LUCY went home a little impressed by what Mrs. Stone had said. It had never occurred to her before to think of anything but her father’s will and pleasure in the matter, or to suppose that she had anything to do but to acquiesce in his arrangements; but when the idea was put into her head, it commended itself to her reasonable mind. If he were, at least, to begin to do some of the things which he had by his will commanded her to do, what an ease and comfort it would be! and she could not but think that it would be a relief to himself, as well as for her, could he be made, as Mrs. Stone suggested, to see it in this way. In the first place, it would obviate on his part all necessity for dying, which, at present, was the initial requirement, the one thing needful, before any of his regulations could be carried out. Why should he die? She could not but perceive, as she thought over the whole subject dispassionately, according to her nature, that from his own point of view it would be a mistake if his life were prolonged. The whole scheme was based upon his death. So long as he did not die it was a mere imagination. And why should this be? far better to get over this fundamental necessity by changing the construction of his plan altogether, and begin to carry out his wishes himself. When they were sitting together in the afternoon, which was wet and dull, the idea took a stronger hold upon her, and it was when Mr. Trevor was actually writing down something new that had occurred to him, that her thoughts came the length of speech. She looked up from her knitting, and he stopped, with the pen in his hand, and, looking round upon her, listened with a smile to what Lucy might have to say.
“Why should you take all this trouble, papa?” she said, suddenly. “I have been thinking; and this is what I feel sure of, that it should all be altered. You are not ill, or likely to die. Instead of writing out all these orders for me, would it not be much better if you would put that paper aside and do the things you have put into it yourself?”
He looked at her over the top of his spectacles with an air of consternation.
“Do the things myself! what things?” he said, then paused and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, and gazed at her almost fiercely with his small keen eyes. “That paper!” he repeated; “do you mean the will, my will, Lucy?” The tone in which he spoke was as if it had been the British Constitution which Lucy proposed to set aside.
“Yes,” she said. “You see, papa, I shall be very young, I shall not have very much sense.”
“You have a great deal of sense, Lucy,” he said, mollified, “far more than most girls. Providence has made you for the work you have got to do.”
“But, papa,” she said, “I shall be very young; it will be very hard upon me to decide what is to be done with all that money, and to give and not to give. It will be very hard. How should I know which are the right people? I should either want to give to everybody or to nobody. I should throw it away, or I should be too frightened to make any use of it at all.”
“That will be impossible,” said old Trevor, with a nod of satisfaction; “I have taken precautions about that.”
“Then I should give foolishly, papa.”
“Very likely, my dear, very likely; every one has to pay for his own experience. It is a very dear commodity, Lucy; I can’t give you mine, you must get it for yourself, and it has always, always to be paid for. There is no question about that.”
“But, papa, would it not be a great deal better—you who have this experience, who have paid for it and got it—instead of living quietly here as if you were nobody, to do it all yourself?”
The old man laughed.
“There you have hit it, Lucy,” he said, “there you have hit it, my dear. I live quietly, as if I were nobody—and I am nobody—that is exactly the state of affairs.”
“But,” she cried, with great surprise and indignation, “if you mean nobody in family, then neither am I, but the money, the money is all yours to do with it whatever you please.”
Once more he laughed, and chuckled, and lost his breath, and coughed before he could recover it again; and whether it was the laughing, or the coughing, or something else, Lucy could not tell, but the water stood in his eyes.
“You are mistaken, Lucy, you are mistaken,” he said. “You must understand the truth, my dear; neither am I any one to speak of, nor is the money mine. I have made a little in my life—oh, very little—a poor school-master’s earnings—what are they, nothing to make a fuss about. I’ve put my little savings away for Jock, you know that. A few thousand pounds, just as much as will give him a start in the world, if it is well taken care of.”
“Papa, you ought to give Jock the half,” said Lucy reproachfully; “it is not fair that he should have nothing, and that all should come to me.”
“Listen to her!” said the old man; “first telling me to spend it myself, and then to give half to the boy. Nothing of the sort, Lucy; I know what justice is, and I mean to do it. Do you think I could take poor Lucilla’s money to make that brat a gentleman? Why, it’s a kind of insult to her, poor thing, that he’s there at all. I don’t say a word against his mother, Lucy, but I always felt I never ought to have married her. I was not like a young man, I was middle-aged even before I married poor Lucilla, and I had no business to have the other; it was a mistake, it was an affront to your poor mother. People say that you show how happy you’ve been with the first when you get a second, but I don’t go in with that. When I think of facing these two women and not knowing which I belong to, I— I don’t like it, Lucy. Lucilla was always very considerate, and made great allowances, but there are things a woman can’t be expected to put up with, and I don’t like the thought.”
