LUCY was greatly comforted by the visit of Sir Thomas. It made her sad to see him go away, and the consciousness that he was no longer within reach raised for the moment another cloud upon her horizon; but on the whole it was an exhilaration to her to have spoken to him, to have shared her secret with him. She had, as she said, tried to communicate it to Lady Randolph in the early days of their companionship; but it had been so very far from Lady Randolph’s thoughts that Lucy’s timid hint had made no impression on her mind. Neither would Sir Thomas have been capable of understanding had she spoken less plainly than she did; but Lucy at last had spoken very plainly, and he had understood. He had not given her any valuable advice. In such circumstances there is very little advice practicable; but he had understood, which is such a great matter. She knew no better what to do, how to turn, and how to distribute the money, than she had done at the first; but yet she was easier in her mind. She had talked it over, and it had done her good. Henceforward she was not alone in her possession of this secret. A secret is a very heavy burden to be borne alone, and, though Lucy had been restrained by many considerations from asking Sir Thomas’ advice on the special question which now occupied her mind, she was still consoled. In case of any break-down he would not blame her; he would give her his sympathy. In case of any difficulty she could write to him, or even summon him to her aid. He liked her, which was a pleasure to think of—liked her as she liked him—though he was so much older, and of so much more importance in the world. All this was of great comfort to Lucy. She began to hold up her head, and to feel herself less abandoned. It was true he had gone away, but that did not matter so much; he would come back if she wanted his help; and in the meanwhile time was going, floating on noiselessly and swiftly, and by and by the Farafield chapter would be over. Mrs. Ford, who had watched for Sir Tom’s departure very jealously, and who had bounced out of the parlor to see him go away, and detected a little redness about Lucy’s eyes, was reassured by hearing her hum little tunes to herself in the latter part of the day, and talk to Jock with great animation about his new tutor, and all that was going to happen.
“She didn’t mind after all,” Mrs. Ford said; “how should she, a man old enough to be her father!” And thus everybody was pleased.
In the afternoon Katie Russell came in, all tearful and penitent, to beg Lucy’s pardon, and declare that “it was all me.” The pardon was accorded with great willingness and satisfaction, and Katie stayed and chattered, and made a lasting peace. She offended Lucy’s taste no longer; or else Lucy awoke to the fact that her friend was never entirely to her taste, and that toleration is the most essential of all qualities to friendship. Katie remained to tea. She told Jock a quite new story, which he had never heard before, and could not parallel out of his books; and she beguiled Lucy back into the old world of careless youth. Lucy’s youth had never been so thoughtless or so merry as that of many of her comrades. Even Katie, though she had known so many of the drawbacks of life, had, on the other hand, got a great deal more pleasure out of it than the heiress had ever known. Sometimes the pleasures and the pains go together, and it is a question whether those are best off who hold the middle way between, and have not much of either. Katie was a more lively companion than Lucy, with her serious upbringing, her sense of responsibility, and those cares which had been put so prematurely upon her young head, could ever have been. The pink drawing-room for the first time became mirthful, and light voices and laughter disturbed the quiet. “Just listen,” Mrs. Ford said: “Sir Thomas, for all such a great man as you think him, has not made much impression there.” Her husband, who had a very high opinion of the influence of Sir Thomas, uttered a “humph” of protestation from where he sat in his easy-chair by the fire-place. The grate full of shavings was not so pleasant as the grate with a good fire in it was in winter; but it was Ford’s place at all seasons. He said nothing but humph! having nothing to add to bolster up his opinion. But it would have been as surprising to him as to his wife had they known that it was he who was in the right, and that even Lucy’s laugh, her easier mind, her more cheerful face, owed something to the cheerful presence of Sir Tom, even though he had gone away.
At tea they were joined by another and unexpected visitor, at the sight of whom Mrs. Ford threw up her hands. “Philip,” she cried, “I thought you were abroad. How glad I am to see you! Dear, dear, how little one knows! I was thinking this very afternoon, when I saw a picture of the snowy mountains—there, now, Philip’s about there.”
“I have come back,” said Philip; “I was abroad all last month, but a great many things seemed to call me home. There is a bit to be built on at Kent’s Lane. And there was Lucy. Oh, how do you do? You are here! I thought,” he said with frankness which Mrs. Ford thought excessive, “that I must come back if Lucy was here.”
