GOING HOME.
And now the period of Lucy’s first experiment in life was over. From all
the delicacies with which Lady Randolph’s care had surrounded her, and
from the atmosphere of refinement to which she had grown accustomed, it
was now the moment to descend and go back to the homely house which Jock
and she instinctively still called “home.” He had come in from Hampstead
a day or two before, and lived with Lucy in her little sitting-room,
while all the packing went on. The limit of the six months had been
relaxed a little, to suit Lady Randolph’s convenience, who considered
(as did her doctor) that after the fatigues of the season Homburg was a
necessity for her. On ordinary occasions Lady Randolph spent a month at
the Hall before she went to Homburg: but she had not thought it prudent
this year to take Lucy there, so they had stayed in town till the parks
were like brown paper, and the shutters were up in all the houses. This
was a thing that had not happened to Lady Randolph for a long time, and
she felt that she was something of a martyr, and that it was for Lucy’s
sake. However, at last the long days came to an end. Parliament, rose,
and everybody, to the last lingering official, went out of town. Sir
Thomas, who had been at various places in the interval, and whose
absence had been a real affliction to Lucy, came back again for a day or
two before the final break-up. He was not going to Homburg, he was going
to Scotland, and it had been arranged that he should act as escort to
Lucy on her journey, as Farafield and his own house were on his way to
the North. Lady Randolph was not quite sure that she liked this
arrangement; the “whole thing,” she said to herself, “had gone too far.”
Tom was not prudent; to show his hand to the rest of the guardians at
once, and put them all on their guard, was foolish; and as for waiting
seven years! Lucy might do it; Lucy, who, her maternal guardian thought,
already showed all the signs of being in love; but Tom! he would have a
dozen other serious devotions before that. Sir Tom was fond of platonic
relationships--he did not want to marry, not being able, indeed, to
afford that luxury, yet he liked the gentle excitement of a sentimental
friendship. He liked even to feel himself just going over the edge into
love, yet keeping himself from going over. He had kept himself from
going over so many times, that he knew exactly what twigs to snatch at,
and what eddies to take advantage of; therefore it is not to be supposed
that there could be much danger to him from a simple girl. But certainly
he had gone further than was at all expedient, Lady Randolph’s very
anxiety that this time he should be brought to reason, should not catch
at any twig, but allow himself to be really carried by the current to
the legitimate end, made her unwilling to see matters hurried. Lucy
would make him a very nice little wife, and, if he married, his aunt
knew that he was far too good a fellow not to be a kind husband; but
that Lucy’s simple attractions (even including her fortune, which was a
charm that would never fail) could hold him for seven years, was not a
thing to be hoped for. She spoke to Sir Tom very strongly on the subject
the evening before they separated. Lucy and little Jock--who always was
a troublesome inmate to Lady Randolph because of his very quietness, the
trance of reading, in which she never could be sure that he was not
listening--had gone upstairs early. London was very warm and dusty in
these August days; the windows were open, but the air that came in was
not of a very satisfactory description. Most of the houses were shut up
round about, and in the comparative quiet sounds from the Mews behind
were frequently audible. In short, there was about the district the
uncomfortable feeling that the appropriate inhabitants had gone, and
only a swarm of underground creatures were left, to come forth blinking
from their coverts. In-doors the furniture had all been put into
pinafores, the pretty nothings on the tables had been laid away, the
china locked up in cabinets. Lady Randolph was starting by the morning
mail-train.
“You know, Tom,” she said, “I am not at all sure that it is wise for you
to go down with Lucy to-morrow.”
“Why, aunt? You know it is on my way,” he said, with a twinkle in his
eye.
“Oh, stuff about it being on your way. You know it would not be on your
way at all unless you liked to go.”
“Well!” Sir Thomas said, “and after--” he never indulged in the
vulgarity of French; but he was given to literal translations, which is
more aggravating, and neither one thing nor another, as Lady Randolph
said.
“Well, it is just this: most of the guardians live in Farafield, and
they will be immediately put on their guard if they see you much with
her. There are the Rushtons, the lawyer people, and _that_ Mrs. Stone,
who keeps a school. They will both be in arms against you instantly.
