THE NEW LIFE.
Lady Randolph made haste to strike while the iron was hot. She _was_ a
clever woman, conscious enough (though, perhaps, no more than other
people) of her own interests, and with schemes in her mind (as everybody
had) of other interests to be served through the heiress, whom it had
been one of the successes of her later life to obtain the charge of;
but, having got this, she had no other intention than to treat Lucy
kindly, and to make her life, which would add so many comforts to Lady
Randolph’s, pleasant and happy to herself. The best way to do this was
to win the girl’s heart. Lady Randolph had not been seized with love at
first sight for her new charge; but she was rather prepossessed than
otherwise by Lucy’s appearance, and she was anxious to get hold of her
and secure her affections with as little delay as possible; and when she
informed Mrs. Ford, as she sipped the cup of tea which that excellent
woman prepared for her, that she was going to pass the night at the
Hall, and that to return to that scene of her happier life was always “a
trial” to her, she had already touched a chord of sympathy in Lucy’s
heart.
“What I should like,” Lady Randolph said, “would be that you should come
with me, my dear. It would be a great matter for me. The Hall belongs to
Sir Thomas now, my nephew, you know. He is very kind to me, and I look
upon him almost as a son, and his house is always open to me; but when
you remember that I was once mistress there, and spent a happy life in
it, and that now I am all alone, meeting ghosts in every room--”
Lucy’s heart came to her eyes. It was all true that Lady Randolph said,
but perhaps no such statement, made for the purpose of calling forth
sympathy, ever achieves its end without leaving a certain sense of
half-aroused shame in the mind of the successful schemer. Lady Randolph
was touched by the warmth of feeling in the girl’s eyes, and she was
half ashamed of herself for the conscious exaggeration which had called
it forth. Mrs. Ford was very sympathetic.
“I have never been so bad as that,” she said, “I have always had
company; I have never lost an ’usband, like you, my lady; but I feel for
your ladyship all the same.”
“And I shrink from going back,” said Lady Randolph, “and going all
alone. I think if Lucy could come with me, it would be a great thing for
me; and we should have time to make acquaintance with each other; and
Mrs. Ford, I am sure, would look after all the things, and bring them
and the little brother to meet us at the station to-morrow. Will you
begin our life together by being kind to me, Lucy?” she said, with a
smile.
There were difficulties, great difficulties, to be apprehended from
Jock; but Lucy could not refuse such an appeal; and this was how it
happened, that, to the great surprise of Farafield, she was seen in her
little crape bonnet and veil (much too old for her, Lady Randolph at
once decided) driving in the gray of the wintery afternoon, through the
chilly streets--the day her father was buried! there were some people
who thought it very unfeeling. When it was mentioned at dinner in the
big house in the market-place inhabited by the town clerk, Mrs. Rushton
was very much scandalized.
“The very day of the funeral!” she cried; “they might have let her keep
quiet one day; for I don’t blame the girl--how was she to know any
better? I always said it was a fatal thing for Lucy when that old fool
of a father chose a fashionable fine old lady for her guardian. Oh,
don’t speak to me, I have no patience with him. I think, from beginning
to end, them never was such a ridiculous will. If it had been me, I
should have taken it into court; I should have had it broke--”
“You might have found it difficult to do that. How would you have had it
broke, I should like to know?” her husband said.
“Ladies’ law,” said Mr. Chevril, who was very busy with his dinner, and
did not care to waste words.
“It is not my trade,” said Mrs. Rushton, “that’s your business. I can
tell you I should have done it had it been in my hands. But it’s not in
my hands; a woman never has a chance. You may talk of ladies’ law, but
this I know, that if we had the law to make it would not be so silly. A
woman would have known what was for the girl’s true advantage; we would
have said to old Mr. Trevor, Don’t be such an old fool. We should have
told him boldly, such and such a thing is not for your girl’s advantage.
Had any of you men the courage to do that? And the result is, Lucy is in
the hands of a fashionable lady who can’t live without excitement, and
takes her out to drive on the day of her father’s funeral. I never heard
anything like it, for my part.”
