THE TERRACE.
Four persons in a fly on a hot August day, one of them large, and warm,
and “worrited,” another very tall, with knees up to his chin, do not
make a very agreeable party. Lucy, unaccustomed to traveling, had the
whirl of the railway still in her head, and its dust oppressing her
lungs and spirits; and she had the sensation of rush, and hurry, and
crowding, which was peculiarly disagreeable to her orderly mind, and the
uncomfortable consciousness of having abandoned her kind companion
without a word. Indeed she seemed suddenly to have ceased to be a free
agent. She had lost her independence, and even her personality, and had
been carried off like a bale of goods, like a boy long-lost and suddenly
found again, but no way consulted as to what was to be done with it. Was
it this, or was it the mere vulgarity and discomfort of her
surroundings, that made her heart sick? The fly had been the only
vehicle she had known until six months ago, and the Fords her constant
companions, and friendly notice from Mrs. Rushton, a thing highly prized
and thought of. And she had only been six months away! But as Lucy drove
in at the gloomy gateway of the little inclosure, which separated the
Terrace from the road, and saw the well-known door open, and looked up
wistfully at the well-known windows, there was no revulsion of happier
feeling. “Here we are at home, Jock,” she said faintly, trying to feel
as happy as she ought to do. “Is it?” said Jock indifferently. His
little face was blank too; they had both fallen out of the clouds, down
from the heights, and the contact with mother earth was hard. Lucy felt
ashamed of herself that this should be, but she could not help it. It
was all so different. Was it possible that the “Aunty Ford” of old was
like this? Mrs. Ford was still wearing her mourning. She had crape
flowers upon her bonnet, awful counterfeits of nature, corn flowers with
stamens of prickly jet. Her shawl was huddled up about her neck, she had
taken off her black gloves, as it was so warm, and her face was of a
fine crimson. As for Ford, on the contrary, he was neatness itself. He
wore a little checked tie very stiffly starched, and his waistcoat, and
the thin legs which were so prominent, were of checked black and white
in a large pattern. Mourning is not so necessary for a man as for a
woman. Mrs. Ford’s crape flowers, with which her bonnet bristled, were
intended for the highest respect. Lucy’s depressed sensations were
enlivened by a wondering doubt whether she could prevail upon the good
woman to abandon these unearthly flowers. Mrs. Ford was talking all the
way. “Did you see those Rushtons,” she said, “making a dead set at Lucy
the very first moment? one would have thought they would have had more
pride, and that Raymond, that son of theirs! as if Lucy, with the best
in London at her feet, would look twice at a Raymond? Oh, yes, you’ll
see, they’ll be all down upon you like locusts, Lucy; not a young man
in the town that won’t be thrown at your head. It is your money they’re
after--only your money. What is that carriage following behind us? It is
coming here, I declare; it’s somebody that has got scent of you
already--that’s what it is to be an heiress; but it can’t be so bad as
what you’ve gone through in London.”
“It is only Elizabeth,” said Lucy; “Oh, how like Sir Tom! he has put her
in the carriage; Elizabeth--that is my maid. Would you rather I had not
brought a maid, Aunt Ford?”
“A maid-- I never see the use of them. You could have had Jane to help
you when you wanted any extra dressing,” said Mrs. Ford, with gloom on
her countenance. “What did I tell you, Ford? I said Lady Randolph would
be sending some spy to keep a watch upon us. Do you call that a maid?
sitting up as grand as possible in the carriage, as if she were the lady
and you the servant. It’s like Sir Tom, is it? I don’t doubt but it’s
like Sir Tom, _he’s_ well enough known about here. He’s not one you
should ever have spoken to, or sat down in the same room with him, if my
consent had been asked. Many’s the story I could tell about Sir Tom, as
you call him; oh, I don’t doubt it’s quite like him! and many a one he
has ruined with his smiling ways.”
Jock had not been able so much as to open his book while he rattled
along the Farafield streets in the fly, but he had not paid much
attention to what was going on; now, however, moved by the practical
necessity of getting out of the carriage, he awoke to what was going on
around him. He had heard the voice of Mrs. Ford in this same key before.
And he looked up suddenly with a surprised but serious countenance.
“Why is Aunty Ford scolding, and us just come? Is it you, or is it me,
Lucy?” the little fellow said.
“Me scolding! God forbid!” cried the excited woman, and instead of
getting out of the fly, she cried, and then, in a voice broken with
sobs, entreated their pardon. “It’s all my anxiety,” she said, “I can’t
abide that anything but what’s good should come to you. I’d like to keep
you safe, like the apple of my eye; and that’s what Ford thinks too.”
