CHAPTER XIX.
LADY RANDOLPH’S MOTIVE.
THE past seemed entirely swept away and obliterated from Lucy when she found herself in Lady Randolph’s London house, inhabiting two rooms charmingly and daintily furnished, with a deft and respectful maid belonging to herself, at her special call, and everything that it was desirable a young lady of fortune should have. The allowance made for her was very large, so her father had willed, and her new guardian employed it liberally. Needless to say that Lady Randolph was not herself rich; but she was not greedy or grasping. She liked dearly the large additional income she had to spend, but she had no wish to make economies from it at Lucy’s cost. Economies, indeed, were not in Lady Randolph’s way. She liked a large liberal house. She liked the sense of a full purse into which she could put her hand without fear of the supply failing (who does not?). She liked the power of moving about as she pleased, of filling her house with visitors, and making herself the cheerful beneficent center of a society not badly chosen. She was willing to give her charge “every advantage,” and to spend the large income she brought with her entirely upon the life which they were to lead together. Old Trevor was shrewd, he knew what he was doing, and his choice carried out his intention fully. Lady Randolph was pleased to have a great heiress to bring out, and she was anxious to bring her out in the very best way. Her object on her own side was, no doubt, selfish, in so far that to live liberally was pleasant to her, and to spend largely a kind of necessity of her nature. But all this largeness and liberality, which were so pleasant to herself, were exactly what was wanted, according to her father’s plan, for Lucy, to whom Lady Randolph communicated the advantages procured by her money with all the lavish provision for her pleasure which a doting mother might have made. In all this there was a fine high-spirited honorableness about Lucy’s new guardian. She scorned to save a penny of the allowance. And we are bound to add that this course of procedure did not approve itself (what course ever does?) to Lady Randolph’s friends. While Lucy was being established in those luxurious yet simple rooms, which were good enough for a princess, yet so little fine, that Lucy’s simplicity had not yet found out how delicate and costly they were, Lady Randolph’s small coterie of advisers were censuring her warmly down-stairs.
“You ought to lay by half of it,” old Lady Betsinda Molyneux was saying at the very moment when Lucy, with tranquil pleasure, aided by Jock, in a state of half-resentful, half-happy excitement, was putting a set of pretty books into the low book-shelves that lined her little sitting-room; “you ought to lay by one half of it. Good life! a girl like that to get the advantage of being in your house at all! Instead of petting her, and getting her everything that you can think of, she ought to be too thankful if you put her in the housemaid’s closet. If you don’t show a little wisdom now I will despair of you, my dear,” the old lady said. She was an old lady of the first fashion; but she was, all the same, a very grimy old lady with a mustache, and a complexion which suggested coal dust rather than poudre de riz. Her clothes would have been worth a great deal to an antiquary, notwithstanding that they were all shaped, more or less, in accordance with the fashion; but they gave Lady Betsinda the air of an animated rag-bag; and she wore a profusion of lace, clouds of black upon her mantle, and ruffles of white about her thin and dingy neck; but it would have been a misnomer, and also an insult, to call that lace white. It was frankly dirty, and toned to an indescribable color by years and wear. She was worth a small fortune where she stood with all her old trumpery upon her; and yet a clean old woman in a white cap and apron would have been a much fairer spectacle. Her rings flashed as she moved her quick bony wrinkled hands, which were of a color as indescribable as her lace. It would have been hard to have seen any signs of noble race in Lady Betsinda’s hands; and yet the queer old figure hung round with festoons of lace, and clothed in old black satin as thick as a modern party-wall, could not have been anything but that of a woman of rank. Her garments smelled not of myrrh and frankincense, but of camphor, in which they were always put away to preserve them; and the number of times these garments had been through the hands of Lady Betsinda’s patient maid, and the number of stitches that were required to keep them always in order, was more than anybody, except the hard-worked official who had charge of the old lady’s wardrobe, could say.
