CHAPTER IX.
A GREAT TEMPTATION.
THE important communication made to her by Mr. Trevor made a great impression upon the mind of Mrs. Stone, but it was an impression of a confusing kind, disturbing all her previous plans and thoughts. It had been her intention, ever since Lucy was placed in her care, to take a decided part in the shaping of the girl’s life. Her imagination had been roused by the situation altogether—a young creature, simple, pliable and unformed, with no relations who had any real right to guide her, and with a great fortune—what might not be made of such a charge! It was not with any covetous inclination to employ her pupil’s wealth to her own advantage that Mrs. Stone had determined by every means in her power to acquire an influence over Lucy. She was much too high-minded, too proud, for anything of the sort. No doubt there was an alloy, if not of selfishness, at least of self-regard, in her higher motive, but the worst she would have done would have been to carry out some pet projects of her own by Lucy’s help, not to enrich herself. She thought, perhaps, or rather, without thinking was aware, that her own importance would be increased by her influence over the heiress; but nothing in the shape of personal aggrandizement was present to her thoughts, even by inference. Mr. Trevor’s communication, however, disturbed her mind in the most uncomfortable way. When you are contemplating a vague influence of a general kind to be gradually and with trouble acquired, it is demoralizing to have a definite power suddenly thrust into your hands; and it is hardly possible to refrain from exercising that power were it but for the sake of the novelty and unexpected character of it, en attendant the larger influence to be acquired hereafter. As Mrs. Stone sat in front of Mr. Trevor’s fire listening to him, with a ringing in her ears of sudden excitement, holding her cup of tea in her hand, with external calm, yet feeling every pulse flutter, there suddenly appeared before her bewildered eyes, not written on the wall like Belshazzar’s warning, but hanging in the air without any material support, like an illuminated scroll, in big luminous letters, the name which her sister had suggested; the name of Frank—FRANK—but bigger, a great deal bigger, than any capitals, dazzling her eyes with the glow in them. Her first feeling was alarm and a kind of horror. It was all she could do to restrain the outcry that rose to her lips. She started so that she spilled her tea, which was hot, so that she started still more; but upon this little accident she put the best face possible.
“It is nothing, my love, nothing,” she said, when Lucy hastened to her rescue; “only a little awkwardness on my part, and my old black silk won’t hurt.” She looked up with a smile in Lucy’s face, when lo! the appearance sailed into the air over Lucy’s head, and hung there magically, almost touching the girl’s fair hair. “How awkward I am,” Mrs. Stone cried, looking quite pale and spilling more tea. She thought it was something diabolical, a piece of witchcraft; but it can not be supposed that it was an easy matter to drive it out of her thoughts. She scarcely knew what happened afterward, till she had bidden the Trevors good-night, and found herself in the muddy bit of road which led to the White House, and got rid, in the darkness, of that startling legend. Was it diabolical, or was it a suggestion from heaven? Perhaps it would have been more near the mark if she had remembered that it was a suggestion from Miss Southwood, which she had crushed with infinite scorn when it was made; but Mrs. Stone did not, or would not, remember this. The night was damp and foggy, and the lights of her own house appeared to her all blurred and hazy, with prismatic halos round them, like so many sickly moons, and the intermediate bit of road was fitfully lighted by the lantern carried by her maid, which shone in the dark puddles and glistening wet herbage. But Mrs. Stone was scarcely conscious where she was, as she picked her way lightly from one bit of solid path to another; her mind was so full that she might have been in Regent Street, or on a Swiss mountain. Frank! was it a diabolical suggestion, or a revelation from heaven?
All was quiet in the White House when its mistress got in. It was ten o’clock, and the doves were in their nests, which, to be sure, is but an ornamental way of saying that all the girls had gone to bed. The light burned low in the hall, as it burned all night, for Miss Southwood thought light was “a protection” to a lonely house; and the open door of the drawing-room, in which it was the custom of the ladies to sit with their pupils after tea, showed something of the disorderly look of a room deserted for the night, notwithstanding the tidiness with which all the little work-baskets were put out of the way. Besides that open door, however, was another still shining with firelight and lamplight, where a little supper-tray had just been placed on the table, and a pretty silver cover and crystal decanter, not to speak of a delicate fragrance of cooking, showed that the mistress of the house was pleasantly provided for. No mystery was made of this little supper, which everybody knew was Mrs. Stone’s favorite meal; but all the girls had a curiosity about it, and the governesses felt themselves injured that they were not privileged to share its delights. Mrs. Stone, however, stoutly defended her privacy at this hour of repose. She sat down with a sigh of relief, opposite to her sister, who presided at the little white-covered table.
“You are tired,” said Miss Southwood, sympathetically, “and that girl has forgotten as usual to put the claret to fire. But this bird is very well cooked, and the bread-crumbs are brown and crisp, just as you like them. Why was it he sent for you? something quite trifling, I suppose. I wonder how parents can reconcile themselves to the trouble they give.”
“It was not a trifle, it was about Lucy’s marriage,” said the other, “or rather about preventing Lucy’s marriage, I think. I am to have a finger in the pie.”
“You! Old Mr. Trevor is very queer, I know; is he going to take up that odious French system, and arrange it without any reference to the girl? But surely, Maria, you would never countenance an iniquity like that?”