This indignation, however, was scarcely called for by the facts of the
case; and yet, the event was very important for Lucy. There was not much
excitement, from Mrs. Rushton’s point of view, in the afternoon drive
along the wintery roads to the Hall, which was nearly five miles out of
Farafield. The days were still short, and February afternoon was rainy
and gloomy, and the latter part of the way was between two lines of bare
and dusky hedge-rows, with here and there a spectral tree waving darkly
against the unseen sky; not a cheerful moment, nor was the landscape
cheerful; an expanse of damp and darkening fields, long lines of vague
road, no light anywhere, save the glimpses of reflection in wet ditches
or pools of muddy water. Lady Randolph shivered, wrapping herself close
in her furs; but for Lucy all was full of intense sensation and
consciousness, which might be called excitement, though its effect upon
her was to make her quieter and more outwardly serious than usual. From
the moment when she stepped into the carriage, Lucy felt herself in a
new world. The life she had been used to lead wanted no comforts, so far
as she was aware, but the rooms at the Terrace had possessed no charm,
and the best vehicle with which Lucy was acquainted was the shabby fly
of the neighborhood, which lived at the livery-stables round the corner,
and served all the inhabitants of the Terrace for all their expeditions.
Lucy felt the difference when she suddenly found herself in the soft
atmosphere of luxury which surrounded her for the first time in Lady
Randolph’s carriage, a little sphere by itself, a little moving world of
wealth and refinement, where the very air was different from the muggy
air of the commonplace world; and as they drove up the fine avenue, with
all its tall trees rustling and waving against the faint grayness of the
sky, and saw the great outline of the Hall dimly indicated by irregular
specks of light, Lucy felt as if she were in a dream, but a dream that
was more real than any waking certainty. She followed Lady Randolph into
the great hall and up the wide spacious staircase, with these mingled
sensations growing more and more strongly upon her. It was a dream: the
noiseless servants, the luxurious carpets in which her foot sunk, the
great pictures, the space and largeness everywhere, no single feature of
the place escaped her observation. It was a dream, yet it was more real
than all the circumstances of the past existence, which now had become
dreams and shadows, things which were over. She stepped not into a
strange house only, but into a new life, when she crossed the threshold.
This was the life her father had always told her of; he had told her it
would begin when he died, and had prepared her to take her place in it,
always holding before her an ideal sketch of the position which was to
be hers; and now it had come. The very fact that her entrance into this
new world was made on his funeral day gave to the new life that aspect
of springing out of the old which he had always impressed upon her. She
had lost no time, not a day, and transition was natural, in being so
sudden and so strange.
The Hall was a beautiful old house, stately in all its details, huge,
and ample, and lofty. To go into it was like walking into a picture.
There was a great mirror in the hall, which reflected her slim figure in
its new crape and blackness stepping dubiously forward, making her
think for a moment that it was some one else she saw, a girl with a pale
face, strange to everything, who did not know which way to turn. Lady
Randolph took her upstairs to a dim room, pervaded by ruddy firelight,
and with glimmering candles lighted here and there. “You shall have this
little room to-night, for it is near mine,” Lady Randolph said. Lucy
thought it was not a little but a large room, bigger than any bedroom in
the Terrace, and more comfortable than anything she had ever dreamed of.
The badly built draughty rooms in the Terrace were not half so warm as
this soft, silken-cushioned nook. Lucy lay down doubtfully on the sofa
as her new friend ordained, but her mind was far too active and her
imagination too hazy to permit her perfect rest. Lady Randolph’s maid, a
soft-voiced, noiseless person, came to her and brought her tea, opening
the little bag she had brought, and arranging everything she wanted, as
Lucy’s wants had never been provided for before. All this had a
bewildering, yet an awakening effect upon her. She lay for a little
while upon the sofa warm and still, and cried a little, which relieved
the incipient headache over her heavy eyes. Poor papa! he was gone as he
had always planned and intended, and had left her to begin this new
life, which he had drawn out and mapped before her feet. And how many
things he had left her to do, things which it overawed her to think of!
A flutter of anxiety woke in her heart, even now, as she wondered how
she should ever be capable of doing them by herself without guidance, so
ignorant as she was and inexperienced. But yet she would do them. She
would obey everything, she would follow all his instructions, Lucy vowed
to herself with a thrill of resolution, and a dropping of tears, which
relieved and at the same time exhausted her. But the exhaustion was a
land of refreshment. And after awhile Lady Randolph came back, after
Lucy had bathed her eyes and smoothed back her fair hair, and took her
down-stairs.
“I am glad Tom is away,” Lady Randolph said, “we will have it all to
ourselves. To-morrow I will show you the house, and to-night we shall
have a little quiet chat, and make friends.”
She gave Lucy’s hand a little pressure with her arm, and led her out of
one softly lighted room into another, from the drawing-room, to the
dining-room, where they sat down, in the midst of the surrounding
dimness, at a shining table, all white and bright, with flowers upon it,
unknown at this season in the Terrace. Lucy felt a thrill of awe when
the family butler, most respectable of functionaries, put her chair
close to the table as she sat down. Once more she caught a glimpse of
herself in a mirror which reflected her from head to foot, and wondered
who it could be sitting there gazing at her with that little pale
familiar face.
