has been nothing to them, so much
should have happened to me.”
There passed rapidly through Lucy’s mind as she spoke a review of the
circumstances and people who had furnished her with so many varied
experiences. First and greatest stood the Randolphs, and that other
world of life in London, which she knew was waiting for her in the
shut-up rooms, all shutters and brown-holland, in Lady Randolph’s house.
She seemed to see these rooms, closed and dim, with rays of light coming
in through the crevices, and everything covered up, in which her life
was awaiting her. The other scenes flitted across her mind like shadows,
the episode of the Russells, the facts of her present existence--all
shadows; but Grosvenor Street was real, though all the shutters were
shut. While this was passing through her mind, the others were giving
her credit for visions very different. They glanced at each other
again, and Mrs. Stone took her nephew’s arm and gave it a significant
pressure. She was too much elated to be capable of much talk.
“We must see Lucy home,” she said. “It is getting late, and dear little
Jock ought to be in bed. I am always glad to see my girls come back; but
there is one thing I shall grudge, these evening strolls; they have been
very sweet.”
“Then you have made up your mind, notwithstanding Miss Trevor’s
intercession (for which I thank her on my knees), to send me away?”
“I can not send you away while you are necessary to the comfort
of--these dear children,” Mrs. Stone said. There was a little break of
emotion in her voice, and Lucy listened with some surprise. She was
scarcely aware that she had interceded, yet in reality she was very glad
that Mr. St. Clair should stay. She observed that he held her hand a
moment longer than was necessary, as he bade her good-night, but she did
not attach any meaning to this. It was an accident; she was too greatly
indifferent to notice it at all.
And thus the tranquil days went on; the girls came back, but Mr. St.
Clair did not go away. He was faithful to Jock and his lessons, and very
sympathetic and kind to Lucy, though he did not at all understand the
semi-abstraction into which she sometimes fell in his presence, and
which was due to her anxious self-inquiries how she could propound to
him the question of permanent help. Indeed this abstraction deceived St.
Clair as much as his devotion was intended to deceive her. He was taken
in his own toils, or, rather, he fell into the trap which little Jock
had innocently laid for him. When Lucy looked at him, he thought that he
could see the keen interest which the child had discovered in her eyes;
and when she did not look at him, he thought she was averting her eyes
in maiden bashfulness for fear of betraying herself; and he permitted
himself to watch her with more and more tender and close observation. He
was far cleverer and more experienced than Lucy, but her simplicity
deceived him; and as he gave Jock his lesson and watched the tranquil
figure of the girl sitting by, St. Clair felt, with a throb of
excitement, that he was approaching a sort of fabulous termination, a
success more great than anything he had ever actually believed in. For,
as a matter of fact, he had never really believed in this chance which
his aunt had set before him. He had “gone in for” Lucy as he would have
“gone in for” any other temporary pursuit which furnished him with
something to do, and satisfied the relatives on whom he was more
dependent than was agreeable. But now suddenly the chase had become
real, the chance a possibility, or more than a possibility. In such
circumstances, what suitor could avoid a growing excitement? The moment
the thing became possible, it became wildly exciting, a hurrying
pursuit, a breathless effort. Thus while Lucy’s thoughts were gravely
fixed upon what she considered the chief business of her life, St.
Clair, on his side, pursued the object of his with an ardor which
increased as the end of the pursuit seemed to draw near. His voice took
tender inflections, his eyes gave forth glowing glances, his aspect
became more and more that of a lover; but Lucy, preoccupied and
inexperienced, saw nothing of this, and there was no one else to divine
what the unlucky wooer meant, unless, indeed it might be Jock, who saw
and heard so much more than any one supposed, so much more than he
himself knew.
Side by side along with this pursuit was that of which Mrs. Ford more
clearly perceived the danger, the wooing of Mrs. Rushton and her son
Ray. Mrs. Ford’s instinct was just, it was the mother who was the more
dangerous of the two. Ray, with his hands in his pockets, did not
present much of the natural appearance of a hero, and he had still less
of the energy and spontaneousness of a successful lover than he had of
the appearance which wins or breaks hearts, but, nevertheless, by dint
of unwearied exertions, he was kept more or less up to the mark. Lucy
had another constant visitor, about whose “intentions” it was less easy
to pronounce. Philip Rainy began to come very often to the Terrace; he
scorned Ray Rushton, and he paid the compliment of a hearty dislike to
St. Clair, he was suspicious of both, and of all others who appeared in
the neighborhood; but this was in the true spirit of the dog in the
manger, for his own purposes were more confused than ever, and he had no
desire to make any effort to appropriate to himself the great prize. He
stood by and looked on in a state of jealous watchfulness, sometimes
launching a word of bitter criticism against his cousin; but unable to
force himself to enter the lists, or take a single step to obtain what
he could not make up his mind to resign. Sometimes Katie Russell would
be with her friend, and then the young school-master went through such
tumults of feeling as nobody had thought him capable of. He was the only
one that had any struggle in his mind; but his was a hard one. Love or
advantage, which was it to be? By this time it was very clear to him
that they had no chance to be united in his case.
It was now October, but the weather was still warm, and it was still
possible to play croquet on the lawn, amid an increased party of young
people, the only kind of dissipation which Lucy’s mourning made
practicable. Mrs. Rushton’s regrets were great that a dance was not
possible, but she knew better than to attempt such a thing, and set all
the gossips going. “Next year everything will be very different,” she
said, “unless in the meantime some fairy prince comes and carries our
Lucy away.”
“I am her guardian, and I will have nothing to say to any fairy prince,”
Mr. Rushton said. They both gave a glance at their son as they spoke,
who was a good-looking young fellow enough, but not much like a Prince
Charmant. And Lucy smiled and accepted the joke quite calmly, knowing
nothing of any such hero. She heard all his mother’s praise of Raymond
quite unmoved, saying “Indeed,” and “That was very nice;” but without
the faintest gleam of emotion. It was very provoking. Mrs. Rushton had
made up her mind that Lucy was not a girl of much feeling, but yet would
be insensibly moved by habits of association, and by finding one person
always at her elbow wherever she moved. Raymond, in the meantime, had
profited in a way beyond his hopes. He had got a horse, the better to
accompany the heiress on her rides, and his money in his pocket was more
abundant; but when his mother spurred him up to a greater display of
devotion, the young man complained that he had not encouragement.
“Encouragement!” Mrs. Rushton cried; “a girl with no one can tell how
many thousands a year, and you want encouragement!” It seemed to her
preposterous. Oh, that mothers could but do for sons what they are so
lukewarm in doing for themselves! Mrs. Rushton did all that was
possible. She told tales of her boy’s courage and unselfishness, which
were enough to have dazzled any girl, and hinted and insinuated his
bashful love in a hundred delicate ways. But Lucy remained obtuse to
everything. She was not clever nor had she much imagination, and love
had not yet acquired any place in her thoughts.
This was to be the last croquet-party of the season, and all that was
fair and fashionable and eligible in Farafield was gathered on the lawn,
round which the scarlet geraniums were blazing like a gorgeous border to
a great shawl. Rarely had Lucy seen so gay a scene. When she had herself
got through a game, which she did not particularly care for, she was
allowed to place herself in one of the low basket-chairs near the
tea-table, at which Mrs. Rushton was always seated. “Was there ever such
a child?” Mrs. Rushton said; “she prefers to sit with us dowagers rather
than to take her share in the game.”
“And what is still more wonderful,” said an old lady, who perhaps did
not care to hear herself called a dowager, “your son Raymond seems of
the same opinion, though he is a hot croquet-player, as we all know.”
“Oh, Ray; I hope he is too civil to think what he likes himself,” his
mother said, with well-assumed carelessness. But this did not take
anybody in. And all the elder people watched the heiress, as indeed the
younger ones did also in the midst of their game; for though Lucy did
not greatly care for his attendance, there were some who prized Ray, and
to whom his post at her elbow was very distasteful. He was very faithful
to that post on this occasion, for St. Clair had posted himself on
Lucy’s other hand, and Raymond’s energies were quickened by opposition.
“Why does not Miss Trevor play croquet?” St. Clair said.
“I have been playing; but it is prettier to look on,” said Lucy; “and I
am not at all good. I have never been good at any game.”
“You are quite good enough for me, Miss Trevor,” said Ray. “I never can
get on with your fine players, who expect you to study it; now Walford
does study it. He gets up in the morning and practices.”
“Mr. Walford is a clergyman, it is part of his duty,” said St. Clair. “A
layman has a great many exemptions. He may wear colored ties, and he
need not play croquet--unless he likes.” Now Raymond had a blue tie,
which was generally considered very becoming to him.
“Do you remember the day we had at the old abbey?” said Ray. “I wonder
if we could do that again this season. It was very jolly. Don’t you
think we might try it again, Miss Trevor? The ruins are all covered with
that red stuff that looks so nice in the autumn; and I hear Mayflower is
all right again this morning. I went to the stable to ask. I thought as
sure as fate she had got a strain; I had a long talk with Simpson about
her.”
“It was very kind of you, Mr. Rushton.”
“Oh, not at all kind--but you can’t think I should not be interested in
Mayflower. If she did not carry you so nicely even, she’s a beauty in
herself. And she does carry you beautifully--or rather it’s you, Miss
Trevor, that--”
“Yes,” said St. Clair, “that is how I would put it. It is you, Miss
Trevor, who witch the world with such noble horsemanship that any animal
becomes a beauty. That is the right way to put it.”
“But there is no noble horsemanship in my case,” Lucy said with a
smile.
“Oh, come, I don’t know that,” cried Ray; “if it comes to circus tricks
that wouldn’t answer for a lady; but there aren’t many better riders
than you, Miss Trevor. You don’t make any show, but you sit your mare as
if you were cut out of one piece, you and she.”
“That is quite a poetical description,” St. Clair said. “Why am I only a
pedestrian, while you two canter by? You cover me with dust, and my
heart with ashes and bitterness when you pass me on the road. Why is one
man carried along on the top of the wave, in the most desirable company,
while another trudges along in the dust all by himself? Your ride opens
all the problems of life, Miss Trevor, to the poor wretch you pass on
the way.”
Lucy looked at him wistfully. It was the look which Jock had described,
and it moved St. Clair greatly, but yet he did not know what meaning was
in her eyes. Mrs. Rushton saw it too, and it seemed to her that St.
Clair was getting the best of it. She called to him suddenly, and he
left his post with great reluctance. He had more to say than they had,
he had more experience altogether; and it was not to subject the heiress
to the seductions of Mrs. Stone’s nephew that Mrs. Rushton had asked him
here.
“Don’t you play?” she said; “they are just looking for some one to make
up the game. It would be so kind of you to join them. I know they are
rather young for you, Mr. St. Clair, but it would be all the more kind
if you were to play.”
“It would be too kind,” he said; he had all his wits about him; “they do
not care for grandfathers like myself. Let me look on as becomes my
years, or, better still, let me help you. There must be some lady of my
own standing who wants to be helped to some tea.”
“You are too quick for me,” she said; “you know that is not what I mean;
you must not stay among the dowagers. The girls would never forgive me
if I kept all the best men here.”
“Ah, is that so?” he said. “But we are making ourselves very useful.
Your son is taking charge of Miss Trevor, who is a very important
person, and requires a great deal of attention, and I am handing the
cake. Mrs. Walford, you will surely take some; I am charged to point out
to you how excellent it is.”
“It is too good for me,” said the old lady whom he addressed, shaking
all the flowers on her bonnet. She was the curate’s mother, and she
thought it her duty to back her hostess up. “You should not mind us, Mr.
St. Clair; the girls will be quite jealous if they see all the young men
handing cake.”
“Then I must take it to Miss Trevor,” St. Clair said.
Meanwhile Ray was taking advantage of his opportunity. “Won’t you come
for a turn, Miss Trevor? Some fellows are so pushing they never know
when they are wanted. Do come if it was just to give him the slip. Why
should he be always hanging on here? Why ain’t he doing something? If a
fellow is out in the world, he ought to stay out in the world, not come
poking about here.”
“He is not strong, he is not well enough for his profession,” Lucy said.
“Oh, that is bosh. I beg your pardon, Miss Trevor, but only look at him,
he is _fat_. If he is not strong it is the more shame for him, it is
because he has let himself get out of training,” Ray said.
Lucy glanced at St. Clair with the cake in his hand, and a very small
laugh came from her. She could not restrain it altogether, but she was
ashamed of it. He _was_ fat. He was more handsome than Ray, and a great
deal more amusing; and he had an interest to her besides which no one
understood. She could not dismiss from her mind the idea that he was a
man to be helped, and yet she could not but laugh, though with a
compunction. A man who can be called fat appeals to no one’s sympathies.
She had got up rather reluctantly on Raymond’s invitation, but he had
not succeeded in drawing her attention to himself. She was still
standing in the same place when St. Clair hastened back.
“You are going round the grounds,” he said, “_à la bonne heure_ take me
with you, please, and save me from croquet. I don’t know the mysteries
of the labyrinths, the full extent of Mr. Rushton’s grounds.”
“Oh, there is no labyrinth,” Lucy said.
“And there are no mysteries,” cried Ray, indignantly; three people
walking solemnly along a garden-path abreast is poor fun.
“Didn’t my mother put croquet on the card?” he added; “it is always for
croquet the people are asked. It is a pity you don’t like it.” Ray
wanted very much to be rude, but he was better than his temper, and did
not know how to carry out his intention.
“Isn’t it?” said St. Clair coolly; “a thousand pities. I am always
getting into trouble in consequence, but what can I do, Miss Trevor? I
hate croquet. It is _plus fort que moi_; and you do not like it either?”
“Not very much,” Lucy answered, and she moved along somewhat timidly
between the two men who kept one on each side of her. Raymond did not
say much. It was he who had brought her away, who had suggested “a
turn,” but it was this fellow who was getting the good of it. Ray’s
heart was very hot with indignation, but his inventive powers were not
great, and in his anger he could not find a word to say.
“It is a peculiarity of society in England that we can not meet save on
some practical pretence or other. Abroad,” said St. Clair, with all the
confidence of a man who has traveled, “conversation is always reason
enough. After all, it is a talk we want, not games. We want to know each
other better, to become better friends; that is the object of all social
gatherings. The French understand all these things so much better than
we.”
This the two young people beside him listened to with awe, neither of
them having ever set foot on foreign soil.
“For my part,” cried Ray, suddenly, “I don’t see the good of that
constant chattering. Far better do something than to be forever
talk--talking. It may suit the French, who ain’t good for much else; but
we want something more over here. Besides, what can you talk about?” the
young man went on; “things can’t happen just to give you a subject, and
when you have said it’s a fine day, and what a nice party that was at
the Smiths, what more have you got to say?”
“I quite agree with you,” said St. Clair; “when you have no more than
that to say it is a great deal better to play at something. But yet
conversation has its advantages. Miss Trevor, here is one last rose. It
is the last that will come out this season. Oh, yes, there are plenty of
buds, but they are belated, they will never get to be roses. There will
come a frost to-night and slay them all in their nests, in their
cradles. This one is all the sweeter for being on the edge of ruin. I
will gather it for you. A flower,” he said, in a low tone, which Ray
could only half hear, “is all a poor man can offer at any shrine.”
Raymond looked on, crimson with indignation. It was on his lips to bid
this interloper offer what belonged to himself, not a flower out of
another man’s garden; but when St. Clair tore his finger on a thorn, the
real proprietor of the rose was enchanted; but even this the fellow
managed to turn to his own advantage. “It has cost me more than I
thought,” he said, so low that this time Ray could not hear anything but
a murmur. “It is symbolical, I would give all that is in my veins; but
it should buy you something better.” Ray did not hear this; but Lucy
did, and it filled her soul with wonder. Her eyes opened wide with
surprise. She had not even read so many novels as she ought, and she was
more puzzled than flattered. Besides, Lucy’s mind was confused with the
thought, so strong in Raymond’s consciousness, that to cut other
people’s roses was a doubtful generosity. She stammered a little as she
thanked him, and looked as if asking permission of Ray.
“Oh, Mrs. Rushton ought perhaps to have it, as there are so few roses
now,” Lucy said.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE FIRST PROPOSAL.
“Lucy, I never thought you were a flirt before,” said Mrs. Rushton, half
severe, half jocular. They did not walk home with her now, as they had
done in the warm August evenings. It was now dark, and almost all the
company had dispersed, and the brougham had been ordered to take Miss
Trevor home.
“A flirt!” Lucy looked up with great surprise at the word.
“Oh, yes, you may look astonished; perhaps you don’t call that flirting;
but I am old-fashioned. No one has been able to get a word with you all
the evening. Now recollect,” said Mrs. Rushton, shaking a forefinger at
the culprit. “I am very prim and proper, and I have Emmie to think of.
You must not set her a bad example; and there’s poor Ray. You have not a
bit of feeling for poor Ray.”
Lucy looked at her with very serious inquiring eyes, and went home with
a consciousness that there was a rivalry between Mr. St. Clair and
Raymond, in which she was more or less involved. Lucy was not very quick
of understanding, and neither of them had said anything to her which was
quite unmistakable. Had they mentioned the words love or marriage, she
would have known what she had to encounter at once; but she was not on
the outlook for implied admiration, and their assiduities scarcely
affected her. St. Clair was Jock’s tutor, and in constant communication
with her, and, no doubt, she thought, it was Mrs. Rushton who made
Raymond take so much care of her. This was a shrewd guess, as the reader
knows, and, therefore she did not trouble herself about Ray’s
attentions, or wonder at the devotion of St. Clair. But she had a faint
uneasy feeling in her mind. The rose which she had fastened in her dress
was very sweet, and kept reminding her of that scene in the garden. This
pricked Lucy’s conscience a little as she drove home in the dark alone
with it. It ought to have been given to Mrs. Rushton, not to her; the
last Devoniensis, sweet like an echo of summer, the only one that was
left. St. Clair had no right to gather it, nor she to wear it. It was a
robbery in its way, and this made her uncomfortable, more uncomfortable
than the accusation of flirting, of which Lucy felt innocent. The night
was dark, but very soft and warm for the season, not even a star
visible, everything wrapped in clouds and dimness. When the brougham
stopped at the door in the Terrace, some one appeared at once to open it
for her, to help her out. “Mr. St. Clair!” she cried, almost with alarm.
“Yes,” he said; he was not much more than a voice and a big shadow, but
still she could not have any doubt about him. “I hurried on to do my
duty as Miss Trevor’s servant; they would not have let me walk home with
you, but I was determined to pay my duty here.”
Lucy was embarrassed by this new attention, “I am so sorry you have
taken so much trouble,” she said. “I always wait till they have opened
the door. Ah! here they are coming; there was no need, indeed, of any
one. I am sorry you took the trouble.”
“Trouble!” he said, “that is not the word. Ah, Miss Trevor, thanks! you
are wearing my rose.”
“Indeed!” said Lucy. “I am afraid it is not right to cut it. Mr. Raymond
looked--it was the last one; and it was theirs--not ours.”
“The churl!” said St. Clair; “he ought to have been too proud if you had
put your foot upon it, instead of wearing it. How sweet it is! it is
where it ought to be.” Then he paused, detaining her for a moment. “Yes,
the door is open,” he said, with a sigh. “I can not deny it. Good-night
then--till to-morrow.”
“Good-night!” said Lucy, calmly. She wondered what was the matter? What
did he mean by it? He held her hand closely, but did not shake it as
people in their ordinary senses do when they bid you good-night, and he
kept Mrs. Ford standing at the door with her candle in her hand, blown
about by the draught. Mrs. Ford was sleepy, she did not pay much
attention to Lucy’s companion. It was past ten o’clock, an hour at which
all the Ford household went to bed; and Mrs. Ford knew herself to be
very virtuous and self-denying in sitting up for Lucy, and was a little
cross in consequence. She said only, “You are late, Lucy. I wonder what
pleasure it can be to anybody to be out of bed at this hour,” and shut
the door impatiently. The lights were all out except Mrs. Ford’s candle,
and the darkness in-doors was very different from that soft darkness out
of doors, it was only half past ten, yet Lucy felt herself dissipated.
She was glad to hurry upstairs. Jock opened his big eyes as she went
through the room in which he slept. He put up a sleepy hand, and softly
stroked her rose as she bent down to kiss him. The rose seemed the chief
point altogether in the evening. She put it into water on her table, and
went to bed with a little tremulous sense of excitement. But she could
not tell why she was excited.
It was something in the air, something independent of her, a breath as
from some other atmosphere straying into her own.
As for St. Clair, he stumbled home across the common, almost losing his
way, as the night was so dark, with a little excitement in his mind too.
When he got into Mrs. Stone’s parlor, where she sat at the little meal
which was her special and modest indulgence, he was greeted by both
ladies with much interest and many questions. “Did it go off well?” Miss
Southwood said, who liked to hear what there had been to eat at the
“heavy tea” which followed the croquet party, and whether there had been
wine on the table in addition to the tea. But Mrs. Stone looked still
more anxiously in Frank’s face. “Are you getting on? Are you making
progress?” was what she said. To which he answered, with a great deal of
earnestness, in the words of the poet:
“‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.’”
“Has it come so far as that?” said Mrs. Stone.
“I think so; but do not ask me any more questions,” he said, and he was
treated with the utmost delicacy and consideration. Without another
word, a plate with some of Mrs. Stone’s delicately cooked dish was set
before him, and a large glass of East India sherry poured out, far
better fare than the cold viands and tea prepared for Mrs. Rushton’s
many guests, while the conversation was gently led into another channel.
His feelings could not have been more judiciously studied, for he had
been too much intent upon Lucy to eat much at the previous meal, and
agitation is exhausting. The only further allusion that was made to the
crisis was when Mrs. Stone bade him good-night. She kissed him on the
cheek, and said softly, “I quite approve your action if you think the
occasion is ripe for it, but do not be premature, my dear boy.”
“No, I will not be premature,” he said, smiling upon her. His heart
expanded with a delightful self-confidence. It did not seem to him that
there was any cause to fear.
And as he sat in the little room at the end of the long passage, where
he was permitted to smoke, and watched the floating clouds that rose
from his cigar, the imaginations which rose along with these circling
wreaths were beautiful. He saw within his grasp a something sweeter than
love, more delicious than any kind of dalliance. Wealth! the power of
doing whatever he pleased, stepping at once into a position, he, the
unsuccessful, which would leave all the successful men behind, and
dazzle those who had once passed him by in the race. He was not
disinclined toward Lucy. He felt it was in him indeed to be fond of her,
who could do so much for him. She could open to him the gates of
paradise, she could make him the happiest man in the world. These
hyperboles would be strictly true, far more true than they were in the
majority of the cases in which they were uttered with fullest sincerity.
But nobody could be more sincere than Frank St. Clair in his use of the
well-worn formulas. It was nothing less than blessedness, salvation, an
exemption from ills of life which Lucy had it in her power to confer.
Next morning he went as usual to the Terrace and gave Jock his lesson
with a mind somewhat disturbed. The little fellow with his grammar, the
tranquil figure of the girl over her books, the ordinary aspect of the
room with which he was growing so familiar, had the strangest effect
upon him in the state of excitement in which he found himself. The
monotony of the lesson which had to be made out all the same, word by
word, and the strange suspense and expectation in which he sat amid all
the calmness of the domestic scene, made St. Clair’s head go round. He
did not know how to support it, and it was before his hour was out that
he suddenly interrupted Jock’s repetition with a sudden harsh whisper.
“Run and play,” he said; “that is enough for to-day.”
He had not even heard what Jock had been saying for the last ten
minutes. The child looked up in the utmost surprise. He was stopped in
the middle of a sentence, the words taken out of his mouth. He looked
with his eyes opening wide.
“Run and play,” St. Clair repeated, his lips were quite dry with
excitement; “I want to speak to Lucy.”
