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!