AFTERNOON TALK.
The children, as they were called in the Terrace, came home just in time
for tea. Mr. Trevor had changed the course of his existence for some
time past. He who all his life had dined at two, and had tea at six, and
“a little something” in the shape of supper before he went to bed, had
entirely revolutionized his own existence by the troublesome invention
of “late dinner,” which Mrs. Ford thought was the suggestion of the Evil
One himself. His reason for it was the same as that of many other
changes which he had made at some cost to his own comfort, but he did
not explain to any one what this meant--at least, if he did explain it,
it was to Lucy, and Lucy was the most discreet of confidantes. When she
came in with her little brother the Fords were seating themselves at
the table in their parlor, on which were the tray and the tea-things,
and a large plate of substantial bread and butter. Here Jock took his
place with the old people, while Lucy went upstairs. She would have
liked the bread and butter, too, but her father liked her to spend this
hour with him, and he despised the modern invention of five o’clock tea,
understanding that meal only, as the Fords did, who made themselves
thoroughly comfortable, and had muffins sometimes, and a variety of
pleasing adjuncts. Mr. Trevor was still sitting between the fire and the
window when Lucy went upstairs. She had taken off her hat and out-door
jacket, and went in to her father a spruce little gray maiden, with hair
as smooth and everything about her as neat as if she had just come out
of a bandbox. In Mr. Trevor’s rank of life there is no personal virtue
in a woman that tells like neatness. He looked at her with eyes full of
fond satisfaction and pleasure. He had put away the “Times” from his
knees, and now had a book, having finished his paper, which lasted him
till about four o’clock, and then went down-stairs to Mr. Ford. The
books Mr. Trevor read were chiefly travels. He did not think novels were
improving to the mind; and as for history and solid information at his
age, what was the use of them? they could serve very little purpose in
his case: though Lucy ought to read everything that was instructive. He
put down his book open, on its face, on his knee when his daughter came
in. His eyes dwelt upon her with genuine pleasure and pride as she took
the chair in which Ford had been sitting. She had some knitting in her
hand, which she began to work at placidly without looking at it. Lucy
with her blue eyes, her fair smooth hair, and her equally smooth gray
dress without a crease in it, looked the very impersonation of good
order and calm. She looked at her father tranquilly with a pleasant
smile. She was no chattering girl with a necessity of talk upon her.
Even among the other girls at Mrs. Stone’s Lucy was never, as Mrs. Ford
said, “one to talk.” She waited for what should be said to her.
“Well,” said her father, rubbing his hands, “and where have you been,
Lucy, to-day?”
“Up into the High Street, papa.”
“I think you are fond of the High Street, Lucy?”
“I don’t know. The common is very wet, and Jock will run and jump. I
don’t like it in this weather. The High Street is dry and clean--at
least it is dry and clean in front of Ratcliffe’s shop.
“And there are all the pretty things in the windows.”
“I don’t look at the things in the windows--what is the good? You would
let me buy them all if I wanted them,” said Lucy, quietly.
“Every one!” said old Trevor, with a chuckle. “Every one! You might have
a new dress every day of the year, if you liked!”
Lucy smiled; she went on with her knitting. This delightful possibility
did not seem to affect her much--perhaps because it was a possibility.
“We met the little circus-boy on his pony,” she said. “Jock thinks so
much of him. Papa, you always let me have everything I want--might I
have a pony for Jock? It would make him so happy.”
“No,” said old Trevor, succinctly. “For yourself as many you like; but
that sort of thing is not for the child. No, nothing of that sort.”
“Why?” she said, with something which in Lucy was impatience and
vexation. It was too slight a ruffling of the calm surface to have told
at all in any one else.
“Because, my dear, Jock must not have anything that is above his own
rank in life. What should he do with a pony? He is not a gentleman’s son
to be bred up with foolish notions. It would be all the worse for him to
find out the difference afterward.”