He had never spoken of her as Lucy before, he had never thought of
suggesting that Jock should run and play. The child, though startled and
indignant, yielded to the emergency which was unmistakable in his
instructor’s face. He looked at St. Clair for a moment, angry, then
yielding to the necessity. And Lucy, whose interest in her history-book
was never of an absorbing description, hearing the pause, the whisper,
the little rustle of movement, looked up too. She saw with some
astonishment that Jock was leaving the room.
“Have you got through your lessons already?” she cried.
St. Clair made the child an imperative sign, and got up and approached
Lucy.
“I have sent him away,” he said, and then stood for a moment looking
down upon her. She, on her side, looked up with a surprised countenance.
There could not have been a greater contrast than that which was
apparent between them; he full of excitement, she perfectly calm, though
surprised, wondering what it was he was about to say to her, and what
his restrained agitation could mean. “I sent him away,” said St. Clair,
“because I wanted to say something to you, Miss Trevor; I could not
delay it any longer. It has been almost more than I could do to keep
silence so long.”
“What is it?” she said. She was gently anxious, concerned about him,
wondering if he was going to relieve her of her difficulty by confessing
his wants, and putting it into her power to help him. It did not occur
to Lucy that a man would be very unlikely to confide troubles about
money to a girl. The distribution of her money occupied her own mind so
much that it seemed, on the contrary, a likely matter to her that others
should be so preoccupied too.
“I have something to say to you,” he repeated; but the look of her mild
blue eyes steadfastly directed toward him made what he had to say a
great deal more difficult to St. Clair. A chill doubt penetrated into
his mind; he hesitated. The least little uncertainty on her part, a
blush, a shade of trouble, would have made everything easier to him; but
Lucy was not excited. She “did seriously incline” to hear whatever he
might have to say, but her eyes did not even veil their mild light, nor
her cheek own the shadow of a flush. To discharge a declaration of love
point-blank at a young woman who is gazing at you in perfect composure
and ease, without a shade of expectation in her countenance, is no easy
matter. Besides, the fact of her composure was, of all things in the
world, the most discouraging to her suitor; and it was what he had not
anticipated. It came upon him as a revelation of the most chilling and
discouraging kind. “Now that the moment has come,” said. St. Clair, “all
the unkind judgments I may be exposing myself to seem to rise up before
me. I never thought of them till now. The sincerity of my feelings was
my defense. Now I feel overwhelmed by them. Miss Trevor--Lucy! I feel
now that I have been a fool. What I wanted to say is what I ought not to
say.”
He covered his face with his hands, and turned away from her. Lucy was
much concerned. This little pantomime, which, however, was the sincerest
part of all St. Clair’s proceedings, took away her indifference at once.
Her composed countenance was disturbed, a little color came to her face.
“Oh, tell me what it is,” she cried.
When he looked at her, there was an air almost of entreaty on Lucy’s
face. She repeated her petition, “Tell me what it is,” looking anxiously
up to him. His heart beat very loudly. To
“ ... put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.”
is not so easily done in reality as in verse. He drew a long, almost
sobbing, breath. He dropped down suddenly on one knee, close to her.
This was not any expedient of humility or devotion, but merely to bring
himself on a level with her, and as such Lucy understood it, though she
was surprised.
“Lucy!” he said (and this startled her still more), “Lucy! don’t you
know what it is? can not you guess? haven’t you seen it already in every
look of my face, in every tone of my voice? Ah, yes, I am sure you know
it. I am not a good dissembler, and what else could have kept me here?
Lucy! I am not good enough for you, but such as I am, will you have me?”
he cried.
“_Have_ you, Mr. St. Clair!” Lucy stammered out in consternation. She
understood him vaguely, and yet she did not understand him. _Have_ him!
not give to him, but take from him. He had put it skillfully, without,
however, being aware that he was doing so, excitement taking the place
of calculation, as it often does. He held out his hands for hers, he
looked at her with eyes full of entreaty, beseeching, imploring. There
was nothing fictitious in their eloquence. He meant as sincerely as ever
lover meant, and the yes or no was to him, as in the case of the most
impassioned wooer, like life or death.
“Yes,” he said, “have me! I am not much of a man, but with you I should
be another creature. You would give me what I have always wanted, an
inspiration, a motive. Since the first time I saw you, my happiness has
been in your hands; for what else do you think I have been staying here?
I have not done all I might have done, but, Lucy, if love had not held
me, do you think I am good for nothing but to be tutor to a child? I
have served for love, like Jacob, for you.”
Lucy gave a low cry at this. She put her hands, not into his, but
together, wringing them with sudden pain.
“Oh,” she said, “why did not you tell me before? Oh, Mr. St. Clair, why
did I not know?”
“Do you think I grudge it?” he said, “not if it had been as long as
Jacob’s. Do you think I regret having done this for you? not if it had
been a life-time; but Lucy, you are too good to keep me in suspense, you
will give me my reward at the end?”
And this time he took her clasped hands into his, drawing her to him.
Lucy’s courage had failed for a moment. Confusion and trouble and
distress had taken away all the strength from her. There was a mist over
her eyes, and her voice seemed to die away in her throat; but at his
touch her girlish shyness came to her aid. A flush of shrinking and
shame came over her. She drew away from him with an instinctive recoil.
“Mr. St. Clair, I don’t know what you want from me. I am very grateful
to you about Jock. I thought it was a great favor; but I did not
know--oh, I am very sorry, very sorry that you should have done anything
that was not good enough for me.”
“I am not sorry,” he said; his heart began to sink, but he looked more
lover-like, more eager than ever. “You do not know how sweet it is to
serve those one loves. Do you remember what Browning says about Dante’s
angel and Raphael’s sonnet?” He was a man of culture himself, and he did
not reflect that Dante, and Raphael, and Browning were all alike out of
Lucy’s way, who stared at him with growing horror, as he pleaded,
feeling that he must be citing spectators of his sacrifices for her, who
would blame her, and say she used him badly. “This is my sonnet and my
picture,” he added; “‘Once, and only once, and for one only.’ Lucy!
believe me, I should never have said anything about it, save to prove my
dear love.”
Blanched with pain and terror, her mild eyes opened widely, her breath
coming quick, Lucy looked at him kneeling by her side, and held herself
away, leaning to the other hand to avoid the almost unavoidable contact.
She kept her eyes fixed upon him to keep watch more than anything else,
upon what he would do next.
He saw that his cause was lost. There was neither love nor gratitude for
love in the stare of her troubled eyes; but he would not give in without
another effort. He said, softly sinking his voice, “You ask what I want
from you, Lucy? Alas! I thought you would have divined without asking.
Your love, dear, in return for mine, which I have given you. What I want
is nothing less than your love--and yourself.”
Again he put out his hands to take hers. To think that this should be
all the mere fancy of a little girl, all that stood between him and
bliss, not perhaps the usual kind of lover’s bliss, yet happiness,
rapture. Impatience seized him, which he could scarcely restrain. Such a
trifling obstacle as this, no obstacle at all, for it was clear she
could not know what was for her own advantage, what would make her
happy. Then came an impatient inclination upon him to capture her by his
bow and spear, to seize upon her simply and carry her off, and compel
her to see what was for her own advantage. But alas! the rules of
conventional life were too many for St. Clair. Though this he felt would
have been the natural and the sensible way of proceeding, he could not
adopt it. He had still to kneel by her side and do his best to persuade
her. He could not force her to do even what was so evidently for her
good.
The extremity of her need brought back Lucy’s courage. She felt herself
driven to bay, and it was evident that he must have no doubt as to the
answer she gave. She looked at him as steadily as her trembling would
permit, a deep flush came over her face, her lips quivered.
“Do you mean that you want to--marry me, Mr. St. Clair?” she said.
St. Clair felt that the moment was supreme. He threw all the passionate
entreaty which was possible (and his passion was real enough) into his
look, and gathering her hands into both his, kissed them again and
again.
“What else?” he said, in a whisper, which must have thrilled through and
through a heart in which there was any response. But in Lucy’s there was
no response. She stumbled to her feet with an effort, getting her hands
free, and leaving her discomfited suitor kneeling by the side of her
empty chair in ludicrous confusion. He had, indeed, to grasp hold of the
chair, or the sudden energy of her movement would have disturbed his
balance too.
“That is impossible, impossible!” Lucy cried, her cheeks burning, her
mild eyes glowing; “you must never speak of it again, you must never
mention it to me more. I could not,” she added, feeling in his look that
all was not settled, even by this vehement negative, “I could not, I
could never marry _you_; and I do not want to be married at all.”
“Not now, perhaps, but some time you will,” he said. He had risen from
his knee, and stood opposite to her, banishing as best he could his
confusion from his face. “Not now; I have been rash, I have frightened
you with an avowal which I ought not to have made so soon; but Lucy,
dearest, the time will come.”
“Not now, or ever!” she cried; “oh, Mr. St. Clair, believe me! don’t let
it be all to go over another time; neither now nor ever. I may be
frightened, I never thought of anything like this before; but now you
have made me think of it, I know--_that_ is impossible, it could never,
never be!”
“You are very sure of yourself,” he said, with a little involuntary
bitterness; for it is not pleasant to be rejected, even when you think
it is the dictate of fright, and St. Clair did not think so, but only
pretended so to think.
“Yes, I am very, very sure. Oh, indeed, I am sure. Anything, anything
else! If I could help you to get on, if I could be of any use. Anything
else; but that can never be!” said Lucy, with tremendous firmness. He
looked at her with cynical scorn in his eyes.
“I will never thrust anything upon a lady against her will,” he said,
“even to save her from the blood-hounds; one can not do that, but the
time will come--I know very well the time will come.” He was as much
agitated as if indeed he had loved Lucy to desperation. He went to the
table and collected his books with a tremendous vehemence. “I must now
wish you good-morning, Miss Trevor,” he said.
And it was with a troubled heart that Lucy saw him go. What could she
have done otherwise? She could not bear that any one should leave her
thus. She longed to be able to offer him--anything that would salve his
wound. If he would only take some of the money! if he would only accept
her help, since she could not give him herself. She looked after him
with her heart wrung, and tears in her piteous eyes.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ONE DOWN, AND ANOTHER COME ON.
This was Lucy’s first experience of love-making. It is needless to say
that it was very far from being her last; but for the moment it was an
appalling revelation to her, an incident of the most disturbing and
disquieting kind. She was alone for a long time after St. Clair’s
withdrawal. It was the morning, the time when Mrs. Ford was occupied
with household concerns, and Jock, being freed sooner than usual, had
betaken himself to one of his habitual corners with a book, and was
thousands of mental miles away from his sister. She remained alone in
that pink drawing-room, in which already she had spent so many lonely
hours. There she stood hidden behind the curtains, and watched St. Clair
speeding across the road that skirted the common to the White House. She
had seen him coming and going a great many times with placid
indifference. But she could not be indifferent to anything about him
now. His hasty pace, so unlike the usual stateliness of demeanor in
which he resembled his aunt, the books under his arm, his stumble as he
rushed over the rough ground, all went to Lucy’s heart. She was not
sorry that she had given forth so determined a decision. That she felt
at once, with her usual good sense, was unavoidable. It was not a
question upon which any doubt could be left. But she was very sorry to
have given him pain, very sorry that it had been necessary. She felt
pained and angry that such an appeal should have been made to her, yet
at the same time self-reproachful and sore, wondering how it was her
fault, and what she could have done. It dismayed her to think that she
had voluntarily and deliberately inflicted pain, and yet what
alternative had been left her? Now, she thought to herself sadly, here
was an end of all possibility of helping a man who was poor, and whom
she would have been so glad to help. He would not take anything from her
now, he would be angry, he would reject her aid, although so willingly
given. This gave Lucy a real pang. She could not get it out of her mind.
How foolish, she moralized, to put off a real duty like this, to let it
become impossible! She was sitting pondering very sadly upon the whole
matter, asking herself wistfully if anything could be done, when Mrs.
Rushton came in, full of the plan which Raymond had proposed the evening
before. Mrs. Rushton was always elated by a new proposal of
pleasure-making. It raised her spirits even when nothing else was
involved. But in this case there was a great deal more involved.
“It is the very thing to finish the season,” she said; “we have had a
very pleasant season, especially since you came back, Lucy. You have
made us enjoy it twice as much as we usually do. For one thing, home has
been so much more attractive than usual to Ray. Oh, he is always very
good, he does not neglect his own people; still young men will be young
men, and you know even Shakespeare talks of ‘metal more attractive’ than
a mother. So as I was saying--Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Ford?”
As usual, Mrs. Ford made her appearance, sweeping in her purple silk,
which was of a very brilliant and hot hue, and put every other color
out. Her punctual attendance, when ladies came to see Lucy, served her
purpose very well, for it made it apparent to these ladies that Lucy’s
present hostess was a very dragon of jealous carefulness, and was likely
to guard the golden apples against all comers as she did from them.
“How do you do?” said Mrs. Ford, stiffly, taking a stiff and high backed
chair.
“It is a very fine day,” said Mrs. Rushton; “what pleasant weather we
are having for this time of the year! I was remarking to Lucy that it
had been the most enjoyable summer. I always say that for young people
there is nothing so enjoyable as out-door parties when the weather is
good. They get air and they get exercise, far better than being cooped
up in stuffy ball-rooms. I feel quite thankful to Lucy, who has been the
occasion of so many nice friendly meetings.”
“She has had a deal too much of gayety, I think,” said Mrs. Ford,
“considering that her poor dear father has not been much more than six
months in his grave.”
“You can not really call it gayety, oh, no, not gayety! a few nice quiet
afternoons on the lawn, and just one or two picnics. No, Lucy dear, you
need not be frightened; I will never suffer you to do anything
inconsistent with your mourning. You may rely on me. If anything, I am
too particular on that point. Your nice black frocks,” said Mrs.
Rushton, with fervor, “have never been out of character with anything. I
have taken the greatest care of that.”
“I don’t say anything about the afternoons,” said Mrs. Ford, “but I know
that it was half-past ten when your carriage came to the door last night
with Lucy in it. I don’t hold with such late hours. Ford and me like to
be in bed at ten o’clock.”
“Ah, that is very early,” Mrs. Rushton said, with an indulgent smile;
“say eleven, and I will take care that Lucy has some one with her to see
her safe home.”
“Oh, for that matter, there’s always plenty with her,” said the
grumbler, “and more than I approve of. I don’t know what girls want with
all that running about. We never thought of it in our day. Home was our
sphere, and there we stayed, and never asked if it was dull or not.”
“That is very true; and it was very dull. We don’t bring up our children
like that nowadays,” said Mrs. Rushton, with that ironical superiority
which the mother of a family always feels herself justified in
displaying to a childless contemporary. Mrs. Ford had no children to get
the advantage of the new rule. “And,” she added, “one feels for a dear
child like Lucy, who has no mother, that one is doubly bound to do one’s
best for her. How poor dear Mrs. Trevor would have watched over her had
she been spared! a motherless girl has a thousand claims. And, Lucy,”
continued her indulgent friend, “this is Ray’s party. It is he that is
to manage it all; he took it into his head that you would like to see
the Abbey again.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, surprised that they should show so much thought
for her, but quite ready to be pleased and grateful too.
“He and his sister will come and fetch you at two o’clock,” she
continued; “it will be quite hurriedly got up, what I call an
impromptu--but all the better for that. There will be just our own set.
Mrs. Stone of course it would be useless to ask, now that school has
begun again; but if there is any friend whom you would like to have--”
It was as if in direct answer to this half-question that at that moment
the door opened and Katie Russell, all smiles and pleasure, came in.
“Lucy,” she cried, “Bertie has come, as I told you; he wants so much to
see you; may I bring him in? Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ford, I did not
see that you were here.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Ford, grimly; “most folks do the same.”
“Is it your brother, the author?” said Mrs. Rushton, excited. She was so
far out of the world, and so little acquainted with its ways, that she
felt, and thought it the right thing to show that she felt, an interest
in a real living novelist. “Lucy, we must have him come to the picnic,”
she cried.
But she was not so enthusiastic when Bertie appeared. His success had
made a great difference in Bertie’s outward man; he was no longer the
slipshod youth of Hampstead, by turns humble and arrogant, full of
boyish assurance and equally boyish timidity. Even in that condition he
had been a handsome young fellow, with an air of breeding which must
have come from some remote ancestor, as there was no nearer way by which
he could have acquired it. When he walked into the room now, it was as
if a young prince had suddenly appeared among these commonplace people.
It was not his dress, Mrs. Rushton soon decided, for Raymond was as well
dressed as he--nor was it his good looks, though it was not possible to
deny them; it was--more galling still--_something_ which was neither
dress nor looks, but which he had, and, alas! Raymond had not. Mrs.
Rushton gazed at him open-eyed, while he came in smiling and gracious,
shaking hands with cordial grace.
“It is not my own boldness that brings me,” he said, “but Katie’s. I am
shifting the responsibility off my own shoulders on to hers, as you
ladies say we all do; but for Katie’s encouragement, I don’t know if I
would have ventured.”
“I am very glad to see you,” Lucy said; and then they all seated
themselves, the central interest of the group shifting at once to the
new-comer, the young man of genius, the popular author. He was quite
sensible of the duties of his position, treated the ladies round him _en
bon prince_ with a suitable condescension to each and to all.
“I have a hundred things to say to you from my mother,” he said; “she
wishes often that you could see her in her new house, where she is very
comfortable. She thinks you would be pleased with it.” This was said
with a glance of confidential meaning, which showed Lucy that, though
Katie was not aware of it, her brother knew and acknowledged the source
from which his mother’s comfort came. “And it is very kind of you to
admit us at this untimely hour,” he said to Mrs. Ford, looking at her
purple silk with respect as if it had been the most natural
morning-dress in the world. “Katie is still only a school-girl, and is
guided by an inscrutable system. I stand aghast at her audacity; but I
am very glad to profit by it.”
“Oh, as for audacity,” said Mrs. Ford, “that is neither here nor there,
we are well used to it; but whenever you like to come, Mr. Russell,
you’ll find a welcome. I knew your good father well, and a better man
never was--”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Rushton, eager to introduce herself, “I must be
allowed to say so too. I knew Mr. Russell very well, though I never had
the pleasure of making acquaintance with his family. I am afraid, after
the society you must have been seeing, you will find Farafield a very
benighted sort of place. There is nothing that can be called society
here.”
“That is so much the better,” said Bertie graciously; “one has plenty of
it in the season, it is a relief to be let alone: and my object in
coming here is not society.”
“Oh, I told you, Lucy,” cried his sister, “he has come to study.” A
frown crossed Bertie’s face; he gave her a warning look. “I want rest,”
he said; “there is nothing like lying fallow. It does one all the good
in the world.”
“Ah!” cried Mrs. Rushton, “I know what that means. You have come to
take us all off, Mr. Russell; we will all be put into your new book.”
Bertie smiled a languid and indulgent smile. “If I could suppose that
there were any eccentricities to be found in your circle,” he said,
“perhaps--but good breeding is alike over all the world.”
Mrs. Rushton did not quite know what this meant; but it was either a
compliment or something that sounded like one. She was delighted with
this elegant young man of genius, who was so familiar with and
indifferent to society. “If you will come to the little picnic I am
planning for to-morrow, you shall judge for yourself,” she said; “and
perhaps Mrs. Stone will let your sister come too,” she added, with less
cordiality. Katie, whom every one knew to be only a governess-pupil, had
not attracted her attention much. She had been accepted with toleration
now and then as Lucy’s friend, but as the sister of a young literary
lion, who no doubt knew all kinds of fine people, Katie became of more
importance. Bertie took the invitation with great composure, though his
sister, who was not _blasée_, looked up with sparkling eyes.
“To-morrow?” he said; “I am Katie’s slave and at her disposal. I will
come with pleasure if my sister will let me come.”
Was it wise? Mrs. Rushton asked herself, with a little shiver. She made
a mental comparison between this new-comer and Ray. The proverbial
blindness of love is not to be trusted in, in such emergencies. His
mother saw, with great distinctness, that Raymond had not that air, that
_je ne sais quoi_; nor could he talk about society, nor had he the easy
superiority, the conscious genius of Bertie. But then the want of these
more splendid qualities put him more on Lucy’s level. Lucy (thank
Heaven!) was not clever. She would not understand the other’s gifts; and
Ray was a little, just a little taller, his hair curled, which Bertie’s
did not; Mrs. Rushton thought that, probably, the author would be open
to adulation, and would like to be worshiped by the more important
members of the community. What could he care for a bit of a girl? So, on
the whole, she felt herself justified in her invitation. She offered the
brother and sister seats in the break, in which she herself and the
greater part of her guests were to drive to the Abbey, and she made
herself responsible for the consent of Mrs. Stone. “Of course I shall
ask Mr. St. Clair, Lucy,” she said. “I always like to ask him, poor
fellow! he must be so dull with nothing but ladies from morning till
night.”
“Happy man,” Bertie said; “what could he desire more?”
“But when those ladies are aunts, Mr. Russell?”
“That alters the question. Though there is something to be said for
other people’s aunts,” said Bertie, “I am not one of those who think all
that is pleasant is summed up in youth.”
“Oh, you must not tell me that. You all like youth best,” said Mrs.
Rushton; but she was pleased. She felt her own previsions justified. A
young man like this, highly cultivated and accustomed to good society,
what could he see in a little bread-and-butter sort of a girl like Lucy?
She gave Bertie credit for a really elevated tone. She was not so
worldly-minded as she supposed herself to be, for she did not take it
for granted that everybody else was as worldly-minded as herself.
This succession of visitors and events drove the adventure of the
morning out of Lucy’s head. And when she went out with Jock in the
afternoon, Bertie met them in the most natural way in the world, and
prevented any relapse of her thoughts. He told her he was “studying”
Farafield, which filled Lucy with awe; and begged her to show him what
was most remarkable in the place. This was a great puzzle to the girl,
who took him into the market-place, and through the High Street, quite
unconscious of the scrutiny of the beholders. “I don’t think there is
anything that is remarkable in Farafield,” she said, while Bertie,
smiling--thinking involuntarily that he himself, walking up and down the
homely streets, with an artist’s eye alive to all the picturesque
corners, was enough to give dignity to the quiet little country
place--walked by her side, very slim and straight, the most
gentleman-like figure. There were many people who looked with curiosity,
and some with envy, upon this pair, the women thinking that only her
money could have brought so aristocratic a companion to the side of old
John Trevor’s daughter, while the men concluded that he was some needy
“swell,” who was after the girl, and thus exhibited himself in
attendance upon her. It came to Mrs. Rushton’s ears that they had been
seen together, and the information startled her much; but what could she
do? She fell upon Raymond, reproaching him for his shilly-shally. “Now
you see there is no time to be lost; now you see that other people have
their wits about them,” she said; “if you let to-morrow slip, there will
be nothing too bad for you,” cried the exasperated mother. But Raymond,
though he was more frightened than could be told in words, had no
thought of letting to-morrow slip. He too felt that things were coming
to a crisis. He stood at the window with his hands in his pockets and
whistled, as it were, under his breath. He was terribly frightened; but
still he felt that what was to be done must be done, if anything was to
be done. So long as it was only St. Clair, whom he thought middle-aged,
and who was certainly fat, who was against him, he had not been much
troubled; but this new fellow was a different matter. He did not put his
resolution into such graceful words, but he too felt that it was time to
“ ... put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all,”
As for Lucy, no thought of the further trials awaiting her entered her
mind; but she was not happy. It had ceased to be possible to take those
evening strolls which had brought her into such intimate relations with
the inmates of the White House. They had been given up since the girls
came back; and, indeed, the days were so much shorter that they had
become impracticable. But when she came upstairs to her lonely
drawing-room after tea, when it was not yet completely dark, she could
not choose but to go to the window, and look out upon the dim breadth of
the common, and the lights which began to twinkle in Mrs. Stone’s
windows. The grassy breadths of broken ground, the brown furze-bushes,
all stubbly with the husks of the seed-pots, the gleam of moisture here
and there, the keener touch of color in the straggling foliage of the
hedges, and here and there a half-grown tree were dim under a veil of
mist when she looked out. The last redness of the sun was melting from
the sky. A certain autumnal sadness was in the bit of homely landscape,
which, though she was not imaginative, depressed Lucy as she stood at
the window. She was altogether depressed and discouraged. Mrs. Ford had
been, if not scolding, yet talking uncomfortably to her husband across
the girl, of the rudeness of Lucy’s friends. “Not that I would go to
their parties if they begged me on their knees,” Mrs. Ford had said,
“but the impoliteness of it! And to ask those Russells before my very
face, who are not a drop’s blood to Lucy.” “Well, well, my dear, never
mind,” her husband had said, “when she’s married there will be an end of
it.” “Married!” Mrs. Ford had said in high disdain. And then Lucy had
got up and hastened away, wounded and shocked and unhappy, though she
scarcely could tell why. She came and stood at the window, and looked
out, with the tears in her eyes. Everybody had been very kind to her,
but yet she was very lonely. She had a gay party to look forward to the
next day, and she believed she would enjoy it; but yet Lucy was lonely.