“I shall be here for six months,” said Lucy, calmly, “I am very glad to see you, Cousin Philip, but it is a pity you should have come back for me.”
“I don’t regret it,” said the young man; he did not resemble any of the others whom Lucy knew. He was not like St. Clair, or yet Raymond Rushton, who, though the one was fat and the other awkward, had still a certain naturalness and ease, as if they belonged to the position in which they were. Philip was a great deal more carefully adapted to his position in every respect than they were. He had just the clothes which a man in the country in the month of August ought to wear, and he had been absent, spending the first part of his holiday “abroad,” as most men in August would like to be. He had all the cleanness and neatness and trimness which are characteristic of a well bred Englishman. He was not fine; there was no superfluous glitter about him—not a link too much to his watch-chain, not an unnecessary button. In the very best taste! the only thing against him was that his appearance was too complete. He had the air of being respectful of his clothes, and very conscious of them. And he was always on his good behavior, very careful to commit no solecism, to do exactly what it was right to do. He came in with his hat in his hand, and clung to it, though all the time it was apparent in his countenance that he would much rather have left it in the hall. It was in such matters that Philip Rainy betrayed himself, for in his heart he felt that it would also have been much more sensible had he hung up his hat, and not encumbered himself with the care of it. He sat down on the haircloth sofa, not approaching his chair to the table round which all the others were seated. He had been brought up upon bread and butter, and was very well accustomed to the homely tea-table; but he felt he owed it to himself to keep up a position of independence, inferring the superior dignity of a late dinner even in vacation time, and a soul above tea.
“Nothing to eat?” said Ford. “I think you’re wrong, Philip; here is toast, and there are some nice slices of cold beef; and there’s cake, but there’s no substance in cake. It is good enough for girls, who live upon nothing; but a man, except to finish off with, wants something more solid. Have a bit of cold beef—that’s what I’m taking myself.”
“Let him alone,” said Mrs. Ford; “he don’t want to spoil his dinner. I hope you haven’t come home on some wild-goose chase or other, Philip. I hope you have a better reason than just to see Lucy; but, anyhow, you’re welcome. Lucy has been home only a few days, and she’s not spoiled, nor much changed, though she might be. I can not say that I think she’s much changed.”
“Lucy is not one to change,” the young man said; and he looked at her with an affectionate smile; but somehow, in the very act of going to her, this look was arrested by the little saucy face of Katie Russell, a face which was brighter and more mischievous, but not half so strong in moral beauty as that of Lucy. She caught him, looking at him as the most timid of young girls may look at a stranger, when under the care of a most decorous roof and a matron’s ample wings. The young man actually swerved a little aside, and stopped dead short in what he was saying. It was as if some one had given him a blow.
“I forgot to introduce you to Miss Russell,” said Mrs. Ford, catching the look, but not understanding it. “A cousin of ours, Mr. Rainy, Miss Russell. No, you are right about Lucy; but she has a great many temptations. There are folks about her that have their own ends to serve. She is one that many a person envies; but I for one don’t envy Lucy. I tell her sometimes I wonder how many of her fine friends would stand by her— My Lady This, and Mrs. That—if she were to lose her money; that’s what they’re after. And she’s too trusting; the thing for her would be to keep herself to herself.”
“Indeed,” cried Katie Russell, with sparkling eyes, “it is very cruel and unkind of you to say so. Lucy knows very well we don’t love her for her money. What do I care for her money? I was fond of Lucy before I knew what money meant, and so I would be fond of her,” cried the girl, with a flush of passion, “if it were all tossed into the sea—and all my people,” she added, after a moment, “as well as me.”
Lucy had followed this little outburst with pleasure in her mild eyes, but the last words gave her a shock, as of the real penetrating into the poetical. Her mind was not quick enough to jump at the subtle mixture of semi-truth and semi-falsehood in it, but she felt, though she could not define. There was the bitterest kind of humor in the suggestion, but Katie, perhaps, did not know, and certainly did not, at the moment, mean anything different from what she said.
“Susan,” said Ford, with a nod to Philip, “wasn’t meaning anybody in particular. There is no occasion, Miss Russell, to take offense. Mrs. Ford was meaning—other persons that shall be nameless,” Ford added, with a wave of his hand.
