CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ONE DOWN, AND ANOTHER COME ON.
THIS was Lucy’s first experience of love-making. It is needless to say that it was very far from being her last; but for the moment it was an appalling revelation to her, an incident of the most disturbing and disquieting kind. She was alone for a long time after St. Clair’s withdrawal. It was the morning, the time when Mrs. Ford was occupied with household concerns, and Jock, being freed sooner than usual, had betaken himself to one of his habitual corners with a book, and was thousands of mental miles away from his sister. She remained alone in that pink drawing-room, in which already she had spent so many lonely hours. There she stood hidden behind the curtains, and watched St. Clair speeding across the road that skirted the common to the White House. She had seen him coming and going a great many times with placid indifference. But she could not be indifferent to anything about him now. His hasty pace, so unlike the usual stateliness of demeanor in which he resembled his aunt, the books under his arm, his stumble as he rushed over the rough ground, all went to Lucy’s heart. She was not sorry that she had given forth so determined a decision. That she felt at once, with her usual good sense, was unavoidable. It was not a question upon which any doubt could be left. But she was very sorry to have given him pain, very sorry that it had been necessary. She felt pained and angry that such an appeal should have been made to her, yet at the same time self-reproachful and sore, wondering how it was her fault, and what she could have done. It dismayed her to think that she had voluntarily and deliberately inflicted pain, and yet what alternative had been left her? Now, she thought to herself sadly, here was an end of all possibility of helping a man who was poor, and whom she would have been so glad to help. He would not take anything from her now, he would be angry, he would reject her aid, although so willingly given. This gave Lucy a real pang. She could not get it out of her mind. How foolish, she moralized, to put off a real duty like this, to let it become impossible! She was sitting pondering very sadly upon the whole matter, asking herself wistfully if anything could be done, when Mrs. Rushton came in, full of the plan which Raymond had proposed the evening before. Mrs. Rushton was always elated by a new proposal of pleasure-making. It raised her spirits even when nothing else was involved. But in this case there was a great deal more involved.
“It is the very thing to finish the season,” she said; “we have had a very pleasant season, especially since you came back, Lucy. You have made us enjoy it twice as much as we usually do. For one thing, home has been so much more attractive than usual to Ray. Oh, he is always very good, he does not neglect his own people; still young men will be young men, and you know even Shakespeare talks of ‘metal more attractive’ than a mother. So as I was saying— Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Ford?”
As usual, Mrs. Ford made her appearance, sweeping in her purple silk, which was of a very brilliant and hot hue, and put every other color out. Her punctual attendance, when ladies came to see Lucy, served her purpose very well, for it made it apparent to these ladies that Lucy’s present hostess was a very dragon of jealous carefulness, and was likely to guard the golden apples against all comers as she did from them.
“How do you do?” said Mrs. Ford, stiffly, taking a stiff and high backed chair.
“It is a very fine day,” said Mrs. Rushton; “what pleasant weather we are having for this time of the year! I was remarking to Lucy that it had been the most enjoyable summer. I always say that for young people there is nothing so enjoyable as out-door parties when the weather is good. They get air and they get exercise, far better than being cooped up in stuffy ball-rooms. I feel quite thankful to Lucy, who has been the occasion of so many nice friendly meetings.”
“She has had a deal too much of gayety, I think,” said Mrs. Ford, “considering that her poor dear father has not been much more than six months in his grave.”
“You can not really call it gayety, oh, no, not gayety! a few nice quiet afternoons on the lawn, and just one or two picnics. No, Lucy dear, you need not be frightened; I will never suffer you to do anything inconsistent with your mourning. You may rely on me. If anything, I am too particular on that point. Your nice black frocks,” said Mrs. Rushton, with fervor, “have never been out of character with anything. I have taken the greatest care of that.”
“I don’t say anything about the afternoons,” said Mrs. Ford, “but I know that it was half-past ten when your carriage came to the door last night with Lucy in it. I don’t hold with such late hours. Ford and me like to be in bed at ten o’clock.”
“Ah, that is very early,” Mrs. Rushton said, with an indulgent smile; “say eleven, and I will take care that Lucy has some one with her to see her safe home.”