People seemed to struggle over her incoherently, for she knew not what
reason, each trying to push the other away, each trying to persuade her
that the other entertained some evil motive; and everything seemed to
concur in making it impossible for her to carry out her father’s will.
And there was nobody to advise, nobody to help her. Philip, to whom she
would so gladly have had recourse, was cross and sullen, and scolded her
for no reason at all, instead of being kind. And Sir Tom, who was really
kind, whom she could really trust to--what had become of him? Had he
forgotten her altogether? He had not written to her, and Lucy had not
the courage to write to him. What could she do to get wisdom, to know
how to deal with the difficulties around her? She was standing within
the curtains of the window, looking out wistfully toward the White
House, and wondering how Mr. St. Clair would speak to her to-morrow, and
if Mrs. Stone would know and be angry, when she was startled by the
sound of wheels, and saw a carriage--nay, not a carriage but something
more ominous, the fly of the neighborhood, the well known vehicle which
took all the people about the common to the railway, and was as familiar
as the common itself. It rattled along to the White House, making twice
the noise that any other carriage ever made. Could they be going to a
party? Lucy asked herself with alarm. But it was no party. There was
just light enough left to show that luggage was brought out. Then came
the glimmer of the lantern dangling at the finger end of the
gardener--that lantern by which, on winter nights, Lucy herself had been
so often lighted home. Then she perceived various figures about the
door, and Mrs. Stone coming out with a whiteness about her head which
betrayed the shawl thrown over her cap; evidently some one was going
away. Who could be going away?
After awhile the fly lumbered off from the door, leaving that gleam of
light behind, and some one looking out, looking after the person
departing. Lucy’s heart beat ever quicker and quicker. As the fly
approached the lamp-post that gave light to the Terrace, she saw that it
was a portmanteau and other masculine belongings that were on the top,
and to make assurance sure a man’s head glanced out and looked up at her
window. Lucy sunk down into a chair and cried. It was her doing. She had
driven St. Clair away, out into the hard world, with his heart-disease
and his poverty--she who had been brought into being and made rich, for
no other end than to help those who were poor!
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE PICNIC.
Lucy spent a most melancholy night. It was dreadful to her to think that
she had been not only “no good,” but the doer of harm. She imagined to
herself poor St. Clair, with that weakness which prevented him from
realizing the hopes of his friends, going away from the shelter and
comfort his aunt had provided for him and the rest of this quiet place,
and struggling again among others each more able to fight their way than
he--and all because of her, who should have smoothed his way for him,
who had the means to provide for him, to make everything easy. It is
impossible to describe the compunctions that filled Lucy’s inexperienced
heart. It seemed all her fault, his departure, and even his
incomprehensible proposal--for how could he ever have thought of such a
thing himself, he a gentleman, and she only a girl, at school the other
day--and all the disappointment and grief which must have been caused by
his going away, all her doing! though she had meant everything that was
kind, instead of this trouble. When she saw Jock preparing for his
lessons, her distress overpowered her altogether. “I am afraid Mr. St.
Clair is not coming,” she said, faltering, at breakfast; “I think he has
gone away,” feeling herself almost ready to cry. “Gone away!” said the
Fords, in a breath; and they exchanged looks which Lucy felt to be
triumphant. “And a good riddance too,” cried Mrs. Ford, “a fellow not
worth a penny, and giving himself airs as if he had hundreds in his
pocket.” “My dear,” her husband said, “perhaps you are too severe. I
think sometimes you are too severe; but I can’t say I think him much of
a loss, Lucy, if you will take my opinion.” Lucy was not much comforted
by this deliverance, and after hearing a full discussion of Mrs. Stone
and her belongings, was less consoled than ever. If they were poor so
much the more dismal for him to fail. Lucy could not settle to her own
work, she could not resume her own tasks so dutifully undertaken, but in
which she felt so little interest. It was easy for Jock to dispose of
himself on the great white hearth-rug with his book. She could not help
saying this as the sound of the leaves he turned caught her ears. “It
does not matter for you,” she said, “you are only a small boy, you never
think about anything, or wonder and wonder what people are going to do.”
Jock raised his head from the book, and looked at her with his big
eyes. He had been conscious of her restlessness all along, though he was
reading the “Heroes,” which St. Clair had given him. Her little
uncomfortable rustle of movement, her frequent gazings from the window,
the under-current of anxiety and uncertain resolution in the air, had
disturbed Jock in spite of himself. He lay and watched her now with his
head raised. “I wish,” said Jock, “we could get Heré or somebody to
come.” But Lucy was more insulted than helped by this speech. “What is
the use of trying to speak to you about things?” she cried exasperated,
“when you know we are real living creatures, and not people in a book!”
And Lucy in her distress cried, which she was not in the habit of doing.
Jock raised himself then to his elbow, and looked at her with great
interest and sympathy. “Heré can’t come to us,” he said seriously, “but
she was just a lady, only bigger than you are. Couldn’t you just go
yourself?”
“Jock, do you think I should go?” the girl cried. It was like consulting
an oracle, and that is what all primitive people like to do.
“Yes,” said the little boy, dropping down again satisfied upon his
fleecy rug. How could he know anything about it? but Lucy took no time
to think. She hastened to her room and put on her hat, and was hurrying
along the road to the White House, before she had thought what to say
when she got there. It was just twelve o’clock, a moment at which Mrs.
Stone was always to be found in her parlor, resting for half an hour in
the middle of her labors. Lucy found herself tapping at the parlor-door
in the fervor of her first resolution. She went in with eyes full of
tearful light. Mrs. Stone and Miss Southwood were both in the room. They
turned round with great surprise at the sight of her.
“How do you do, Lucy?” Mrs. Stone said, very coldly, not even putting
out her hand.
“Oh,” cried Lucy, full of her generous impulse. “Why has Mr. St. Clair
gone away?”
“I told you,” said Miss Southwood. “I told you! the girl doesn’t know
her own mind.”
Mrs. Stone caught her this time by both hands. “Lucy,” she cried, “don’t
trifle or be a little fool. If this is what you mean, Frank will come
back. You may be sure he did not want to go away.”
Lucy felt the soft hands which took hold of her grip like fingers of
iron, and felt herself grappled with an eager force she could scarcely
withstand. They came round her with anxious faces, seizing hold upon
her. For a moment she almost gasped for breath, half suffocated by the
closing in around her of this trap into which she had betrayed herself.
But the emergency brought back her strength and self-command. “It is not
that,” she said, with poignant distress and shame, though she had no
reason to be ashamed. “Oh, forgive me, it is not that!”
Mrs. Stone dropped her hands as if they had been hot coals, and turned
away. “This is a moment when I prefer to be alone, Miss Trevor,” she
said, as she was in the habit of saying to the girls who disturbed her
retirement; “if there is anything in which I can serve you, pray say so
without any loss of time. I reserve this half hour in the day to
myself.”
Thus chilled after the red heat of excitement into which she had been
raised, Lucy stood trembling, scarcely knowing what to say.
“I beg your pardon,” she faltered at last; “I came because I was so
unhappy about--Mr. St. Clair.”
“Lucy, what do you mean?” cried Miss Southwood. “Don’t frighten the
child, Maria! what _do_ you mean? You drive him away, and then you come
and tell us you are unhappy. What do you intend us to understand?”
“I wanted to come to you before,” said Lucy, with great humility,
looking at Mrs. Stone, who had turned away from her. “Please listen to
me for one moment. You said he was not strong, not able to do all he
wished. Mrs. Stone, I have a great deal of money left me by papa to be
given away.”
Mrs. Stone started to her feet with sudden passion. “Do you mean to
offer him money?” she cried.
This time Lucy did not falter, she confronted even the tremendous
authority of Mrs. Stone with a steady though tremulous front, and said,
“Yes,” very quietly and distinctly, though in a voice that showed
emotion. Her old instructress turned on her commanding and imposing, but
Lucy did not quail, not even when Mrs. Stone repeated the words, “to
offer him money!” in a kind of scream of dismay.
“Maria, let us hear what she means; we don’t know what she means; Lucy,
tell it all to me. She can not bear Frank to go away. Let me hear what
you mean, Lucy, let me hear.”
It was Miss Southwood who said this, putting herself between Lucy and
her sister. Miss Southwood was not imposing, her anxious little face
conciliated and calmed the girl. How comfortable it is, how useful to
have a partner, or a brother, or sister, entirely unlike yourself! It is
as good as being two persons at once.
“Miss Southwood, papa left me a great deal of money--”
At this the listener nodded her head a great many times with a look of
pleased assent; then shook it gently and said, “But you should not think
too much of your money, Lucy, my dear.”
“To give away,” said Lucy, hastily; “he left me this duty above all, to
give away to those who needed it. There is a great deal of money, enough
for a number of people.”
“Oh!” Miss Southwood cried out, in a voice which ran up a whole gamut of
emotion. She put out her two hands, groping as if she had suddenly
become blind. Consternation seized her. “Then you are not--” she said.
“Maria, she can not be such a great heiress after all!”
Mrs. Stone’s astonished countenance was slowly turned upon Lucy from
over her sister’s shoulder. She gazed at the girl with an amazement
which struck her dumb. Then she said with an effort, “You meant to offer
some of this--charitable fund--to _my_ nephew--”
“It is not a charitable fund--it is not charity at all. It was to be
given in sums which would make the people independent. Why should you
think worse of me than I deserve?” cried Lucy; “it is not my fault. I
did not want him to say--_that_--I wanted to help him--to offer
him--what papa left.”
Here Mrs. Stone burst out furious. “To offer him--my nephew--a man; and
you a little chit of a girl, a nobody--help as you call it--alms!
charity!”
“Maria--Maria!” said Miss Southwood. “Stop, I tell you. It is all
nonsense about alms and charity. Good honest money is not a thing to be
turned away from any one’s door. Lucy, my dear, speak to me. Enough to
make people independent! Old Mr. Trevor was a wonderfully sensible old
man. How much might that be? You have no right to spoil the boy’s
chance. Oh, hold your tongue, Maria! Lucy, Lucy, my dear, do tell _me_.”
“I never knew that was what he meant, Miss Southwood,” said Lucy,
eagerly. “How could I think that he--a Gentleman--” She used such a big
capital for the word that it overbalanced Lucy’s eloquence. “And I only
a little chit of a girl,” she added, with a tremulous laugh, “it is
quite true. But there is this money, and I _have_ to give it away. I
have no choice. Papa said--And since he is not strong, and wants rest.
Gentlemen want a great deal more money than women; but if it was only
for a short time, till he got strong--perhaps,” said Lucy, faltering
and hesitating, “a few thousand pounds--might do?”
The two ladies stood and stared at her confounded--they were struck
dumb, both of them. Mrs. Stone’s commanding intellect stood her in as
little stead as the good Southwood’s common sense, upon which she so
prided herself. A few thousand pounds?
“And it would make me--so much more happy!” Lucy said. She put her hands
together in the fervor of the moment entreating them; but they were both
too entirely taken by surprise, too much overwhelmed by wonder and
confusion to speak. Only when Mrs. Stone moved, as if in act to speak,
Miss Southwood burst forth in alarm.
“Hold your tongue--hold your tongue,” she said, “Maria!” Never in all
her life had she so ventured to speak to her dominant sister before.
But when Lucy finally withdrew from this interview it was with a heart
calmed and comforted. Mrs. Stone was still stupefied; but her sister had
recovered her wits. “You see, Maria, this money is not hers. It is trust
money; it is quite a different thing; and she is not such a great
heiress after all. Dear Frank, after all, might have been throwing
himself away,” was what Miss Southwood said. Lucy heard this, as it
were, with a corner of her ear, for, at the same time, the bell began to
ring at the White House; and it was echoed faintly by another at a
distance which she alone understood. This was the bell for Mrs. Ford’s
early dinner, and Lucy knew that the door had been opened at No. 6 in
the Terrace, in order that she, if within hearing, might be summoned
home. And that was not an appeal which she ventured to disobey.
This morning’s adventure made Lucy’s heart much more light for her
pleasure in the afternoon. When Raymond and Emmie rode up at two
o’clock, he on the new horse which his father had permitted to be bought
for this very cause, she sitting very clumsily on a clumsy pony, Lucy
and Jock met them with nothing but smiles and brightness. It was not so
bright as the day on which the expedition had been planned. The autumn
afternoon had more mist than mellow fruitfulness in it, and there was a
cold wind about which shook the leaves in clouds from the trees. And
Raymond, for his part, was nervous and uncomfortable. He had a deep and
growing sense of what was before him. At a distance, such a piece of
work is not so terrible as when seen close at hand. But when time has
gone on with inexorable stride to the very verge of a moment which
nothing can delay, when the period has come beyond all possibility of
escape, then it is not wonderful if the stoutest heart sinks. Raymond
had got some advantages already by the mere prospect of this act to
come. He had got a great many pleasant hours of leisure, escaping from
the office, which he was not fond of; and he had got his horse, which
was a very tangible benefit. And in the future what might he not hope
for? Emancipation from the office altogether; a life of wealth and
luxury; horses, as many as he could think of; hunting, shooting,
everything that heart could desire; a “place” in the country; a box
somewhere in Scotland; a fine house in town (which moved him less), and
the delightful certainty of being his own master. All these hung upon
his power of pleasing Lucy--nothing more than pleasing a girl. Raymond
could not but think with a little scorn of the strange incongruity of
mortal affairs which made all these happinesses hang upon the nod of a
bit of a girl; but granting this, which he could not help granting, it
was, he had frankly acknowledged, a much easier way of getting all the
good things of life than that of laboriously striving for them all his
life long--to succeed, perhaps, only at the end, when he was no longer
able to enjoy them. “And you _are_ fond of Lucy,” his mother said.
Yes--this too the young man did not deny. He liked Lucy, he “did not
mind” the idea of spending his life with her. She was very good-natured,
and not bad-looking. He had seen girls he thought prettier; but she was
not bad-looking, and always jolly, and not at all “stuck up” about her
money; there was not a word to be said against her. And Raymond did not
doubt that he would like it well enough were it done. But the doing of
it! this was what alarmed him; for, after all, it must be allowed that,
more or less, he was doing it in cold blood. And many things were
against him on this special day. The wind was cold, and it was charged
with dust, which blew into his eyes, making them red, and into his
mouth, making him inarticulate. And Emmie clung to his side on one hand,
and Jock on the other. He could not shake himself free of these two;
when Lucy and he cantered forward, instead of jogging on discreetly,
these two pests would push on after, Jock catching them up in no time,
but Emmie, after lumbering along with tolerable rapidity for thirty
yards or so, taking fright and shrieking “Ray! Ray!” Raymond concluded,
at last, with a sense of relief, that to say anything on the way there
would be impossible. It was a short reprieve for him, and for the moment
his spirits rose. He shook his head slightly when they met the party who
had gone in the break, and when his mother’s anxious eye questioned him,
“No opportunity,” he whispered as he passed her. The party in the break
were covered with dust, and they had laid hold upon all the wraps
possible to protect them from the cold. There was shelter in the wood,
but still it was cold, and the party was much less gay than the previous
one had been, though Mrs. Rushton herself did all that was possible to
“keep it up.” Perhaps the party itself was not so well selected as on
that previous occasion. It was larger, which, of itself, was a mistake,
and Bertie, who did not know the people, yet was too great a personage
to be neglected, proved rather in Mrs. Rushton’s way. He would stray
after Lucy, interfering with Ray’s “opportunity,” and then would
apologize meekly for his “indiscretion,” with a keen eye for all that
was going on.
“Oh, there is no indiscretion,” Mrs. Rushton said; “but young people,
you know, young people seeing a great deal of each other, they like to
get together.”
“I see,” Bertie said, making a pretense of withdrawal; but from that
moment never took his eyes off Lucy and her attendant. The sky was gray,
the wind was cold, the yellow leaves came tumbling down upon their
plates, as they eat their out-door meal. Now and then a shivering guest
looked up, asking anxiously, “Is that the rain?” They all spoke
familiarly of “the rain” as of another guest expected; would it come
before they had started on their return? might it arrive even before the
refection was over? They were all certain that they would not get home
without being overtaken by it. And notwithstanding this alarmed
expectation of “the rain,” the ham and the chickens were gritty with the
dust which had blown into the hampers. It was very hard upon poor Mrs.
Rushton, everybody said.
“Come up and look at the water-fall,” said Ray to Lucy. “No, don’t say
where we are going, or we shall have a troop after us. That fellow, that
Russell, follows everywhere. Thank heaven he is looking the other way.
He might know people don’t want him forever at their heels. Ah! this is
pleasant,” Ray said, with as good a semblance of enthusiasm as he could
muster, when he had safely piloted Lucy into a narrow leafy path among
the trees. But Lucy did not share his enthusiasm; she shivered a little
as they plunged into the shadow, which shut out every gleam of the
fitful sun.
“It is a great pity it is so cold,” Lucy said.
“A horrid pity,” said Ray, with energy; but then he remembered his
_rôle_, “for you,” he said; “as for me, I am very happy--I don’t mind
the weather. I could go like this for miles, and never feel the want of
the sun.”
“I did not know you were so fond of the woods,” Lucy said.
“Nor is it the woods I am fond of,” said Ray, and his heart began to
thump. Now the moment had certainly come. “It is the company I--love.”
“Hallo!” cried a voice behind. “I see some one in front of us--who is
it? Rushton. Then this must be the way.”
“Oh, confound you!” Ray said, between his teeth; and yet it was again a
kind of reprieve. The leafy path was soon filled with a train of people,
headed by Bertie, who made his way to Lucy’s side, when they reached the
open space in which was the water-fall.
“Is not this a truly English pleasure?” Bertie said; “why should we all
be making ourselves miserable eating cold victuals out of doors when we
should so much prefer a snug cutlet at home? and coming to gaze at a
little bit of driblet of water when we all expect floods any moment from
the sky?”
“It is a pity,” said Lucy, divided between her natural inclination to
assent and consideration for Raymond’s feelings, “it is a pity that we
have so unfavorable a day.”
“But it is always an unfavorable day--in England,” Bertie said. He had
been “abroad” before he came to Farafield, and he liked to make this
fact known.
“I have never been anywhere but in England,” said Lucy, regretfully.
“Nor I,” said Ray, defiant.
“Nor I,” said some one else, with a touch of scorn.
“Authors always travel about so much, don’t they?” cried an _ingénue_ in
a whisper which was full of awe; and this turned the laugh against
Bertie. He grew red in spite of himself, and cast a vengeful glance at
the young woman in question.
“Ah, you should have seen the day we had at Versailles; such lawns and
terraces, such great trees against the bluest, brightest sky. Miss
Trevor, do you know I think you should not venture to ride home.”
“Why?” said Ray, with restrained fury, thrusting himself between them.
“I did not suppose it mattered for you, Rushton; but Miss Trevor will
get drenched. There, I felt a drop already.”
They all looked anxiously at the gray sky. “I should not like Jock to
get wet,” said Lucy. “I do not mind for myself.”
“Come round to this side, you will see the fall better,” Raymond said;
and then he added, “come along, come along this short way. Let us give
that fellow the slip. It is not the rain he is thinking of, but to spoil
my pleasure.”
“Versailles is something like Windsor, is it not? have you been there
lately, Mr. Russell? Oh, we shall soon know. I can always tell when you
gifted people have been traveling by your next book,” said one of the
ladies.
“Suppose we follow Rushton,” said Bertie. “He knows all the best points
of view.”
And once more the train was at Ray’s heels. “I think I do feel the rain
now,” Raymond cried, “and listen, wasn’t that thunder? It would not be
wise to be caught in a thunder-storm here. Russell, look after Mrs.
Chumley, and make for the open; I will get Miss Trevor round this way.”
“Thunder!” the ladies cried, alarmed, and there was a rush toward an
open space.
“Nonsense,” cried Bertie, “there is no thunder,” but it was he himself
who had prophesied the rain, and they put no faith in him. As for Lucy,
she served Raymond’s purpose involuntarily by speeding along the nearest
opening.
“Jock is always frightened. I must see after him,” she cried. Raymond
thought she did it for his special advantage, and his heart rose; yet
sunk, too, for now it was certain that the moment had come.
“Stop,” he said, panting after her, “it is all right, there is no hurry,
I did not mean it. Did you ever see thunder out of such a sky?”
“But it was you who said it,” Lucy cried.
“Don’t you know why I said it? To get rid of those tiresome people; I
have never had time to say a word to you all the day.”
“Then don’t you really think it will rain?” Lucy said, doubtfully,
looking at the sky. She was much more occupied with this subject than
with his wish to say something to her. “Perhaps it would be best to
leave the horses, and drive home if there is room?” she said.
“I wish I were as sure of something else as that it will not rain. Stay
a little, don’t be in such a hurry,” said Ray. “Ah, if you only knew how
I want to speak to you; but either some one comes, or--I funk it. I am
more afraid of you than of the queen.”
“Afraid of--me?” Lucy laughed a little; but looked at him, and grew
nervous in spite of herself. “Don’t you think we had better wait for the
others?” she said.
“I have funked it fifty times; but it does not get any easier by being
put off; for if you were to say you would have nothing to do with me I
don’t know what would happen,” said Ray. He spoke with real alarm and
horror, for indeed he did know something that would inevitably happen.
The cutting short of all his pleasures, the downfall of a hundred hopes.
“We have seen a great deal of each other since you came home, and we
have got on very well.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, “very well! I think I hear them coming this way.”
“No, they are not likely to come this way. I have always got on well
with you, I don’t know how it is; often I can’t get on with ladies; but
you are always so jolly, you are so good-tempered; I don’t know any one
half so nice,” said the youth, growing red. “I am not a hand at
compliments, and I never was what you call a ladies’ man,” he continued,
floundering and feeling that he had made a mistake in thus involving
himself in so many words. “Look here, I think you are the very nicest
girl I ever met in my life.”
“Oh, no,” Lucy said, growing graver and more grave, “I am sure you are
making a mistake.”
“Not the least a mistake--I like everything about you,” said Raymond,
astonished at his own fervor and sincerity. “You are always so jolly;
and we have known each other all our lives, when we were quite babies,
don’t you remember? I always called you Lucy then. Lucy--our people seem
to think that you and I--don’t you think? I do believe we should get on
just as well together all our lives, if you were willing to try.”
“Oh, Mr. Raymond,” cried Lucy, distressed, “why, why should you talk to
me like this? We are good friends, and let us stay good friends. I am
sure you don’t in your heart want anything more.”
“But I do,” cried Raymond, piqued. “You think I am too young, but I am
not so very young; many a fellow is married before he is my age. Why
shouldn’t I want a wife as well as the others? I do; but Lucy, there is
no wife I care for but you.”
“Mr. Raymond, we must make haste, or we shall be caught in the rain.”