“They are all wrong, Philip,” said Lucy. “I wish so very much people would not speak so. It takes all the pleasure out of my life. Lady Randolph never talked about my money, never warned me against any one. Please don’t do it, Aunt Ford!”
“I know,” said Mrs. Ford, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “I’ve seen it from the very first in your face, Lucy. I’m not a fine lady, like your Lady Randolph; I can’t put a smooth face on everything and let you go sailing over a precipice as if it were nothing to me. I am only one that speaks out plain what is in my mind, and one that has known you from your cradle, and have no ends of my own, but your interest at heart. But to be plain and true’s not enough for you any longer. I’ve known it all this time, I’ve seen it in your face; but I didn’t think you would put it into words, and before strangers, and me Lucilla Rainy’s cousin, and one that has known you from your cradle, and nursed your father on his death-bed; oh, I never thought you could have the heart to put it into words!”
“Have I said anything wrong?” said Lucy, in great distress. She was bewildered by the sudden attack, and horrified by the scene, “before strangers;” for Lucy had all the instincts of respectability, and to see Mrs. Ford’s tears filled her with pain and involuntary compunction; but she was not so emotional as to lose her sense of justice. “I did not mean to say anything wrong,” she repeated, anxiously. Mrs. Ford’s tears were a little slow in coming; she sniffed, and she held her handkerchief to her face, which was red with anger and excitement, but she did not possess, at any time, a great command over tears.
Then Philip took up the part of peace-maker.
“You said yourself, two minutes ago, that Lucy was not changed,” he said. “Because you think she should be on her guard, you don’t want her to be unhappy; and if she does not like her friends, how can she be happy, Mrs. Ford? So good a friend as you are must know that. To be sure,” said Philip, “we of the Rainy family can’t help being a little anxious and fussy about our heiress, can we? We think more of her than other people can, and care more for her.”
“That is the truth, that is the very truth,” cried Mrs. Ford. And thus the incident blew over in professions that Lucy’s interest and happiness were all she thought of, on one side, and, on the other, that she meant to say nothing which could hurt Mrs. Ford’s feelings.
Philip went upstairs with the girls after this, into the pink drawing-room, where he sat all the evening, forgetting his dinner. He had come to see Lucy, but it was Katie Russell who took the conversation in hand; and as he was a very staid young man, not used to the lighter graces of conversation, Katie’s chatter and the perpetual variations of her pretty face were a sort of revelation to Philip. He was entirely carried beyond himself and all his purposes by this new being. Lucy sat tranquilly in her corner and assisted, but did little more. She was amused to see her grave cousin laughed at and subdued, and the evening flew over them, as evenings rarely fly in more edifying intercourse. The talk and laughter were at their height, when Katie, going to the piano to sing “just one more song,” suddenly discovered that it was too dark to see her music, and stopped short with a cry of dismay. “Why, it is dark! and I never noticed— What will Mrs. Stone think? I came over only for half an hour, and I am staying all the night. Lucy, good-bye, I must go now.”
“But you have promised me this song,” Philip said; “there are candles to be had.”
“And you are not going to run away like that. Jock and I will go home with you,” said Lucy, “and, perhaps, Philip will come, too.”