“Iniquity! are you sure it is an iniquity? In some points of view I approve of it greatly. Do you think I could not choose better husbands for the girls than they will ever choose for themselves? How is a girl to exercise any judgment in the matter? She takes the first man that comes, perhaps, or the first fool she thinks nice-looking, and what is there sacred in that?”
“I thought you were always the one to stand up for love,” said Miss Southwood. “I never pretend to know anything about it myself.”
“Oh, when there is love,” said Mrs. Stone, “that is another thing. But what do they know about love? It is fancy, it is not love; how should they know?”
“I am sure I can’t tell,” answered the unmarried sister, very demurely, “don’t ask me to give any opinion; you are the one that ought to know; and I have always heard you say, and understood you to uphold—”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the other, impatiently; “when a thing has been said once, one is held to it forever, in this unintelligent way. You never consider how unlike one case is to another, or take the circumstances into account. Besides, all I said referred to a sentiment already formed. I would never tear two young people asunder that were fond of each other, because one was rich and the other poor; that is a thing I could never be guilty of. But this is a very different matter. To take care that a girl like Lucy Trevor does not make a foolish choice, or even,” said Mrs. Stone, with a certain solemnity and deliberateness of utterance, “to direct her thoughts to some one eminently suitable—”
Miss Southwood looked at her with eager eyes. After the manner in which her suggestion had been received at their former interview, she did not venture to repeat it; but she knew by experience that a suggestion is sometimes very badly received to-day, and accepted, as a matter of course, or even energetically acted upon, to-morrow; so she said nothing, but with eager though concealed scrutiny watched her sister’s looks. Finding, however, that Mrs. Stone said nothing more, but pensively eat her chicken, she resumed, after awhile, her inquiries.
“I suppose Mr. Trevor has been consulting you,” she said, “and I am sure it was the very best thing he could do. But, after all, Lucy is only seventeen, poor little thing! and a good girl, with no nonsense about her. Does he want to marry her off so young, the poor child?”
“I think,” said Mrs. Stone, reflectively, turning her chair to the fire, “he does not want her to marry at all.”
“Oh!” cried Miss Southwood in dismay. She had not married herself, she professed at once, when the subject was mentioned, her entire incompetence to give any opinion; but the idea that a girl’s friends should wish her not to many filled her mind with amazement beyond words. The naïveté of her conviction on this point betrayed itself in her unfeigned wonder. She could not believe it. “I suppose,” she said, “that he wants to keep the money in the family; and that means that he will marry her to her cousin, that young man, that Mr. Rainy.”
“Her cousin! you mean the certificated school-master, the Dissenter.”
“Oh, he is not a Dissenter; we met him at the rectory; he is a very rising young man, and clever, and—”
“You may save yourself, the trouble of enumerating his good qualities. I can’t tell how you know them; but Lucy shall never marry the school-master. I will refuse my consent.”
“You will refuse your consent? and what will that matter?” Miss Southwood said.
Mrs. Stone made no particular answer. She put her feet upon the comfortable velvet cushion before the fire, and smiled. She did not care to enter upon explanations, but she had made up her mind. The fire was bright, the bird had been good, and her modest glass of claret was excellent. She was altogether in a balmy humor, willing to enjoy the many comforts of her life, and to feel benevolently toward her neighbor.
“I think you are right,” she said, “and perhaps I am prejudiced. He is a rising young man. We have met him two or three times at the rectory, so he can not be a Dissenter; but he is not a gentleman either. How should he be, being one of those Rainys? I shouldn’t wonder if it was to keep him out.”
“If what was to keep him out?”
“By the way,” said Mrs. Stone, “I have a letter to write. Don’t let me keep you out of bed, Ellen. I am very much behind in family correspondence. Have any of the St. Clairs ever been at the White House since we came here? I can’t recollect.”
“Not one,” said Miss Southwood, with a beating heart. “Not one; and I have often thought, Maria, considering all things, and that they have no father, poor things, and are not very well off—and so nice, both sisters and brothers—”
“One does not want so many arguments. Frank may come and pay us a visit if he likes,” said Mrs. Stone, with much amiability. But it was not till the morning, when she came down first, as she always did, and put the letter, which had been left on Mrs. Stone’s private writing-table, ready for the early post, in the letter-bag, that Miss Southwood had the satisfaction of seeing that it was addressed to the favorite nephew, whose name she had not ventured to pronounce for a second time. Mrs. Stone had not been inattentive to the vision, the intimation, whether from heaven or the other place. He was to come and try his fortune in those lists.
Miss Southwood went about her occupations all day as if she trod on air; but she kept her lips tightly shut, and never asked a question. She was discretion itself. As for Mrs. Stone, after she had done it, many doubts suggested themselves. It was not for nothing, not by mere vice of temperament that she obeyed her own impulses so readily. Like all impulsive people, she was subject to cold fits as well is hot; but like many other impulsive people, she had learned that it was her best policy to obey the first imperious movement of nature. The thing was done, at all events, before the struggle of judgment began. And the answer she made to her own objections was a mysterious one. “Why not I as well as Lady Randolph?” was what she said to herself.