“I think so, too,” said a small and delicate person who was seated in a deep low chair upon the other side of the fire. She was not old like Lady Betsinda. She was a fragile little pale woman approaching fifty, the wife of an eminent lawyer, and a little leader of society in her way. She wrote a little, and drew a little, and sung a little, and was a great patroness of artists, to whom, it need not be said, Mrs. Berry-Montagu was very superior, gracious to them as a queen to her courtiers; while young painters, and young writers, and young actors were very obsequious to her, as to a woman who could, their elders told them, “make their fortunes.” And there was more truth than usual in this, for though Mrs. Berry-Montagu could not make anybody’s fortune she could do something to mar it, and very frequently exercised that less amiable power, writing pretty little critiques which made the young people wince, and damning their best efforts with elegant depreciation. These were two of the friends who took Lady Randolph’s moral character and social actions under their control. Most women, especially those who are widows, have a superintending tribunal of this description, before which all their actions are judged; and nowhere does the true dignity of the woman who is married come out with more imposing force than in such circumstances. Lady Betsinda was vehement; she was old and the daughter of a duke, and had a very good right to say what she pleased, and keep the rest of the world in order. But Mrs. Berry-Montagu was, so to speak, two people. Her views were enlarged, as everybody acknowledged tacitly by her possession of that larger shadow of a husband behind her, and she had a great, unexpressed contempt for all women who were without that dual dignity. A smile of the softest disdain—nay, the word is too strong, and so is derision also much too potent for the delicate subdued amusement with which she contemplated the doings of the femme sole of all classes—hovered about her lips. This did not spring from any special devotion on her part to her husband, or faith in him, but only from her consciousness of her own good fortune and dignity, and the high position she occupied in consequence of his existence. We have given too much space to the description of Lady Randolph’s privy council. Has not every solitary woman in society a governing body which is much, the same?
“I think so, too,” Mrs. Berry-Montagu said; “you ought really to think of yourself a little; self-renunciation is a beautiful virtue; but then we are not called upon to exercise it for everybody, and a girl of this description is fair game.”
“If I were a hunter,” said Lady Randolph.
“Oh my dear, don’t tell me, you are all hunters,” said the little lady in serene superiority. “What do you take her for? You are not one of the silly women that want a girl to take about with them; to be an excuse for going to parties therefore you must have an object. Now, of course, we don’t want to know, till you tell us, what the object is; but in the meantime you ought, it is your duty, to derive a little advantage on your side from what is so great an advantage on hers.”
“That’s speaking like a book,” said Lady Betsinda, “but I like to be plain for my part: you ought to lay by half, my dear. You want to go to Homburg when the season’s over, that stands to reason; and when you come back you’ve got dozens of visits to pay—the most expensive thing in the world; and, after all, this won’t last forever, there will come a time when she will marry or set up for herself that’s quite common nowadays girls do it, and nobody thinks any harm.”
“Oh, she will marry,” said Mrs Berry Montagu, with a significant smile.
“Most likely she’ll marry; but not so sure as it once was,” said Lady Betsinda, nodding her old head; “women’s ways have changed; I don’t say if it is better or worse, but they have changed; and anyhow it is your duty to look after yourself. Now, don’t you think it her duty to look after herself? Disinterestedness and so forth, are all very fine. We know you’re unselfish, my dear.”
“Every woman is unselfish, it is the appropriate adjective,” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu; “but you must recollect that you have no one to look after your interests, and that, however it goes against you, you must take yourself into consideration.”
“Oh, this is all much too fine for me!” cried the culprit on her trial. “Rather congratulate me on having been so lucky. I might have found myself with a vulgar hoyden, or a little silly parvenue on my hands; and here is a quiet little well-bred person, as composed, and with as much good sense— I am afraid with more good sense than I have myself.”
“Yes, she will make her own out of you. You are just a little simpleton, Mary Randolph, though you’re twice as big and half as old as me. She’ll turn you round her little finger. Isn’t your whole house turned upside down for her and her belongings? Why, there was a child about—a big pair of eyes, not much more—you are taking him pardessus le marché? She is capable of it,” cried the old lady, shaking a cloud of camphor out of her old satin skirts in impatience, and appealing to her colleague. Mrs. Berry-Montagu put some eau-de-Cologne on her handkerchief and applied it tenderly to her nose.
“You continue to use patchouly. I hoped it had gone completely out of fashion,” she said.