That father of Lucy’s was an old-- I don’t want to be unkind to anybody
that is dead and gone, but--
“Most likely he thought it would be better for her not to marry,” said
Sir Thomas, tranquilly.
“What folly! well, it would be just like him. I don’t think the will
would stand if it were ever brought in to a court of law. There were the
maddest provisos! However, unless it can be broken we must hold by it;
and, Tom, you must let me say it, you ought to go more cautiously to
work.”
“Is it worth the trouble?” he said, indifferently. “My dear aunt, before
a man takes the pains to work cautiously he must have set his heart on
the prize with some fervor.”
“And haven’t you done so, Tom? Why, I thought you were going too
far--and too fast. I did not see any doubt, or want of warmth, I assure
you. Fervor! well, perhaps fervor is a strong word; that means
difficulty to get over, and resistance, and a struggle perhaps. Poor
little Lucy! I don’t think there will be much resistance on her part.”
“I am not at all so sure of that,” he said.
“Why, Tom! Poor child! we can’t blame her. She is only seventeen; and
you have a way-- Ah, my boy, it is not want of experience that will balk
you. You have a way of speaking, and a way of looking. And Lucy is as
simple as a little dove, there is no concealment about her. She thinks
there is nobody like you.”
“Well, perhaps you are right. She thinks there is nobody like me,” said
Sir Tom, with something of that softening of vanity which makes a man’s
countenance imbecile when he thinks he is admired: “but,” he added, with
a little laugh, “Lucy is no more in love with me than-- I am with you.
Like her, I think there is nobody like you--”
“Oh, Tom-- Tom, you are a deceiver! My dear, that is nonsense. There is
no tie between her and you. The very first night I saw it. Fancy her
sitting up to chatter to you--and chattering, she who is so quiet! Why,
she is a great deal more open, more at her ease with you than with me.”
“All so many things against me,” he said; “she is not in love with me,
as I tell you, any more than I am with you.”
Lady Randolph was struck with great surprise, and so many things poured
into her mind to be said that she was silent, and did not say anything,
looking at him with confused impatience, and able to bring out nothing
save a “but--but,” of bewilderment. At last she enunciated with
difficulty and hesitation, “If this is true, which I can’t believe, do
you mind, Tom?”
“Not much,” he said, then laughed, and looked her in the face. “You do
not understand me, aunt. I think it quite likely that if it were put
before her as a suitable arrangement, Lucy might make up her mind to
marry me. She is beginning to get perplexed in her life. She has been on
the point of confiding in me two or three times.”
“What?” said Lady Randolph, in great excitement. She could not think of
anything but love about which a girl could be confidential, and Bertie
Russell, like a Jack-in-the-box, suddenly jumped up in her anxious
brain. But Sir Thomas shook his head.
“That is exactly what I can not tell you,” he said. “I thought it might
be some entanglement with that young fellow of the book; but it is not
that. It is quite possible she might marry me--”
“Well, but, Tom, why should you be so very particular? Think what it
would be for the estate. You might pay off everything, and regain the
first position in the county. You ought to have the first position in
the county. What is Lord Langton in comparison with the Randolphs? A
nobody; and all this that girl could do. Only think what her fortune
could do. I am not mercenary-- I don’t think I am mercenary--but when you
just realize it. Oh, how often I have said to myself, your uncle had no
right to marry me. He ought to have married somebody with money. And now
if you can set it right, why, oh, why, should you have any absurd
scruples? Of course, Lucy would be very glad; and she would make you a
good little wife. She is not impassioned--she never will be out of her
wits about any one; if that is what you want, Tom.”
“No, I don’t think that is what I want,” he said; “but in the meantime
we need not quarrel about it; for you know there are the guardians to be
taken into consideration, and it would be foolish to show one’s hand.
And then there is plenty of time. One ought to go cautiously to work.”