“Oh, for that matter, there’s always plenty with her,” said the grumbler, “and more than I approve of. I don’t know what girls want with all that running about. We never thought of it in our day. Home was our sphere, and there we stayed, and never asked if it was dull or not.”
“That is very true; and it was very dull. We don’t bring up our children like that nowadays,” said Mrs. Rushton, with that ironical superiority which the mother of a family always feels herself justified in displaying to a childless contemporary. Mrs. Ford had no children to get the advantage of the new rule. “And,” she added, “one feels for a dear child like Lucy, who has no mother, that one is doubly bound to do one’s best for her. How poor dear Mrs. Trevor would have watched over her had she been spared! a motherless girl has a thousand claims. And, Lucy,” continued her indulgent friend, “this is Ray’s party. It is he that is to manage it all; he took it into his head that you would like to see the Abbey again.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, surprised that they should show so much thought for her, but quite ready to be pleased and grateful too.
“He and his sister will come and fetch you at two o’clock,” she continued; “it will be quite hurriedly got up, what I call an impromptu—but all the better for that. There will be just our own set. Mrs. Stone of course it would be useless to ask, now that school has begun again; but if there is any friend whom you would like to have—”
It was as if in direct answer to this half-question that at that moment the door opened and Katie Russell, all smiles and pleasure, came in. “Lucy,” she cried, “Bertie has come, as I told you; he wants so much to see you; may I bring him in? Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ford, I did not see that you were here.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Ford, grimly; “most folks do the same.”
“Is it your brother, the author?” said Mrs. Rushton, excited. She was so far out of the world, and so little acquainted with its ways, that she felt, and thought it the right thing to show that she felt, an interest in a real living novelist. “Lucy, we must have him come to the picnic,” she cried.
But she was not so enthusiastic when Bertie appeared. His success had made a great difference in Bertie’s outward man; he was no longer the slipshod youth of Hampstead, by turns humble and arrogant, full of boyish assurance and equally boyish timidity. Even in that condition he had been a handsome young fellow, with an air of breeding which must have come from some remote ancestor, as there was no nearer way by which he could have acquired it. When he walked into the room now, it was as if a young prince had suddenly appeared among these commonplace people. It was not his dress, Mrs. Rushton soon decided, for Raymond was as well dressed as he—nor was it his good looks, though it was not possible to deny them; it was—more galling still—something which was neither dress nor looks, but which he had, and, alas! Raymond had not. Mrs. Rushton gazed at him open-eyed, while he came in smiling and gracious, shaking hands with cordial grace.
“It is not my own boldness that brings me,” he said, “but Katie’s. I am shifting the responsibility off my own shoulders on to hers, as you ladies say we all do; but for Katie’s encouragement, I don’t know if I would have ventured.”
“I am very glad to see you,” Lucy said; and then they all seated themselves, the central interest of the group shifting at once to the new-comer, the young man of genius, the popular author. He was quite sensible of the duties of his position, treated the ladies round him en bon prince with a suitable condescension to each and to all.
“I have a hundred things to say to you from my mother,” he said; “she wishes often that you could see her in her new house, where she is very comfortable. She thinks you would be pleased with it.” This was said with a glance of confidential meaning, which showed Lucy that, though Katie was not aware of it, her brother knew and acknowledged the source from which his mother’s comfort came. “And it is very kind of you to admit us at this untimely hour,” he said to Mrs. Ford, looking at her purple silk with respect as if it had been the most natural morning-dress in the world. “Katie is still only a school-girl, and is guided by an inscrutable system. I stand aghast at her audacity; but I am very glad to profit by it.”
“Oh, as for audacity,” said Mrs. Ford, “that is neither here nor there, we are well used to it; but whenever you like to come, Mr. Russell, you’ll find a welcome. I knew your good father well, and a better man never was—”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Rushton, eager to introduce herself, “I must be allowed to say so too. I knew Mr. Russell very well, though I never had the pleasure of making acquaintance with his family. I am afraid, after the society you must have been seeing, you will find Farafield a very benighted sort of place. There is nothing that can be called society here.”
“That is so much the better,” said Bertie graciously; “one has plenty of it in the season, it is a relief to be let alone: and my object in coming here is not society.”
“Oh, I told you, Lucy,” cried his sister, “he has come to study.” A frown crossed Bertie’s face; he gave her a warning look. “I want rest,” he said; “there is nothing like lying fallow. It does one all the good in the world.”
