LUCY spent two or three days after this in comparative solitude. Her friends, both the Rushtons and Mrs. Stone, agreed in feeling that it would be indecorous to make any rush at her. It was a suggestion forced upon each of them by the too great eagerness of the other, and both concluded that it would be well to adopt a more dignified course, and to leave her to herself for the moment. Katie Russell had gone on a visit of two or three days’ duration, and Lucy found herself thus at full liberty to realize her loneliness. The weather, as it happened, was very hot, and Jock and she were shut up for the greater part of the day in the glaring room, where there was no provision for very hot weather, no sun-blinds or shutters, but everything open to the blazing sun in the day, and all lighted up with blazing gas at night. When after those long and weary days, little Jock went tired and cross to bed, unwilling to go, yet glad to get the day over, his sister sat alone in the pink drawing-room in the unshadowed flood of the gaslight, and thought with the tenderest longing of all she had left behind, and with a sinking at her heart beyond describing, of all that was before her. The Fords were in their parlor below, which they preferred, he reading his paper, she mending stockings tranquilly, at the table with its oil-cloth cover. Lucy had not required any derangement of their habits. She sat with them meekly at table, without asking for anything beyond what they chose to give her; but she had found at once that, after the repast was over, she was expected to return to her own luxurious apartment, the room which they were proudly conscious had cost more than any other room in Farafield, not to speak of the trouble that had been taken over it, and in which there was a piano and books, and all the things with which girls are supposed to be amused. Lucy had been called upon by two of the most important people in Farafield, she had taken several walks and one ride, and many substantial meals had been set before her at their comfortable table; what could any girl in her senses want more? And now she had that beautiful drawing-room to return to, where there was provision for both mind and body, sofas to repose upon and a piano to play, and books to read, and where she could certainly gratify herself with the consciousness of being mistress of a room which had not its equal in Farafield. Mrs. Ford saw no reason why she should give up her own evening leisure, the purring quiet of that final hour before bed-time, when she sat content after supper was over, and all the affairs of the day concluded. She did her duty by Lucy. She bought sweetbreads, and other delicacies, instead of the beefsteak which was so much cheaper, and which Ford liked just as well as the greatest dainty. She spared no expense upon her guest. She was ready to give her a cup of tea half a dozen times a day. She had planned a variety of puddings, that there might be something different at every meal; and, to conclude, she had given Lucy the best of advice. What could she be expected to do more?
But Lucy sat very disconsolate in front of the shining steel fire-place filled up with shavings, amid that blaze of gas, without even the little stir of a fire which might have given companionship at another season. She felt like a stranded sailor, like some one shipwrecked on a very clean, bright, polished desert island, where, however, there was not even the consolation of struggling for your living to keep you alive. She pondered all things that had happened, and that were going to happen. It had given her a painful sensation to hear Mrs. Stone speak of the Russells, and of the money which had come to them, which was just enough to enable them to live in comfort, as Lucy had intended. Had that been a failure, that first effort? And then she thought of the new claimant, the poor gentleman whom Mrs. Stone had hoped might be lord chancellor one day, and who was only able to be tutor to Jock. Surely it would be a right thing to give him enough to remove anxiety, as Mrs. Stone had said. And this time Lucy thought she would take care that there was enough, that no one should say it was a pittance. This idea made her face glow with as much shame as if she had cheated these poor people, to whom she had meant to be kind. How was she to know what was enough? especially for a gentleman. Oh, Lucy thought, if I could but ask some one! If some one would but tell me! But who was there whom she could consult on such a subject? Her guardians, instead of helping her, would certainly do all they could to hinder. They would put every kind of obstacle in her way. Instead of aiding her to make her calculations and ascertain how much was wanted, they would beat her down to the last penny, and try to persuade her that half of what she wanted to give would do. How difficult was this commission she held, this office of dispenser, almoner of posthumous bounty! Oh, if her father had but done it himself! he was old, he had experience, he must have known much better than she could know. But here Lucy stopped short and bethought herself of the conclusion that had been forced upon her, that poor papa did not understand. The world in which her timid footsteps were finding out painfully unaccustomed tracks was one of which even his keen eyes had not found out the conditions. In her stumblings and gropings she had already discovered more than his threescore and ten years of keen, imperfect theory had taught him. And now it was her part to suffer all the inconveniences and vexations which in his ignorance he had fixed upon her life. It never occurred to Lucy to make any effort to escape from them, or even to remain quiescent and refrain from doing the difficult things he had left her to do. She was determined to execute his will in every detail. Should she die even of this ennui and loneliness, she would yet bear it until the appointed moment; and, though she might have no more success than with the Russells, still she must flounder on. If she could only find somebody to help her, to give her a little guidance, to tell her how much, not how little, she ought to give? There was one indeed who might be a help to her, who would understand. But was it possible that even Sir Tom had deserted her? Three days, and he had not come to see her? At this thought there came into Lucy’s eyes something that felt very like a tear.