After the meal was over they went back to a little inner drawing-room,
to reach which they had to go through a whole suite of half-lighted,
luxurious rooms, all softly warm with firelight. “This used to be my
favorite room,” Lady Randolph said, sighing as she looked round. It was
called the little drawing-room, and Lady Randolph spoke of it as a
little nook; but it was bigger than the drawing-room at the Terrace.
Here the girl was set down in a comfortable chair by the fire, and
listened while Lady Randolph told of her former life here, and all she
had done. “Tom is very kind,” she said; “but how can I come here without
meeting ghosts, the ghosts of all my happy days?”
Lucy listened with that devout attention which only youth so innocent
and natural as hers can give to the recollections of one who has “gone
through” these scenes of actual life which are all mystery and wonder to
itself. Lucy had no ghosts in her memory; her father was not far enough
off from her, nor was her sense of loss so strong as to make her feel
that the world was henceforward peopled with sad recollection; but there
was enough enlightenment in the touch of natural grief to make her
understand. She was glad to be allowed to listen quietly--to feel the
ache in her heart softened and subdued, and the lull of great exhaustion
falling over her. That ache of natural, not excessive sorrow, is almost
an additional luxury in such a case. It justifies the languor, and gives
an ennobling reason for it. And in a mind so young the very existence of
sorrow, the first touches of experience, the sense of really
experiencing in its own person those emotions which it has heard of all
its life, which are the inspiration of all tragedies, and the theme of
all stories, carry with them an exquisite consciousness, which is near
enjoyment, though it is pain. Lucy was perhaps in her own constitution
too simply matter-of-fact to feel all this, yet she did feel it vaguely.
She was no longer a school-girl, insignificant and happy, but a pale
young woman in deep mourning who had taken a first step into the
experiences of life. She leaned back in her chair with that ache in her
heart which she was almost proud of, yet with a sense of luxurious
well-being round her, warmth, softness, kindness, and her hand in Lady
Randolph’s hand. Her shyness had melted away under the kind looks of her
new friend; Lucy was too composed to be very shy by nature, but even the
silence was not embarrassing to her, which is the greatest test of all.
It was easy after that to go on to talk of herself a little. Lady
Randolph had become honestly interested in her young companion; Lucy was
in every way so much better than she had expected. Even the hand which
she had taken into her own was, now she had time to think of it, an
agreeable surprise. Lucy’s hand was small and soft, and as prettily
shaped as if she had been born a princess. These indications of race,
which are so infallible in romance, do not always hold in actual life.
The old school-master’s daughter had no beauty to speak of; but her hand
was as delicate as if the bluest blood in the world ran in her veins.
Lady Randolph felt that Providence had been very good to her in this
respect, for, indeed, she could not but feel that a large red coarse
hand was what might have been expected in the little _parvenue_. But
Lucy was not coarse in any particular; she would never come to the pitch
of refinement which that princess reached who felt a pea through fifteen
mattresses; but her quiet straightforwardness could never be vulgar.
This certainty relieved her future chaperon from her worst fears.
“My house is not like this,” Lady Randolph said; “London houses are
small; but I try to make it comfortable. I have partly arranged your
rooms for you; but I have left you all the finishing touches. It will
amuse you to settle your pretty things about you yourself.”
“I have not any pretty things,” said Lucy; “I have nothing but--” Jock,
she was going to say; but she was not sure of the prudence of the
speech, seeing Jock was her grand difficulty in life.
“Never mind,” said Lady Randolph, “nothing can be easier than to get
them; and you must have a maid--unless indeed there is one that you
would like to bring with you. I should prefer a new one, a stranger who
would not make any comparisons, who would easily fall into the ways of
my house.”
“I have no one,” said Lucy, eagerly; “I have never been accustomed to
anything of the kind. I never had a maid in my life.”
“Well, my dear, it has not been a very long life. We must find you a
nice maid. Of course you will not go out this year; but there will be
plenty of things to interest you. Are you very fond of music? or
anything else? You must tell me what you like best.”
“I can play--a little, Lady Randolph, not anything to speak of,” said
Lucy, with the instinct of a school-girl. She did not even think of
music in any higher sense.
“Then that is not your _spécialité_; have you a _spécialité_, Lucy?
Perhaps it is art?”
“I can draw--a very little, Lady Randolph.”
Lucy’s questioner laughed. “Then I am in hopes,” she said, “great
hopes, that you are a real, honest, natural, ignorant girl, like what we
used to be. Don’t say you are scientific, Lucy; I could not understand
that.”