He laughed as he quoted all her own little speeches to her. But for her
part Lady Randolph could have cried--how difficult it is to be patient
when you are anxious! She had been alarmed by what she thought a too
hasty progress; now she was cast down to the depths of trouble by this
sudden suggestion that no progress at all had been made. She did not
know what to do. It was no use speaking to Tom, so self-willed was
he--always taking his own way. She had no patience with him. _Of course_
Lucy liked him--how could she help it? And to think that he would run
the risk of losing all that for the merest fantastic nonsense! Oh, she
had no patience with him! But when he only laughed and made a joke of it
all what was the use of saying anything? Poor Lady Randolph! She could
not let things take their own way. She was unhappy not to be able to
guide them, and yet she knew that she could not guide them. Either they
would go on too quickly or they would not go on at all.
The effect of this conversation was, that she started in a much less
cheerful and hopeful state of mind for that yearly renovation at
Homburg. She tried to make a parting effort for Sir Tom, when she said
good-bye to Lucy, who was to leave by a later train. “If Tom stays at
the Hall, and there is anything you want advice about, never hesitate to
apply to him, my love,” she said; “you may have every confidence in him,
as much confidence as in myself.”
“Oh, yes, Lady Randolph,” said Lucy, with the warmest sincerity. “I
should ask him anything--he has always been so kind to me.”
“It is more than kindness--he has a real interest in you, Lucy; and you
need never fear to trust Tom. He has a heart of gold, and he is the
truest friend in the world,” Lady Randolph said. She kissed her charge
with fervor. Could she say more? When she turned round who should be
watching her but Tom himself, with that twinkle in his eye. The poor
lady felt as if she had been detected. She made her exit quite
crestfallen, while Sir Thomas paused to tell Lucy he would come back
for her half an hour before the train started. “It is not everybody that
would make himself a railway porter for your service, is it, Miss Lucy?”
he said, laughing. “Depend upon it, however specious other people may
look, it is ‘Codlin’s the friend.’” He went out after his aunt, still
laughing; but as for Lucy, she looked after him somewhat bewildered. Her
reading was not her strong point, and she could not think what “Codlin”
had to do with it, or who that personage was.
But what a different Lucy it was that took possession of a special
carriage reserved for her own party, to Farafield, with her maid and
mountain of luggage, from the humble little Lucy, with two black frocks,
who had come to town with Lady Randolph in February. Her groom, with her
horses and Jock’s pony, had gone the night before. Jock himself,
embracing a big book, was the thing of all her surroundings that was the
least changed. Lucy’s mind, indeed, was not altered, as were her outward
circumstances, but it had expanded and widened, so that she became a
little giddy as the journey approached its close, half pleased, half
alarmed to think of the old life, the familiar streets, the old white
parlor with its blue curtains, and the view from the window across the
common to Mrs. Stone’s school. Sir Thomas, who had traveled with her
part of the way, now departing to the smoking-carriage, now coming to
inquire into her comfort and the progress she was making in the novel
with which he had thoughtfully provided her, joined the party at the
last important station.
“You have scarcely read twenty pages,” he said, reproachfully, “after
all my care in choosing you a pretty book. You have read five times as
much, Jock.”
Jock looked up on being addressed. Though he was many fathoms deep below
the surface, he always heard when he was spoken to, and often when he
was not spoken to. He was lying across the arm of one seat, with his
book lying on the cushions of another, in a dark blue valley below him.
He gave a sidelong look of disdain to his questioner.
“Do you count your pages?” said Jock, with contemptuous satire. “I can
tell by what the reading is.”
“Hush, Jock! I was not reading at all,” Lucy said, “but thinking.”
“And what might the thinking be? regretting town, or welcoming the
country? We’ll give her, Jock, two pennies for her thoughts.”
“You know,” said Lucy, “it is not either town or country I was thinking
of. I was thinking of Lady Randolph’s, and all that was new to me there;
and of some things I have had to do, and how I have lived so different
from everything before, and now coming back--home. It always was home, I
can’t call it anything else; but it will be different again. There is no
more papa. That does not make me unhappy,” said Lucy, the tears coming
into her eyes, “for it was what he always trained me to expect; but it
will be dreary to go into the house and to find that he is not there,
sitting by the fire--with the will.”
“The will?” Sir Thomas had no fear to be thought inquisitive, his face
was full of kindly interest and sympathy.
