THE days that followed were full of this big person. Lucy found his company so pleasant that she lingered, to her own great consternation, talking to him, till Lady Randolph returned; no, not talking very much to him, but yet telling him various things about herself, which she was greatly surprised to recollect afterward, and hearing him talk, which he did with a frankness and freedom equally unusual to her. When she heard Lady Randolph’s brougham draw up at the door, Lucy fairly jumped from her chair in alarm and wonder. What would Lady Randolph say? would she be angry? A sentiment of honor alone kept her from running away; and her look of innocent panic greatly amused Sir Tom.
“Are you afraid?” he said, with that great but harmonious laugh which softly shook the house. “Is she so hard upon you? Never mind, she is fond of me, though you would not think it, and there will be a general amnesty to-night.”
“Oh, I am not afraid,” Lucy said, with a smile. But she said to herself, what will Lady Randolph think? the dedication first, and now to sit up and chatter to a gentleman! But Lady Randolph’s voice had never been so soft, nor her countenance so genial. She was so glad to see “Tom” that she saw everything in the most favorable light. At least this was the interpretation Lucy put upon her cloudless graciousness.
“Don’t hurry away,” she said, “or Tom will think you are glad to escape now your post of entertainer is over;” and she kissed Lucy with a warm, natural tenderness which went to the girl’s heart. She went upstairs, indeed, altogether in a state of unusual and pleasant commotion. She had never met anybody in her life like Sir Tom. He told her of a hundred places he had been at, of his long journeys, and acquaintance with all sorts of things and people; bringing in the wide atmosphere of a big world into the four walls, which was all the sphere Lucy knew. How pleasant it was! It had stirred her altogether, with curiosity and interest, and amusement and admiration, yet with the amiable derision of a tidy, orderly girl for the man’s faculty of disarranging everything, which made the balance a little more even. He had seen every kind of wonder, but he could not sit down in a chair without ruffling up all its cover, and hooking on its ornaments to his buttons. This made her laugh, and disposed her to take care of Sir Tom, and pilot him to safe chairs, on which there were no antimacassars. She had felt perfectly at her ease with him, almost more than with Mr. Rushton, for instance, whom she had known at home; and the little agitation of his arrival, and the novelty of him generally, drove all her other ideas out of Lucy’s head. After she had gone to bed even, she could not but smile in the darkness to hear his big step coming upstairs, and his cheerful good-night to his aunt, which sounded up and down the narrow London staircase, so that everybody in the house shared it. “Good-night, Sir Tom,” Lucy said within herself and laughed. The house felt more safe, better taken care of, with this new-comer in it. It was enlivening to think that he would be there in the morning, with his cheery voice. “Provided he does not upset the house,” Lucy said to herself. She had not been aware that she had so much love of fun in her. As for Lady Randolph, she was glad to see Sir Tom. He was all she had to represent her family, and she was as fond of him as a mother. Perhaps the relationship of aunt made her accept his roving and lawlessness with more composure than a mother would have done, and they were the best friends in the world. When Lucy left the drawing-room, Lady Randolph gave her nephew a keen and anxious look; but it was not till some time after that the new inmate was talked of. Then it was Sir Tom himself who opened the subject:
“That’s a jolly little girl you’ve got.”
“Oh, Tom!” his aunt cried, throwing all her breath into that exclamation; “I am so glad to hear you say so.”
He laughed. “Do you suppose I am thinking of ulterior steps?” he said; “but I like her. She is a jolly little girl.”
And Lady Randolph, too, went to bed very happy, thinking Sir Tom’s big “good-night,” as it went booming up the staircase, as pleasant as any music. Her heart swelled as with the most generous of sentiments; she thought if she could but see the old Hall revived by new money, the rich new life-blood of gold untold, such as would soon be in Lucy’s possession, poured into the family veins, she thought she would die happy. And what could Lucy’s dearest friend desire better for her? Mrs. Russell, poor lady, thought the same thing of her son.