“What do I care if we are caught in the rain? But there is not going to
be any rain, it was only to get rid of the others,” Raymond said,
breathless; and then he added with almost tragical pleading, “It would
be better for me that we should be swept away by the rain than that you
should not give me an answer.” He put his hand upon her sleeve. “Lucy,
is it possible that you do not like me?” he said.
“I like you very well,” cried Lucy, with tears in her eyes; “but, oh,
why should you talk to me like this? Why should you spoil everything?
You will think after this that we never can be friends any more.”
“Then you will not?” said Ray. He was a great deal more disappointed
than he had thought he could be, and even the satisfaction of having got
it over did not console him. His face lengthened more and more as he
stood opposite to her, barring her passage, leaning against the stem of
a tree. “I never thought you would be so hard upon a fellow. I never
thought,” said Raymond, his lip quivering, “that after all you would
throw me off at the last.”
“I am not throwing you off at the last--it has always been the same,”
said Lucy; “oh, could not you have left me alone?” she cried, half
piteous, half indignant. She walked straight forward, passing him, and
he did not any longer attempt to bar the way. He followed with his head
drooping, his arms hanging limp by his side, the very image of defeat
and discomfiture. Poor Ray! he could have cried when he thought of all
he had lost, of all he was losing; and yet there began to gleam over his
mind a faint reflection of content in that it was over. This at least
was a thing which nobody could expect him to repeat any more.
CHAPTER XL.
DISCOMFITURE.
The troubles of this interesting picnic were not yet over; there was tea
to be made over an impromptu fire from a gypsy kettle, which the young
people generally thought one of the most amusing performances of all.
And indeed they were all glad of the warmth of the tea, and anxious to
get as near as they could to the comforting blaze of the fire,
notwithstanding the smoke which made their eyes smart. Mrs. Rushton was
busily engaged over this, when Lucy and Ray, one following the other,
made their appearance in the center of the proceedings; the others were
dropping in from different sides, and in the important operation of
making the tea Mrs. Rushton did not perceive the very evident symptoms
of what had happened. It was only when a gleam of firelight lighted up
the group and showed her son, standing listless and cast-down, full in
the way of the smoke, and receiving it as he might have received the
fire of an enemy, that the catastrophe became evident to her. She gave
him a hasty glance, half furious, half pitiful. Was it all over? Poor
Mrs. Rushton! She was obliged to stand there over the fire boiling her
kettle, now and then getting a gust of smoke in her face, and obliged to
laugh at it, appealed to on all sides, and obliged to smile and reply,
obliged to make believe that her whole soul was absorbed in her
tea-making, and in the monotonous question, who took sugar, and who did
not? while all the while her mind was distracted with anxiety and full
of a hundred questions. Talk of pyschometric facts! If Mr. Galton would
measure the thoughts of a poor lady, who, while she puts the tea in her
teapot, and inquires audibly with a sweet smile whether Mrs. Price takes
sugar, has all at once six ideas presented to her consciousness: 1st.
The discomfiture of Ray; 2d. The alienation of Lucy; 3d. Her husband’s
fury at all those unnecessary expenses, which he had never countenanced;
4th. The horse which would have to be sold again, probably at a loss,
having failed like Ray; 5th. How to get all her party home, it being
evident that Ray and Lucy would not ride together as they came; and 6th,
with a poignant sting that embittered all the rest, of the exultation of
her friends and rivals in witnessing her failure--if Mr. Galton could do
that, weighing the weight of each, and explaining how they could come
together, yet every one keep distinct, it would indeed be worth a
scientific philosopher’s while. But Mrs. Rushton, it is to be feared,
would have scoffed at Mr. Galton. She stood at the stake, with the smoke
in her face, and smiled like a martyr. “Sugar? I thought so, but so many
people don’t take it. I lose my head altogether,” cried the poor lady.
“Ray, come here, make haste and hand Mrs. Price her tea.” Even when Ray
did come close to her, however, she could not, encircled as she was, ask
him any questions. She looked at him, that was enough; and he in reply
slightly, imperceptibly, shook his head. Good heavens! and there was the
girl standing quite unmoved, talking to somebody, after she had driven a
whole family to despair! What could girls be made of? Mrs. Rushton
thought.
And just at the moment when this fire of suspense, yet certainty, was
burning in her heart, lo, the heavens were opened, and a shower of rain
came pouring down, dispersing the company, pattering among the trees.
Mrs. Rushton was like the captain of a shipwrecked ship, she was the
last to leave the post of danger. Though the hissing of the shower
forced up a black and heavy cloud of smoke which nearly choked her, she
kept her place and shrieked out directions to the others. “The Abbey
ruins, the west wing,” she cried; there was shelter to be found there.
And now it was that Raymond showed how much filial affection was left in
him. He snatched a water-proof cloak from the heap and put it round his
mother. “You want shelter as much as any one,” he cried. “Oh, Ray!”
exclaimed the poor lady as they hurried along together, the last of all
the scudding figures under umbrellas and every kind of improvised
shelter. She held his arm tight, and he clung closely to her side. There
was no more said between them, as they struggled along under the
blinding rain. They had both been extinguished, their fires put out,
their hopes brought to an end.
As for Lucy, she shrunk away among the crowd, and tried to hide herself
from Mrs. Rushton’s eyes. She was not unconcerned, poor girl. Even the
little glimmer of indignation which had woke in her was quenched in her
sorrow for the trouble and disappointment which she seemed to bring to
everybody. Only this morning she had trembled before Mrs. Stone, and now
it was these other people who had been so kind to her, who had taken so
much pains to please her, whom she had made unhappy. What could Lucy do?
She did not want any of these men to come into her life. She liked them
well enough in their own place; but why should she marry them? This she
murmured feebly in self-justification; but her heart was very heavy, and
she could not offer any compensation to Ray. He was not poor, he did not
come into the range of the will. She gathered her riding-skirt up about
her and ran to the shelter of the Abbey walls when the shower came on,
little Jock running by her side. They had nearly reached that refuge
when Jock stumbled over a stone and fell, crying out to her for help.
Almost before Lucy could stop, however, help came from another quarter.
It was Bertie Russell who picked the little fellow up, and carried him
safely into the west wing of the Abbey, where the walls were still
covered by a roof. “He is not hurt,” Bertie said, “and here is a dry
corner. Why did you run away, Miss Trevor? I followed you everywhere,
for I saw that there was annoyance in store for you.”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy, faintly; but it was consolatory to find a companion
who would not blame her. He lifted Jock up into a window-seat, and he
found her something to sit down upon and take breath, and then he
arranged a place for himself between them, leaning against the wall.
“Did you get wet?” Bertie said; “after this you will not think of riding
home. I have got a coat which will cover Jock and you; what made them
think of a picnic to-day? Picnics are always dangerous in this climate,
but in October! Jock, little fellow, take off your jacket, it is wet,
and put on this coat of mine.”
“But you will want it yourself,” said Lucy, very grateful. Bertie bore
the aspect of an old friend, and the people at Farafield, though she had
lived in Farafield all her life, were comparative strangers to her. She
was moved to laugh when Jock appeared in the coat, which was so much too
large for him, a funny little figure, his big eyes looking out from the
collar that came over his ears, but comfortable, easy, and dry. “He has
been wrapped in my coat before now,” Bertie said. “Don’t you remember,
Jock, on the heath when I had to carry you home? Mary expects to have
him back, Miss Trevor, when you return to town. I have not told you,”
continued Bertie, raising his voice, “how Mrs. Berry-Montagu has taken
me up, she who nearly made an end of me by that review; and even old
Lady Betsinda has smiled upon me; oh, I must tell you about your old
friends.”
Their dry corner was by this time shared by a number of the other
guests, who were watching the sky through the great hole of a ruined
window, and had nothing to talk about except the chances of the weather,
whether “it would leave off,” whether there was any chance of getting
home without a wetting, and sundry doubts and questions of the same
kind. In the midst of these depressed and shivering people who had
nothing to amuse them, it was fine to talk of Lady Betsinda and other
names known in the higher society of Mayfair; and Bertie was not
indifferent to this, whatever Lucy’s sentiments might be.
“I ran over to Homburg for a few weeks,” Bertie said. “Everybody was
there. I saw Lady Randolph, who was very kind to me of course. She is
always kind. We talked of you constantly, I need not tell you. But you
should have seen Lady Betsinda in the morning taking the waters, without
her lace, without her satin, a wonderful little old mummy swathed in
folds of flannel. Can you imagine Lady Betsinda without her lace?” said
Bertie, delighted with the effect he was producing. Mrs. Price and the
rest had been caught in the full vacancy of their discussion about the
rain. To hear of a Lady Betsinda was always interesting. They edged half
consciously a little nearer, and stopped their conjectures in respect to
the storm.
“I hear it is worth more than all the rest of her ladyship’s little
property,” Bertie said. “I don’t pretend to be a connoisseur, but I am
told she has some very fine point d’Alençon which has never been
equaled. Poor old Lady Betsinda! her lace is what she stands upon. The
duchess, they say, declares everywhere that the point d’Alençon is an
heirloom, and that Lady Betsinda has no right to it; but if she were
separated from her lace I think she would die.”
“It is very dirty,” said Lucy, with simplicity. She was not sure that
she liked him to call the attention of the others by this talk which
everybody could hear, but she was glad to escape from the troublesome
circumstances of the moment.
“Dirty!” he said, repeating her word in his higher tones. “What is lace
if it is not dirty? you might say the same of the poor old woman
herself, perhaps; but a duke’s daughter is always a duke’s daughter,
Miss Trevor, and point is always point. And the more blood you have, and
the more lace you have, the more candid you feel yourself entitled to be
about your flannel. A fine lady can always make a fright of herself with
composure. She used to hold out a grimy finger to me, and ask after
you.”
“After me?” said Lucy, shrinking. If he would but speak lower, or if she
could but steal away! Everybody was listening now, even Mrs. Rushton,
who had just come in, shaking the rain off her bonnet. She had found
Lucy out the moment she entered with that keen gaze of displeasure which
is keener than anything but love.
“Yes,” said Bertie, still raising his voice. Then he bent toward her,
and continued the conversation in a not inaudible whisper. “This is not
for everybody’s ears,” he said. “She asked me always, ‘How is little
Miss Angel--the Angel of Hope’?”
A vivid color covered Lucy’s face. She was looking toward Mrs. Rushton,
and who could doubt that Raymond’s mother saw the flush and put her own
interpretation upon it? Of this Lucy did not think, but she was annoyed
and disconcerted beyond measure. She drew away as far as possible among
the little group around them. Had she not forgotten all this, put it out
of her mind? Was there nobody whom she could trust? She shrunk from the
old friend with whom she had been so glad to take refuge; after all he
was not an old friend; and was there not, far or near, any one person
whom she could trust?
When, however, the carriages came, and the big break, into which Lucy
and Emmie and little Jock had to be crowded, since the weather was too
broken to make it possible that they could ride home, Bertie managed to
get the place next her there, and engrossed her the whole way. He held
an umbrella over her head when the rain came down again, he busied
himself officiously in putting her cloak round her, he addressed all
his conversation to her, talking of Lady Randolph, and of the people
whom they two alone knew. Sometimes she was interested, sometimes amused
by his talk, but always disturbed and troubled by its exclusiveness and
absorbing character; and she did not know how to free herself from it.
The rest of the party grew tired, and cross, and silent, but Bertie
never failed. It was he who jumped down at the gate of the Terrace, and
handed her down from amid all the limp and draggled figures of the
disappointed merry-makers. They were all too wet to make anything
possible but the speediest return to their homes, notwithstanding the
pretty supper-table all shining with flowers and lights which awaited
them in the big house in the market-place, and at which the Rushtons,
tired and disappointed, and drenched, had to sit down alone. Bertie’s
was the only cheerful voice which said good-night. He attended her to
her door with unwearying devotion. Raymond, who had insisted upon riding
after the carriages, passed by all wet and dismal, as the door opened.
He put his hand to his hat with a morose and stiff salutation. With the
water streaming from the brim of that soaked hat he passed by stiffly
like a figure of despair. And Bertie laughed. “It has been a dismal
expedition, but a most delightful day. There is nothing I love like the
rain,” he said.
CHAPTER XLI.
PHILIP’S DECISION.
Some one else got down from the break after Lucy had been carefully
handed out by Bertie, and followed her silently in the rain and dark to
the door. He went in after her, with a passing nod of good-night to
Bertie, who was somewhat discomfited when he turned round and almost
stumbled upon the dark figure of Lucy’s cousin, who went in after her
with the ease of relationship without any preliminaries. Bertie was
discomfited by this apparition, and felt that a cousin was of all things
in the world the most inconvenient at this special moment. But he could
do nothing but retire, when the door was closed, and return to his
sister, who was waiting for him. He could not bid Philip begone, or
forbid him to interfere. Philip had a right, whereas Bertie had none.
But he went away reluctantly, much disposed to grumble at Katie, who
awaited him very quietly at the corner of the road. Katie’s heart was
not so light as usual, any more than her brother’s. Why did Mr. Rainy
leave her without a word when, following Bertie and Lucy, he had helped
her out of the crowded carriage? They had been together almost all the
day, and Katie had not minded the rain; why had he left her now so
hastily, without anything but a good-night, instead of taking the
opportunity of going with her to the White House, as he had done before?
Two heads under one umbrella can sometimes make even the mud and wet of
a dark road supportable, and Katie had expected this termination to the
day with a little quickening of her heart. But he had put up his
umbrella over her, and had left her, following up her brother with
troubled haste, leaving Katie wounded and disappointed, and a little
angry. It was not even civil, she said to herself, and one or two hot
tears came to her eyes in the darkness. When Bertie joined her, she said
nothing, nor did he. They crossed the road and stumbled through the mud
and darkness to the White House, where Katie did not expect a very
cheerful reception; for she knew, having her faculties sharpened by
regard for her brother’s interest, that something had happened to St.
Clair, who had gone so abruptly away.
“What does Rainy want going in there at this time of night?” Bertie
said, as they slid along the muddy way.
“How should I know?” Katie said, sharply. “I am not Mr Rainy’s keeper.”
Poor girl, she did not mean to be disagreeable: but it was hard to be
deserted, and then have her attention thus called to the desertion.
“Is he after Lucy, too?” said her brother. Oh, how blind men are! not to
see that if he were after Lucy he was guilty of the most shameful deceit
to another.
“Oh, I suppose you are all after Lucy! she turns all your heads,” Katie
cried, with a harsh laugh. Money! that was the only thing they thought
of; and what a fool she had been to think that it was possible that
anybody could care for her with Lucy in the way!
As for Philip, he went in, following Lucy, with scarcely a word to any
one. Mrs. Ford came out as usual, disposed to scold, but she stopped
when she saw Philip behind. “I have something to say to Lucy,” he said,
passing her with a nod, and following Lucy upstairs. This made Mrs. Ford
forget that bedtime was approaching, and that it was full time to bolt
and bar all the windows. She went into her parlor and sat down, and
listened with all the breathless awe that surrounds a great event. What
could he be going to say? what but the one thing that would finish all
doubt? Mrs. Ford had always been a partisan of Philip. And though she
fully valued Lucy’s fortune, it did not occur to her that a girl could
refuse “a good offer,” for no reason at all. That girls do still refuse
“good offers,” in the very face of the statistics which point out to
them the excess of womankind and unlikelihood of marriage, is one of
those contradictions of human nature which puzzle the philosopher. Mrs.
Ford thought that it was Lucy’s first experience of the kind, and though
she was anxious, she can not be said to have much fear. She put out her
gas, all but one light, and waited, alive to every sound.
It would be hard to say why it was that Philip Rainy followed Lucy home.
He had perceived his mistake the last time they had been together, and
the folly of the constant watch which he had kept upon her; it had done
him harm, he felt--it had made him “lose caste,” which was the most
dreadful penalty he could think of. And the result of this conviction
was that on being asked late, and he felt only on Lucy’s account, to
this second party, he had made up his mind that this time he would
possess his soul in silence. The thought that Lucy’s money might go to
make some blockhead happy, some fool who had nothing to do with the
Rainys, was no less intolerable to him than ever; but he began to feel
that he could not prevent this by interfering with Lucy’s amusements,
and that on the other hand he lost friends, so far as he was himself
concerned. Therefore, he had carefully kept away from Lucy during the
whole day; and--what else was there to do?--he fell immediately into the
still more serious Charybdis which balanced this Scylla--that is to say,
he found himself involuntarily, almost unwillingly, by the side of Katie
Russell. Not much had been seen of them all the day; they had not minded
the threatening of the rain. When the party was starting to go away they
had been found at the very last under the same umbrella, leisurely
making their way under the thickest of the trees, and keeping the whole
party waiting. Between that moment and the arrival of the break at the
Terrace Philip could not have given a very clear account of what had
happened. It had been a kind of troubled elysium, a happiness darkened
only by the thought which would occur now and then that it was an
unlawful pleasure, and out of the question. He had no right to be
happy--at least in that way. What he ought to have done would have been
to make himself useful to everybody, to please the givers of the feast,
and to show himself the popular useful young man, worthy of all
confidence, which he had been hitherto believed to be. This, or else to
secure Lucy the heiress-cousin, whom he had the best right to please--to
carry her off triumphantly before everybody’s eyes, and to show all the
small great people who patronized him how entirely superior he was to
their patronage. But this latter was a step that it would only have been
safe to take had he been entirely assured of its success; and he was not
at all assured of its success either on one side or the other. Lucy did
not want him, and he did not want Lucy. This was the fact, he felt; it
was a fact that filled him with vexation unspeakable. Why should not he
want Lucy? why should he want somebody quite different--a little girl
without a sixpence, without interest or connection? Could anything be so
perverse, so disappointing! but he could not explain or analyze it. He
was forced to confess the fact, and that was all. He did not want Lucy;
the question remained, should he compel himself to like her, and after
that compel her to like him, notwithstanding this double indifference?
The titter with which his late appearance had been received when he
returned to the party, and when Katie, all shamefaced and blushing, had
been helped into the overcrowded carriage, amid smiles, yet general
impatience, for the rain was coming down, and everybody was anxious to
get home, had shown him how far astray from the path of wisdom he had
gone. Perhaps this conviction would have worn off had he been by Katie’s
side crowded up into a corner, and feeling himself enveloped in that
atmosphere of her which confused all his faculties with happiness,
whenever he was with her, yet was not capable of being explained. But
Philip was thrust into an already too large cluster of men on the box,
and, crowded there amid the dripping of the umbrellas, had time to turn
over in his mind many a troublesome thought. Whither was he going? what
had he been doing? was he mad altogether to forget all his interests, to
cast prudence behind him, and laugh at all that was necessary in his
circumstances? The bitter predominated over the sweet as he chewed the
cud of thought, seated on an inch of space among the bags and hampers,
and umbrellas of other men, with the confused babble of the break behind
him, which was all one mass of damp creatures, under a broken firmament
of umbrellas where a few kept up a spasmodic fire of gloomy gayety,
while all the rest were wrapped in still more gloomy silence. He heard
Katie’s voice now and then among the others, and was partially wounded
by the sound of it; then took himself to task and did his best to
persuade himself that he was glad she could talk and get some pleasure
out of it, and had not, like himself, dropped into a nether-world of
gloom from that foolish paradise in which they had lost themselves. Much
better if she did not care! he said to himself, with a bitter smile, and
this thought helped to bring out and increase his general sense of
discomfiture. The whole business must be put a stop to, he said to
himself, with angry energy. And this it was which, when the break
stopped to set down Lucy, suggested to him the step he had now taken.
Katie was making her way out between the knees of the other passengers,
from the place at the upper end of the carriage, where she had been all
but suffocated, when Philip jumped down. He caught, by the light of the
lamp, a grin on the countenance of the man who was helping her out, as
he said, “Oh, here’s Rainy.” But for that he would most likely have gone
off with her to the White House and snatched a few moments of fearful
joy in the teeth of his own resolution. But that grin drove him wild. He
put up his umbrella over her head, and left her abruptly. “I must see
Lucy to-night,” he said, leaving her there, waiting for her brother. It
was brutal, he felt, after all that had passed, but what, unless he
wanted to compromise himself utterly, what could he do? He took no time
to think, as he followed his cousin and her companion through the rain.
But when he had followed Lucy silently upstairs he did not know quite
what to do or say next. Lucy stopped on her way to her room to change
her habit, and looked round upon him with surprise. “Is it you, Philip?”
she asked, wondering; then added, “I am glad to see you, I have scarcely
seen you all day;” and led the way into the pink drawing-room. Philip
sat down as he was told, but he did not know why he had come there, or
what he wanted to say.
“The party has been rather spoiled by the rain,” she said.
“I suppose so,” he answered, vaguely. “Did you like it? Sometimes one
does not mind the rain.”
“I minded it very much,” said Lucy, with a sigh; then, feeling that she
was likely to commit herself if she pursued this subject, she added, “I
am rather glad the time is over for these parties; they are--a trouble.
The first one is pleasant--the others--”
Then she paused, and Philip’s mind went back to the first one, and to
this which was just over. He had not enjoyed the first, except the end
of it, when he took Katie home. And this he had enjoyed, but not the
end. His imagination escaped from the present scene, and he seemed to
see Katie going along the muddy road, under his umbrella, but without
him. What could she think? that he had abandoned her? or would she care
whether he abandoned her or not?
“That depends,” said Philip, oracularly, and, like Lucy, with a sigh;
though the sigh was from a different cause. Then he looked at her across
the table. She had not seated herself, but stood in her habit, looking
taller and more graceful than usual, more high-bred too; for the girls
whom Philip was in the habit of meeting did not generally indulge in
such an expensive exercise as that of riding. He looked at her with a
sort of spectator air, as though balancing her claims against those of
the others. “I should not wonder,” he said, “if you would like your
season at Farafield to be over altogether, and to be free to go back to
your fine friends.”
“Why should you say my fine friends?” said Lucy, with gentle
indignation; and then more softly, but also with a sigh, for she had
been left for a long time without any news of one at least of them, whom
she began to think her only real friend; “but indeed you are right, and
I should be very glad to get back--all was so quiet there.”
“So quiet! If you are not quiet in Farafield where should you know
tranquillity?” cried Philip, with a little mock laugh. He felt that she
must intend this for a joke, and in his present temper it seemed to him
a very bad joke.
Lucy looked at him with a momentary inquiry in her eyes--a question
which had a great deal of wistfulness and anxiety in it. Could she tell
her troubles to him? He was her kinsman--who so well qualified to advise
her? But then she shook her head, and turned away from him with an
impatient sigh.
“What is it you mean?” he said, with some excitement. His mind was in a
turmoil, which he could not tell how to still. He felt himself at the
mercy of his impulses, not knowing what he might be made to do in the
next five minutes. It was the merest “toss-up” what he would do. Never
had he felt himself so entirely irresponsible, so without independent
meaning, so ready to be hurried in any direction. He did not feel in him
the least spark of love for Lucy. He felt impatient with her, wroth with
all the world for making so much of her, indignant that she should be
preferred too--others. But with all that he did not know what he might
find himself saying to her the next moment. The only thing was that it
would not be his doing, it would be the force of the current of Fate, on
which he felt himself whirling along--to be tossed over the rapids or
dashed against the rocks, he did not know how or when. “What do you
mean?” he repeated; “you look mysterious, as if you had something to
tell--what is it? I have seen nothing of you the whole day. We have been
nominally at the same party, and we are cousins, though you don’t seem
to remember it much, and we once were friends; but I have scarcely seen
you. You have been absorbed by other attractions, other companions.”
“Philip!” said Lucy, faltering and growing pale. Was he going to desert
her, too?
“Yes,” he said, “it is quite true. I am one that it might have been
supposed likely you would turn to. Natural feeling should have made you
turn to me. I have always tried to stand by you; and you have got what
would have enriched the whole family--all to yourself. Nature pointed to
me as your nearest; and yet you have never,” he said, pausing to give
additional bitterness to his words, and feeling himself caught in an
eddy, and whirling round in that violent stream without any power of his
own, “never shown the slightest inclination to turn or to cling to me.”