The humor and half-ludicrous pathos of this explanation, which was made between a laugh and a sob, was lost upon Lucy, who was altogether taken by surprise, and whose sense of humor was but little developed. She gazed at him with her eyes a little more widely opened than usual, not knowing what to say. Had she been a more experienced person, no doubt she would have consoled him with the reflection that husbands and wives, as we are told, do not stand exactly on the same footing in the next world. But she did not feel capable of saying anything in opposition to this matter-of-fact compunction; it has much in it which commends itself to the unsophisticated. She only gazed at her father, seeing difficulties in the way of his exit from the world which she had never thought of before.
“But that is neither here nor there,” he said, with his usual chuckle much subdued. “It is only to explain to you why I won’t give anything but my own savings to Jock. I have often told you so before, but now you know the reason why.”
Lucy was silent for a time, pondering over all this then she said, in the same serious tone. “But papa, I don’t see that what you have said is any answer to my question. I want to know why you should live here so quietly and save, and leave everything to me to do, when it would be so much better to do it yourself.”
“Some one has put this into your head.”
“No; only something set me thinking—why shouldn’t you, papa, take a great house instead of this; and have carriages and servants, and do all these things—giving and endowing, and building and setting up—that you want me to do—”
The old man laughed with less complication of sentiment than before. “I should make a fine country gentleman,” he said, “to sit down and hob and nob with the Earl and Lord Barrington, and Sir John and Sir Thomas. What should I do with grand carriages, that never go outside these four walls, or with men-servants, when I can’t bear the sight of ’em? No, no! and I shouldn’t like it, neither. I can put it all down on paper for you; but I shouldn’t like to do it myself. I like to stick to the money, Lucy. I like to lay it up, and see it grow—that’s my pleasure in life. It makes me happy when the stocks go up. Interest and compound interest, that’s what pleases me.”
“But, papa,” said Lucy, astonished, “that is all quite different;” she nodded her head toward the will always lying in the blotting-case within reach of his hand. “There it is all spending and giving; over and over again you say there is to be no hoarding up, no putting by.”
“Ah!” said old Trevor, rubbing his hands with enjoyment, “that is for you; that is a different thing altogether. When I’ve had my own way all my life, down to the last moment, why, then you shall have yours.”
“How can you call it mine?” she said. “I don’t think I want to have my own way—except in some things. I am very willing to do what you tell me, papa; but it will not be my will—it will be your will. Why, then, shouldn’t you do it yourself, and have the pleasure of it, and not leave it to me?”
“The pleasure of it!” he said. And then paused and cleared his voice, and drew his chair nearer to hers. “Look here, Lucy,” he said, “you have heard something about your mother—not very much; but still you have heard something. She was a good woman, a very good woman. She was not of my kind. In the way of money, she let me manage—she never interfered. But still she was not of my kind. She was a woman that had little but trouble in this world, Lucy. She was what people call an old maid when we married. We were both old maids for that matter,” he added, with his usual chuckle, “and she had always had a hard life. She the old maid of the family; when anything was wrong, she was the one that was sent for. She was the one that nursed them all when they were ill. Father and mother—she closed both their eyes. She never had time to think what was going to become of her. When she came back to Farafield to live with poor Robert, nobody knew he was rich. It was the old story over again. She thought she was coming only to nurse him, and slave for him till he died. Your mother was a good woman—a very good woman, Lucy—”
His voice was a little thick, and the tears sprung into Lucy’s eyes.
“Oh, thank you, papa; thank you for telling me!” she said.
“That she was,” he went on after a little pause, “the best of women. And after we were married she had just as hard a life as ever. She was never well; and all your little brothers and sisters came—and went again. That’s very hard upon a woman, Lucy. A baby—who cares much about a baby? it does not seem anything to make a fuss about. There’s too many of them in the world; but to have them, and to lose them, is terrible work for a woman. We didn’t know about the money at first; and what’s money when things are going to the bad in that way? She never got what you may call the good of it. She was one of your giving people. Her hand was never out of her pocket as long as she had a penny in it: but she never rightly got the good of her money. In the first place, we didn’t know about it; and in the second place, why, you know there was me.”
“You?” Lucy looked at him with a question in her eyes.