“But he is my brother,” Lucy said, “and your son, papa. If he is not a
gentleman’s son neither am I-- How is he different from me? And do you
think I can make such a difference when--when I am grown up--”
“You mean when I am dead? Say it out. Isn’t that what I’m always
thinking of? The little boy, my dear,” said old Trevor, gravely, yet
with his familiar chuckle breaking in, “is a mistake. He didn’t ought to
have been at all, Lucy. Now he’s here, we can’t help it--we’ve got to
put up with it; and we must make the best of him. We can’t send him out
of the world because it was a mistake his coming into it; but he must
keep to his own rank in life.”
“But, papa, if you would think a little why should there be such a
difference? I so rich--and if he is to have nothing--”
“He will be as well off as he has any right to be,” said old Trevor.
“I’ve laid by a little. Don’t trouble yourself about Jock. What have you
been doing to-day? That is the thing of the greatest importance. I want
to know all my little lady is about.”
“We had our French lesson,” said Lucy, a little disturbed under her
smooth surface; but the disturbance was so little that her father never
found it out, “and--all the rest just as usual, papa.”
“And can you understand what mounsheer says? Can you talk to him? I used
to know a few words myself, but never to talk it,” said the old man. His
acuteness seemed to have deserted him, and turned into the most innocent
simplicity--a little glow came upon his face. He was almost childishly
excited on this point.
“A few words were enough for me--what did I want with French?--though
things are altered now; and it’s taught, I’m told, in every commercial
academy, and the classics neglected. That wasn’t the way in my time. If
a boy learned anything besides reading and writing it was Latin; and I
was considered very successful with my Latin.”
“That is another thing, papa,” said Lucy; “don’t you think Jock should
go to school?”
Old Trevor’s face extended slightly. “Have you nothing to say to me,
Lucy, but about Jock?”
“Oh, yes, a great deal,” said the girl. She did not lose a single change
in his face, though she kept on steadily with her knitting, and she saw
it was not safe to go further. She changed the subject at once.
“Monsieur says I get on very well,” she said; “but not so well as Katie
Russell. She is first in almost everything. She is so clever. You should
hear her chatter French--as fast! It is like the birds in the trees, as
pretty to listen to--and just as little sense that you can make out.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” said the old man, with a little impatience, “There is
no occasion for _you_ to learn like that, Lucy. She has to make her
living by it, that girl. I wonder now, you that are in so very different
a position, why it’s always this Russell girl you talk about, and never
any of the real ladies, the Honorable Miss Barringtons and Lady--what do
you call her?--and the better sort. It was for them I sent you to Mrs.
Stone’s school, Lucy,” he said, with a tone of reproach.
“Yes, papa. I like them very well--they are just like me. They do as
little work as they can, and get off everything they can. We had a
famous ride--but that was yesterday. I told you about it. Lily
Barrington’s horse ran away, or we thought it ran away; and mine set off
at such a pace! I was dreadfully frightened, but Lily liked it. She had
done it on purpose, fancy! and thinks there is nothing in the world so
delightful as a gallop.”
“And you call her Lily?” said Mr. Trevor, with a glow of pleasure;
“that’s right, my dear. That’s what I like to hear. Not that I want you
to neglect the others, Lucy; but you can always get a hold on the poor;
no fear of them; I want you to secure the great ones, too. I want you
to know all sorts. You ought to with your prospects. I was saying to
Ford to-day a girl with your prospects belongs to England. The country
has an interest in you, Lucy. You ought to know all sorts, rich and
poor. That is just what I have been settling,” he said, laying his hand
on the blotting-book now closed, in which his papers were.
Lucy gave him a little smile nodding her head. She was evidently quite
in the secret of the document there. But she did not stop her knitting,
nor was she so much interested in that future which he was settling for
her so carefully as to ask any questions. Her little nod, her smile
which had a kind of indulgence in it, as for the vagaries of a child,
her soft calm and indifference bore the strangest contrast to his
absorption in all that concerned her. Perhaps the girl did not realize
how entirely her future was being mapped out; perhaps she did not
realize that future at all. There was a touch of the gentlest youthful
contempt for that foolish wisdom of our fathers to which we are all
instinctively superior in our youth, in her perfect composure. It amused
him--though it was so odd that a man should be amused in such a way--and
it did not matter any further to her.