This scene was rather an unpleasant beginning to the second chapter of
life on which Lucy was now entering. She stood on the pavement before
the familiar door, and tried to occupy the attention of Elizabeth, and
keep her from observing Mrs. Ford’s agitation and tears. Elizabeth was
too refined a person to take any notice. She was the very last
improvement in the way of a maid, and could have written her mistress’s
letters had that been desirable, a most useful attendant to ladies
“whose education had been neglected.” Lady Randolph had not been at all
sure of Lucy’s grammar or her h’s when she secured such a treasure. But
fortunately Elizabeth’s superiority went so far as to have convinced her
of the inexpediency of taking any notice of her employer’s private
affairs. She turned her back upon the fly, where Mrs. Ford was sobbing.
She had the air of seeing nothing.
“Sir Thomas made me come in the carriage, Miss Trevor. I could not help
it,” she said.
“It makes me so happy to see you at home again,” Mrs. Ford said,
commanding herself. “It is silly, I know, but I can’t help crying when I
am happy. Come and carry in Miss Lucy’s things, Jane. Isn’t it a
pleasure to see her back again? And you follow me, my darling, and I’ll
let you see what we have done for you,” she said, with some triumph.
Lucy went upstairs with a serious face. She thought she knew what she
would find there, everything the same, no difference except in one
thing--the old man sitting by the chimney-corner, with the big blue
folios open on the writing-table, spreading the “Times” on his knees,
rubbing his hands as she came in, looking up at her with his spectacles
pushed up on his forehead. He would not be there, but the place would be
full of him and of his image. She took Jock’s hand into hers, and led
him upstairs. It was a pilgrimage upon which the two orphan children
were going. “Come and see where papa used to sit,” she said. She had
never made great demonstrations of sorrow, but her heart was full of her
father and tears were in her eyes.
Mrs. Ford received them at the door with a look of triumph; but it was
with consternation that Lucy saw what had happened. The whole room had
been transmogrified. The Fords had given all their minds, and a great
deal of money, which was of more immediate value, to the great work.
Wherever it had been blue now it was pink. White curtains, very stiff
with starch fluttered at the windows. There was a great deal of gilding
about--gilt cornices, gilt chairs, gilt cabinets, and over the
mantel-piece an enormous gilt frame inclosing a portrait of old Trevor,
which the good people had caused to be painted by a local artist from an
old daguerreotype, all with the kind intention of giving pleasure to
Lucy. She gave a cry of dismay as she came in. Her father’s chair and
his writing-table--objects which would have recalled him so much more
tenderly than this portrait--had been carried away. In their place was
what the upholsterer called a “lady’s chair,” covered in one of the
newest and most fashionable _cretonnes_, stout little cupids disporting
themselves on a pink ground, and a gilt and highly decorated work-table.
Lucy stood at the door of the room with the checked tears feeling very
hot and heavy behind her eyes.
“This is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, restored to good humor by
the satisfaction with which she regarded her work; “everything in it has
been done for you. We have been working at it these three months and
more. If you had but heard us talking--’Do you think she would like
this? and do you think she’d like that?’ and Ford would say, ‘I saw a
little cabinet in William’s would just please Lucy,’ or ‘There’s some
new curtains at Hemsdon’s are the very thing.’ We’ve done nothing else
these three months. I declare I don’t think I ever slaved so much in my
life--to get carpets that matched and a nice chintz, and the rugs and
everything. But we kept the two old white rugs. Mr. Hemsdon said they
were beauties. I was determined,” said the good woman, “that you should
find something just as pretty as your fine London drawing-rooms. ‘She
sha’n’t come home and find nothing but a dingy old place to sit in, and
think my Lady Randolph’s is a paradise,’ is what I said to Ford, and he
backed me up in everything. And now here it is, Lucy, my darling, and
it’s all for you, and I hope you’ll be as happy in it as I and Ford wish
you to be. I couldn’t say more if I were to talk from this to
Christmas,” Mrs. Ford concluded with a tremulous warmth of enthusiasm
which arose partly from the delightful consciousness of giving her
charge a pleasant surprise, and partly from a quiver of uncertainty as
to whether Lucy’s delight would be equal to the occasion. She added
instantaneously, in a tone which was ready to be defiant, “You may have
seen finer in London: I can’t say; but this I know, you’ll find nothing
like it in Farafield, search where you may!”