“It isn’t patchouly. I have my things carefully looked after; that’s why they last so well. I have little bags of camphor in all my dresses. It is good for everything. Many people think it is only moths that camphor is useful for, but it is good for everything, and a very wholesome scent. I hate perfumes myself.”
“Who is the little boy?” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, with a languid smile.
“Ah, that is the sore point,” said Lady Randolph. “There is a little brother.”
This was echoed by both the ladies in different tones of amazement.
“Then how is it that she has the money?” Lady Betsinda asked “It came from Lucy’s mother, the boy had nothing to do with it; he has not a penny. Poor child! I can see Lucy is disturbed about him. He has three thousand pounds, and nothing more.”
“Dear Lady Randolph, how good you are,” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, with gentle derision; “what can you want with a child like this in your house?”
“What can I do? Lucy would be wretched without him; he is the only tie she has, the only duty. What am I to do?”
Mrs. Berry-Montagu shook her head softly, and smiled once more—smiled with the utmost significance. “You must, indeed, see your way very clearly,” she said, with that gentle languor which sat so well upon her, “when you burden yourself with the boy.”
“I don’t know what you mean by seeing my way,” Lady Randolph said, with some heat. An uncomfortable flush came upon her face, and something like consciousness to her manner. “I had no alternative. Taking Lucy, I was almost bound to take her brother too, when I found out her devotion to him.”
“Ah, you’re too good, too good, my dear; you don’t think half enough of your own interests,” said Lady Betsinda. “If the girl had come to me I’ll tell you what I should have done. I’d have been kind to her, but not too kind. I’d have let her see clearly that little brothers are sent to school. I’d have given her to understand that I was doing her a great favor in having her at all. She should not have wanted for anything. I don’t advise you or anybody to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but to make her the chief interest, and everything to give way to her, that’s what I would never do.”
“I am afraid I shall have to take my own way, so far as that goes,” said Lady Randolph, roused to a little offense.
“Yes, dear, of course you will take your own way, we all do,” said Mrs Berry-Montagu, giving her friend a kiss before she went away, “and I don’t doubt it will all come right in the end.”
The two visitors went out together, and they stopped to talk for a moment before they parted at the door of the little stuffy brougham which carried Lady Betsinda from one place to another.
“I suppose she has something in her head,” said the old lady. And, “Oh, who can doubt it?” said the other; “Sir Tom!”
Was it true? Lady Randolph was very angry and impatient as she turned from the door, after the kiss which she had bestowed on each. Women have to kiss, as men shake hands, it is the established formula of parting among friends, not to be omitted, which would imply a breach, because of a little momentary flash of irritation. But the cause of her anger was not so much what they had said to her as that word of mutual confidence which she knew would pass between them at the door: was it true? If it had not been so Lady Randolph would not have divined it. She paced up and down her pretty drawing-room, giving one glance from the window to see, as she expected, the one lady standing at the door of the little carriage, while the wrinkled countenance of the other bent out from within. She saw Lady Betsinda give a great many nods of intelligence, and her heart burned within her with momentary fury. Often it happens that the worst of the pang of being found out is the revelation it makes to one’s self. Lady Randolph meant no harm; not to introduce her nephew to Lucy would have been, in the circumstances, a thing impossible; and who could expect her to be responsible for anything that might follow? When an unmarried man meets a nice girl there is never any telling what may happen. And Lucy was certainly a nice girl, notwithstanding her ignorance and simplicity and her great fortune. To be sure, any connection of this kind would be a mésalliance for Tom; but even these were common incidents, and took place in the very highest circles. If this was fortune-hunting, then fortune-hunting was simple nature, and no more. After awhile the irritation died away. She sat down again and took up the book she had been reading when that committee of direction came in and began their sitting upon her and her concerns. Lady Randolph was about sixty, a large and ample woman with no pretense at juvenility; but her eye was not dim or her natural force abated. There was only a small proportion of gray—just enough to give it an air of honest reality—in her abundant hair. As she sat and read a sentence or two, then paused and mused a little with the book closed over her hand, she recovered her composure. “What good will it do me?” she asked herself triumphantly. Had she been seeking her own advantage her conduct might have been subject to blame; but she was not seeking her own advantage. Should any marriage come to pass it would deprive her, at one stroke, of all the comfort which Lucy’s allowance brought her. She would be giving up, not gaining anything. When this thought passed through her mind it seemed a full answer to all possible objections, and she resumed her reading with the feeling that she had put every caviller to silence, and nobly justified herself to herself. “What advantage would it be to me?” the words twined themselves among those of the book she was reading, and appeared on every page more visible than the print. “What good would it do to me? I should suffer by it,” she said.