“Indeed, indeed, Philip--” Lucy began.
“Why should you say indeed, indeed? What is indeed, indeed? Just what I
tell you. You have never singled me out, whoever might be your favorite.
All your family have been put at a disadvantage for you; but you never
singled me out, never showed me any preference--which would have been
the best way of setting things right.”
There was a look of alarm on Lucy’s face.
“If it is my money, Philip, I wish you had the half of it, or the whole
of it,” she said. “I wish I could put it all away, and stand free.”
“It is not your money,” he said, “it is your--” And here he stopped
short, and looked at her with staring troubled eyes. The eddy had nearly
whirled him away, when he made a grasp at the bank, and felt himself,
all at once, to recover some mastery of his movements. He did not know
very well what he had been going to say; “your--” what? love? It was not
love surely. Not such a profanation as that. He looked at her with a
sudden suspicious threatening pause. Then he burst again into a harsh
laugh. “What was I going to say? I don’t know what I was going to say.”
“What is the matter with you, Philip? I am your friend and your cousin;
there is something wrong--tell me what it is.” Lucy came up to him full
of earnest sympathy, and put her hand on his shoulder, and looked with
hectic anxiety in his face. “Tell me what it is,” she said, with a soft
tone of entreaty. “I am as good as your sister, Philip. If I could not
do anything else I could be sorry for you at least.”
He looked up at her with the strangest staring look, feeling his head
go round and round; and then he gave another loud sudden laugh, which
alarmed her more. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “yes, I’ll tell you. It is
the best thing I can do. I was going--to make love to you,
Lucy--love!--for your money.”
She patted him softly on the shoulder, soothing him as if he had been a
child confessing a fault. “No, no, Philip, no. I am sure you were not
thinking of anything so unkind.”
“Lucy!” he said, seizing her hand, the other hand. She never even
removed the one which lay softly, soothing him, on his shoulder. “You
are a good girl. You don’t deserve to have a set of mean hounds round
you as we all are. And yet--there are times when I feel as if I could
not endure to see you give your fortune, the great Rainy fortune, to
some--other fellow. There! that is the truth.”
“Poor Philip!” she said, shaking her head, and still moving her hand
softly on his shoulder, with a little consolatory movement, calming him
down. Then she added, with a smile, “You need not be in any trouble for
that, for I am not going to give it to any--fellow. I never can by the
will.”
“I don’t put any trust in that,” he said, “no one would put any trust in
that. You will marry, of course, and then--it will be as Providence
ordains, or your husband. He will take the command of it, and it will be
his, whatever you may think now.”
“I do not think so,” said Lucy, with a smile, “and, besides, there is no
such person. You need not trouble yourself about that.”
Then Philip wrung her hand again, looking up at her in such deadly
earnest that it took from him all sense of honor. “Lucy, if I could have
fallen in love with you, and you with me, that would have been the best
thing of all,” he said.
“But you see it has not happened, Philip; it is not our fault.”
“No, I suppose not,” he said, gloomily, with a sigh; “it is not my
fault. I have tried my best; but things were too many for me.” Here he
got up, shaking off unceremoniously Lucy’s hand. “Good-night! you must
be damp in your habit, and I’ve got wet feet,” he said.
Mrs. Ford lay in wait for him as he came down-stairs, but he only said a
hasty good-night to her as he went away. His feet were wet, and he
realized the possibility of taking cold, which would be very awkward now
that the duties of the school in Kent’s Lane had recommenced.
Nevertheless, instead of going home, he crossed the road, and went
stumbling among the mud toward the White House. What did he want there?
he had a dim recollection of his umbrella, but it was not his umbrella
he wanted. And Philip was fortunate, though, perhaps, he did not deserve
it. A light flashed suddenly out from the White House as he reached the
door. Bertie had taken his sister back, and had gone in, where he met
but a poor reception. And Katie had come out to the door to see her
brother depart. When she saw the other figure appearing in the gleam of
light from the door, she gave a little shriek of mingled pleasure and
malice. “It is Mr. Rainy come for his umbrella! Here it is!” she said,
diving into the hall and reappearing with the article in question, all
wet and shining. She held it out to him, with a laugh in which there was
a good deal of excitement, for Katie had not been without her share in
the agitations of the evening. “Here is your umbrella, Mr. Rainy. I was
so glad to have it, and it is so good of you to save me the trouble of
sending it back.” Philip stepped close up to the door, close to her as
she stood on the threshold. “It was not for the umbrella I came,” he
said as he took it from her. “I came only to look at the house you were
in.” It was a strange place to make a declaration, with Bertie within
hearing, the dark and humid night on one side, the blazing unsympathetic
light of the hall on the other. But he was excited, too, and it seemed a
necessity upon him to commit himself, to go beyond the region of
prudence, the place from which he could draw back. Katie grew suddenly
pale, then blushed crimson, and drew away from the door, with a
wavering, hesitating consent. “That was not much worth the while,” she
said, hurriedly. “Are you coming my way, Rainy?” said Bertie, who did
not understand anything about it, and had his head full of other
thoughts.
CHAPTER XLII.
WHAT THE LADIES SAID.
When Lucy awoke next morning a world of cares and troubles seemed to
surround her bed. The previous day seemed nothing but a long imbroglio
of discomforts, one after the other. First her interview with Mrs.
Stone, then Raymond’s efforts to secure her attention, which she had not
understood at the time, but which, as she looked back upon them, formed
into a consistent pursuit of her which Lucy could not now believe
herself to have been quite unconscious of. It seemed to her now that she
had been hunted, and had managed to get away again and again, only to
fall at last into the snare from which she finally escaped only with
another hurt and wound. Poor Ray’s version of this would have been a
very different one. He would have said that it was he who had been
wounded and beaten, and that Lucy had remained mistress of the field.
But that was not her own sensation. She had been hunted, and she had
escaped, but with the loss of another friend, with the sense of having
brought pain and disturbance to another set of people, who had been kind
to her, and narrowed the world round about her. It seemed to Lucy, when
she opened her eyes that morning, as if the skies were getting narrower
and narrower, the circle of the universe closing in. It was becoming
like the terrible prison in the story, which got less and less every
day, till it crushed the unhappy inhabitant within. The White House
first and now the Rushtons. Where was she to turn for safety?
When she went down-stairs she found Mrs. Ford much disposed to improve
the occasion, and preach a sermon upon the discomforts of
pleasure-seeking.
“I hope it will teach her a lesson,” said Mrs. Ford; “a woman at that
age with pleasure never out of her head. Oh, I could forgive a child
like you! You have not learned yet what vanity and vexation of spirit it
all is, but a woman with children grown up, I wonder she is not ashamed
of herself! and a fine company of draggle-tails you must have been when
you came home. If I were Mr. Rushton I should give my wife a piece of my
mind. I would not allow nor countenance for a moment such silly
goings-on.”
“Mrs. Rushton did not do it for herself, Aunt Ford.”
“Oh, don’t tell me! Do you suppose she’d do it if she didn’t like it? Do
you ever catch _me_ at that sort of folly? I almost wished you to get
something that would disgust you with such nonsense; but nothing will
convince you, Lucy, nothing will make you see that it is your money, and
only your money--”
How glad Lucy was when the meal was over, and she could escape upstairs!
how thankful to have that pink drawing-room to take refuge in, though it
was not a lovely place! Jock came with her, clinging to her hand. Jock’s
eyes were bigger than ever as he raised them to his sister’s face, and
she on her part clung to him, too, little though he was. She held Jock
close to her, and gave him a tremendous kiss when they entered that
lonely little domain in which they spent so much of their lives. When
the door was closed and everything shut out, even the voices of the
household which lived for them, yet had nothing to do with them, this
room represented the world to Lucy and Jock. Even with the household
they had no special tie--not even a servant attached to them, as they
might have had if they had been brought up like the children of the
rich. But they had been just so brought up that even the consolation of
a kind nurse, an attendant of years, was denied to them, in the dismal
isolation of that class which is too little raised above its servants to
venture to trust them--which dares not to love its inferiors, because
they are so very little inferior, yet will not bow to anything as above
itself. They had nobody accordingly. Lucy’s maid even had been sent
away. Jock had no old nurse to take refuge with; they clung together,
the most forlorn young pair. “Is it your money, and only your money,”
said the little boy, “as Aunt Ford says?”
“Oh, Jock, how can I tell? I wish you and I had a little cottage
somewhere in a wood, or on an island, and could go far away, and never
see any one any more!”
And Lucy cried; her spirit was broken, her loneliness seemed to seize
upon her all at once, and the sense that she had no one to fall back
upon, nobody to whom her money was not the inducement. This was an idea
which in her simplicity she had never conceived before. She had thought
a great deal of her money, and perhaps she had scarcely formed any new
acquaintances without asking herself whether they wanted her help,
whether it would be possible to place them upon the privileged list. It
had been her favorite notion, the thing that occupied her mind most; but
yet Lucy, thinking so much of her money, never thought that it was
because of her money that people were kind to her. It had seemed so
natural, she was so grateful, and her heart was so open to all that made
a claim upon it. And she and Jock were so lonely, so entirely thrown
upon the charity of those around them. Therefore she had never thought
of her wealth as affecting any one’s opinion of herself. Had any of her
friends asked for a share of it, represented themselves or others as in
need of it, Lucy would have listened to them with delight, would have
given with both hands and a joyful heart, at once gratifying herself and
doing her duty according to her father’s instructions. But that her
friends should seek her because she was rich, and that one man after
another should startle her youth with proposals of marriage because she
was rich--this was an idea that had never entered into Lucy’s mind
before. “Your money and only your money;” the words seemed to ring in
her ears, and when Jock asked, wondering if this were true, she could
not make him any reply; oh, how could she tell? oh, that she had wings
like a dove, that she might fly away, and hide herself and be at rest!
and then she cried. What more could a girl so young and innocent do?
Jock stood by her side, by her knee, and watched her with large serious
eyes, which seemed to widen and widen with the strain and dilation of
tears; but he would not cry with Lucy. He said slowly in a voice which
it took him a great deal of trouble to keep steady, “I do not think that
Sir Tom--”
“Oh,” cried Lucy, putting him away from her with a burst of still warmer
tears. “Sir Tom! You don’t know, Jock. Sir Tom is unkind, too.”
Jock looked at her, swallowing all his unshed tears with an effort; he
looked at her with that scorn which so often fills the mind of a child,
to see the want of perception which distinguishes its elders. “Is it you
that don’t know,” said Jock. He would not argue the question. He left
her, shaking as it might be the dust off his feet, and took the “Heroes”
from the table, and threw himself down on his favorite rug. He would not
condescend to argue. But after he had read a dozen pages he paused and
raised himself upon his elbows, and looked at her with fine contempt.
“You!” he said, “you wouldn’t have known the gods if you had seen them.
You would have thought Heré was only a big woman. What is the good of
talking to you?”
Lucy dried her eyes in great surprise; she was quite startled and shaken
by the reproof. She looked at the little oracle with a respect which was
mingled at once with awe and with gratitude. If he would but say
something more! But, instead of uttering any further deliverance, he
dropped his elbows again, and let himself down into the rug, and became
altogether unconscious at once of her presence and her difficulties,
indifferent as the gods themselves to the sorrows of mortal men.
It is not to be supposed, however, that, after all this, Lucy could
settle with much tranquillity to her book, which was the history which
she had been reading so conscientiously. When St. Clair had withdrawn he
had taken with him the history-book (it was Mr. Froude’s version of that
oft-told tale), which was as easy to read as any novel, and Lucy was
left with her old text-book, which was as dry as facts could make it.
She could not read, the book dropped upon her knee half a dozen times in
half an hour, and the time of study was nearly over when some one came
with a soft knock to the door. It was Miss Southwood, who came in with a
shawl round her, and her close, old-fashioned bonnet tied over her ears.
She came in somewhat breathless, and plunged into a few set phrases
about the weather without a moment’s pause.
“What a dreadful day for your picnic! I could not help thinking of you
through all that rain. Did you get very wet, Lucy? and you were riding,
too. You must have got everything spoiled that you had on.”
“Oh, no, for we drove home; but it was not very pleasant.”
“Pleasant! I should think not. It was very foolish--what could you
expect in October? Mrs. Rushton must have had some object. What did she
mean by it? Ah, my dear, you were a great deal safer in Maria’s hands;
that is a scheming woman,” cried Miss Southwood. Then she touched Lucy
on the arm, and made signs at Jock on the rug; “wouldn’t you--” she
said, making a gesture with her hand toward the door, “for I want to
speak to you--by yourself.”
“You need not mind Jock,” said Lucy; “he is always there. When he has a
book to read he never cares for anything else.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t trust to his not caring--little pitchers--and then you
never know when they may open their mouths and blurt everything out.
Come this way a little,” Miss Southwood said, leading Lucy to the
window, and sinking her voice to a whisper. “I have a note to you from
Maria; but, my dear, I wouldn’t give it you without saying, you must not
take it by the letter, Lucy. For my part, I don’t agree with it at all.
It ought to have been sent to you last night; but I am Frank’s aunt as
well as Maria. I have a right to my say, too; and I don’t agree with it,
I don’t at all agree with it,” Miss Southwood said, anxiously. She
watched Lucy’s face with great concern while she opened the note,
standing against the misty-white curtains at the window. The countenance
of little Miss Southwood was shaded by the projecting eaves of her
bonnet, but it was very full of anxiety, and the interval seemed long to
her though the note was short. This is what Mrs. Stone said:
“DEAR LUCY,--On thinking over the extraordinary proposal you made
yesterday I think it right to recommend you to dismiss all idea of
my nephew, Frank St. Clair, out of your mind. Your offer is very
well meant, but it is impossible, and I trust he will never be so
deeply wounded as he would be by hearing of the compensation which
you have thought proper to suggest. I don’t wish to be unkind, but
it is only your ignorance that makes the idea pardonable; I
forgive, and will try to forget it; but I trust you will take
precautions to prevent it from ever reaching the ears of Mr. St.
Clair.
“Your friend,
“MARIA STONE.”
This letter brought the tears to Lucy’s eyes. “I did not mean to be
unkind. Oh, Miss Southwood, you did not think I wanted to insult any
one.”
“It is all nonsense; of course you never meant to insult him,” said Miss
Southwood, anxiously. “It is Maria who is cracked, I think. Money is
never an insult--unless there is too little of it,” she added,
cautiously. “Of course if you were to offer a gentleman the same as you
would give to a common man--But my opinion, Lucy, is that Frank himself
should be allowed to judge. We ought not to sacrifice his interest for
our pride. It is he himself who ought to decide.”
“I do not want to give too little. Oh,” said Lucy, “if you knew how glad
I would be to think it was all gone! I thought at first it would be
delightful to help everybody--to give them whatever they wanted.”
“But if you give all your money away you will not be a very great
heiress any more.”
“That was what papa meant,” said Lucy. “He thought because my uncle made
it I should have the pleasure of giving it back.”
Miss Southwood looked at her with a very grave face. “My dear,” she
said, “if I were you I would not speak of it like this, I would not let
it be known. As it is, you might marry anybody; you might have a duke, I
verily believe, if you liked; but if it is known that the money is not
yours after all, that you are not the great heiress everybody thinks, it
will spoil your prospects, Lucy. Listen to me, for I am speaking as a
friend; now that you are not going to marry Frank, I can’t have any
motive, can I? I would not say a word about it till after I was married,
Lucy, if I were in your place. It will spoil all your prospects, you
will see.”
She raised her voice unconsciously as she gave this advice, till even
little Jock was roused. He got upon his elbows and twisted himself round
to look at her. And the stare of his great eyes had a fascinating effect
upon Miss Southwood. She turned round, involuntarily drawn by them, and
said with a half shriek, “Good Lord! I forgot that child.”
As for Lucy, she made no reply; she only half understood what was meant
by the spoiling of her prospects, and this serious remonstrance had much
less effect upon her than words a great deal less weighty.
“Will you tell me what I am to do?” she said simply; “and how much do
you think it should be, Miss Southwood? Gentlemen spend a great deal
more than women. I will write at once to my guardian.”
“To your guardian!” Miss Southwood cried; and this time with a real
though suppressed shriek, “you will write to your guardian--about
Frank?”
Here Lucy laughed softly in spite of herself. “You do not think I could
keep thousands of pounds in my pockets? and besides, it has all to be
done--like business.”
“Like business!” Miss Southwood was unreasonably, incomprehensibly
wounded; “write to your guardian,” she said, faintly, “about
Frank--manage it like business! Oh, Lucy, I fear it was I that was
mistaken, and Maria that understood you, after all!”
Why did she cry? Lucy stood by wondering, yet troubled, while her
visitor threw herself into a chair and wept. “Oh,” she cried, “I that
thought you were a lady! But what is bred in the bone will come out. To
offer a favor, and then to expose a person--who is much better born and
more a gentleman than yourself!”
This new blow entirely overwhelmed Lucy. She did not know what to reply.
Whatever happened she began to think, she must always be in the wrong.
She was not a lady, she had no delicacy of feeling; had not Mrs. Russell
said so before? Lucy felt herself sink into unimaginable depths. They
all despised her, or, what was worse, thought of her money, shutting
their hearts against herself, and she was so willing, so anxious that
they should have her money, so little desirous to get any credit from
it. After awhile she laid her hand softly upon her visitor’s shoulder.
“Miss Southwood,” she said, in her soft little deprecating voice, “if
you would only think for a moment I am only a girl, I do not keep it
myself. They only let me have a little, just a little, when I want it.
It is in the will that my guardians must know, and help me to decide.
Dear Miss Southwood, don’t be angry, for I can not--I can not do
anything else. It is no disgrace not to have money, and no credit or
pleasure to have it,” Lucy said, with a deep sigh, “no one can know that
so well as me.”
“You little goose,” said Miss Southwood, “why, it is _everything_ to
you! who do you think would have taken any notice of you, who would have
made a pet of you, but for your money? I mean, of course,” she said,
with a compunction, seeing the effect her words produced, “except steady
old friends like Maria and me.”
Poor little Lucy had grown very pale; her limbs trembled under her, her
blue eyes got a wistful look which went to the heart of the woman who
had not, so opaque are some intelligences, intended to be unkind. Miss
Southwood, even now, did not quite see how she had been unkind. It was
as plain as daylight to her that old John Trevor’s daughter had no claim
whatever upon the consideration of ladies and gentlemen, except on
account of her money; which was not to say that she might not, however,
have friends in a humbler class, who might care for her, for herself
alone. As for Lucy, she dropped down upon a chair, and said no more, her
heart was as heavy as lead. Wherever she turned was not this dismal
burden taken up and repeated, “Your money, and your money alone”?
“Oh, no, it does not matter. Must I write to Mr. Chervil, or must it all
be given up?” said Lucy, faintly, “and Mr. St. Clair--”
“If you think so much of him, why--why can’t you make up your mind and
have him?” cried his aunt. “It is not anything so much out of the way,
when one knows all the circumstances; for you will not really have such
a great fortune after all. Lucy, would it not be much better--”
Lucy shook her head; she did not feel herself capable of words, and Miss
Southwood was about to begin another and an eloquent appeal, when there
was once more a summons at the door, and some one was heard audibly
coming upstairs. A minute after Mrs. Rushton appeared at the
drawing-room door. She was flushed and preoccupied, and came in quickly,
not waiting for the maid; but when she saw Miss Southwood she made a
marked and sudden pause.
“I beg your pardon. I thought I should find you alone, Miss Trevor, at
this early hour.”
“I am just going,” Miss Southwood said; and she kissed Lucy
affectionately, partly by way of blowing trumpets of defiance to the
rival power. “Don’t conclude about what we were speaking of till I see
you again; be sure you wait till I see you again,” she said as she went
away. Mrs. Rushton had not sat down, she was evidently full of some
subject of importance. She scarcely waited till her predecessor had shut
the door.
“I have come to say a few words to you which I fear will scarcely be
pleasant, Miss Trevor,” she said.
Lucy tried to smile; she brought forward her softest easy-chair with
obsequious attention. She had something to make up to Raymond’s mother.
“I hope nothing has happened,” she said.
“I will not sit down, I am much obliged to you. No, nothing has
happened, so far as I know. It is about yourself I wanted to speak. Miss
Trevor, you afforded a spectacle to my party yesterday which I hope
never to see repeated again. I warned you the other night that you were
flirting--”
Lucy’s countenance, which had been full of alarm, cleared a little, she
even permitted herself to smile. “Flirting?” she said.
“I don’t think it a smiling matter. You have no mother,” said Mrs.
Rushton, “and we are all sorry for you--in a measure, we are all very
sorry for you. We know what the manner of fashionable circles are, at
least of some fashionable circles. I have always said that to put you,
with your antecedents, into the hands of a woman like Lady Randolph! But
I have nothing to do with that, I wash my hands of that. The thing is
that it will not do here.”
Lucy said nothing. She looked at her new tormentor wistfully, begging
for mercy. What had she done?
“Yesterday opened my eyes,” said Mrs. Rushton, with a heat and energy
which flushed her cheeks. “I have been trying to think you were all a
nice girl should be. I have been thinking of you,” said the angry woman,
with some sudden natural tears, “as one of my own. Heaven knows that is
what has been in my mind. A poor orphan, though she is so rich, that is
what I have always said to myself--poor thing! I will try to be a mother
to her.”
“Oh, Mrs. Rushton, you have been very kind. I know it seems ungrateful,”
cried Lucy, with answering tears of penitence, “but if you will only
think--what was I to do?--I don’t want to marry any one. And Mr. Raymond
is--I had never thought--”
There was a momentary pause. Mrs. Rushton had a struggle with herself.
Nature had sent her here in Raymond’s quarrel, eager to avenge him
somehow, and her mind was torn with the desire to take his part openly,
to declare herself on her boy’s side, to overthrow and punish the girl
who had slighted him. But pride and prudence came, though tardily, to
her assistance here. She stared at Lucy for a moment with the blank look
which so often veils a supreme conflict. Then she said, with an air of
surprise, “Raymond? Do you mean my son? I can not see what he has to do
with the question.”
Lucy felt as a half-fainting patient feels when the traditionary glass
of cold water is dashed in her face. She came to herself with a little
gasp of astonishment. What was it then? except in the matter of refusing
Ray, her conscience was void of all offense. She looked at Mrs. Rushton
with wonder in her wide open eyes.
“I do not know,” Mrs. Rushton continued, finding her ground more secure
as she went on, “what you mean to insinuate about my boy. _He_ is not
one that will _ever_ lead a girl too far. No, Lucy, that is a thing that
will never happen. It is when one of your own town set appears that you
show yourself in your true colors; but perhaps it is not your fault,
perhaps Lady Randolph thinks that quite the right sort of behavior. I
never attempt to fathom the conduct of women of her class.”
At this Lucy began to feel an impulse if not of self-defense, yet of
resistance on her friend’s behalf. “Please do not speak so of Lady
Randolph,” she said, with mild firmness; “if you are angry with me--I do
not know why it is, but if you are angry I am very sorry, and you must
say what you please of me--but Lady Randolph! I think,” said Lucy, tears
coming to her eyes, “if I am not to trust Lady Randolph, I may as well
give up altogether, for there seems no one who will stand by me, of all
the people I know.”
“Oh, Lady Randolph will stand by you, never fear; so long as you keep
your fortune, you are sure of Lady Randolph,” cried Mrs. Rushton, with
vehemence. “But as for other friends, Miss Trevor, your behavior must be
their guide.”
“Why do you call me Miss Trevor?” cried Lucy, her courage giving way;
“what have I done? If it is Raymond that has set you against me, it is
cruel. I have done nothing to make my friends give me up,” the poor girl
cried, with mingled shame and indignation; for the suggestion of unfit
behavior abashed Lucy, and yet, being driven to bay, she could not but
make a little stand in her own defense.