This, however, was the last of these silent days. In the morning Katie Russell burst upon her, all radiant with pleasure. “Oh, what a lucky girl you are!” Katie cried; “you have got all we used to talk of, Lucy, I never thought it would come true; but here you are, just looking the same as ever, though you have been living among swells; and come down to dazzle us all at Farafield, with beautiful horses, and heaps of money, and everybody after you. To think that all this should have happened to you, and nothing at all to me!”
Lucy did not like her friend’s tone. What had come over her that everything seemed to hurt her? “I don’t think very much has happened to me,” she said. “What has happened was all before I left here.”
Katie shook her head and her curly locks till she had almost shaken them off. “I know a great deal more than you think. I know what you were doing in London, and how you went riding about, and turning people’s heads. What a lucky girl you are, with everything that heart can desire! I don’t envy you, not wicked envy, because you are always as good as gold, and never give yourself airs; but you are a lucky girl. You don’t even know how different we poor ones are. I have never turned any one’s head,” said Katie, with a sigh.
“Do not talk of anything so silly,” said Lucy, blushing, she did not quite know why. “I think you are laughing at me; and to laugh at me is not kind, for I am not clever as you are, and can not make fun of you. Katie, tell me all about yourself, what you are doing; and tell me how they all are at Hampstead, and if they have got into the new house.”
“I am doing— I don’t know what I am doing,” said Katie, “dancing attendance on Mrs. Stone and old Southernwood. They are going to get me a situation in some nice family. I wish the nice family would turn up, for I am very tired waiting and wasting my holidays in this old place. It is nice being here? Oh, I know what you will say it is very nice, and I am very ungrateful; but though it is nice it is a school, Lucy and mamma does not want me at home, and I have got no other place to go. Lady Langton has been very kind; she asked me to go there for three days. But it’s dreary always coming back to school, for the White House is only school when all is said. They are all right at Hampstead, so far as I know. Did you hear what happened? Mamma has come into some money. It is not a very great sum, but it is a great help. It was some old relations, that no one had ever thought of, and mamma says it might just as well have been the double, for they were dreadfully rich. But anyhow it has been a great help. With what she had before, I believe they have quite enough to live on now, without doing anything,” Katie said with a little pride.
To all this Lucy listened with a countenance void of all expression. She had been half afraid of her friend’s gratitude: but there was something in this complete ignorance which was very bewildering. And when she looked at her own generosity through Katie’s eyes, so to speak, and saw it on the other side, she felt, too, that “it might as well have been the double,” and contemplated her own action with a mixture of shame and regret, instead of the satisfaction which she had vainly felt at first. And this little discovery made her first wound smart all the more. A certain fear crept over her. She would have liked to stop her ears from further revelations had she been able. But as that was impossible, Lucy listened patiently, with a blank countenance, trying hard to dismiss all appearance of feeling from her face.
“Mamma would like me to stay at home too,” Katie continued “She can not bear me to be a governess. But I could not do it; stay at home and sink down into Hampstead tea-parties—oh, I could not do it! If I get into a good family, Maud and the others will stand by me, and I shall have some fun at least and see life. To have only enough to live on, and to live at Hampstead, is more than I could put up with. Bertie, he has gone into chambers; he doesn’t live with mamma now. I don’t blame him, do you, Lucy? It must have been so slow for him, a young man. And now he has some money of his own, of course he has himself to think of. He is always”— Katie said slowly, watching her friend’s face—“always talking of you.”
Lucy did not make any response; but she was surprised by this unexpected change in the strain, and looked up involuntarily, with a half inquiry in her eyes.
“Oh, constantly!” said Katie, with a mixture of natural mischief and more serious purpose, not quite able to give up the pleasure of laughing at her companion, yet very seriously determined to help her brother. “He says you are cross about that dedication. How could you be cross about it? such a lovely dedication, making you into a famous person all at once! It is just the same as Dante did, and Petrarch, and all the poets, Bertie says. And it has brought him luck. Lucy, do you mind? He wants so much to come down here.”
“Why should I mind?” Lucy asked. Bertie Russell had floated out of her recollection; why should his movements concern her? even the dedication, and all the annoyance it had brought, affected her no more.
“That is quite true, why should you mind?” Katie said, with some pique. “One more or less doesn’t matter, when there are so many. He wants to come down and study the scenery for his next book. He means to lay the scene here; won’t it be exciting? People will be sure to say he has studied the characters too.”