“Mrs. Stone sent her kind regards, papa, and she will gladly come over
and take a cup of tea any time you like.”
“Oh, she’ll come, will she? I want to tell her of something I’ve put in
the will,” said old Mr. Trevor.
This roused Lucy from her composure. She looked at him with a
half-startled glance.
“You will tell--her--of that paper?”
“Well, not much about it--only something that regards herself. You will
be much sought after when I am gone. All sorts of people will be after
you for your money; and I want to protect you, Lucy. It’s my business to
protect you. Besides, as I tell you, you’re too important to have just a
couple of guardians, like a little girl with ten thousand pounds. You
belong to the country, my dear. A fortune like yours,” said the old man,
now launched upon his favorite subject, “is a thing by itself; and I
want to protect you, my dear.”
This time Lucy, instead of the smile, breathed a little sigh. It was a
sigh of impatience, very momentary, very slight. This was the doctrine
in which she had been brought up, and she would as soon have thought of
throwing doubt upon the ten commandments as of denying that her own
position made her of almost national importance. She was aware of all
that; it was merely the reiteration of it which moved her to the
faintest amount of impatience; but this she very soon repressed.
“Is Mrs. Stone to protect me?” she said.
“She is to be one of them, my dear. You know I don’t wish to do anything
in secret, Lucy. I wish you to know all my arrangements. If you came to
think afterward that your father had taken you by surprise I--should not
like it; and now I have got as far as where you ought to live--listen,
Lucy,” said the old man. The big document in the writing-case was
evidently his one idea. His face brightened as he took it up and spread
out the large leaves. As for Lucy, she sighed again very softly. How the
will wearied her! But she was heroic, or stoical. She made no sort of
stand against it; and after that one soft little protest of nature, went
on with her knitting, and listened with great tranquillity. Her father
read the paragraphs that he had been consulting Ford about, one by one;
and Lucy listened as if he had been reading a newspaper. It awoke no
warmer interest in her mind. She had heard so much of it that it did not
affect her in any practical way; it seemed a harmless amusement for her
father, and nothing more.
“Do you think you shall like going to Lady Randolph, Lucy?”
“How can I tell, papa? I don’t know Lady Randolph,” Lucy said.
“No; but that’s high life, my dear; and here’s humble life, Lucy. I want
you to know both; and as for your marriage, you know--”
“You do not want me to marry,” said the sensible girl, “and I don’t
think I wish it either, papa. But if I ever did, it would not be nice to
have to go and ask all these people; and they never would agree. We
might be quite sure of that.”
“Then you think I have been hard upon you? Always speak to me quite
openly, Lucy. I don’t want to be hard upon you, my child--quite the
other way.”
“Oh, it does not matter at all,” said Lucy, cheerfully, plying her
knitting-needles. “I don’t think it is the least likely that I shall
ever want to marry. As you have always told me, I shall have plenty to
do, and there will be Jock,” she added, after a momentary pause.
“You have a great many prejudices about Jock,” her father said, testily:
“what difference can he make? He has not so very much to do with you,
and he will be in quite a different sphere.”
“Do you want me to have nobody belonging to me?” Lucy cried, with a
sudden vivacity not without indignation in it, then subdued herself as
suddenly. “It doesn’t at all matter,” she said.
“And you remember,” said her father almost humbly, “this is only till
you are five-and-twenty. It is not for all eternity; you will have
plenty of time to marry, or do whatever you please, after that.”
Lucy nodded and smiled once more. “I don’t think I shall want to marry,”
she said; but while she spoke she was making a quiet calculation of
quite a different character. “Jock is eight and I am seventeen,” she was
saying within herself, “how old will Jock be when I am twenty-five?” It
does not seem a difficult question; but she was not great in arithmetic,
and it took her a moment or two to make it out. When she had succeeded
her face brightened up. “Still young enough to be educated,” she added,
always within herself, and this quite restored her patience and her
cheerfulness.