“Raymond again!” cried Mrs. Rushton, with an angry laugh; “why should
you wish to mix up my son in it? It is not Raymond as I have said
before, that would lead any girl to make an exhibition of herself--but
the moment you get with one of your own set! I call you Miss Trevor,
because I am disappointed, bitterly disappointed in you. I thought you
were a different girl altogether--nice and modest and gentle, and--but I
have my innocent Emmie to think of, and I will not have her grow up with
such an example before her eyes. Therefore, if you see a difference in
me, you will know the cause of it. I have treated you like a child of my
own. I have made parties for you, introduced you everywhere, and this is
my reward. But it is always so; I ought to console myself with that;
those we are kind to are exactly those that turn upon us and rend us.
Oh, what is that? are you setting a dog upon me? You ungrateful,
ill-mannered--”
There was no dog; but Jock, unobserved by the visitor, had been there
all the time, and as Mrs. Rushton grew vehement, his attention had been
roused. He had raised himself on his elbows, listening with ears and
eyes alike, and by this time his patience was exhausted; the child was
speechless with childish fury. He took the easiest way that occurred to
him of freeing Lucy. He seized the long folds of Mrs. Rushton’s train
which lay near him in not ungraceful undulations, and winding his hands
into it, made an effort to drag her to the door. The alarm with which
she felt this mysterious tug, which very nearly overset her balance, got
vent in a shriek which rang through the whole house. “It is a mad dog!”
she cried, with a rush for the door, carrying Jock along with her. But
no mortal thread could stand such an appendage. Mrs. Rushton’s dress was
slight in fabric, and gave way with a shrieking of stuff rent asunder,
and stitches torn loose. Lucy flew to the rescue, catching her little
champion in her arms with outcries of horror and apology, yet secret
kisses of gratitude and consolation to the flushed and excited child. It
was at this moment that Mrs. Ford, having put on her purple silk, sailed
into the room, her pace scarcely accelerated by the cries she heard, for
she owed it to herself to be dignified in the presence of strangers
whatever happened. She paused a moment at the door, throwing up her
hands. Then, “For shame, Jock! for shame!” she cried, loudly, stamping
her foot, while Lucy, kneeling down, kissing, and scolding, and crying
in a breath, endeavored to unloose the little passionate hot hands. “She
should let Lucy alone!” cried Jock, with spasmodic fury. He would have
held on like a dog for which his enemy took him, through any amount of
beating. “I do not wonder after the way in which he has been brought
up,” cried Mrs. Rushton, panting and furious as she got free.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE CUP FULL.
Jock was not allowed to come down to dinner that day, and Lucy, refusing
to leave him, sat with the culprit on her knee, their arms clasped about
each other, their hot cheeks touching. “Oh, if we could go away! if we
only had a little hut anywhere, you and me, in the loneliest place,
where we should never see any of these people more,” Lucy cried; and
Jock, though he was still in a state of wild excitement, calmed down a
little, and began to think of a desolate island, that favorite fancy of
childhood. “I should not be so clever as Hazel was--for he was a fellow
that knew everything; but couldn’t I build you a house, Lucy?” the
little fellow said, his wet eyes lighting up at the thought. He had read
“Foul Play” not long before. Jock was not fond of the modern novel; but
he made an exception in favor of Mr. Reade, as what boy of sense would
not do? With this forlorn fancy they consoled themselves as they sat
dinnerless, clinging to each other--a lonely pair. Mrs. Ford, half
alarmed at the success of her punishment, which was so much greater than
she expected, for, to do her justice, she wanted only a lawful
submission, and not to deprive a little delicate boy of a meal, came
upstairs several times to the door to ask if Jock would submit; but he
would not say he was sorry, which was what she required. “Why couldn’t
she let my Lucy alone? I would do it again,” he said, turning a deaf ear
to all Mrs. Ford’s moral addresses. All this time Lucy held him close,
kissing his little tear-wet cheeks, and crying over him, so that,
perhaps, his firmness was not wonderful. “You should not encourage him,
Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford. “Come down to your dinner. It is a shame to
encourage a little naughty boy; and you can’t go without your dinner.”
“If you had but one in all the world to stand up for you, only one,
would you go and forsake him?” cried Lucy, with floods of hot tears. And
then Mrs. Ford went down-stairs very uncomfortable, as are all enforcers
of domestic discipline, when the culprits will not give way. Against
this kind of resistance the very sternest of household despots fight in
vain, and Mrs. Ford was not a household despot, but only an ignorant,
well-meaning woman, driven to her wits’ end. If she were unkind now and
then, it was not that she ever meant to be unkind. She grew more and
more uncomfortable as time after time she returned beaten to the
dinner-table down-stairs, which she, herself, could not take any
pleasure in, because these two troublesome young persons were fasting
above.
This was a mournful meal in the house. Ford himself, satisfying his
usual good appetite in the natural way, was fallen upon by his wife,
and, so to speak, slaughtered at his own table. The dainty dishes she
had prepared specially for Lucy were sent away untouched, and the good
woman herself eat nothing. She did nothing but talk all through that
meal of Jock’s misdemeanor. “And Lucy spoils him so. She will not listen
to me. It is bad for the child--dreadfully bad for the child. He ought
to be at school, knocking about among other boys. And instead of that
she sits and cries and kisses him, and goes without her dinner. It’s
enough to kill the child,” cried Mrs. Ford, “at his age, and a delicate
boy, to eat nothing all day.”
“Then why don’t you let him come down and have his dinner?” said Ford,
his mouth full of a fugitive morsel.
“Oh, you never--you never understand anything! Am I the one to ruin that
child’s morals, and make him think he can do what he likes, for the sake
of a dinner? Not till he gives in and says he is sorry,” said Mrs. Ford,
pushing her plate away with angry emphasis; “but it is Lucy that makes
me unhappy,” she said; “anybody--anything else for the sake of that
boy.”
And it can not be denied that little Jock, at least, heard the rattle of
the plates and dishes as they were cleared away with a sinking of the
heart; but he would not give in. Lucy was less moved by it. She had
something of that contempt for dinners which is an attribute of the
female mind, and she was worn with excitement, cast down, and
discouraged in every way. She said to herself that she could not have
swallowed anything; the mere suggestion seemed to bring a lump in her
throat. She wanted to see nobody, to turn her face to the wall, to “give
in” altogether. Lucy could not have told what vague mysterious despair
was implied in the idea of “giving in,” but it seemed the end of all
things, the lowest depth of downfall. Notwithstanding this wild
desperation and desire to turn her back upon all the world, it was a
very welcome interruption when Katie Russell knocked softly at the door,
and came in with a subdued eagerness and haste which betrayed that she
had something to tell. Katie was not like her usual self any more than
Lucy was. There was a soft flush upon her face, an unusual excitement
and brightness in her eyes. She came in rapidly, with an “Oh, Lucy--”
then stopped short when she saw Jock, and the lamentable air of the
little group still clinging close together, whose mournful intercourse
she had interrupted. Katie burst forth into a little laugh of
excitement. “What’s the matter with you?” she said. Jock slid out of
Lucy’s arms, and Lucy rose up from her chair at this question. They were
glad enough to come to an end of the situation, though they had both
made up their mind to accept no comfort. And when Lucy had told the
story, Katie’s amusement and applause did her friend good in spite of
herself. “Bravo, Jock!” Katie cried, with another laugh, which her own
personal excitement and need of utterance had no small share in; and she
was so much delighted by Mrs. Rushton’s discomfiture that both sister
and brother began to feel more cheerful. “Oh, how I should have liked to
see her!” said Katie. And then her own affairs that were so urgent,
rushed into her mind with a fresh suffusion of her face and kindling of
her eyes. Lucy was not great in the art of reading looks, but she could
see that there was something in Katie’s mind that was in the most urgent
need of utterance--something fluttering on her very lips that had to be
said. “I have got free for the day,” she said, with a little quaver in
her voice. “Let us go somewhere or do something, Lucy, I can not stop
still in one place. I have something to tell you--”
“I saw it directly in your face--what is it? what is it?” Lucy said. But
it was not till she had gone to her room to get her hat, where Katie
followed her, that the revelation came. “Will you have me for a
relation?” the girl said, crossing her hands demurely, and making a
little courtesy of pretended humility; and then natural emotion regained
its power, and Katie laughed, and cried, and told her story. “And you
never guessed!” she said; “I thought you would know in a moment. Didn’t
you notice anything even yesterday? Ah, I know why; you were thinking of
your own affairs.”
“I was not thinking of any affairs,” said Lucy, with a sigh; “I was
tormented all day; but never mind--tell me. Philip! he has always seemed
so stolid, so serious.”
“And isn’t this serious?” said Katie. “Oh, you don’t half see all that
it means. Fancy! that he should turn his back upon all the world, and
choose me, a girl without a penny!”
“But--all the world? I don’t think Philip had so much in his power. What
did he turn his back upon? But I am very glad it is you,” Lucy said.
Still her face was serious. She had not forgotten, and she did not quite
understand the scene of last night.
Katie grew very serious, too. “I want to speak to you, Lucy,” she said.
“We are two girls who have always been fond of each other; we always
said we would stand by each other when we grew up. Lucy, look here, if
you ever _thought_ of Philip--if you ever once thought of him--I would
cut off my little finger rather than stand in his way!”
Hot tears were in her eyes; but Lucy looked at her with serious
surprise, wondering, yet not moved. “I don’t know what you mean,” she
said.
“Oh, but you must know what I mean, Lucy! Perhaps you are not clever;
but everybody always said you had a great deal of sense. And you _know_
you are the greatest prize that ever was. How can you help knowing? And
Philip is one that you have known all your life. Oh, Lucy, tell me, tell
me true! Don’t you think I would make a sacrifice for _him_? It would
break my heart,” cried the girl, “but I would sacrifice myself and
Bertie, too, and never think twice--for _him_! Answer me, answer me
true--between you and me, that have always been fond of each other,
Lucy!” cried Katie, seizing her hands with sudden vehemence, “answer me
as if we were two little girl at school. Did you ever think of Philip?
Would you have had him if--if he had not liked me?”
Lucy drew her hands away with an energy which was violence in her, “I
think you are all trying to drive me out of my senses. I! think of
Philip or any one! I never did, I never will,” she cried, with sudden
tears. “I don’t want to have any one, or to think of any one, as you
say. Will you only let me alone, all you people? First one and then
another; and not even pretending,” the poor girl cried, with sobs, “that
it is for me.”
“I am not like that, Lucy,” Katie said, in mournful tones; for why
should Lucy cry, she asked herself, if it were not that she had “thought
of” Philip. “I am fond of you, and I know you would make any one happy.
It is not only for your money. Oh, I know, I know,” Katie cried; “what a
difference it would make to him if he married you! and what is pride
between you and me? Only say you care for him the very least in the
world--only say--Lucy,” cried Katie, solemnly, “if it was so, though it
would break my heart, I would make poor Bertie take me off somewhere
this very day, to New Zealand or somewhere, and not leave a word or a
trace, and never see either of you more.”
Lucy had recovered a little spirit during this last assault upon her.
She had got to the lowest depth of humiliation, she thought, and
rebounded. The emergency gave her a force that was not usual to her. “I
once read a book like that,” she said; “a girl went away, because she
thought another girl cared for the gentleman. Don’t you think that would
be pleasant for the other girl? to think that she had made such an
exhibition of herself, and that the gentleman had been cheated into
caring for her? I--I am sure I never made any exhibition of myself,”
Lucy cried, with rising warmth. “One is to me just like another. I am
very willing to be friends if they will let me alone; but as for Philip!
I am glad you like him,” she said, recovering her serenity with an
effort. “I am very glad you are going to marry him. And, Katie!” here a
sudden thought flashed into the mind of the heiress. If it, ever could
be made to appear natural to give money a way, surely here was the
occasion. She clapped her hands suddenly, with an unaffected simple
pleasure, which was all the more delightful that it was a flower
plucked, so to speak, from the very edge of a precipice. “They can not
say anything against that,” she cried; “it will be only like a wedding
present.” And satisfaction came back to Lucy’s heart.
“Oh, never mind about the wedding present--so long as you like it,
Lucy--that is the best,” cried the other; and then Katie’s confidences
took the more usual form. “Fancy, I have not seen him yet,” she said; “I
got the letter only this morning, and I answered it, you know. Don’t
you think a girl should give an answer straight off, and not keep him in
suspense? for I had always, always, you know, from the very beginning,
from that night when he came in--don’t you recollect? Now I see you
never can have thought of Philip, Lucy, for you don’t recollect a bit!
It was a beautiful letter; but it was a funny letter too. He said he
could not help himself. Oh, I understand it quite well! Of course he did
not want, if he could have helped it, to marry a girl without a penny in
the world.”
“Does that matter, when he is fond of you?” Lucy said.
“Ah! it is only when you are awfully rich that you can afford to be so
disinterested,” cried Katie. “Naturally, he did not want to marry a girl
with nothing. And you may say what you like, Lucy; but for a man to have
a chance of you and like me the best! There, I will never say another
word; but if it makes me vain can I help it? To choose me when he had
the chance of you!”
“He never had the chance of me,” cried Lucy, with returning indignation.
“What do you all take me for, I wonder? Am I like something in a raffle
in a bazaar? Can people take tickets for me, and draw numbers, and every
one have a chance? It is not like a friend to say so. And there is no
one, if you fail me, Katie, no one that I can trust.”
“You may trust me, to my very last breath,” cried Katie, with
indescribable favor. And Lucy felt, with a softening sensation of relief
and comfort, that surely here was a stronghold opening for her; Katie
and Philip. She could trust in them if in nobody else. Philip had been
the one honest among all the people round her. He had loved somebody
else, he had not been able to pretend that it was Lucy he loved. She
thought of the scene of the previous night with an uneasy mixture of
pleasure and pain. How strange that they should all think so much of
this money, which to Lucy conveyed so little comfort! But Philip had
escaped the snare. And now she thought there could be no doubt that she
had found a pair of friends whom she could trust.
Jock all this time waited down-stairs; but he was not impatient. Jane,
the house-maid, charged with a sandwich which Mrs. Ford herself had
prepared, waylaid him on the landing, and Jock wanted small persuading.
He was a boy who liked sandwiches; and to have his own way, and that
too, was enough to reconcile him to a little waiting. He had just time
to dispose of it while the girls lingered; and it was very good, and he
felt all the happier. He sallied forth a little in advance, as was his
habit when Lucy was not alone, his little nose in the air, his head in
the clouds. He did not pay any attention to the secrets the others were
whispering; why should he? At eight the superiority of sex is as acutely
felt as at any other age. Jock was loyal to his sister through every
fiber of his little being; still Lucy was only a girl when all was said.
It was a beautiful day after the yesterday’s rain. The blue of the sky
had a certain sharpness, as skies are apt to have when they have wept
much; but the air was light and soft, relieved of its burden of
moisture. It was Katie who was the directress of the little party,
though the others were not aware of it. She led them through the streets
till they reached a little ornamental park into which the High Street
fell at one end. Then suddenly in a moment, Katie gave her friend’s arm
a sudden pressure. “Oh, Lucy,” she cried, “have a little feeling for
_him_: you have so much for me, have a little for _him_,” and
disengaging herself, she ran on and seized Jock’s hand, who was marching
serenely in front. Lucy, astonished, paused for a moment, not knowing
how to understand this sudden desertion, and found her hand in the hand
of Bertie Russell, who had appeared she could not tell from whence.
“This is good fortune indeed,” he said; “what a happy chance for me that
you should take your walk here!”
Lucy felt her heart flutter like a bird fallen into a snare. It was not
that she was frightened for Bertie Russell, but it was that she had been
betrayed in the very tenderness of her trust. “Katie brought us,” she
said gravely. Katie, who was stimulating Jock to a race, had got almost
out of hearing, and the other two were left significantly alone. Lucy
felt her heart sink; was there another scene like that of yesterday to
be gone through again?
“Katie is perhaps more kind to me than she is to you, Miss Trevor,” said
Bertie; “she knew I wanted to tell you--various things; and she did not
realize, perhaps, that it would be so disagreeable to you.”
This troubled Lucy in her sensitive dislike to give pain. “Oh,” she
said, “Mr. Bertie, indeed I did not mean to be rude.”
“You could not be rude,” he said, with an audible sigh. “Those who have
not the gift to please have only themselves to blame. I wanted to call,
but your old lady does not like me, Miss Trevor. I heard this morning
from Mrs. Berry-Montagu. Did I tell you she had taken me up? She has
been in Scotland in her husband’s shooting-quarters, and she says Sir
Thomas Randolph is off to the East again.”
“To the East!” Lucy said: what did it mean? for a moment the sight
seemed to go out of her eyes, the world to swim round her. A great
giddiness came over her; was she going to be ill? she did not understand
what it was.
“Yes,” said Bertie’s voice, quite unconcerned; and, even in the midst of
this wonderful mist and darkness, it was a consolation to her that he
did not seem to perceive her condition. “When that mania of travel
seizes a man there is no fighting against it. Mrs. Montagu says that
Lady Randolph is in despair.”
“I should think she will not like it,” Lucy said. The light was
beginning slowly to come back. She saw the path under her feet, and the
shrubs that stood on either hand, and Bertie by her side whom she had
been so alarmed to see, but whom she thought nothing of now. What did it
mean? she was too much confused and confounded in all her faculties to
be able to tell. And she asked no questions. That was why Sir Tom had
not written, had not taken any notice. Lucy had thought herself very
wretched, abandoned by heaven and earth this morning, but how different
were her sensations now! An invisible prop had been taken away, which
had held her up without her own knowledge. She felt herself sink down to
the very dust, her limbs and her courage failing alike. And all the time
Bertie’s voice went on.
“I have been wandering about the town renewing my acquaintance with it,
and making notes. May I tell you about what I am going to do, Miss
Trevor? Perhaps it will only bore you? Well, if you will let me--I am
about beginning my second book; and your advice did so much for me in
the first. I know how much of my success I owe to you.”
“Oh, no, no, Mr. Bertie,” said Lucy, “you only say so. I never gave you
any advice, you don’t owe anything to me.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, with a smile. “Perhaps the Madonna on the mast
does not save the poor Italian fisherman from the storm. You may think,
if you are a severe Protestant, that she has nothing to do with it, but
he kneels down and thanks our lady when he gets on shore, and you must
let me thank the saint of my invocation too.”
Lucy made no reply. She did not understand what he meant by all these
fine words, and if she had understood she did not care. What did it
matter? His voice was not much more to her than the organ playing
popular tunes in the street beyond. The two sounds made a sort of
half-ludicrous concert to her ears. She heard them and heard them not,
and went on in a maze, still giddy, not knowing where she was going,
keeping very still to command herself. Going to the East! all that, she
thought, had been over. He had gone to Scotland, from whence he was to
write, and she to him, if she wanted advice or anything! And he had
written to her, but not for a long time. And now he was going away
again, going away perhaps forever. This was what was going on in Lucy’s
mind while Bertie spoke. She had no feeling about Bertie now, or about
the betrayal of her trust by his sister. What did it matter? Sir Tom was
going--going to the East. Sometimes she felt disposed to grasp at
Bertie’s arm to steady herself, and sometimes there came over her an
almost irrestrainable impulse to break in, to say, “To the East! do you
mean that he is really, really going to the East?” It was only instinct
that saved her, not anything better. When the words came to her lips,
she became vaguely conscious that he was talking about something else.
Bertie, on his part, was too much occupied with his own idea to perceive
that Lucy was preoccupied also. He thought indeed that she was listening
to him with a sort of interested absorption, unresistingly--which,
indeed, was true enough. Katie and Jock sped on before, leaving him full
space and leisure for his suit. She was altogether at his mercy, walking
downcast by his side, listening timidly, too shy to make any reply. It
flashed across his mind that it was just thus that he would describe a
girl who was going to yield and make her lover happy--making him happy.
Yes, there could be no doubt of that; she would make him happy, as very
few had it in their power to do. The bliss Lucy could bestow would be
substantial bliss. What unappreciated efforts Bertie made! the hero of a
novel was never more eloquent. He compared Lucy to all manner of fine
things. And she heard him, and heard him not. It was very hard upon
Bertie. But when, beginning to feel discouraged by her silence, he went
back upon the recollections of her life in Grosvenor Street, Lucy woke
up from her abstraction. Even Mrs. Berry-Montagu restored her interest.
“May I send a message from you when I write to her?” he said. “She is
always inquiring after you. There are none of your acquaintances that do
not take an interest in you--unless, perhaps it might be an old man
about town, like Sir Tom.”
“Sir Thomas is always kind--there is no one so kind,” cried Lucy, with a
little excitement; “if you say he does not take any interest, it is
because you don’t know.”
“Oh, I did not mean any harm; but pardon me if I can not bear to see a
man like Sir Tom come near you, Miss Trevor. People show their feelings
in different ways. Mine--you don’t much care to hear about mine--take an
old-fashioned form. There are people who are not worthy to touch the hem
of your dress.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Russell. Sir Tom is better, far better,
than most of the people I know; and as for me, I am not sacred, I don’t
know why any one should think of the hem of my dress.”
“But you are sacred to me,” said Bertie, feeling that the moment was
come. “Pardon me if I go too far. But what else can a man say when he
has put himself under you as his saint, as his guiding star, since ever
he began to be worth anything; that is only since I knew you, Lucy. Of
course I know I am not half nor a quarter good enough for you. But ever
since you began to come to Hampstead you know what you have been to me;
you have inspired me, you have made me what I am. You thought, or the
Randolphs thought, that it was presumption to put your name upon my
book--”
“Oh, Mr. Bertie, why do you bring that up again? it is all over and
past. You made people talk of me and laugh at me, and put me in the
papers. It was dreadful! but it is all over, and I don’t want to hear of
it any more.”
“It was the best I had,” said Bertie, with not unnatural indignation.
“It was all I had, and queens have not scorned such offerings; but, if
you do not care for that, you might care for a man’s devotion, Lucy--you
might care for a--”
“Oh, Mr. Bertie, don’t, please don’t say any more.”
“I know how to take an answer,” he said; “I won’t persecute you as that
cub did yesterday; but I must know whether you mean it really--whether
you know what I mean. Lucy--you must let me call you so just once
more--is it only shyness? are you frightened? don’t you understand? or
do you know that, when I offered my book to you, I offered, like all the
poets, my heart, my life, my--”
“Lucy,” said Jock, suddenly rushing upon her, rushing between them and
pushing, with the mere force of his coming, the impassioned suitor away,
“Katie has met Philip, and they don’t want me. What are you doing,
talking so long? Philip looks so queer, I don’t know what is the matter
with him. And I want to go home. I hate a walk like this--there is no
fun in it. And I want to go home; come!” cried the child, hanging on to
her skirts. Bertie looked at him with a vindictive stare of rage and
disappointment. There was not another word to say.
CHAPTER XLIV.
WHEN THE NIGHT’S DARKEST IT’S NEAREST THE DAWNING.
Not a word could Lucy say all the way home. She was flushed and
agitated, her hand burning, which grasped Jock’s, her eyes dim with
moisture. When she got home she made no reply to Mrs. Ford, who came out
to meet her; but, dropping Jock’s hand, ran upstairs to the quiet of
that still, pink sitting-room, where the “Heroes” still lay open on the
rug, and her chair stood as she had thrust it back. The afternoon was
fading into twilight, the lamps were lighted outside, throwing a strange
one-sided sort of chilly illumination into the room, though mingled with
the daylight. Lucy shut the door behind her, as if it had been the door
of a hermitage. No one would come to disturb her there, unless it might
be Mrs. Ford, to persuade her to go down to tea. How could Lucy go and
sit at the homely table, and listen to all the potterings of the pair,
over their bread and butter? She could not do it. Agitation had driven
away all trace of appetite; she wanted nothing, she thought, but to be
let alone. She sat down upon the sofa, and gazed out wistfully at the
bit of blue sky that appeared between the white curtains. There was not
so much as that bit of blue sky in all Lucy’s world. Not one true to
her, not one who did not see something in her quite different from
herself. Her other suitors had startled Lucy; but this last application
for her love had driven her to bay. She did injustice to poor Bertie in
the vehemence of her feelings. Though he had spoken in high-flown
language, he was not in reality worse than the others, nor had he a
worse meaning. They all of them had known that Lucy was the most
desirable thing within their reach. They had recognized with the truest
sincerity that she could make them happy, that no one could make them so
happy; they had aspired to her with all the fervor of heartfelt
sentiment; and Bertie had not been behind the others in this very
earnest and unquestionable feeling. Why then should he have made her so
angry--he, and not the others? She could not tell; but she came in,
feeling a universal sickening of distrust, which took all the heart out
of her. She sat down dismally upon her pink sofa. Nobody to trust to.