“Ah!” cried Mrs. Rushton, “I know what that means. You have come to take us all off, Mr. Russell; we will all be put into your new book.”
Bertie smiled a languid and indulgent smile. “If I could suppose that there were any eccentricities to be found in your circle,” he said, “perhaps—but good breeding is alike over all the world.”
Mrs. Rushton did not quite know what this meant; but it was either a compliment or something that sounded like one. She was delighted with this elegant young man of genius, who was so familiar with and indifferent to society. “If you will come to the little picnic I am planning for to-morrow, you shall judge for yourself,” she said; “and perhaps Mrs. Stone will let your sister come too,” she added, with less cordiality. Katie, whom every one knew to be only a governess-pupil, had not attracted her attention much. She had been accepted with toleration now and then as Lucy’s friend, but as the sister of a young literary lion, who no doubt knew all kinds of fine people, Katie became of more importance. Bertie took the invitation with great composure, though his sister, who was not blasée, looked up with sparkling eyes.
“To-morrow?” he said; “I am Katie’s slave and at her disposal. I will come with pleasure if my sister will let me come.”
Was it wise? Mrs. Rushton asked herself, with a little shiver. She made a mental comparison between this new-comer and Ray. The proverbial blindness of love is not to be trusted in, in such emergencies. His mother saw, with great distinctness, that Raymond had not that air, that je ne sais quoi; nor could he talk about society, nor had he the easy superiority, the conscious genius of Bertie. But then the want of these more splendid qualities put him more on Lucy’s level. Lucy (thank Heaven!) was not clever. She would not understand the other’s gifts; and Ray was a little, just a little taller, his hair curled, which Bertie’s did not; Mrs. Rushton thought that, probably, the author would be open to adulation, and would like to be worshiped by the more important members of the community. What could he care for a bit of a girl? So, on the whole, she felt herself justified in her invitation. She offered the brother and sister seats in the break, in which she herself and the greater part of her guests were to drive to the Abbey, and she made herself responsible for the consent of Mrs. Stone. “Of course I shall ask Mr. St. Clair, Lucy,” she said. “I always like to ask him, poor fellow! he must be so dull with nothing but ladies from morning till night.”
“Happy man,” Bertie said; “what could he desire more?”
“But when those ladies are aunts, Mr. Russell?”
“That alters the question. Though there is something to be said for other people’s aunts,” said Bertie, “I am not one of those who think all that is pleasant is summed up in youth.”
“Oh, you must not tell me that. You all like youth best,” said Mrs. Rushton; but she was pleased. She felt her own previsions justified. A young man like this, highly cultivated and accustomed to good society, what could he see in a little bread-and-butter sort of a girl like Lucy? She gave Bertie credit for a really elevated tone. She was not so worldly-minded as she supposed herself to be, for she did not take it for granted that everybody else was as worldly-minded as herself.
This succession of visitors and events drove the adventure of the morning out of Lucy’s head. And when she went out with Jock in the afternoon, Bertie met them in the most natural way in the world, and prevented any relapse of her thoughts. He told her he was “studying” Farafield, which filled Lucy with awe; and begged her to show him what was most remarkable in the place. This was a great puzzle to the girl, who took him into the market-place, and through the High Street, quite unconscious of the scrutiny of the beholders. “I don’t think there is anything that is remarkable in Farafield,” she said, while Bertie, smiling—thinking involuntarily that he himself, walking up and down the homely streets, with an artist’s eye alive to all the picturesque corners, was enough to give dignity to the quiet little country place—walked by her side, very slim and straight, the most gentleman-like figure. There were many people who looked with curiosity, and some with envy, upon this pair, the women thinking that only her money could have brought so aristocratic a companion to the side of old John Trevor’s daughter, while the men concluded that he was some needy “swell,” who was after the girl, and thus exhibited himself in attendance upon her. It came to Mrs. Rushton’s ears that they had been seen together, and the information startled her much; but what could she do? She fell upon Raymond, reproaching him for his shilly-shally. “Now you see there is no time to be lost; now you see that other people have their wits about them,” she said; “if you let to-morrow slip, there will be nothing too bad for you,” cried the exasperated mother. But Raymond, though he was more frightened than could be told in words, had no thought of letting to-morrow slip. He too felt that things were coming to a crisis. He stood at the window with his hands in his pockets and whistled, as it were, under his breath. He was terribly frightened; but still he felt that what was to be done must be done, if anything was to be done. So long as it was only St. Clair, whom he thought middle-aged, and who was certainly fat, who was against him, he had not been much troubled; but this new fellow was a different matter. He did not put his resolution into such graceful words, but he too felt that it was time to