“Did I never tell you? that was all his thought. It was his amusement,
as long--well, as long as Jock could remember. Don’t you recollect,
Jock, how he would sit and write a little bit, and rub his hands, and
read it to me when I came in? That is how I know so well all he wished
me to do. He would put down his newspaper when something occurred to
him, and write it down. It pleased him more than anything. Don’t you
think it is a great pleasure, when any one is gone, to know exactly what
they wished you to do?”
“It is a great bondage sometimes,” Sir Thomas said.
“I don’t think I shall feel it a bondage. But somehow going back is
almost stranger than going away. The rooms at the Terrace will look
small; and it will not be prettily furnished; and I shall not have Lady
Randolph to talk to, nor the carriage, nor the visitors--”
“These things are easily got, even the visitors. As for Lady Randolph,
perhaps you can put up with me instead. I am very fond of being talked
to, and you know she recommended me as her substitute.”
“That is very true,” said Lucy, with her usual calm; “but then you are
going to Scotland to shoot. You are only here on your way.”
“There is no saying, if you consult me a great deal, and give me a great
many interesting subjects to think about how long I may linger on my
way.”
“Oh, as for that!” said Lucy, “there is one thing--very interesting; but
then I am not sure if I should tell it to any one, though it would be a
great, a very great comfort. I tried to tell Lady Randolph once, and ask
her--and I have wanted so much to tell you--to ask you--”
“Well, I am a sort of an uncle, you know; that was the relationship we
decided upon,” Sir Thomas said.
Lucy did not say anything. She laughed, looking at him with a very
winning confidence and trust in her eyes. They were quite unabashed in
their modest gaze, conscious of no timidity, but there was a gentle
affection in them which touched him. However, they were now drawing very
near Farafield, and even her composed heart began to beat. She called
Jock, very reluctant to be roused from his book, to look at the
church-tower, the spire of the town hall, the big roofs of the market.
“I don’t want to see them,” Jock said; all he wanted was his story.
Perhaps it was _her_ story that made Lucy so animated, one not yet
written in any book.
Sir Thomas had intended to take Lucy home, to see her in her old-new
habitation, and make himself acquainted with her surroundings; and to
this end he had telegraphed to his servants to send a carriage to meet
the train. But Sir Thomas had formed no idea in his mind of the real
aspect of the other side of Lucy’s life; and it had not occurred to him
that the people with whom she was going to stay had a right to guide
her, equal to that which his aunt exercised. It was a shock to him to
see that respectable couple who stood on the very edge of the station
waiting for the train, and moved along by its side, panting yet beaming,
as it gradually came to a standstill. “Welcome back, my darlings!
welcome home, Lucy and Jock!” the woman said. She had not the least
pretension to the title of lady. She was enveloped in a large shawl,
though it was summer, and she was red and hot. She seized Lucy in her
arms, pushing him away as he helped the girl out of the carriage. “Oh,
my pet! we have been counting the days, Ford and I; and a’n’t you
thankful to get home after being banished among strangers?” Sir Thomas
was confounded. He had thought Lucy was to be pitied for the fantastic
arrangement which transferred her from his aunt’s house to the care of
the old servants, or poor relations, where her position and surroundings
would be so different; but the suggestion that she had been banished
among strangers took him altogether by surprise. He had been about to
take Lucy to the carriage which was waiting; but in a moment she was
separated from him, surrounded by these strange people, and drawn in the
midst of them toward a fly which was standing near. It was a curious
lesson for Sir Tom. He stood aside and looked on while she was taken out
of his hands and deposited in the shabbier vehicle, with a sense of the
ludicrous which struggled with a less agreeable feeling. There was
another group on the platform to whom Lucy’s arrival was very
interesting. This was the Rushton family, the lawyer himself, with his
wife on his arm, and a tall youth, clad in a light summer suit, with
his hands in his pockets, who lounged up and down the railway station
after his parents, looking very much out of place, and somewhat ashamed
of himself. Mrs. Rushton dashed boldly in, into the midst of the
salutations of the Fords. “I must say a word to Lucy,” she cried. “We
have just come in for a moment to welcome you home. Here, is your
guardian, Lucy, and Raymond, your old playfellow.” It was all that Sir
Tom could do not to laugh out. But the laugh was not pleasurable. He
thought that anything more artless than this presentation of the old
playfellow at the very earliest moment could not be; but yet what was he
himself doing, and what were his inducements to give so much time and
attention to this little girl? It was like a scene in the theater, but
so much more dramatic than scenes in the theater often are. Lucy, in the
midst, so eagerly secured by Mrs. Ford, so effusively embraced by the
other lady, the leader of the opposition forces; while old Ford stood
jealously on one side, and Mr. Rushton, with his hand held out, looked
genial and affectionate on the other. The Fords were gloomy,
concentrating their whole attention on the opposing band, whereas the
Rushtons, who were the assailants, were directing all their smiles and
caresses to Lucy, ignoring her relations. “Ray-- Ray-- I know you are
dying to shake hands with Lucy--come quick and say, how d’ye do. There
is no time for any more just now; but I felt I must come just to give
you a kiss, and bid you welcome,” said Mrs. Rushton. The lawyer for his
part, shook a finger at her. “Fine stories Chervil has had to tell about
you, my young lady,” he said.