Philip thanked his cousin with his eyes, and the song was sung; and then the little party got under way. It was a warm still night, with a little autumnal mist softening all the edges of the horizon, and mild stars shining through with a kind yet pensive softness. Philip Rainy had been admirable in all the relations of life. He had done his duty by his parents, by his scholars, and by himself; he had combined a prudent sense of his own interests with justice to everybody, and kindness to those who had a claim upon him; and the life which lay behind him was one which any well-regulated young man might have looked back upon with pleasure. But all at once it seemed to the young school-master that it was the dreariest of desert tracks, and that up to this moment he had never lived at all. He had never understood before what the balmy atmosphere of a summer night meant, or how it was that the stars got soft, and came to bear a personal relation to the eyes that looked at them. What did it mean? He had come to see Lucy, but he barely perceived Lucy. All the world and all his interests seemed suddenly concentrated into the little circle in which that one little figure was standing. He stood beside her, drawn to her by a soft inexplainable influence. He walked beside her as in a dream, everything was sweet—the night air that lifted her bright hair and tossed it about her forehead; the gorse-bush that clung to her dress and had to be disengaged, every prickle giving him another delicious prick as he pulled them away. Whether he was dreaming, or whether he had gone clean out of his senses, or whether this was a new life of which he had never been conscious before, Philip did not know. When they arrived at the White House, which they did not do by honest, straightforward means, along the plain road that led to it, but by a quite unnecessary roundabout—an excursion led by Jock through all the narrowest byways—a sudden stop seemed to be put to this chapter of existence. He had a hand put into his for one second, a succession of merry nods, and farewells waved by the same hand, and then he stood with Lucy, come to himself, outside a blank door, a dropped curtain, a sudden conclusion. Philip stood gazing; he did not seem to have any energy even to turn round. Had it been suggested to him to lie down there and spend the night he would have thought the suggestion most reasonable. Had he been alone he would, no doubt, have lingered, for some time at least. Even as it was, he never knew how long a time—a minute, or an hour, or perhaps only an infinitesimal moment, too small to be reckoned on any watch—elapsed before, slowly coming to himself with the giddiness of a fall, he saw that he was with Lucy, and that she was turning to go home. Jock was roaming on in advance, a little moving solid speck in the vague dark, and Lucy moved on, softly and lightly, indeed, but with no enchantment about her steps. And then what she said was all of the old world, the antiquated dried-up Sahara of existence from which Philip had escaped for the first time in his life.
“It looks a little like rain,” Lucy said; “it is a good thing we are not far from home.”
“Ah! but it does not so much matter now,” Philip said, with a sigh. “She would have spoiled her pretty dress.”
“Yes; muslins go at once,” said Lucy; “it is the starch. I didn’t think it would rain when we came out. But we must not grumble—we have had a beautiful summer. Does Farafield seem just the same to you, Philip, when you come home?”
“Farafield! I never saw anything so sweet—the air is softer than I ever felt it in my life; and the common smells—like Paradise,” cried the young man in the sudden bewilderment which had come upon him, which he did not understand.
“Do you think so?” said Lucy, in great surprise; especially the last point was doubtful; but she thought it was the warmth of local enthusiasm, and blamed herself for her want of patriotism. “I like it very well,” she added, with hesitation; “but—after one has been away the first time, then one sees all the difference. I don’t suppose I should feel the same again.”
Then there was a pause. Philip did not feel inclined to talk; his mind was quite abstracted out of its ordinary channel. As they went back he felt within himself a dual consciousness—he was walking with her, helping her over the stones, disengaging her dress from the prickles; and at the same time he was walking demurely with Lucy, who required no such services. The sensible young schoolmaster, had the question been suddenly put to him, could not, at the moment, have distinguished, which was true.
But Lucy, curiously enough, was seized with an inclination to open her mind to her cousin. She had come back to her natural condition, through the help of Sir Tom and Katie, and she wanted to be friendly. She said, “I am so glad that you have come home, Philip. You know—so much more than Aunt Ford knows. Perhaps if you will tell her that everybody is not thinking of my money—that it is not half so important as she thinks—she will believe you.”
“Your money!” Philip said, with a gasp—suddenly the stars disappeared out of the sky; the summer evening became less balmy; there was a moment of rapid gyration, either of the whole round world itself or of his head, he could not tell which; and he felt himself strike sharply with his foot upon a stone in the path, and came to earth and to common life again, limping and rubbing his ankle. “Confound it!” he said, under his breath; but perhaps it was his good angel that put that stone in his way. He came wholly and entirely to himself under the stimulus of that salutary pain.
“I hope you have not hurt yourself,” said Lucy, with her usual calm.
“Oh, it is nothing,” said Philip, ashamed. “The fact is, I came home sooner than I intended, thinking—that, perhaps, you might want some advice. For instance,” he said, grasping at the first idea which occurred to him, a sort of staff of the practical in this chaos of the vague and unknown where he had suddenly found himself stumbling, “about Jock—he is in my way— I might help you about Jock.”
“Oh,” said Lucy, with animation, “thank you, Philip, that is all arranged. I have got the most delightful plan settled. Mrs. Stone’s nephew, a poor gentleman who is in bad health; just when he was about succeeding so finely at the bar—and it is a great thing to succeed at the bar, isn’t it?—his health gave way; and he is so good as to be willing to come and teach Jock. I think it is so very kind.”