“ ... put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all,”
As for Lucy, no thought of the further trials awaiting her entered her mind; but she was not happy. It had ceased to be possible to take those evening strolls which had brought her into such intimate relations with the inmates of the White House. They had been given up since the girls came back; and, indeed, the days were so much shorter that they had become impracticable. But when she came upstairs to her lonely drawing-room after tea, when it was not yet completely dark, she could not choose but to go to the window, and look out upon the dim breadth of the common, and the lights which began to twinkle in Mrs. Stone’s windows. The grassy breadths of broken ground, the brown furze-bushes, all stubbly with the husks of the seed-pots, the gleam of moisture here and there, the keener touch of color in the straggling foliage of the hedges, and here and there a half-grown tree were dim under a veil of mist when she looked out. The last redness of the sun was melting from the sky. A certain autumnal sadness was in the bit of homely landscape, which, though she was not imaginative, depressed Lucy as she stood at the window. She was altogether depressed and discouraged. Mrs. Ford had been, if not scolding, yet talking uncomfortably to her husband across the girl, of the rudeness of Lucy’s friends. “Not that I would go to their parties if they begged me on their knees,” Mrs. Ford had said, “but the impoliteness of it! And to ask those Russells before my very face, who are not a drop’s blood to Lucy.” “Well, well, my dear, never mind,” her husband had said, “when she’s married there will be an end of it.” “Married!” Mrs. Ford had said in high disdain. And then Lucy had got up and hastened away, wounded and shocked and unhappy, though she scarcely could tell why. She came and stood at the window, and looked out, with the tears in her eyes. Everybody had been very kind to her, but yet she was very lonely. She had a gay party to look forward to the next day, and she believed she would enjoy it; but yet Lucy was lonely. People seemed to struggle over her incoherently, for she knew not what reason, each trying to push the other away, each trying to persuade her that the other entertained some evil motive; and everything seemed to concur in making it impossible for her to carry out her father’s will. And there was nobody to advise, nobody to help her. Philip, to whom she would so gladly have had recourse, was cross and sullen, and scolded her for no reason at all, instead of being kind. And Sir Tom, who was really kind, whom she could really trust to—what had become of him? Had he forgotten her altogether? He had not written to her, and Lucy had not the courage to write to him. What could she do to get wisdom, to know how to deal with the difficulties around her? She was standing within the curtains of the window, looking out wistfully toward the White House, and wondering how Mr. St. Clair would speak to her to-morrow, and if Mrs. Stone would know and be angry, when she was startled by the sound of wheels, and saw a carriage—nay, not a carriage but something more ominous, the fly of the neighborhood, the well known vehicle which took all the people about the common to the railway, and was as familiar as the common itself. It rattled along to the White House, making twice the noise that any other carriage ever made. Could they be going to a party? Lucy asked herself with alarm. But it was no party. There was just light enough left to show that luggage was brought out. Then came the glimmer of the lantern dangling at the finger end of the gardener—that lantern by which, on winter nights, Lucy herself had been so often lighted home. Then she perceived various figures about the door, and Mrs. Stone coming out with a whiteness about her head which betrayed the shawl thrown over her cap; evidently some one was going away. Who could be going away?
After awhile the fly lumbered off from the door, leaving that gleam of light behind, and some one looking out, looking after the person departing. Lucy’s heart beat ever quicker and quicker. As the fly approached the lamp-post that gave light to the Terrace, she saw that it was a portmanteau and other masculine belongings that were on the top, and to make assurance sure a man’s head glanced out and looked up at her window. Lucy sunk down into a chair and cried. It was her doing. She had driven St. Clair away, out into the hard world, with his heart-disease and his poverty—she who had been brought into being and made rich, for no other end than to help those who were poor!