While Lady Randolph was thus employed down stairs Lucy and Jock were seated together at the window of the pretty little sitting-room, which had been so carefully prepared for the girl’s comfort and pleasure. It was high up, but it had a pretty view over the gardens of the neighboring square, where soon the trees would begin to bud and blossom, and where even now the birds began to hold colloquies and prelude, with little interrogative pipings and chirpings, till it should be 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 the other end of the room. “I told you all about Madame Tussaud’s, don’t you remember, before you went there? I read all that book about London,” she said, with modest pride.
“It isn’t a book,” said Jock, “it is only a guide. What a funny thing it is that you can read that, and you don’t care for stories, or histories either.”
Then there was a little pause. The boy on the pony cantered away, the big furniture-van with the landscape painted upon it, lumbered along so slowly that its interest was more than exhausted, the carriages drew up at a house out of sight. There was a momentary lull, and Jock’s interest flagged. He turned round, recalled to himself by this recollection of his favorite studies.
“Am I always to live here?” he asked suddenly.
Now, this was a question that had much troubled Lucy’s mind; for, indeed, Jock had not been expected, and his presence somewhat disturbed the arrangements of Lady Randolph’s household, while, on the other hand, Lucy had already given to her little brother the position which every woman gives to some male creature, and consulted his wishes with a servility which sometimes was ludicrously inappropriate, as in the present instance. She could not bring herself to hurt Jock’s feelings by suggesting that it would be better for him to go to school, though this conviction had been gaining upon her as her own mind calmed, and the child himself recovered his spirits and courage. Lucy’s heart began to beat a little faster when her little autocrat broached the question. She came up to him and began to stroke and smooth the limp locks, which would not be picturesque, whatever was done to them.
“That is what vexes me a little, Jock; I don’t know. You ought to be getting on with your education, and Lady Randolph is very kind; but she did not know you were coming—”
“Nor me either,” said Jock, regardless of grammar. He had got over this painful uprooting of his little life, but even at eight, such a disturbance of habits is not easily got over. There was no white rug to lie down upon, no old father always seated there to justify the strange existence of the child, and Lady Randolph, shocked by his indiscriminate reading, had provided him with good-little-boy books, which did not at all suit Jock. He mused a little, gazing down into the street, and then resumed. “Nor me fit her. I would like some other place; I would like you and me to stay always at home, as we used to do. I would like—”
Jock paused again, not very clear what it was that he would like, and Lucy looked vaguely over his head, waiting for the utterance of her oracle. Poor little oracle, for whom there was no certain and settled place! She stroked his hair softly, with infinite tenderness, in her half-motherly, half-childish soul, to make him amends for this wrong which Providence had done him. She did not know what to suggest, nor what place to think of, but watched him to divine his wishes, as if he had been double and not half her age.
“I would like,” said Jock, some gleam of association recalling to him one fable among the many that filled his memory, “to be a giant like that one you told me the story about, you never told me the end of that story, Lucy. I’d like to be able to go where I liked, and travel all over the world, and meet with black knights, and dwarfs, and armies marching—”
“There are no dwarfs nor giants nowadays,” said Lucy, “but you will be able to go where you like when you are a man.”
“It’s so long to wait till you are a man,” said the child, peevishly. “I’d like you and me to go away together and nobody to stop us. I’d like to be cast away on a desert island,” he cried, with a sudden perception of paradise; “that’s what I should like best of all.”
“But I don’t think I should like it at all.”
“There!” he cried, “that is always how it is; you and me never like the same things. I suppose it is because you are a girl.” This Jock said more regretfully than contemptuously, for he was very fond of his sister, and then he added, with a little sigh, not of sorrow, but of resigned acceptance of a commonplace sort of expedient, not absolutely good, but the best in the circumstances, “I suppose you had better send me to school.”