WhenLucy 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 andwound. 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 catchmeat 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 servantattached 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 thinkingof 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.”
“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 witha 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 iseverythingto 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 ofladies 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,” saidMrs. 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.Heis not one that willeverlead 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 aneffort 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.
Jockwas 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 everthoughtof 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 youknowyou 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 forhim? It would break my heart,” cried the girl, “but I would sacrifice myself and Bertie, too, and never think twice—forhim! 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 violencein 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 wasnot 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 forhim: you have so much for me, have a little forhim,” 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. Peopleshow 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.
Nota 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 theoutside 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 toherself. 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 ityou?” 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, thisbourgeoisroom, 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’sprotégée, 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 knewunderneaththat 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 hecould 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 arealways 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,makeher 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 notthatI 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 thelaugh 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.