And next day, and for some days after, the house was like a new place. He went and came, out to his clubs, to the world outside, and back again, bringing news, public and private, bringing the breath of the general existence, in a manner entirely novel to Lucy. She had heard a great many stories of contemporary life in Lady Randolph’s drawing-room before, scraps of politics, which she paid no attention to, and tales of this one and the other, whom she did not know or care for; but whether it was something in the personality of Sir Tom, or that he told these stories better, or that the larger life which he brought into the house harmonized them and gave them a human attraction, it would be hard to say; but it is certain that they assumed a totally different character to Lucy. Somehow they did not seem gossip from his lips. Lady Betsinda suggested scandal in every line of her eager old face; but who could call that gossip which fell from the bearded lips of the good-natured adventurer, the man who had friends everywhere, among American Indians and African savages, as well as in the clubs? It is impossible to tell what a difference he made in the house, his very step on the stair brought variety, change, a difference, a relief from monotony, to which no one could remain insensible. The river of life had flowed slowly, partially frost-bound by chills to come in Lady Randolph’s veins, and not loosed from the spring icicles in Lucy’s; but when this torrent of full existence, warm and mature, came in, the stream was at once in flood, neither partial age nor developing youth being beyond its influence. Lucy was so much amused, so occupied with the change in the house, that the Russells and their concerns faded from her recollection. “Imogen” was put away on a side-table; and she had never required to make use of that subject for conversation: Have you seen the new novel? There was a much more easy one at hand: “Do you know Sir Thomas?” was now the question with which she took the initiative; and Lucy found a power of language she had never dreamed of possessing, in describing his travels and the things he had brought home. Sir Thomas had shot a lion—actually a lion—and had brought back its magnificent skin as a trophy. She got a little pink tinge on her cheeks, which was very becoming, as she described it. This gave her quite a little succès among Lady Randolph’s visitors, who had hitherto found her very elementary; and already there were jokes about Pygmalion and Galatea, and about the sunshine, which made buds open and birds sing. Lady Randolph, looking on watchfully, would have preferred that the spell had not worked quite so quickly. But as for Lucy she was delighted by her own awakening, and pleased to find herself enjoying everything, even the talk. The house was so much more cheerful now Sir Tom was in it. She put off her usual visit to Jock for a whole week. To be sure there were various reasons for that, for Lucy did not know how to meet Bertie Russell after the dedication, and felt that to speak of it, even to his mother, was difficult. What could she say? It was very “kind,” but then it was, as Lady Randolph said, “too broad.” Lucy did not like to think of it. She did not know how to meet the young man who had called her an Angel of Hope, and addressed her, even in print, as Lucy; and yet when they met she would be obliged to say something to him. Her embarrassment on this point had been greatly increased by the fact that Sir Tom had found the dedication out, and had “made fun” of it. He was mischievous, though Lucy did not like to think he was unkind. Sometimes he would refer to the Angel of Hope in a way which covered her with confusion, alarming her with a possibility of betrayal; but it was only to tease her, and she did not, on the whole, dislike Sir Tom’s teasing. On one of these occasions, however, she was so much frightened that she remonstrated. “Please,” she said, “do not tell any one it is me. Perhaps, after all, it is not me; Lucy is not an uncommon name. And oh, Sir Thomas, if you please, do not talk of it when any one is here.”
“I am afraid it must be you,” Sir Thomas said, “there could not be two with the same characteristics; but you may trust me, Miss Lucy, I will not tell, no, not for anything that might be offered me. Wild horses—”
“You are laughing at me,” she said.
“Would you have me cry? But I should like to punch the young fellow’s head. He had no right to do it. It was like a cad to do it; even in gratitude, he ought not to have exposed you to anything that might be disagreeable; besides, Miss Lucy, it is taking a base advantage of other fellows who can not write books.”
Lucy was not quite sure what he meant by this, but she replied very gravely,
“I am afraid it is the only thing he can do. Do not laugh, please, it is very serious. I am very anxious to know how it turns out.”
“Then you take a great deal of interest in him?”
“I take a great deal of interest in that. They all depend upon it; and also for other things. Do you think he will make much money by it, Sir Thomas?”
“I have not an idea; the only thing I know about literature is that I was offered something if I would write my travels. I have been in a good many out-of-the-way places, you know, and then I am pretty well known; but, unfortunately, I could not, so that money got lost, more’s the pity.”
“It was a great pity,” said Lucy, with feeling. “How strange it seems, you who can not write are offered money for it, and he who can write is kept so uncertain! It seems always to be like that. There is myself, with a great deal too much money, and so many people with none at all.”
Sir Thomas laughed; the frankness of the heiress amused him beyond measure.
“Have you a great deal too much money?” he said.
“Yes, did you not know? But it will not be so much,” Lucy said, with an involuntary burst of confidence, “after awhile.”
This puzzled him quite as much as anything he could say puzzled her. He did not know what to make of it, for there was no jest, but perfect and candid gravity in Lucy’s tone. He thought it best, however, to take it as a mere girlish levity and threat of extravagance to come.
“Do you mean to make it go then?” he said. “Don’t! Take my advice; I have a good right to give it, for I have paid for my experience. Don’t throw your money away as I have done.”