What fate in the world could be so terrible? The cold gleaming of the
lamps outside were a kind of symbol of all her life had to sustain it;
faint reflections of the outside light of the world but no warmth of a
household lamp or hearth within. She sat down forlorn, and began to cry.
“Nobody, nobody!” said poor Lucy. She did her best to survey the
situation calmly, dismal as it was. What was she to do? All her friends
had forsaken her; but she had Jock left, and those duties which her
father had trusted to her hands. She must go on with her trust whatever
happened. She kept hold of a kind of reality in her life, by grasping at
this resolution. Yes, she would do her duty; whoever failed she would
hold on, she would do what her father had said. It was still something
that was left in life.
It seemed to Lucy, all at once, as if a new light had come upon this
duty. It was in love to her as well as in justice to others that her
father had charged her to give it back. Oh, if it could all be given
back--got rid of, her life delivered from it, and she herself left free
like other girls! Lucy’s sky seemed to her all gloomy and charged with
clouds of wealth, which had risen out of the earth, and only by
dispersion to earth again would leave her free. She understood what her
father meant--rain to relieve the clouds, tears to relieve the heat in
her forehead, the gasp in her throat. But at present the clouds were
hanging suspended over her, hiding all the blueness of the heavens, and
her tears were few and hot, not enough to relieve either head or heart.
Nobody faithful--not one! the women conspiring, even Katie, the men
paying false court, making false professions, and every one maligning
the other, accusing the others of that falsehood which they knew to be
in themselves. “Not one,” she repeated to herself, “not one;” and then a
cry was forced out of Lucy’s poor little wrung heart. “Not even Sir
Tom!” she said aloud, with a sudden torrent of tears. Was this, though
she did not know it, the worst of all? Certainly the name opened those
flood-gates against which her passion of wounded feeling had been
straining; her tears came in a violent thunder-shower. “Not even Sir
Tom!” It was the hardest of all.
Something stirred in the dimness behind her. She had taken no notice of
anything in the room when she came in, blind with those tears which she
was not able to shed until she found that talisman. Some one seemed to
make a step forward. Was she then not alone? or was it her imagination
only which made her heart jump? No, for Lucy’s imagination never went so
far as this. It could not have created the voice which said, with that
familiar tone, “What has Sir Tom done?” with a touch of emotion and a
little touch of laughter in it, just over her head as she sat and
sobbed. The sudden cry with which Lucy replied told all her little
secret, even to herself. She got up and turned round, transformed, her
innocent lips apart, her eyes all wet and blinded, yet seeing--But what
she saw was not very clear, a big shadow, a something that was very
real, not false at all, a figure that somehow--why? Lucy could not
tell--put the world right again, and stopped the giddiness, and made the
ground solid under her feet. She put out her hands, yet more in meaning
than in action, half groping, half appealing.
“Who is it? is it _you_?” she said.
“Lucy, what has Sir Tom done to make you cry?” he asked, taking her
hands into his. Was it possible that she did not feel any longer this
most poignant stab of all? She could not in the least recollect what it
was. She thought of it no more. It sailed away from her firmament as a
cloud sails on a steady breeze.
“Oh, I am so glad you have come home,” she cried.
Sir Tom was touched almost to tears. No one could see it, but he felt
the moisture steal into the corners of his eyes. This was not a
congenial place for him, this _bourgeois_ room, nor had this little
girl, in her simplicity, any right to greet him so. And Sir Thomas had
by no means made up his mind, when he came to see his aunt’s _protégée_,
notwithstanding her heiress-ship, that he was going to give up his
freedom and independence, and subject himself to all manner of vulgar
comments for her sake. But these words sealed his fate. He could no more
have resisted their modest, simple appeal, so unconscious as it was,
than he could have denied his own nature. He did what he had done when
he left her, but with a very different meaning; he stooped over her and
kissed her seriously on the forehead; he had done it half paternally,
half in jest, when he went away.
“Yes, my dear, I have come home,” with a little quiver in his voice, Sir
Thomas said; and after an interval, “I think my little Lucy must have
missed me. What is the matter? who has been vexing you? and even Sir
Tom; did I do something amiss too?”
“We will speak of that after,” Lucy said, with a relief which was beyond
all comprehension. She could talk again, her tongue was loosened and her
heart opened. She had not been able to confide in any one for so long,
and now all at once some door seemed opened, some lock undone. “It does
not seem anything now you are here. I am sure it was right, quite
right,” she cried, with a sob and a laugh together. “I knew _underneath_
that it must be right all the time.”
Sir Tom did not insist upon knowing what it was; he made her sit down,
and placed himself by her, still holding her hands.
“But something has been wrong,” he said. “My little girl is not in such
trouble without some cause. Mrs. Ford tells me there was a disturbance
this morning, and that Jock was naughty, and you went out without any
dinner. Come, tell me--you can trust in me.”
Had she not heard over and over again that he was not to be trusted? Had
she not believed, with the deepest sting of all, that Sir Tom had failed
her? Lucy did not remember. “Oh, yes,” she said, from the bottom of her
heart. It seemed so easy to tell everything now. And then the whole
pent-up stream poured forth. The trouble of the morning could not be
disclosed without leading to all the rest. Sometimes she cried as she
spoke, sometimes almost laughed, the fact that he was there taking all
the sting out of her troubles. And as for Sir Tom, though there was
sometimes a gleam of indignation in him, he felt more disposed to
laughter than to tears. Lucy’s troubles were very simple and transparent
to him; she might have known that her fortune would tempt
everybody--though the fact that she had not known, and that even proofs
had not convinced her, was the thing which most profoundly touched Sir
Tom’s experienced heart.
“You have had a pretty set of guardians,” he said; “these are all people
that have had the charge of you, Lucy?” He did not at the moment
recollect that Lady Randolph had the charge of her also, and had
instantly, from the ends of the world, summoned himself. Then he said,
“Lucy, listen to me; this is the sort of thing you will be subject to, I
fear, wherever you go; and I don’t know what you will think of me when
you hear what I am going to say. I know you have a grievance against me
which you are to tell me by and by--”
“No, oh, no,” cried Lucy fervently; “I know now it must have been a
mistake.”
He smiled, but the smile was not that of mere triumph. He was old enough
to be touched by his own unexpected success, to be grateful to the young
creature who had resisted all other claims upon her regard, to give her
heart so unreservedly to him; and there was even more than this, a
something which, at the moment, was very like love, which probably was
the most passionate sentiment he was likely to entertain now, after all
his experiences, for any one. He was “very fond of” Lucy. He understood
her simple goodness, and regarded it with that soft, fraternal
enthusiasm which a beloved child excites in us; and he was grateful to
her, and deeply touched by her choice of himself, a choice of which he
could have very little doubt. “And you have heard a great deal of harm
of me--all these good people have said something. They have said Tom
Randolph was not a man to be your friend.”
“I have not believed them,” said Lucy. “I know you better. I have not
believed a word.”
“But you might have believed, Lucy. You must listen to me now, my dear.
I have not been a good man, as you give me credit for being. I can not
say of myself that I am fit to be the companion of a young, pure, good
girl.”
“Oh, Sir Tom!” Lucy cried in indignant protestation. Words would not
serve her to say more.
“Yes,” he said, shaking his head regretfully. “It is quite true. I who
know myself best confess it to you, but still there is a little truth
left in me. I am going to enter the lists with all these others, Lucy. I
am going to ask you to set yourself free from all of them by marrying
me.”
“_Marrying--you_, Sir Tom!”
“Yes, me. People will say I am a fortune-hunter like the rest.”
Lucy could not bear even this censure suggested by himself. She had been
looking at him seriously all the time, showing her emotion only by the
changing color of her face, which, indeed, it was not very easy to see.
Now she made a hasty movement of impatience, stamping her foot upon the
ground. “No!” she said. “No! they would not dare to say that. It would
not be true.”
“It would be true so far that, if you were a little girl without any
fortune, I should not dare to ask you to marry me, for I am a poor man;
but not any worse than that. Will you marry me, Lucy?” Sir Thomas said.
He let her hands go free, and held out his own. He was not afraid like
the others. It can not even be said that he had much doubt what the
answer would be.
Lucy had not shrunk from him, nor shown any appearance of timidity. She
sat quite quietly looking at him, her eyes showing through the gathering
twilight, but not much else. There was a little quiver about her mouth,
but that did not show.
“Must I be married at all?” she said, in a very low voice.
This chilled Sir Thomas a little, for he had expected a much warmer
reply. He had thought it possible that she would fling herself upon his
breast, and receive his proposal with the same soft enthusiasm with
which she had welcomed his coming. He forgot how young she was, how
child-like, and how serious and dutiful in every new step she had to
take.
“Yes,” he said, with a little jar in his voice, “unless you are always
to be running the gantlet through a string of suitors. You like me,
Lucy?”
“Oh, Sir Tom, yes!”
“And I--” he stopped the other words on his own lips; he would be honest
and no more; he would not say love, which indeed was a word he knew he
had soiled by ignoble use, and employed ere now in a very different
sense. “And I,” he said, “am very fond of you.”
There was a pause. He never could have thought he would have felt so
anxious, or that his heart would have beaten as it was beating. Through
the twilight he could see Lucy’s serious eyes--not stars, or anything
superfluous--honest, tranquil, with a little curve of thought over each
brow, looking at him. She was anxious too. At last she said, with a soft
sigh, “I wish, I wish I knew--”
“What Lucy?”
“What is right,” she said, with a little hurrying and faltering of the
words, “what papa would have liked. It is so hard to tell. He left me a
great many instructions for different things, but not a word, not a word
about this.”
“In this, you may be sure, he wished your heart to be your guide,” said
Sir Thomas, “and so, even if you decide against me, do I--”
“How could I decide against you, Sir Tom?” she said, with a soft
reproach. “I am thinking, only thinking, what is right.”
What was Sir Thomas to do? he began to feel that his position was almost
ludicrous, sitting here, suspended upon Lucy’s breath, waiting for her
answer. This was not the triumphant position which he had occupied ten
minutes ago, when he felt himself to be the deliverer, coming with
acclamations to set everything right. Whether to be very angry and
annoyed, or to laugh at this curious turning of the tables--to be
patient and wait her pleasure, or to betray the half-provoked,
half-amused impatience he began to feel--he did not know.
The matter was decided in a way as unlooked for as was the crisis
itself. Suddenly, without any warning, the door bounced open, and Mrs.
Ford stood in the door-way, in a dark vacancy, which showed her darker
substance like a drawing in sepia. “Lucy,” she said solemnly, “do you
mean to starve yourself to death, all to spite me? I have not had a
moment’s peace all day since you went out without your dinner. Sir
Thomas Randolph, if you have got any influence with her, _make_ her come
down to her tea.”
“I will, Mrs. Ford,” he said.
“There’s a roast partridge,” said Mrs. Ford, with real emotion. “Jock,
bless him, has eat up the other. Oh, Lucy, if you do not want to make me
wretched, come down to your tea!”
“I am coming,” said Lucy. She rose up, and so did her companion--Mrs.
Ford in the door-way looking on, not seeing anything but the two
shadows, yet wondering and troubled in her mind to think of the neglect
which had left them there without any lights. “I will give it to that
Lizzie,” said Mrs. Ford internally; but there was something in the air
which she did not understand, which kept her silent in spite of herself.
Then Lucy put her hand into Sir Thomas’s hand, which was no longer held
out for it. “If you think it is the best,” she said, very low, in her
serious voice, “you have more sense than I have. Tell me what to do. Do
you think it is the best?”
Sir Thomas had been confused by the strange and unexpected position; he
had been prepared for an easy triumph, and at the moment of coming it
had eluded him; and when he had almost made up his mind to the reverse,
here was another surprise and change. But Lucy’s voice again touched a
deeper chord than he was conscious of. He was affected beyond
description by the trust she placed in him. He took the hand she gave
him within his own. “Lucy!” he cried, with a thrill of passionate
feeling in his voice, “as God shall judge between us, I believe it is
the best; but not, my dear, unless you feel that it will be happy for
you.”
“Oh!” cried Lucy, with a soft breath of ease and content which scarcely
seemed to form words, yet shaped into them, “happy! but it was not
_that_ I was thinking of,” she said.
He drew her hand within his arm. It was triumph after all, but of a kind
original, surprising, with a novelty in it that went to his heart,
touching all that was tender in him. He led her down-stairs into Mrs.
Ford’s parlor, with his mind in a confusion of sympathy and respect and
pleasure, and carved her partridge for her, and eat half of it with a
sacramental solemnity, and a laugh in his eyes, which were glistening
and dewy. “You see,” he said, addressing the mistress of the house, who
looked on somewhat grimly, “it is not because I am greedy, but because
she will not eat without company. She wants company. She does not care
for the good things you get for her, unless you will share them too.”
“I declare!” cried Mrs. Ford, “I never thought of that before. Lucy, is
it true?”
“It is quite true,” said Sir Thomas gravely, with always the laugh in
his eyes. “She cares for nothing unless she can share it. Has she eaten
up her half honestly? You see I know how to manage her. Will you let me
marry her, Mrs. Ford?”
“Sir Thomas!” cried the pair in consternation, in one voice. He had come
so opportunely to their assistance that they had quite forgotten he was
a wolf in the fold. Ford thrust up his spectacles off his forehead, and
let the evening paper (which had come in Sir Thomas’s pocket) drop from
his hands, and as for Mrs. Ford she gasped for breath.
But the two at the table took it very quietly. Lucy looked up with eyes
more bright than her eyes had ever been before, and a color which was
very becoming, which made her almost beautiful; and Sir Thomas (who
certainly was a real gentleman, with no pride about him) comforted them
with friendly looks, without the slightest appearance of being ashamed
of himself. “Yes,” he said. “We both think it will answer so far as we
are concerned. You are her oldest friends. Will you let me marry her,
Mrs. Ford?”
The question was answered in a way nobody expected. There raised itself
suddenly up to the table a small head supported upon two elbows, rising
from no one knew where. “Sir Tom was the one I always wanted,” said
little Jock.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE GUARDIANS.
Sir Thomas Randolph got up next morning with his usual good spirits a
little heightened by something, he could not immediately recollect what.
The doubt lasted only for a moment, but, perhaps, his happiness was not
so instantaneously present to his mind as a new vexation would have
been. But on his second waking moment, he jumped up from his bed and
laughed. The red October sunshine was shining into his room; he went and
looked out from his window upon the noble trees in his park, stretching
far away in ruddy masses, all golden and red with the frosty, not fiery,
finger (pardon, dear poet!) of autumn. As far as he could see (and a
great deal further) the land was his; but oh, poor acres! how heavy with
mortgages! how stiff with borrowings! heavier and stiffer than the
native clay, of which there was too much about Farafield; but that was
all over, this red, russet October morning; the house had a mistress,
and the land was free. Was it a wrong to Lucy that he thought of this
so soon? He laughed, at first, at the astounding position in which he
suddenly recollected himself to stand, as betrothed man, a happy and
successful lover; and then there suddenly rushed into his mind the idea
that the change would make him entirely independent, safe from all duns,
free of all creditors, his own master on his own land. When, however, he
went down-stairs and eat his solitary breakfast near the fire in the
great paneled room, with its old tapestries and family portraits, the
noblest room in the county, though as good as shut up for so many years,
there came quite sweetly and delightfully into Sir Tom’s mind the idea,
not of the hospitalities which now were possible, but of a little
serious countenance, with two mild blue eyes, following his looks with a
little strain of intelligence, not quite, _quite_ sure all at once of
his meaning, but always sure that he was right, and soon finding out
what he meant, and lighting up with understanding all the more pleasant
for the first surprise of uncertainty. When this little vision glanced
across him, he put down his newspaper, which he had taken up
mechanically, and smiled at it over the table. “Give me some tea, Lucy,”
he said, with an amused, exhilarated, almost excited realization of what
was going to be. “I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas?” said the solemn
butler, just coming in; and then, will it be believed? Sir Tom, who had
knocked about the world for so many years, Sir Tom, who had touched the
borders of middle age, and gone through no small amount of
experiences--blushed! He laughed afterward and resumed his paper; but
that there had come over, between his big mustache and his quite
unthinned and plentiful locks, a delightful youthful suffusion of warmth
and color, it was impossible to deny. He felt it quite necessary to
sound a trumpet forthwith, so much tickled was he with his own
confusion, and pleased with himself. “Williams, I am going to be
married,” he said. Williams was a man who had been all over the world
with his master, who had himself gone through various transformations,
had been a saucy valet, and an adventurer, and a dignified family
servant by turns, and was not a man to be surprised at anything; but he
stopped short in the middle of the room, and said, “Indeed, Sir Thomas!”
in a tone more like bewilderment than any that ever had been heard from
him before. “Did you ever hear such a joke?” said the master, thinking
of his own blush, that unparalleled circumstance; and “It do indeed, Sir
Thomas,” Mr. Williams gravely replied.
However, after this serious revelation there were more serious matters
at hand. Sir Thomas had decided that he would go to Mr. Rushton in the
morning, who was the real guardian, and with whom in any case he would
have to do; whether it would be necessary in everything to observe the
ordinances of the will, which Lucy, he knew, had declared her
determination to stand by, and ask the consent of all that board of
guardians to whom old Trevor had given the power of hampering and
hindering Lucy’s marriage, was a thing he had not made up his mind upon;
but with Mr. Rushton, at least, he must have to do. He drove into
Farafield through the keen air of the bright, chill, sunshiny morning
with great courage and confidence. It might be said that he was
fortune-hunting too; but if he would receive a certain advantage from
the heiress, it was certain that he had something to offer on his side
which no woman would despise. To put her at the head of the noblest old
house and the most notable family in the county was a balance on his
side which made Lucy’s advantage no more than was desirable. Mr.
Rushton, however, presented the air of a man perturbed and angry when
Sir Thomas entered his office. A letter was lying on the table before
him, the sight of which, it must be allowed, somewhat discomposed even
Sir Tom. Was it Lucy’s handwriting? Had she taken it upon her to be the
first to communicate to her legal guardian the change in her fortunes
which had happened? If this had been the case, no doubt Sir Tom would
have adapted himself to it, and concluded by finding it quite natural
and becoming that a girl in so exceptional a position should take this
upon herself. But in the meantime he felt just a little annoyed and
disconcerted too.
“I see you are busy,” Sir Thomas said.
“No--not so much busy--I am always busy at this hour, and shall be, I
hope, as long as my strength lasts; but not more than usual. The truth
is,” said Mr. Rushton, with a suppressed snarl, “I’m provoked--and not
much wonder if you knew all.”
Sir Thomas looked at the open letter in spite of himself. “May I ask if
I have anything to do with your annoyance?” he said.
“You!” the lawyer opened his eyes wide, then laughed angrily. “No, I
don’t suppose it can be you. She is not quite so silly as that.”
“Silly!” echoed Sir Thomas; “perhaps it will be better to tell you at
once without any circumlocution what my errand is. I have come to tell
you, Rushton, a piece of news which may surprise you--that I have made
an offer to Miss Trevor, and that she has accepted me.”
Mr. Rushton said not a word; he was altogether taken aback. He stood
with his mouth open, and his eyebrows forming large semicircles over his
eyes, and stared at Sir Thomas without a word.
“This naturally,” said the hero of the occasion, with a laugh, “makes
it--not quite safe--to criticise Miss Trevor to me.”
“Accepted--_you_!” He could scarcely get his breath, so bewildered was
he. “Do you mean to say that you--want to marry Lucy Trevor!” Mr.
Rushton said.
“Yes, in common with various other people,” said Sir Thomas, “some of
whom you may have heard of; but the specialty in my case, is that she
has accepted me. I thought it my duty to come to you at once as Miss
Trevor’s guardian. I hope you do not object to me--you have known me
long enough--as a suitor for her. I am rather old for her, perhaps, but
otherwise I think--”
“Accepted you!” the lawyer repeated; and then he gave utterance to a
hard laugh. “She is young, but she is a cool one,” he said. “Accepts you
one minute, and writes to me to make a provision for an old lover, I
suppose. Probably some one she has cast off for your sake--the minx! She
_is_ a cool one,” Mr. Rushton said.
“You forgot--what I have this minute told you, Rushton.”
“No, pardon me, I don’t forget,” said Lucy’s guardian. “She is only a
girl as you may say, but it seems to me she is fooling us all. Look at
that--read that,” he said, tossing the open letter at Sir Thomas, who,
for his part, took it--how could he help it? with a little tremble of
apprehension. This is what he read:
“DEAR MR. RUSHTON,--I think I have found some one else that is all
that is required by papa’s will. This time it is a gentleman, and
as he is not married, and has no children, it will not require so
much. He is very clever, and has a good profession; but his health
is not good, and he wants rest. This is just what papa would have
wished, don’t you think so? Two or three thousand pounds would do,
I think--and I will tell you everything about it and explain all,
if you will come to me, or if I can go and see you. I have written
to Mr. Chervil too.
“Sincerely yours,
LUCY TREVOR.”
“Did you ever hear anything like it?” said the lawyer, exasperated. “If
there is still time, you will thank me for letting you know, Sir Thomas.
Who can tell who this person is? and the moment you appear, no doubt
much better worth the trouble--”
“Must I again remind you of what I said?” Sir Thomas repeated. “This has
reference, so far as I can see, to a condition of the father’s will,
which Miss Trevor has very much in her mind.”
“She has told you of it? There never was so mad a proviso. They have ‘a
bee in their bonnet,’ as the Scotch say. And I’ve got to stand by and
see a fine fortune scattered to the winds! That girl will drive me mad.
I lose my head altogether when I think of her. The old man was always an
eccentric, and he couldn’t take the money with him. You know a man
doesn’t feel it, what he does by his will; but that any living creature,
in their senses, should throw away good money! I believe that girl will
drive me mad.”
“_A la bonne heure_,” said Sir Thomas, “you have nothing to do but
transfer your charge to me.”
“Ah! you’ll put a stop to it? I see. A husband can do a great many
things; that is what I thought, that was my idea when--There are a great
many things to be taken into consideration, Sir Thomas,” Mr. Rushton
said, recovering his self-possession. “Your proposal is one to be
treated respectfully, but nevertheless in my ward’s interest--”
“I think those interests have been considerably risked already,” said
Sir Thomas, gravely. “I do not think they are safe here; she is with
people who do not know how to take care of her.”
“According to the will, Sir Thomas--”
“But it is not according to the will that she should have no
guardianship at all, but be approached by every youth that happens to
cross her path.”
Mr. Rushton winced; if his wife schemed, was it his fault? “Ah! I had
heard something of that,” he said. “Some young fellow who followed her
from town; it must be put a stop to.”
“It is put a stop to,” said Sir Thomas, “Miss Trevor has, as I tell you,
accepted me.”
“That is the most effectual way, certainly, isn’t it?” Mr. Rushton said,
discomfited. He rubbed his hands ruefully, and shifted from one foot to
another. “It is a very serious question. I must go into it fully before
I can pretend to say anything; you have a fine property, but it is
heavily burdened, and a good position, an excellent position; but with
her fortune my ward has a right to look very high indeed, Sir Thomas,”
the lawyer said.
