“Hush, hush, Lucy; hush, dear,” whispered Mrs. Stone, withsympathetic 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.
Lady Randolphmade haste to strike while the iron was hot. Shewasa 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 throughthe 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 wasseen 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 as she sat down. Once more she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror which reflected her fromhead 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. LadyRandolph 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 littleparvenue. 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 yourspécialité; have you aspécialité, 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 stoodlooking 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 streamingaway. 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.
Thepast 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 (whatcourse 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 littlefine, 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 thanpoudre 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 wasseated 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 littlecritiqueswhich 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 thefemme soleof 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, youmusttake 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 sillyparvenueon 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 himpardessus 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-Montaguput someeau-de-Cologneon her handkerchief and applied it tenderly to her nose.
“You continue to use patchouly. Ihopedit had gonecompletelyout 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 thatshehas 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 chiefinterest, 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 amésalliancefor 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 orher 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 dome?” 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 time 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 theother 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 utteranceof 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.”
“Thatis 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 atHampstead, 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, thatyouare 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,veryglad 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 bealllike 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 wascloudy, 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, itisa 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.