“Yes,” said old Trevor, with a comical look of half real, half simulated penitence. “I wanted to tell you all this some time, to show you your duty—there was me, Lucy, I told you I was fond of money; and more still when I wasn’t used to it. I clutched it all, and wanted more; and she left it all to me, poor dear. She never even knew how much it was—she let me do whatever I pleased. I didn’t even always let her have what she wanted for her poor folks, Lucy,” he added ruefully, shaking his head; but there was something about the corner of his mouth which was not repentance. “I was a beast to her—that’s just what I was; but, poor thing, she never knew— She thought to the last we couldn’t afford any more. She left all the money matters to me.”
“She ought to have had her money for the poor, papa.”
“Yes, indeed; don’t I say so?” a half chuckle of triumph in his own successful craftiness mingled with the subdued tone appropriate to this confession. “And since she’s been dead,” he added, with a touch of complacency, “I’ve behaved badly by poor Lucilla. I acknowledge that I have behaved badly; and that is just why I am determined she shall have her revenge—”
“Her revenge!” Lucy looked at him aghast.
“Yes, her revenge; you, Lucy, a girl that shall be brought up a lady, that shall have everything of the best; that shall do as she pleases, and give with both hands. Ah, Lucilla, poor thing, would have liked that; she would have ruined me with giving,” he cried with a momentary tone of complaint; “but you, Lucy, you won’t be able to ruin yourself. You will always have plenty, you will be able to cut and come again as people say. Isn’t that what I have bred you up for since you were a baby? No, no, it isn’t I that could do it (and I wouldn’t if I could), nor Jock that shall have a penny. It is you that shall be the greatest heiress in England, and do the most for the poor, as Lucilla would have done. Please God she shall have her revenge.”
These strange words, which, though they were mixed with so quaint an admixture of comic self-consciousness, had yet passion in them, and odd kind of idealism and romance, passed over the placid head of Lucy without exciting any feeling but surprise. She was very much astonished. It was impossible to her to understand the vehemence of feeling, generous in its way, though checkered with so much that was not generous, in her father’s tone, and was totally at a loss how to reply. They were alone, and when they were alone the conversation almost always turned on the will, which was not an enlivening subject to Lucy. Certainly the diversion she had made of their mutual thoughts from their ordinary channel had been more amusing; but it had been perplexing too. A little tea-table was set out in the middle of the room, the “massive” silver tea-service which had been one of the few gratifications got by Lucy’s mother out of her fortune shining upon it, in full display for the benefit of Mrs. Stone, who was expected. Mr. Trevor was in a garrulous mood; he had prepared himself to talk while he waited for his visitor, and Lucy’s questions had been all that were wanted to loosen the flood-gates. While she sat opposite to him, wondering, pondering, occasionally looking up at him over her knitting, taking into her mind as best she could the information she had got, but not knowing what to say, he proceeded as if unable to stop himself, with a little gesture of excitement, his hand sawing the air.
“No, she never had much comfort in her life—hard work, sick-nursing and trouble, one dying after another—poor Lucilla; but all she didn’t have her girl shall have. She was a governess one while. Always be kind to governesses, Lucy, wherever you see them. Your mother was a real good woman. She would have honored any station; she had the most unbounded confidence in me; she never asked a word of explanation.”
“Papa,” said Lucy, glad, in the disturbance of her mind, for any interruption, “I think I hear Mrs. Stone.”
“Then go down and meet her,” said old Trevor, but he went on with his recapitulation of his wife’s virtues. “Never asked a question, was always satisfied whatever I said to her—”
Lucy heard his voice as she went down-stairs. She was still wondering, not knowing what to make of it, but self-possessed in that calm of youth which nothing disturbs. It was odd that her father should speak so. He had never been so confidential, or talked of himself so much before; altogether it was strange, tempting her half to laugh, half to cry; but that was all. She went down quite composedly to meet Mrs. Stone, who was untying her white Shetland shawl from her head in the hall. Lucy saw that Mrs. Ford was peeping from the parlor door at the visitor, with something like a scowl upon her face. Mrs. Ford distrusted and feared the school-mistress; she thought her capable of marrying old Trevor, notwithstanding his years, and of dissipating Lucy’s fortune, and perhaps raising up rivals to little Jock in his sister’s affections; for Lucy’s affections were all he had to look to, Mrs. Ford was aware, and she thought it was a wicked shame.
“I hope you are better than when I saw you last,” Mrs. Stone said, casting a quick glance around her. She knew everything very well by sight in Mr. Trevor’s not very comfortable room, the white silky mats, the blue curtains, the little table groaning under that tea-service, which was easy to see weighed as many ounces as a tea-service could be made to weigh. How much more comfortable, she could not but think, the rich old man might have been made; but then he did not know any better, and Lucy did not know any better; they were used to it; they liked this as well as the best. What a blessing for Lucy that as long as she was young enough to be trained she had fallen into good hands! Mrs. Stone took the big easy-chair which Lucy rolled forward to the other side of the fire, and sat down after that greeting. She saw more clearly than Lucy did the excitement in old Mr. Trevor’s eyes. What was it? An additional glass of wine after dinner, Mrs. Stone thought, a very small matter would be enough to upset an old man sedentary and crippled as old Trevor was.