“Kind!” said Philip at last, thoroughly woke up. He opened his eyes wide and shook himself instinctively. This was what Mrs. Ford meant, and no wonder if she made a scene. “This is a strange step to take, Lucy,” he said, seriously. “I don’t know what it means. I should think, as a relative, and your father’s successor, and—engaged in tuition” (nature had brought the word schoolmaster to his lips, but unless you belong to the higher branches of the profession, you do not like to call yourself a school-master), “that I had the first claim.”
Lucy was greatly distressed. She had never considered the question before in this light. “Oh, Philip! I am so sorry. So you should have had, if I had ever thought! I beg your pardon a thousand times. But then,” she added, recovering her composure, “you have a great many boys—it does not matter to you; and this poor gentleman—”
“Poor gentlemen ought not to come to you,” said Philip, with indignation. “A barrister, a man in bad health—what has he to do with a small boy? Jock ought to have come to me. I proposed it before you went to London; it is the best thing for him. I think that your father meant him to be my successor in Kent’s Lane.”
“Oh, no, no! never that,” said Lucy.
“Is it so much beneath Jock?” Philip said, with a touch of natural bitterness. “But anyhow, it is I that ought to have the charge of him. I do not want to be unkind, Lucy; but I think I begin to see what Mrs. Ford means about your family.”
“Philip!” cried Lucy, indignant; and then she added, almost crying, “You are all so unjust; and if you say so, too, what am I to do?”
“I will not say anything; but it is what I can not help thinking,” said Philip, with the stateliness of offense. It seemed to him, he could scarcely tell how, that he was being defrauded, not of Jock, who was a trifle, but of all share or interest in Lucy’s future. He had come back on purpose to look after her, to keep her out of trouble. While he had been away it had been more and more clear to him that to share Lucy’s fortune was in a manner his right. It would save him at least ten years, it would secure his position at once, and he had a right. He had come to the Terrace that evening full of this idea; and he had played the fool—he could not but allow that he had played the fool. What were poetry and the stars and the mild influences of the Pleiades to him? He was a Rainy, and there was no one who had so much right to share the great Rainy fortune. The energy of opposition awoke him, which nothing else, perhaps, could have done. “You will forgive me,” he said, “but you are only a young girl, and you can not be expected to understand. And it is quite true what Aunt Ford said, there are always a herd of harpies after a young girl with a large fortune. You should take the advice of those who belong to you. You should first consult your true friends.”
Lucy was confounded; she did not know how to reply. Was not Sir Thomas her true friend? He had not been angry with her when she told him about that famous scheme for giving the money back. Some floating idea that Philip would have been able to help her in that respect, that he might have suggested what, for instance, she should give to St. Clair, had been in her mind. But Lucy promptly shut up her impulse of confession. She withdrew a little from his side. He was not ignorant like the Fords—he was a kind of natural adviser. “But what is the use of speaking to any one who does not understand?” Lucy said. So they traversed the rest of the way in silence, Philip occasionally making a severe remark in the same vein, yet feeling, as he did so, that every word he said was a sacrifice of his vantage-ground. He wanted to change his tactics when he saw the evident mistake of strategy he had made. But such matters are not within our own control; when a false key is struck it is not easy to get free of it. Philip was ready to curse himself for his folly; but at the same time his folly and his wrong key-note and the misadventure of the evening altogether gave him a sense of almost aversion to his cousin. “What a contrast!” he said to himself. Thus Lucy, whose simplicity was captivating to such a man of the world as Sir Tom, made the Farafield schoolmaster indignant and impatient beyond measure. Sir Thomas would have been in no sort of danger from little Katie. Thus the world goes on, without any regard to the suitable or possible. They said “good-night” very coolly to each other, and Lucy ran upstairs vexed and troubled—for to be disapproved of wounded her. As for Mrs. Ford, she came out of the parlor, where she now seemed to lie in wait for occurrences, when she heard them come to the door. “Come soon again, Philip,” she whispered, “there’s a good lad. I think the whole town is after her. You are the one that ought to get it all. You will be kindly welcome if you come every day.”
“I have not a notion what it is you want me to get,” said Philip, crossly, as he strode away.