“Thank you, Aunt Ford,” said Lucy faintly. “It is very pretty--but-- I
was thinking of papa.”
These words checked the rising disappointment and displeasure in the
mind of Mrs. Ford, who, if not very refined in her perceptions, was
kind, and had a sincere if jealous affection for the girl committed to
her care. She took Lucy into her arms and consoled her with much petting
and caressing. “Yes, my pet, I knew you would feel it. Yes, my petty! Of
course it brings it all back. But after the first you’ll find the change
of the furniture very comforting,” Mrs. Ford said.
Lucy did not know what to say when the first pangs of recollection were
over. She went round the room and looked at everything, and did her best
to praise. Six months ago she would have thought it all beautiful. Even
now she had no opinion on the matter, or taste that she was aware of;
but she had been six months away in a different atmosphere, and nothing
could undo or change that fact. She said everything she could to show
her gratitude. Whatever might be said about the curtains or the carpets,
the kindness was indisputable; and it was all very pretty, probably
quite as nice as the other way; but it was different. That was all that
was to be said--everything was different. She placed herself in the
lady’s chair which stood in the place of her father’s old seat, and
found it very comfortable. It was not comfort that was wanting; it
was-- Lucy did not know what--it was different. Where she sat she could
see, through the windows and lines of the curtains, the White House
shining in the afternoon sunshine, and the road across the common, still
green with all the freshness of summer. It was very different from the
burned-up parks and the rows of London houses, but not in the same way.
“It is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, not quite satisfied with the
commendation she had received. “For my part, there is nothing I like so
well as my own parlor. It may be vulgar, but that’s my taste. I don’t
want to be moving about all day long from the drawing-room to the
dining-room. I like to feel myself at home. But you are young, and
that’s a different thing. You have to do as other people do. There’s one
thing--just one thing I can’t give in to: I can’t begin at my time of
life to be eating my dinner when I should be having my tea; tea’s far
more to me than any dinner, I never was a great eater, and as for wine,
I can’t abide it. A cup of tea and a bit of toast--that’s what I like.
I’ll see to your dinner if you wish, like in your poor papa’s time, but
I can’t change, that’s just the one thing I can’t do.”
“I do not care for dinner,” said Lucy; “I will do whatever you do, it
does not matter to me.”
“If that’s so,” said Mrs. Ford brightening, and she came up to her
charge and kissed her affectionately, “whatever we can get, or whatever
we can do to make you happy, Lucy, you have only to say it: never mind
the expense. If there is one thing you have a fancy for more than
another, if it should be game, or whatever it is, you shall have it. And
this room is yours, my pet. You’ll excuse me sitting here; I think
there’s nothing like my parlor; but when you want me you can always send
for me. And here you shall always find everything kept nice; and as for
a cup of tea, whenever you want it-- I shouldn’t wonder if you were kept
very short up there.”
Mrs. Ford jerked her thumb over her shoulder by way of indicating Lucy’s
former abode. “I know what fine ladies are,” she said: “a fine outside
and not much within. Horses and carriages and all that show, and footmen
waiting, and silver dishes on the table, but not much inside.”
“Lady Randolph was not like that,” Lucy said faintly. She did not know
whether to laugh or to cry; but her companion took her hesitation as a
proof of the correctness of her own judgment, and was triumphant.
“I know ’em,” she said. “I don’t give myself any airs Lucy, but I know
you’ll find nothing like that here. No show, but everything good, and
plenty of it, and not so much fuss made about you--for we’ve got no ends
to serve, Ford and me--but if there’s a thing you want you shall have
it; that is our way, and I don’t see but what you may be very happy
here. Keep all these folks that will be gathering round you, and making
believe to adore you, at a distance, and keep yourself to yourself, and
don’t put your faith in the Rushtons, nor the Stones, nor any of the
Farafield folks; and I don’t see, Lucy my pet, but what you may be very
happy here. And now, my darling, I’ll go down-stairs and see after the
tea.”