“I don’t think there are many characters here,” Lucy said.
“Oh, don’t you think so? If I were to write a book I know whom I should put in; the Missis and little Southernwood, and that fat St. Clair; and old mademoiselle finding out everything about everybody. Oh, I should soon make up a book if I could write— I wish I could write,” cried Katie, with flashing eyes.
Was it really so? Was Katie vulgar too? Lucy felt herself shrink involuntarily. She asked herself whether, in the old school girl days, there had been chatter like this which had not disgusted her, or if Katie had deteriorated.
“Do not speak so,” she said; “Katie, it is not like you.”
“Oh, yes, it is quite like me. I always was wicked, you were the good one, Lucy. I hope Bertie will take them all off; and I hope you will not be cross to him, Lucy; that would take all the heart out of him. Poor old Bertie! he thinks you are an angel, that is all he knows.”
“I am never cross,” said Lucy, wounded. What had happened to her? Had her eyes been anointed by that disenchanting touch which turns all the glories of fairyland into dross and tinsel? or was she really cross with everybody and out of tune? She could not tell herself which it was.
“You are cross now,” cried Katie, growing red; and then the hasty tears started to her eyes, and she complained that her friend was “changed.” What could Lucy say? either it was true, or it was Katie that was changed. “You are a great lady now,” the girl cried, “with grand friends and everything you wish for; and I am only a poor governess, not fit company for you.”
This reproach went to Lucy’s heart. She could not defend herself from such an accusation; it took her entirely without defense, without the power of saying anything for herself; and she had never had any quarrels in the old days. Thus the two girls parted, Katie running across the common with red eyes, in high dudgeon, though there was so little cause for it, while Lucy stood at the window looking after her piteously, and with an aching heart. Changed! yes, everything was changed, either within or without; but which poor Lucy could not tell. She scarcely knew how long she stood there, and she was so occupied with Katie and the pang of this parting with her that she did not see another visitor approaching from the town, though he was a very welcome visitor indeed. When she heard his voice coming up the stair her heart jumped with pleasure. He had not deserted her then, and gone away without seeing her. She turned round and opened the door of the drawing-room in the simplicity of her pleasure.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said with fervor; and Sir Tom came in smiling, with every appearance of being glad to see her too.
“I thought it best not to come too soon,” Sir Thomas said, “or your old lady did not like the looks of me, Miss Lucy. Perhaps, I thought, she might like me even worse than my looks; but this is luck to find you alone.”
“Oh, but I am always alone,” said Lucy, her countenance falling. “This is not like Grosvenor Street, Sir Thomas; most of the time I see nobody at all; and when people come they say that I am changed.”
“Somebody has been vexing you,” said Sir Thomas, with his sympathetic look. “Never you mind, no one who really knows you will think you changed; and I hope you are happy on the whole, among your old friends.”
Lucy shook her head.
“It is not that they are not kind,” she said; “they are all very kind—but they will not permit me to think that other people are kind too; every one bids me to beware of some one else. You laugh, but I could cry; and it makes me that I don’t know what to do.”
“They bid you beware of me? Well, I suppose that was to be expected,” Sir Thomas said, with a laugh.
“Oh, not only of you, but of each other; and Aunt Ford warns me against them all. Well, it is amusing, I suppose,” said Lucy, “but it does not amuse me,” and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear little girl (I am an uncle, you know), things will mend,” said Sir Tom. “Come, tell me what they say of me. Did they say I was an extravagant fool, and had wasted all my living like a prodigal? Alas! that is true, Lucy. It may be uncharitable to say it, but the ladies are quite right; and if it were not for that excellent plan of the uncle, perhaps, as they tell you, it would be better for you to have nothing to do with me.”
“I do not believe that,” cried Lucy, almost with vehemence. And then she paused and looked at him anxiously, and, with a crimson color gradually coming over her face, asked in a low tone, “Sir Thomas, do not be angry; are you poor?”
He grew red, too, with surprise, but then laughed.
“Well,” he said, “yes, for my position I certainly am. When a man has a great house to keep up, and a number of expenses, if he is not rich he must be poor.”
“Ah! but I don’t think that could be what papa meant,” cried Lucy, with a profound sigh.
“I can not tell, nor what you mean either, my little Lucy,” he said. “I feel very much like an old uncle to-day, so you must pardon the familiarity; you are so little, and so young, and I am so flêtri, with crows’-feet beyond counting. Lucy, I have come to bid you good-bye, I am going to Scotland, you know.”