“Have you thrown it away? I am very sorry. I—wonder—” Lucy looked at him doubtfully, almost wistfully. Was she going to offer him some of hers? he asked himself. He was at once amused and touched, and full of expectation as to what she would say next; but Lucy changed her tone. “I will not throw it away,” she said, quietly. “Papa directed me, before he died, what to do with it. It is a great responsibility;” and here she paused and looked at him once more. Was she going to confide some secret to him? Sir Thomas was very much puzzled, indeed, more than he remembered ever to have been puzzled by any girl. He was a man over thirty, a man of large experience, but this young creature was a novelty to him.
“I should like to see how you will spend your fortune,” he said. “I shall watch what you do with it. Mine went before I took time to consider the responsibility. Marriage is not the only thing that one does in haste and repents at leisure. I am very sorry now, I can tell you, that I was such a fool when I was young.”
“I—wonder—” Lucy said again, softly, to herself. She could not help longing to tell somebody her secret, somebody that would feel a little sympathy for her—why not this big, kind, genial stranger, who was quite unlike all the rest of her people? who would surely understand, she thought. But Sir Thomas did not in the least understand. He thought she would have liked to give him some of her money, and, indeed, for his own part, he would not have had the slightest objection to accept the whole of it, as his aunt had planned and hoped; but a portion would be impossible. He laughed, looking at her, in his turn, with kindness in his amusement.
“Are you meditating some benevolence?” he said. “But, Miss Lucy, benevolence is a very doubtful virtue. You must reflect well, and take the advice of your business people. You must not be too ready to give away. You see, though I have not known you long, I am disposed to take upon me the tone of a mentor already, an uncle experienced and elderly, or something of that sort.”
“Indeed, that is just what I should like,” Lucy said, simply.
This was a dreadful dash of cold water in his face. It is one thing to call yourself experienced and elderly, and quite another to be taken at your word. He laughed again, but this time at himself, and accepted the position with a curious sense of its inappropriateness which was all the more vivid because she did not seem to see it to be inappropriate at all.
“Well,” he said, “that’s a bargain. When you want to do anything angelically silly, and throw away your money, you are to come and consult me.”
“Do you really mean it?” said Lucy, with most serious eyes.
“I really mean it, and there is my hand upon it,” he said. She put her hand into his with gentle confidence, and he held it for a moment, looking at the slender fingers. Lucy, as has been said, had, though she had no right to it, a pretty hand. “What a little bit of a thing,” he said, “to have so much to give away.”
“Yes,” Lucy said, with a long breath that was scarcely a sigh, and without the vestige of a blush of embarrassment, “it is a great responsibility.” She was as sincere and serious as if she had been an old woman, Sir Thomas felt, and he laughed and let the little hand drop. His fatherly flirtation, a mode which he had known to be very efficacious, had no more effect than if he had been a hundred. This failure tickled his sense of humor, far more than success would have pleased him otherwise.
“That girl is a little original,” he said, when he talked her over with Lady Randolph; but, meantime, it was very certain that they were the best of friends.
They were seated at breakfast on Saturday morning, rather more than a week after his arrival. Lucy had been making up her mind that she could make no further excuse to herself, but must go to Hampstead that day, and was trying, as she drank her coffee, to compose little speeches fit for the occasion. Sir Thomas was half hidden behind the newspaper, and Lady Randolph cast a glance now and then, as she finished her breakfast, at the pages of a weekly review, supposed to be the most spirituel of its kind, the first in fashion and in force.
“Oh!” she cried, suddenly. “Lucy, here is something interesting; here is a notice of ‘Imogen.’ You must take it out to the Russells; for once Cecilia has been as good as her word.” Lucy was in the midst of a carefully turned sentence by which she meant to assure Mrs. Russell that she felt Bertie’s “kindness.” She looked up with lively interest—then, “Good heavens!” Lady Randolph cried.
“What is the matter, aunt?” said Sir Tom; he put out his big hand and took it from before her, with the license of his privileged position. “We others are most anxious to hear, and you keep it to yourself. Shall I read it aloud, Miss Lucy?”
“No! no!” Lady Randolph cried, putting out her hand. She was pale with fright and trouble, but Sir Tom did not pay any attention; he did not notice her looks, and what was there in Bertie Russell to make anything that could be said about his book alarming to these ladies? He took it up lightly.
“I must see this Russell,” he said, “that you are so much interested in. What right has the fellow to make you anxious?” he was looking at Lucy, who was, indeed, curious and interested, but no more. “Now, if you are not good,” he said, looking at her, “I shall keep you in suspense.”
But Lucy did not accept the challenge. She smiled in reply, with her usual tranquillity.