“I am very sorry,” said Lucy, with confusion; “Mrs. Stone gave me every
advantage, but I never was quick at learning. I am not even a great
reader, Lady Randolph; I don’t know what you will think of me.”
“If that is all, Lucy, I think I can put up even with that.”
“But Jock is!” cried Lucy, seizing the opportunity with sudden temerity.
“You would not believe what he has read--every kind of history and
poetry, though he is so little. And he has never had any advantages.
Papa always thought me the most important, because of my money; but
now,” said Lucy, with a little excitement, “now! It is the only thing in
which I will ever go against him-- I told him so always; so I hope it is
not wicked to do it now; what I want most is to make something of Jock.”
Now Lady Randolph was not interested in Jock. Her warmth of sympathy was
a little chilled by this outburst, and the chill reacted upon her
companion. “We shall have plenty of time to talk of this,” Lady Randolph
said; “it is getting late; and you have had a very exhausting day. I
think the first thing to be done is to have a good night’s rest.”
Next day there was a great gathering at Farafield station, when the
carriage from the Hall drove up with Lady Randolph and her charge. The
Fords had arrived, bringing Jock, a pallid little figure all black, in
unimaginable depths of mourning, and with a most anxious little
countenance; for Jock had spent a miserable night--not crying, as is the
case generally with children, but framing a hundred terrors in his
imagination, and half believing that Lucy had been spirited away, and
would come back for him no more. The convulsive clutch which he made at
her hand, and the sudden relaxation of all the lines of his eager little
face as he recovered his sheet-anchor, his sole support and companion,
went to Lucy’s heart. She was almost as glad to see him. It was natural
to feel him hanging upon her, trotting in her very footsteps, not
letting her go for a moment. Philip Rainy was also there to bid his
cousin good-bye; and in the sight of everybody he took her by the arm
and led her apart, and had a few minutes’ earnest conversation with
Lucy. This talk was almost exclusively about Jock, but it was looked
upon with great surprise and jealousy by several pairs of eyes. For Mrs.
Stone had also come to the station to bid her pupil farewell, and she
was accompanied by her nephew, Mr. St. Clair, who stood looking his
handsomest, and holding his head high over the group in the pleasant
consciousness of being much the tallest and most imposing personage
among them. There was also a group of school-girls, under the charge of
mademoiselle, all ready to bestow kisses and good-wishes, and a few easy
tears upon Lucy. And Mr. Rushton had come to see his ward off, with his
wife and their son Raymond in attendance. All the elder people looked on
Philip Rainy with suspicion; but all the more did he hold Lucy by the
sleeve, talking to her, and keeping the rest of her friends waiting.
When she did get to the carriage at last it was through a tumult of
leave-takings, which made the very guards and porters tearful. Mrs. Ford
stood crying, saying, “God bless you!” at intervals; and Mrs. Stone
folded her pupil in a close embrace. “Remember, Lucy, that you are
coming back in six months, according to your good father’s will; and I
hope you will not have forgotten your old friends,” she said, with a
mixture of affection and authority. Mr. St. Clair stood with his hat
off, smiling and bowing. “May I say good-bye, too? And good luck!” he
said, enveloping Lucy’s black glove in his large soft white hand. He was
the tallest and the biggest there, and that always makes an impression
upon a girl’s imagination. Then the Rushtons came forward and took her
into their group. “I felt that I must come to give you my very best
wishes,” Mrs. Rushton said; “and here is Raymond, your old playfellow,
who hopes you remember him, Lucy. He only came home last night, but he
would come to see you off.” Then the girls all rushed at their comrade,
whom they all envied, though some of them were sorry for her. “You will
be sure to write,” they cried, with one voice and a succession of hugs.
“And, oh, Lucy!” cried Katie Russell, “please go and see mamma!” It was
with difficulty that she was helped into the carriage after all these
encounters, a little disheveled; smiling and crying, and with Jock all
hidden and wound up in her skirts. But the person who extricated her and
put her into the carriage was Philip, who held steadily to his superior
rights. He was the last to touch her hand, and he said, “Remember!” as
the train began to move, as solemnly as did the solemn king on the
scaffold. This cost Philip more than one dinner-party, and may almost be
said to have damaged his prospects at Farafield. “Did you ever see such
presumption,” Mrs. Rushton said, “pushing in before you, her guardian?”
And he was not asked to the Rushtons for a long time after, not till
they were in absolute despair for a stray man to fill a corner. It was
like the dispersion of a congregation from some special service to see
all the people streaming away. And Lucy was the subject of a hundred
fears and doubts. They shook their heads over her, all but the
school-girls, who thought it would be too delightful to be Lucy. It was
thus that Lucy set out upon the world.