“Never was better in my life,” he said; “that is, I am getting old, and my legs are not good for much, as you know, ma’am; but, thank God, I have plenty to keep my mind occupied and interested, and that is the great thing, that is the great thing—at my age.”
“Always thinking about Lucy,” Mrs. Stone said.
“Yes, always about Lucy. She is worth it, ma’am, a girl with her prospects is something worth thinking about. She has all the world before her, she has the ball at her foot.”
“Ah, Mr. Trevor, that is what we always think when we are young; everything that is good is going to happen to us, and nothing that is evil. We think we can choose for ourselves, and make our lives for ourselves.”
“And so she shall,” said old Trevor, “ay, that she shall. I beg your pardon, ma’am, but when I speak of Lucy it isn’t merely as a little bit of a girl with her life before her. I think of the place she is to take, and the power she will have in her hands.”
“You mean her fortune, Mr. Trevor. Dear child, give me a cup of tea. You think it is not a bad thing to talk so much to her about her fortune?”
“No, ma’am,” said the old man; “on the contrary, the very best thing possible. It would be too great a weight for any one not used to it. You know it fills my mind night and day. I’ve got to prepare her for it, and put all straight for her as far as I can. There is many a great person that has not the weight on her shoulders that little thing will have, and that is why I sent for you.”
“Asked me to come and take tea,” said Mrs. Stone, smiling.
“No sugar, my dear. Yes, no doubt we have to train her for her future responsibilities. I do it by trying to make her a good girl, Mr. Trevor, and I think I have succeeded,” the lady added, putting her hand affectionately on the girl’s shoulder. Lucy, standing between the two, with the cup of tea in one hand and a plateful of cake in the other, looked as completely unexcited by all this talk about her, and as unlike a personage of vast importance, as personages of importance often contrive to do.
“She is a good girl by nature,” said her father somewhat sharply. “I want to tell, ma’am, of a trust I have appointed you to in my will along with others,” he added hastily—“along with others. I have arranged that in case of Lucy’s marriage—”
“Had not you better step down-stairs a little, my dear, and just see whether Jane is waiting in the hall?” Mrs. Stone said hurriedly. “Perhaps Mrs. Ford would allow her, as it is so cold, to go down-stairs.”
“You need not send her away,” said old Trevor grimly, “she knows all about it. I don’t want her to be taken by surprise when I die. I want her to know all that is in store for her.”
“But about her marriage, my dear Mr. Trevor; at seventeen these ideas come too quickly of themselves.”
“I’ll tell you, ma’am, Lucy is not like common girls,” he said testily; “when a woman’s in a great position, she has to learn many things that otherwise might be kept from her. What had the queen to do, I would like to know? Settle all her marriage herself, whatever any one might think.”
“Poor young lady! I used to hear my mother say that her heart bled for her. But you don’t compare our Lucy with her majesty, Mr. Trevor! Dear Lucy! though she were the richest girl in England, it would still be a little different from the queen.”
“Madame,” said old Trevor solemnly, “so far as I am aware, she will be the richest girl in England, and, therefore, surrounded by dangers: so I’ve devised a scheme for her safety, and I have put you on the committee. If you will wait a moment till I have got my spectacles I will read it all out to you here.”
Mrs. Stone was the third person to whom that wonderful paragraph had been read. She listened with surprise, gradually rising into consternation. When she saw, with the corner of her eye, Lucy coming softly from behind the shelter of the screen, she made an imperative gesture, without looking round, to send her away. The girl obeyed with a smile. Why should she be sent away? she had already heard it all.
She went outside and sat down on the stair to wait. The draught that swept up the well of the staircase did not affect Lucy; her blood, though it flowed so tranquilly through her veins, was young and kept her warm. She had given up easily the attempt she had made to influence her father, and now she half laughed to herself at the fuss they all made about herself. What were they making such a fuss about? The importance her father attached to all her future proceedings was to Lucy just about as sensible as Mrs. Stone’s precautions for preventing her hearing something she knew perfectly; but she could afford to smile at both.
What did it matter? Lucy felt that everything would go on all the same, that to-day would be as yesterday, and life quite a simple, easy business, whatever they might say.