“Oh!” said Lucy, her countenance falling. “I hoped—we hoped—you were not going directly. So long as you were near, I felt that there was some one— Must you really go, Sir Tom?”
Neither of them noticed at the moment the sudden familiarity into which they had fallen, and Lucy’s dismay was so candid that it was all Sir Tom could do to keep from a caress, such as would have been very appropriate to his assumed character, but not very consistent with the partial guardianship he had been trusted with.
“It is very sweet of you to be sorry,” he said, rising and walking to the window, where he stood looking out for a moment with back to her, “but I am afraid I must go, at all events, it will be better for me to go. If you want anything very urgently, write to me, or send me a telegram; but I don’t suppose you will have any very pressing necessities,” he said, turning round with a smile.
“No,” said Lucy, very downcast; “oh; it is not that. I have not any necessities; I wish I had. It is just—it is only—one wants some one to speak to, some one to tell—”
She was so disappointed that there came a little quiver into her lips and quaver in her tone. Had he been right? Was it really true that she was no more in love with him than he was with his old aunt? Sir Thomas was only human, and an amiable vanity was warm in him. A pleasant little thrill of surprise and gratitude went through his heart. Was it perhaps possible? But Lucy made haste to add,
“You are the only person that I could tell something to—something that is on my mind. My guardians know, so it is not quite, quite a secret; but no one else knows; and when I go to them they always oppose me—at least they did everything they could against me the one time, and I thought if I could tell you, who are a gentleman, and have experience, it would be such a comfort, and perhaps you could guide me in doing what I have to do. Papa did not say I was to tell nobody. I am sure he would have liked me to have some one to stand by me, since you are so kind to me, Sir Tom.”
“You may calculate upon me, Miss Lucy. What is it? or do you want to tell me now, when I am going away?”
His tone was cooled, chilled. Lucy did not quite know how, but she felt it. Almost for the first time since she had known him, Sir Thomas looked at her with no wavering of expression in his face, no twinkle in his eye.
“It will perhaps—be a bore to you,” she said, chilled too, and hesitating.
“You learned that word in town,” he said, melting and relaxing into his habitual laugh. “Come, tell me; when I know, then I shall be able to advise, and you will find me infallible. Something guardians oppose? then I suppose it must be a desire you have to be kind to other people, Lucy. They could not refuse you any little wants of your own.”
“How clever you are, Sir Tom!” said Lucy lighting up; “that is just what, it is. Papa left me a great deal of money— I believe it is really a great deal of money—to give away. Perhaps you may have noticed that I have been rude, very rude, in asking if people were—poor.”
“You asked me so ten minutes ago,” he said.
“Oh, you must not think I meant— Sir Thomas, papa says in his will—and he has said it to me often—not to waste the money, giving a little here, and a little there, but when I could find out a fit occasion to provide for somebody, to put them quite above want.”
“And the thought crossed your sweet little soul,” he said, with one of his big laughs, “my dear child! to provide for me.”
“No! Oh, no! I never could have been so impertinent; indeed that was not what I meant; only it flashed across me how much better, if I could, to give it to some one I liked, than to some one I knew nothing about and didn’t care for; but then it was not to be people I cared for—only people who were poor.”
“Lucy, do you care for me?”
“Very much, Sir Tom,” she said, with a brightness quite unusual to her, turning upon him eyes which met his with perfect frankness and calm. Will it be believed that Sir Thomas was utterly disgusted by this quite candid, affectionate, innocent response?
“Ah! that is precisely what I said,” he muttered to himself, jumping up impatiently from his chair; then he laughed and sat down again.
“Well, well, tell me how I can help you. This money is to be spent on the deserving poor. In short, it is a charitable fund.”
“There is nothing about deserving. It is a great deal of money. It is nearly as much as the half of what I have got. What papa wished was that it should be given back.”
“The half of what you have got!” Sir Thomas stared at her bewildered, in his mind making a rapid calculation that, with the half of what she had got, Lucy would no longer be the greatest heiress in England. He was not sorry. She would still have a great fortune. Somehow, indeed, it pleased and conciliated him that she should be put down from that high pedestal. This was his only reflection on the subject. “What are you to do? are you to establish institutions or build hospitals?” he said.
“Oh, no, nothing of that kind; only to provide for those that want, not for the very, very poor, at least not always; but for poor people who are not poor. Do you know what I mean, Sir Thomas?—for those who have been well off.”
“I understand: like me—poor ladies and poor gentlemen.”
“We were not ladies and gentlemen ourselves. It is not confined to them,” said Lucy, doubtfully; “families that are struggling to live, whether they are gentlemen, or whether they are not—clerks like my Uncle Rainy, or school-masters like papa. Do you consider it very insulting to offer people money, when you see that they want it very much?”