“Lucy,” cried Mrs. Ford in sharp tones, “the fly is waiting, and I am
ready to drop. Whoever wishes to see you can come and see you at the
Terrace.”
As for Lucy herself, she was so anxious to be civil to everybody, and so
unaccustomed to the conflict that had thus suddenly sprung up around
her, that she could not tell what to do. She looked round wistfully
toward Sir Tom, who, for his part, stood quite outside the immediate
circle round her, smiling to himself with that quick perception of the
“fun” of the situation, which was, Lucy thought with vexation, the chief
thing he thought of. She felt wounded that he should laugh at her; but
then he was always laughing. Little Jock, on the other side, was a
spectator too; but a scene has a very different aspect according as you
look upon it from above or from below. Jock was low down among the feet
of all these people. Mrs. Rushton nearly brushed him away with her ample
gown; Ray all but knocked him down as he came forward sheepishly to
shake hands with Lucy. There was something savage in the energy with
which little Jock clutched at his sister’s dress. “I say, can’t they let
us alone? I want to get home-- I want to get home,” cried the little
fellow. Nobody took the slightest notice of little Jock. Sir Tom, in the
distance, laughed more and more in his mustache, but ruefully. He came
forward at last and lifted Jock out from among the other people’s legs.
“Come and stand here with me, old fellow; you and I are left out in the
cold,” said Sir Tom. The tall man and the tiny boy stood out of the
crowd and watched while Lucy was hustled into the fly, Sir Tom laughing,
Jock alarmed and gloomy. “She’s going away without _me_,” Jock said with
a _naïf_ consternation. Sir Thomas laughed. “Your day and mine is over,
old man,” he said.
But Jock at least was not to be forgotten. “Jock, Jock! where are you?”
Lucy cried, anxiously looking out. The child pulled his hand out of Sir
Tom’s and rushed away; then the whole party were packed inside the fly,
Ford with his knees up to his chin bolt upright, Mrs. Ford sunk back
into a corner, loosening her bonnet-strings, and “worrited” beyond all
description, while Mrs. Rushton stood kissing her hand on the platform.
“If you please, Sir Thomas, what am I to do?” said a troubled voice as
he looked after them. Then Sir Tom laughed out. It was Lucy’s maid, who
had been left behind with a number of small matters. He put her into the
carriage with secret glee, and sent her off after her mistress. Old
Trevor himself could not have made a more grotesque contrast between the
old life and the new; how the old man would have chuckled had he seen
it! the great heiress shut up in the close fly--the somewhat frightened
maid ensconced in the luxurious corner of the open carriage glittering
along with a pair of fine horses, and all the prance and dance with
which the coachman of a county family thinks it right to maintain the
credit of his house in a country town--following the dustiest and
stuffiest of flies. This was carrying out his principles on their
broadest basis. Sir Thomas chuckled too; it was a piece of malice after
his own heart. “If that’s so, let’s show fight,” he said to himself.