“It will be very funny,” she said, “to see the rector and Mr. Williamson
consulting together. I wonder how they will begin; I am sure Mr.
Williamson will put on colored clothes to show how independent he is;
and the doctor--the doctor will smile and rub his hands.”
“You forget,” said old Trevor, with a slight sharpness of tone, though
he laughed, “that such things have been as that I should outlive the
doctor. He’s younger than I am, to be sure, but I would not have you to
calculate on my death before the doctor. It might be quite a different
rector. It might be a young man that would, perhaps, put in claims to
the heiress himself. But I’ll give you one piece of advice, Lucy,
beforehand. Never marry a parson. They’re always in the way. Other kinds
of men have their occupations; but a parson with a rich wife is always
lounging about. Your mother used to say so; and she was a very sensible
woman. She had an offer from one of the chapel ministers when she was
young; but she would have nothing to say to him. A man in slippers,
always indoors, was what she never could abide.”
“I don’t think the rector would be like that, papa,” said Lucy; “he
doesn’t look as if he ever wore slippers at all--”
“Well, perhaps, it is the other kind I am thinking of,” said Mr. Trevor,
who had not much acquaintance with the class which he called “church
parsons,” though his liberality of mind was such that he had brought up
Lucy partially, at least, as a church woman. His conduct, in this
respect, was much the same as it was in reference to the distinctions of
society. He wanted her to have her share in all--to be familiar alike
with poverty and riches, and, as a kind of moral consequence, with
church and chapel, too.
It was almost a disappointment to the old man that Lucy let the subject
drop, and showed no further interest in it. He was a great deal more
excited about her future life than she was. Lucy’s life was, indeed, to
her father at once his great object and his pet plaything. It was his
determination that it should be such a life as no one had ever lived
before; a perfection of beneficence, wisdom, well-doing, and general
superiority. He wanted to guard her against all perils, to hedge her
round from every enemy. Unfortunately, he knew very little of the world,
the dangers of which he was so intent on avoiding; but he was quite
unaware of his own ignorance. He foresaw the well-known danger of
fortune-hunters; but he did not perceive the impossibilities of the
arrangement by which he had, he flattered himself, so carefully and
cleverly guarded against them. In this respect Lucy had more insight
than her father, in her gentle indifference. Her life was not a matter
of theory to Lucy. It was not a thing at all to be molded and formed by
any one, it was to-day and to-morrow. She listened to, without being
affected by, all her father’s plans for her. They seemed a dream--a
story to her, the future to which they referred was quite unreal in her
eyes.
“We met Philip, papa,” she said, after a pause, with her usual
tranquillity. “He is always very nice to Jock. He put him upon his
shoulder to see the Punch. And he says he is coming to see you.”
“You met Philip,” said the old man, “and he is coming to see me? Well,
let him come, Lucy. He is a rising man, and a fine gentleman--too fine
for a homely old man like me. But we are not afraid of Philip. Let him
come; and let us hope he will find his match when he comes here.”
“You do not like Philip, papa? I think he is the only person you
are--not quite just to. What has he done? He is always very nice to
Jock, and--” Lucy added, hastily, in a tone of conciliation, “to me,
too.”
“Done?” said the old man, with a snarl in place of his usual chuckle.
“He has done nothing but what is virtuous. He has doubled the school,
and he sets up for being a gentleman. Don’t you know that I have the
highest opinion of Philip? I always say so--the best of young men; and
he calls me uncle, though he is only my wife’s distant cousin, which is
very condescending of him. Not to approve of Philip would be to show
myself a prejudiced old fool, and--” Mr. Trevor added, after a pause,
showing his old teeth in yellow ferocity, not unmixed with humor, “that
is exactly what I am.”
Lucy looked at him with her peaceful blue eyes. She shook her head in
mild disapproval. “He is very nice to Jock--and to me, too,” she
repeated, softly. But she made no further defense of her cousin. This
was all she said.