“It is Mrs. Russell who will be in suspense,” she said; and with a little friendly nod at her he began to read. It was the kind of review for which this organ of the highest literature was famous. This was what Sir Thomas read:
“‘We have so often had occasion to point out to the female manufacturer of novels the disadvantages which attend her habitual unacquaintance with the simplest rules of her art, that it is a sort of relief to find upon the title-page of the most recent example of this class of productions a name which is not feminine. The occurrence is rare. In this branch of industry, at least, men have shown a chivalrous readiness to leave the laurels growing low, and therefore within the reach of the weaker vessel, to the gathering of woman. She has here had the chance, so often demanded, of proving her powers, and she has not been reluctant to avail herself of it. Almost as appropriately feminine as Berlin wool, or the more fashionable crewels, the novel of domestic life has acquired a stamp of virtuous tedium, or unvirtuous excitement, which are equally feminine, and we sigh in vain for a larger rendering even of the levities of existence, a treatment more broad, a touch more virile.’
“There’s for you, Miss Lucy,” said Sir Tom, pausing; “how do you like that, my excellent aunt? He puts your sex in their right place. There’s a man now who feels his natural superiority, who contemplates you all de haut en bas—”
“Oh, don’t read any more, Tom; it is not worth your while to read anymore.”
“Ah, you are hit!” he said, “Hurrah! the iron has entered into your soul.”
“‘Half a dozen pages of “Imogen” will, however’ (he continued, reading), ‘be enough to make any reader pause who is moved by this natural sentiment. What! he will ask himself, was there no little war in hand demanding recruits? no expedition to discover the undiscoverable? even no stones to break on the road-side, which could have given Mr. Albert Russell a bit of manly work to do—that he must take up with this industry reserved for the incompetent?’”
Here Lucy uttered a long drawn “Oh!” of alarm. It had not occurred to her ignorance that there could be any malice in it.
“‘We must give him credit, however, for a courage and liberality beyond that of his feminine contemporaries in the freedom with which he has mixed up what is apparently a personal romance of his own with this production of his genius. Whether the young lady who is poetically addressed as the Angel of Hope will relish the homage so publicly paid to her is a different matter. We can but hope that, since the art he has adopted is little likely, we fear, to reward his exertions, the other patronesses to whom he devotes himself may be more kind, and that the owner of the pretty Christian name which is presented without the conventionality of a Miss or Mistress—’
“Hallo!” said Sir Tom. He had been reading on, without any particular attention to what he read, until the recollection of what it meant suddenly flashed upon him. He grew very red, put down the paper, and looked at his companions. “By Jove!” he cried.
“I told you not to read it,” cried Lady Randolph. “Never mind, Lucy, my love, nobody will know it is you. Oh, I could kill the presumptuous, impertinent— And that woman is worse!” she cried, with vehemence. “She who knew all about it; I will never forgive her. She shall never enter this house.”
“Woman?” said Sir Thomas, “what woman? By Jove!” here he got up and buttoned his coat, “whoever the fellow is he shall have my opinion of him before he is much older.”
“Sit down, Tom, sit down. If it was a fellow whom you could knock down there would be no great harm done; no fellow ever wrote that,” cried Lady Randolph, with that fine contempt of masculine efforts which is peculiar to women. “Oh, I know the hand! I know every stroke! But never mind, never mind, my dear child, nobody will connect you with it; unless the ‘Age’ gets hold of it, and gives us all a paragraph: there is nothing more likely,” she cried with tears of anger and annoyance. As for Sir Thomas, he paced about the room in great perturbation, saying, “By Jove!” under his breath.
“A woman! then there is nothing to be done,” he said. “Oh, no; you can’t knock her down, more’s the pity! or call her out. But, Tom, if you will think, it is just as well, it is far better; we can’t have any talk got up about that innocent child.”
“Lady Randolph, is it me you are thinking of? What harm can it do me?” said Lucy, who had grown pale, but was puzzled and frightened, and did not quite understand why all this excitement should be.
“What harm, indeed!” cried Lady Randolph, “so long as you don’t mind it, my darling! She is the only one that has sense among us, Tom.”
“That is all very well,” Sir Tom said. “She is too young to understand; it is meant for an insult. There’s the harm of women getting their fingers into every pie. You can’t kick them. By Jove! isn’t there any other way that one can serve her out?”
“Sir Thomas,” said Lucy, “you laughed at me about it yourself.”
“So I did; I am ready to laugh at you, my dear little girl, any moment; but I should like to see another man do it,” he cried.
Lady Randolph looked at him in dismay. What could he mean?—to speak with such kindly familiarity, as if she were his cousin, at the least. (Though Lady Randolph professed to be a connection, yet this link was not even known to Sir Tom.) Would not the heiress be alarmed? would not she suspect and divine? She turned her eyes furtively toward Lucy, more troubled than before.
But Lucy took it all very calmly. She showed no consciousness of too much or too little in her new friend’s address. She smiled at him with grateful confidence, without even a blush. What was there to blush for? Then her face clouded over a little.
“Will it hurt the book? Will he get no money for it?” she said.