“Well, that depends,” said Sir Thomas, recovering his humorous look, “upon the person who offers and the person to whom it is offered. It happens so rarely that one has no experience on the subject.”
“Do you remember, Sir Thomas, when I borrowed that hundred pounds?” Lucy said. “That was for one—it was my first, my very first. She was very much offended, and then she said she would take it as a loan. I cheated her into it,” the girl said, with glee; “I told her I could not give any loans—papa never said anything about loans—but she could give it me back if she wished when I am my own mistress in seven years. Don’t you think she will forget before that time? It would be rather dreadful to have it back.”
“That depends also,” he said; “but I think it very likely that she will forget. Only take care, take care. Presents of a hundred pounds are very pleasant things. You will have crowds of claimants if you don’t mind.”
“A hundred pounds!” said Lucy; “oh, it was not an insignificant thing like that!”
“You think that insignificant? You have princely notions, it must be allowed. Might one ask—”
“I counted up very closely,” Lucy said. She was drawn along by the tide of her own confidences; “for it was no use giving a little bit that would be swallowed up directly, and do no good. You see it was a lady, and ladies are not so expensive as men. In that case, and it was my first, it was six thousand pounds.”
“Six thousand pounds!” Sir Thomas sprung to his feet in comical consternation, as if he had been struck by electricity. “My dear little girl,” he said, half tragically, half laughing, “do you know what you are doing? Are you sure this is in your father’s will? and do your guardians allow it? I feel my head going round and round. Six thousand pounds! to some one not related to you, a stranger!”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, earnestly, “or it would not be giving it back. My guardians oppose it as much as ever they can.”
“And I don’t wonder at it!” cried Sir Thomas. “I think I should oppose it, too; if I were one of them. My dear little Lucy, you are upsetting the very principles of political economy. Do you know what that means? You will demoralize everybody you come in contact with. Even I, though my instincts are not mendicant, it is all I can do not to hold out my hand for something. I shall be doing it if I stay much longer,” he said.
Lucy looked at him with a dubious, half alarmed look. She never was quite sure whether he was in jest or earnest, and the possibility, even the most distant possibility, that he could mean— Even Lucy’s imagination, however, could not go so far as that. He could read her doubt in her face, and laughed out.
“I warn you to take care,” he said. “You will be the ruin of all your friends; but, Lucy, Lucy, this is a very wonderful business; it is like a fairy tale. You gave away six thousand pounds, and were permitted to do so at your age? and you mean to do it again—and again?”
“Oh, as often as ever I can,” Lucy said, fervently. “I can not bear to think how many people may be in want of it, and that I don’t know them, and don’t know how to find them out. This makes me very unhappy when I think of it. Perhaps you will help me to find them—”
“No, that I can not promise to do. I warn you I shall be holding out my own hand presently. On the contrary, I will keep people out of your knowledge. You will ruin all our principles,” he said.
“But when it is in the will,” cried Lucy. It is inconceivable how much lighter her heart felt since she had told him. There was a little flush on her cheeks, and her eye shone with a pleasant light. She could have gone on talking for hours now that the flood-gates were open. It was so easy to talk to Sir Tom. His very laugh was kind, he never found fault, or if he did, that was as pleasant as the rest; she had a kind of frank admiration of him, and trust in him, such as some girls feel for an elder brother. The unusual gleam of excitement in her face made the little quiet Lucy pretty and interesting, and Sir Thomas was flattered and piqued at once by the enthusiasm of affectionate faith which was in her eyes. It piqued him, and it pleased him—that he should have all this, and yet no more. He had got a great deal more in his life and looked for it, and the absence of it made him a little impatient.
“Well,” he, said, “you will go through the world like a good fairy, and I hope the good you will do will make up for the demoralization your want of principle will lead to. But before my principles are ruined, Lucy, good-bye. I must go. I have written my address there in your blotting-book, and if you want me, or if you want to ask me anything, be sure you do it. Thank you for taking me into your confidence. But now I must go away.”
Lucy got up to say good-bye, but her heart sunk. “Oh, must you go?” she said; “I am so sorry. While you were here the place was not quite so lonely. But I hope you will like the shooting very much,” she said with a sigh, and a sense of real self-sacrifice. Her eyes got moist in spite of herself; and Sir Thomas bent over her and kissed her forehead, or rather her hair, in spite of himself. He ought not to have done it, and he was half ashamed of having done it. “Good-bye, my little Lucy,” he cried. As for Lucy, she took this kiss “sedately” like the poet’s heroine. It seemed so natural, she liked him so much; she was glad he liked her a little, too.