Lucy was left alone accordingly, seated in the familiar room, so changed
and transformed, and looking out somewhat drearily upon the common,
which had not changed, which she had crossed so often in those old days
that were never to come back, that could not come back, neither the
simple habits of them, nor the gentle ease of mind and happy ignorance
of everything beyond their quiet round. It was not a cheerful programme
which her present guardian had traced for her, and Lucy, sitting very
still, not caring to move, in the most strangely complete and depressing
solitude which she had ever been conscious of, went further in her
thoughts than Mrs. Ford. Had it all been a mistake? Her father’s
favorite theory, his pet whim about her, his determination to divide her
life between the different worlds of society, one part of it on the
higher level, one on the lower, was that to prove itself at once a
hopeless blunder? Lucy felt too much dulled and stupefied by the sudden
change to be able to think about it; a sensation as of a sudden fall, a
precipitate descent down, down, into a world she no longer understood,
pervaded her being. Lady Randolph’s world had not been a very lofty one;
was it possible that it was the mere external change from one kind of
house to another, from a companion who dressed with exquisite taste to
one who huddled on her common clothes anyhow, and wore crape flowers in
her bonnet; from old, soft, mossy Turkey carpets to brilliant modern
Brussels, that gave her this sensation of downfall? Lucy did not ask
herself the question, nor did it even suggest itself in any formal way
to her mind, only a vague sense of the impossibility of the return, the
radical change in all things, the space she had traversed which could
not be gone back, overwhelmed her vaguely. If it had been a poor country
cottage, a rustic farm-house, real poverty to contrast with the soft
surroundings of wealth, the contrast might have been salutary, and it
might have been natural. But the Terrace was nothing but a vulgar,
unintelligent copy of the house she had come from, the life set before
her now was but a poor imitation of that she had left, but narrowed and
limited and shut in, cut off by jealous precautions from all the human
fellowship that made the other attractive. Ford and his wife, in their
little stuffy parlor, at their teatable, eating their toast and their
shrimps, were as respectable in themselves as Lady Randolph at the head
of the pretty table covered with flowers, softly lighted, and
noiselessly served. Probably they were more honest, more strictly
sincere, than she, and their love for Lucy was a very genuine love, more
profound than her easy affections. But how was it? Lucy could not
tell--to step down all in a moment from Lady Randolph to the Fords was
something incomprehensible and impossible. She could not go back these
six months, the new life had claimed her; she was not capable of
resuming the old where she had left it off. This feeling humiliated and
depressed her, she could not tell how or why. Had they been living in a
little cottage in the country, had they been quite poor, so that she
should have had homely services to do for them, help to give, that would
have been practicable; but to come back to the Terrace with her maid,
and her horse, and her groom, and her new habits, to have all the
indulgences without any of the graces of existence! Lucy sat sadly in
the pink room, all newly bedizened and fine, dressed out by ignorance
and kindness for her pleasure, but not pleasing her at all, and
pondered, dreary and down-hearted. Was it possible that papa himself had
not understood? that he did not know what the real differences were, but
had made to himself some picture of extravagant splendor on the one
side, to be tempered by the Fords and their respectable parlor on the
other? Alas! Lucy felt more and more, as she reflected, that poor papa
did not understand. It made her heart sore to sit in the place where he
had sat, and to contemplate this, and to feel that perhaps, as Sir
Thomas had said, to follow out all those regulations of his, which she
had thought a happiness and consolation, might turn out nothing less
than a bondage. Everything seemed somewhat blank before her, as she sat
thus solitary. She knew the routine so well, there was no margin of the
unexpected, no novelty to carry her on. She had been so deep in thought
that she had not felt a pull at her dress several times repeated. At
last Jock could have patience no longer.
“I say,” he cried, looking up from his old position upon the great white
rug, “Lucy, it is not any good to think.”
Lucy was not greatly given to that exercise of thinking, and, to tell
the truth, she had not found it to be of very much use.
“What makes you say so, Jock?”
“Oh, because I have tried--often,” said the little fellow; “before we
went away from here, and after, when I went to school. It’s no good, you
never find out anything; you wonder and wonder, but you never know any
better. Do you think now,” said Jock, with a gleam of moisture in his
eyes, “that _he_ ever sees us now, or hears what we are talking about? I
wonder--often--”
“I--hope so, Jock,” said Lucy; but as she remembered what she had just
been thinking she faltered a little, and was not so sure that this was
desirable, as in the abstract it seemed to be.
“I wonder,” said the little boy--thoughts such as had filled her mind
had perhaps been vaguely floating across his firmament also. “I
wonder--if he would miss his funny old table and his big blue paper if
he were to come back now.”
“He has now something better; we will not think of that any longer,”
said Lucy, drying her wet eyes.
“But we have got to think of it,” said Jock, reflectively contradicting
himself; “that is funny, everything is funny. There is Aunty Ford at the
foot of the stairs calling us to go down to tea.”