“You will not promise me your support?” said Sir Thomas. “I have a hard
task before me, I understand, and the consent of a great many people to
secure. And how about Miss Trevor’s letter?” he said, with a twinkle in
his eye; “she will ask me what you said.”
Mr. Rushton grew crimson once more. “It is out of the question,” he
cried; “the girl is mad, and she will drive me mad. Two or three
thousands! only two or three thousand pounds! the other day she made
away with six thousand--I declare before heaven she will bring down my
gray hairs--no, that’s not what I mean to say. But you can’t treat money
in this way, Sir Thomas, you can’t do it; it will make me ill, it will
give me a fever, or something. The girl does not know what she is doing.
Money! the one thing in the world that you can’t treat in this way.”
“But the will permits it?” said Sir Thomas, with a fictitious look of
sympathy.
“Oh, the will, the will is mad too. I dare not take it into a court of
law. It would not stand, it could not stand for a moment. And what would
be the issue?” cried Mr. Rushton, almost weeping, “the money would be
divided. The old man would be declared intestate, and the child, Jock,
as they call him, would take his share. She would deserve it--upon my
honor, she would deserve it--but it would cut the property to pieces all
the same, and that would be worse than anything. It will drive me out of
my senses; I can’t bear this anxiety much longer,” Mr. Rushton said.
Sir Thomas shook his head. “I don’t see how it is to be mended. She has
set her heart on carrying out the will, and unless you can show that she
has no right--”
“Right, there is no right in it!” Mr. Rushton cried. “She will find out
she has me to deal with. I am not a fool like Chervil. I will not give
in at the first word; I will make my stand. I will put down my foot.”
“But, my good fellow,” said Sir Thomas sympathetically, “first word or
last word, what can it matter? What can you do against her? The will
gives it, and the law allows it--you are helpless--you must give in to
her at the last.”
“I won’t!” he said, “or else I’ll throw up the whole concern, it has
been nothing but botheration and annoyance. And now my wife at me--and
Ray. I’ll wash my hands of the whole matter. I’ll not have my life made
a burden to me, not for old Trevor, nor for Lucy, nor for any will in
the world.”
“Give her to me, and you will be free,” said Sir Thomas, looking at his
excited opponent steadily, to conceal the laughter in his own eyes.
He came out of Mr. Rushton’s office an hour after, triumphant, and came
along the market-place, and down the High Street, with a smile upon his
face. Sir Tom felt that the ball was at his foot. An air of success and
prosperity was about him, which vaguely impressed all the passers-by,
and even penetrated through the shows in the shop-windows, and made
everybody aware that something fortunate had happened. What had come to
him? A fortune had been left him--he had been appointed Embassador
somewhere, he had been made an Under-Secretary of State. All these
suggestions were abroad in Farafield before night; for at this time it
was quite early, and the people about were at comparative leisure, and
free to remark on what they saw. Something had happened to Sir Tom, and
it was something good. The town in general disapproved of many of his
ways, but yet liked Sir Tom. It pleased the public to see him streaming
along like a procession, with all his colors flying. He went on till he
came to the Terrace, pervading the streets like a new gleam of sunshine;
but then he stopped short, just as he was about to enter the gate-way.
Lucy herself was at the window, looking for him. He paused as he was
about to go in, then waved his hand to her, and turned the other way.
Lucy followed him with her eyes, with astonishment, and disappointment,
and consternation. Where could he be going across the common, away from
her, though he saw her waiting for him? Sir Tom looked back once more,
and waved his hand again when he was half way along the uneven road. He
was bound for the White House. He recollected the letter of the will,
which Lucy had vowed to keep, though Lucy herself had forgotten the
marriage committee, and Mr. Rushton had this very morning openly scoffed
at it. But Sir Thomas was confident in the successfulness of his
success. Already of the six votes he had secured three. One more, and
all was safe.
Mrs. Stone was in her parlor, like the queen in the ballad, and, like
that royal lady, was engaged upon a light refection. She had been
worried, and she had been crossed, and teaching is hungry work. The two
sisters were strengthening themselves with cake and wine for their work,
when Sir Thomas Randolph was suddenly shown into the Queen Anne parlor,
taking them by surprise. Sir Tom was not a man to alarm any woman with
the mildest claim to personal attractiveness, and he admired the
handsome school-mistress, and was not without an eye to see that even
the little Southernwood, with her little old-fashioned curls upon her
cheek, had a pretty little figure still, and a complexion which a girl
need not have despised. How Sir Tom made it apparent that he saw these
personal advantages, it would be hard to say--yet he managed to do so;
and in five minutes had made himself as comfortable as the circumstances
permitted in one of the lofty Chippendale chairs, and was talking of
most things in heaven and earth in his easy way. The ladies saw, as the
people in the streets had seen, that some good fortune had happened to
Sir Tom. But he was very wary in his advances, and it was not till a
little stir in the passages gave him warning that the girls were
flocking in again to their class-rooms, and the moment of leisure nearly
over, that he ventured on the real object of his visit. It was more
difficult than he had thought; he had his back to the window, and the
room was not very light, which was a protection to him; but still he had
to clear his throat more than once before he began.
“I have a selfish object in this early visit,” he said; “you will never
divine it. I have come to throw myself on your charity. You have it in
your power to make me or to mar me. I want you to give me your consent.”
“To what?” Mrs. Stone said, surprised. Was it for a general holiday? was
it an indulgence for Lily Barrington, for whom he professed a
partiality? What was it? perhaps a _protégée_ of doubtful pedigree, whom
he wished to put under her care.
Sir Thomas got up, keeping his back to the window. It was not half so
easy as dealing with Mr. Rushton. “It is something about your little
pupil, Lucy Trevor.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Stone got up too. “I want to hear nothing more of Lucy
Trevor. I wash my hands of her,” she said.
“Ah?” said Miss Southernwood, coming a step closer. She divined
immediately, though she was not half so clever as her sister, what it
was.
“I am sorry she has displeased you,” said Sir Tom. “I want you to let me
marry her, Mrs. Stone.”
“Marry her!” Mrs. Stone said, almost with a shriek; and then she drew
herself up to a great deal more than her full height, as she knew, very
well how to do. “I have taken an interest in her, and she has
disappointed me,” she said; “and as to consenting or not consenting, all
that is nonsense nowadays. It might have answered last century, but now
it is obsolete.” Then she made him a stately courtesy. “I could have
nothing to oppose to Sir Thomas Randolph, even, if I meant to oppose at
all,” she said.
Miss Southernwood came up to him as the door closed on her sister.
“Was this what she meant all the time?” asked the milder woman. “It was
you she was thinking of all the time? Well, I do not blame her, and I
hope you may be very happy. But, Sir Thomas, tell Lucy that I rely upon
her to do nothing more in the matter we were talking of. It could not be
done, it would not be possible to have it done; but, surely, surely, you
could make it up between you to poor Frank. There are so many
appointments that would suit him, if he had good friends that would
take a little trouble. I do think, Sir Thomas, that it might be made up
to Frank.”
Miss Southernwood, after all, was the best partisan and most staunch
supporter; but it was strange that she, who had not originated, nay, who
had disapproved of her sister’s scheme in respect to Frank St. Clair,
should be the one to insist upon a compensation to that discomfited
hero.
Lucy was still standing at the window when Sir Tom came back. He made
signs of great despondency when he came in sight and alarmed her.
“She will not give me her consent, though I made sure of it,” he said.
“Lucy, what shall we do if we can not get Mrs. Stone’s consent?”
“Her consent?” said Lucy, with momentary surprise. Then she made her
first rebellion against all she had hitherto considered most sacred. “I
think we might do without it,” she said.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE END.
There was one thing which Sir Thomas got out of his matrimonial
arrangements which was more than he expected, and that was a great deal
of fun. After he had received, in the way above described, the angry
submission of the two whom he chiefly feared, he had entered into the
spirit of the thing, and determined that he would faithfully obey the
will, and obtain the assent of all that marriage committee, who expected
to make Lucy’s marrying so difficult a matter. He was even visited by
some humorous compunctions as he went on. The entire failure of poor old
Trevor’s precautions on this point awakened a kind of sympathetic regret
in his mature mind. “Poor old fellow!” he said; “probably I was the last
person he would have given his heiress to: most likely all these fences
were made to keep me out,” he laughed; yet he felt a kind of sympathy
for the old man, who, indeed, however, would have had no such objection
to Sir Thomas as Sir Thomas thought. Next morning Lucy’s suitor went to
the rector, who, to be sure, had it in his power to stop the whole
proceedings, advanced as they were. But the rector had heard, by some of
the subtle secret modes of communication which convey secrets, of
something going on, and patted Sir Thomas on the shoulder.
“My dear Sir Tom,” he said, “I never for a moment attached any
importance to the vote given to me. Why should I interfere with Miss
Trevor’s marriage? Your father-in-law that is to be (if one can speak in
the future tense of a person who is in the past) entertained some odd
ideas. He was an excellent man, I have not a doubt on that point,
but--Now what could I know about it, for instance? I know Lucy--she’s a
very nice girl, my girls like what they have seen of her immensely; but
I know nothing about her surroundings. I am inclined to think she is
very lucky to have fallen into no worse hands than yours.”
“The compliment is dubious,” said Sir Tom, “but I accept it; and I may
take it for granted that I have your consent?”
“Certainly, certainly, you have my consent. I never thought of it but as
a joke. That old man--I beg your pardon--your father-in-law must have
had queer ideas about many things. I hear he left his heiress great
latitude about spending--allowed her, in short, to give away her money.”
“I wonder how you heard that?”
“Ah! upon my word I can scarcely tell you. Common talk. They say, by the
way, she is going to give a fortune to Katie Russell on her marriage
with young Rainy, the school-master; compensation, that! Rainy (who is a
young prig, full of dissenting blood, though it suits him to be a
churchman) no doubt thought he had a good chance for the heiress
herself.”
“Don’t speak any worse than you can help of my future relations,” said
Sir Tom, with a laugh: “it might make things awkward afterward;” upon
which the rector perceived that he had gone half a step too far.
“Rainy is a very respectable fellow; there is not a word to be said
against him. I wish I could say as much for all my own relations,” he
said; “but, Randolph, as I am a kind of a guardian, you know, take my
advice in one thing. It is all very fine to be liberal; but I would not
let her throw her money away.”
Sir Tom made no direct reply. He shook the rector’s hand, and laughed.
“I’ll tell Lucy you send her your blessing,” he said.
And then he went off in a different direction, from the fine old
red-brick rectory, retired in its grove of trees, to the little,
somewhat shabby street in which Mr. Williamson, the Dissenting minister,
resided--if a man can be said to reside in a back street. The house was
small and dingy, the door opening into a very narrow passage, hung with
coats and hats, for Mr. Williamson, as was natural, had a large family.
It was only after an interval of running up and down-stairs, and subdued
calling of one member of the household after another, that the minister
was unearthed and brought from the little back room, called his study,
in his slippers and a very old coat, to receive the unlikely visitor.
Sir Thomas Randolph! what could he want? There is always a certain alarm
in a humble household attendant upon the unexpectedness of such a visit.
Could anything have happened? Could some one have gone wrong, was the
anxious question of the Williamsons, as the minister was roused, and
gently pushed into the parlor, where Sir Thomas, surrounded by all the
grim gentility of the household gods, was awaiting him. The mother and
daughter were on tiptoe in the back room, not listening at the door
certainly, but with excited ears ready for every movement. The vague
alarm that they felt was reflected in the minister’s face. Sir Thomas
Randolph! What could he want? It was a relief to Mr. Williamson when he
heard what it was; but he was not so easy in his assent as the rector.
He took a seat near the suitor, with an air of great importance
replacing the vague distrust and fear that had been in his face.
“It is a great trust, Sir Thomas,” he said. “And I must be faithful. You
will not expect me to do anything against my conscience. Lucy Trevor is
a lamb of the flock, though spiritually no longer under my charge, her
mother was an excellent woman, and our late friend, Mr. Trevor--This is
an altogether unexpected application, you must allow me to think it
over. I owe it to--to our late excellent friend who committed this trust
to my unworthy hands.”
“I thought,” said Sir Tom, “that it was a matter of form merely; but,”
he added, with a better inspiration, “I quite see how, to a delicate
sense of duty like yours, it must take an aspect--”
“That is it, Sir Thomas--that is it,” Mr. Williamson said. “I must be
faithful at whatever cost. Yourself now, you will excuse me; there are
reports--”
“A great many, and at one time very well founded,” said Sir Thomas, with
great seriousness, looking his judge in the face.
This took the good minister by surprise, and the steady look confused
him. A great personage, the greatest man in the county, a baronet, a man
whose poverty (for he was known to be poor) went beyond Mr. Williamson’s
highest realization of riches! It gave the excellent minister’s bosom an
expansion of solemn pride, and, at the same time, a thrill of alarm.
Persecution is out of date, but to stand up in the presence of one of
the great ones of the earth, and convict him of evil--this is still
occasionally possible. Mr. Williamson rose to the grandeur of his
position. Such an opportunity had never been given to him before, and
might never be again.
“I am glad that you do not attempt to deny it, Sir Thomas; but at the
same time there is a kind of bravado that boasts of evil-doing. I hope
that is not the source of your frankness. The happiness of an innocent
young girl is a precious trust, Sir Thomas. Unless we have guarantees of
your change of life, and that you are taking a more serious view of your
duties, how can I commit such a trust into your hands?”
“What kind of guarantees can I offer?” said Sir Thomas, with great
seriousness. “I can not give securities for my good conduct, can I? I
will cordially agree to anything that your superior wisdom and
experience can suggest.”
“Do not speak of my wisdom, for I have none--experience, perhaps, I may
have a little; and I think we must have guarantees.”
“With all my heart--if you will specify the kind,” Sir Thomas said.
But here the good minister was very much at a loss, for he did not in
the least know what kind of guarantees could be given, or taken. He was
not accustomed to have his word taken so literally. He cleared his
throat, and a flush came over his countenance, and he murmured, “Ah!”
and “Oh!” and all the other monosyllables in which English difficulty
takes refuge. “You must be aware,” he said, “Sir Thomas--not that I mean
to be disagreeable--that there are many things in your past life
calculated to alarm the guardians.”
“But, my dear sir, when I confess it,” said Sir Thomas, “when I admit
it! when I ask only--tell me what guarantees I can give--what I can do
or say--”
“Guarantees are necessary--certainly guarantees are necessary,” said the
minister, shaking his head; and then he gave to his attentive hearer a
little sermon upon marriage, which was one of the good man’s favorite
subjects. Sir Thomas listened with great gravity and sympathy. He
subdued the twinkling in his eyes--he wanted to take advantage of the
honorable estate. He said very little, and allowed his mentor to
discourse freely. And nothing was said further about guarantees. Mr.
Williamson gave his consent with _effusion_ before the interview was
over. “You have seen the folly of a careless life,” he said, “I can not
but hope that your heart is touched, Sir Thomas, and that all the
virtues of maturity will develop in you; and if my poor approval and
blessing can do you any good, you have it. I am not of those who think
much of, neither do I belong to a denomination which gives special
efficacy to, any man’s benediction; but as Jacob blessed Joseph, I give
you my blessing.” Then as his visitor rose content, and offered him his
hand, an impulse of hospitality came over the good man. “My wife would
say I was letting you go coldly, without offering you anything; but I
believe it is quite out of fashion to drink wine in the morning--which
is a very good thing, an excellent thing. But if you will come to
tea--any afternoon, Sir Thomas. If you will bring Lucy to tea!”
Afterward, after the door was shut, the minister darted out again and
called after his visitor, “My wife says if you would name an afternoon,
or if Lucy would write to her what day we may expect you--not to make
preparations,” said the minister, waving his hand, “but in case we
should be out, or engaged.”
Sir Thomas promised fervently. “You shall certainly hear a day or two
before we come,” he said, and walked away with a smile on his face. To
be sure he never meant to go back to tea, but his conscience did not
smite him. He had got off safe and sound without any guarantees.
“Now there is only my aunt’s consent to get,” he said, when he had gone
back to the Terrace. “We have stuck to the very letter of the will, and
you see all has gone well. I am going off to Fairhaven to-morrow. I know
she is there.”
“But must you ask her consent? you know she will give it,” Lucy said.
“How do I know she will give it? Perhaps she would prefer to keep you to
herself.” Lucy smiled at the thought; but Sir Thomas did not feel so
sure. His aunt meant him to marry Lucy _eventually_; but that was a very
different thing from carrying her off now.
When Sir Thomas went away, Lucy had a great many visitors. Even Mrs.
Rushton came, embarrassed, but doing her best to look at her ease. “Why
did you not tell me that this was going on, you silly child? I should
have understood everything, I should have made allowances for
everything. But, perhaps, he had never come to the point till the other
day? Mr. Rushton and Raymond send you their very best wishes. And Emmie
has hopes that after seeing so much of each other all the autumn, you
will choose her for one of your brides-maids, Lucy. And I wish you every
happiness, my dear,” Mrs. Rushton cried, kissing her with a little
enthusiasm, having talked all her embarrassment away. Lucy was surprised
by this change, but she was no casuist, and she did not inquire into
it. It was a relief which she accepted thankfully. Mrs. Stone came also
with her congratulations. “Lady Randolph was very wise to forestall
everybody,” she said. “And, Lucy, I shall be very glad to have you near
me, to watch how you go on in your new life. Never hesitate to come to
me in a difficulty.” This was the way in which she took her pupil’s
elevation. Had Lucy been raised to a throne, she would have made a
similar speech to her. She would have felt that she could instruct her
how to reign. As for Mr. St. Clair, Lucy still had much trouble to go
through on his account. She was very reluctant to give up her scheme for
his help, but at last, after a great many interviews with Miss
Southwood, was got to perceive that the thing to be done was to make Sir
Thomas “find an appointment” for her unfortunate suitor. “He can easily
do it,” said Miss Southwood, with that innocent faith in influence which
so many good people still retain.
Bertie Russell disappeared from Farafield on the day after the advent of
Sir Thomas. He was the most angry of all Lucy’s suitors, and he put her
this time into his book in colors far from flattering. But, fortunately,
nobody knew her, and the deadly assault was never found out, not even by
its immediate victim, for, like many writers of fiction, and, indeed,
like most who are worth their salt, Bertie was not successful in the
portraiture of real character. His fancy was too much for his
malevolence, and his evil intentions thus did no harm.
Sir Thomas traveled as fast as expresses could take him to the house in
which his aunt was paying one of her many autumn visits--for I need not
say that she had returned from Homburg some time before. The house was
called Fairhaven. It was the house of a distinguished explorer and
discoverer; and the company assembled there included various members of
Lady Randolph’s special “society.” When Sir Thomas walked into the room,
where, all the male portion of the party being still in the covers, the
ladies were seated at tea, his aunt rose to meet him, from out of a
little group of her friends. Her privy council, that dread secret
tribunal by which her life was judged, were all about her in the
twilight and firelight. When his name was announced, to the great
surprise of everybody, Lady Randolph rose up with a similar but much
stronger sense of vague alarm than that which had moved the minister the
previous day. “Tom!” she cried, with surprise which she tried to make
joyful; but indeed she was frightened, not knowing what kind of news he
might have come to tell. Mrs. Berry-Montagu who was sitting as usual
with her back to the light, though there was so little of that, gave a
little nod and glance aside to Lady Betsinda, who was seated high in a
throne-like, antique chair, and did not care how strong the light was
which fell on her old shiny black satin and yellow lace. “I told you!”
said Mrs. Berry-Montagu. She thought all her friend’s hopes, so easily
penetrated by those keen-eyed spectators, were about to be thrown to the
ground, and the desire to observe “how she would bear it,” immediately
stirred up those ladies to the liveliest interest. Sir Thomas, however,
when he had greeted his aunt, sat down with his usual friendly ease, and
had some tea. He was quite ready to answer all their questions, and he
was not shy about his good news, but ready to unfold them whenever it
might seem most expedient so to do.
“Straight from the Hall?” Lady Randolph said, with again a tremor. Did
this mean that he had been making preparations for his setting out?
“I got there three days ago,” said Sir Tom; “poor old house, it is a
pity to see it so neglected. It is not such a bad house--”
“A bad house! there is nothing like it in the county. If I could but see
you oftener there, Tom,” his aunt cried in spite of herself.
Sir Tom smiled, pleased with the consciousness which had not yet lost
its amusing aspect; but he did not make any reply.
“He likes his own way,” said Lady Betsinda; “I don’t blame him. If I
were a young man--and he is still a young man--I’d take my swing. When
he marries, then he’ll range himself, like all the rest, I suppose.”
“Lady Betsinda talks like a book--as she always does,” said Sir Tom,
with his great laugh; “when I marry, everything shall be changed.”
“That desirable consummation is not very near at hand, one can see,”
said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, out of the shadows, in her thin, fine voice.
Sir Tom laughed again. There was something frank, and hearty, and joyous
in the sound of his big laugh; it tempted other people to laugh too,
even when they did not know what it was about. And Lady Randolph did not
in the least know what it was about, yet the laugh gained her in spite
of herself.
“_Apropos_ of marriage,” said Mrs. Montagu once more, “have you seen
little Miss Trevor in your wilds, Sir Tom? Our young author has gone off
there, on simulated duty of a domestic kind, but to try his best for the
heiress, I am sure. Do you think he has a chance? I am interested,” said
the little lady. “Come, the latest gossip! you must know all about it.
In a country neighborhood every scrap is worth its weight in gold.”
“I know all about it,” said Sir Tom.
“That you may be sure he does; where does all the gossip come from but
from the men? we are never so thorough. He’ll give you the worst of it,
you may take my word for that. But I like that little Lucy Trevor,”
cried old Lady Betsinda; “she was a nice, modest little thing. She never
looked her money; she was more like a little girl at home, a little
kitten to play with. I hope she is not going to have the author. I
always warned you, Mary Randolph, not to let her have to do with
authors, and that sort of people; but you never take my advice till it’s
too late.”
“She is not going to marry the author,” said Sir Tom, with another
laugh; and then he rose up, almost stumbling over the tea-table. “My
dear ladies,” he said, “who are so much interested in Lucy Trevor, the
fact is that the author never had the slightest chance. She is going to
marry--me. And I have come, Aunt Mary, if you please, to ask if you will
kindly give your consent? The other guardians have been good enough to
approve of me,” he added, making her a bow, “and I hope I may not owe my
disappointment to you.”
“The other guardians--Tom!” cried Lady Randolph, falling upon him and
seizing him with both hands, “is this true?”
Sir Tom kissed her hand with a grace which he was capable of when he
pleased, and drew it within his arm.
“I presume, then,” he said, as he led her away, “that I shall get your
consent too.”
Thus old Mr. Trevor’s will was fulfilled. It was not fulfilled in the
way he wished or thought of, but what then? He thought it would have
kept his daughter unmarried, whereas her mourning for him was not ended
when she became Lady Randolph--which she did very soon after the above
scene, to the apparent content of everybody. Even Philip Rainy looked
upon the arrangement with satisfaction. Taking Lucy’s fortune to redeem
the great Randolph estate, and to make his little cousin the first woman
in the county, was not like giving it “to another fellow;” which was the
thing he had not been able to contemplate with patience. The popular
imagination, indeed, was more struck with the elevation of little Lucy
Trevor to be the mistress of the Hall than with Sir Thomas’s good
fortune in becoming the husband of the greatest heiress in England. But
when his settlements were signed, both the guardians, Mr. Chervil and
Mr. Rushton, took the bridegroom-elect aside.
“We can not do anything for you about that giving-away clause,” Mr.
Chervil said, shaking his head.
“But Sir Thomas is not the man I take him for, if he don’t find means to
keep that in check,” said Mr. Rushton.
Sir Tom made no reply, and neither of these gentlemen could make out
what was meant by the humorous curves about his lips and the twinkle in
his eye.
THE END.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Greatest Heiress in England" ***
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