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SIR TOM
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF "THE WIZARD'S SON," "HESTER," ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1893
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition (3 Vols. Crown 8vo) Sept. 1884_
_Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) 1884_
_Reprinted (Globe 8vo) 1888, (Crown 8vo) 1893_
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE 1
CHAPTER II.
HIS WIFE 9
CHAPTER III.
OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL 20
CHAPTER IV.
YOUNG MR. TREVOR 29
CHAPTER V.
CONSULTATIONS 39
CHAPTER VI.
A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS 48
CHAPTER VII.
A WARNING 58
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SHADOW OF DEATH 67
CHAPTER IX.
A CHRISTMAS VISIT 77
CHAPTER X.
LUCY'S ADVISERS 86
CHAPTER XI.
AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY 96
CHAPTER XII.
THE FIRST STRUGGLE 105
CHAPTER XIII.
AN IDLE MORNING 115
CHAPTER XIV.
AN UNWILLING MARTYR 126
CHAPTER XV.
ON BUSINESS 135
CHAPTER XVI.
AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL 146
CHAPTER XVII.
FOREWARNED 157
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VISITORS 167
CHAPTER XIX.
THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA 179
CHAPTER XX.
AN ANXIOUS CRITIC 189
CHAPTER XXI.
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 200
CHAPTER XXII.
A PAIR OF FRIENDS 211
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BREAKFAST TABLE 221
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ORACLE SPEAKS 230
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR 242
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TWO STRANGERS 259
CHAPTER XXVII.
AN ADVENTURESS 269
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE 280
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH 291
CHAPTER XXX.
DIFFERENT VIEWS 301
CHAPTER XXXI.
TWO FRIENDS 311
CHAPTER XXXII.
YOUTHFUL UNREST 321
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY 332
CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN SUSPENSE 342
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE DEBUT 354
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE EVENING AFTER 366
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS 377
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
DISCOVERIES 388
CHAPTER XXXIX.
LUCY'S DISCOVERY 397
CHAPTER XL.
THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION 409
CHAPTER XLI.
SEVERED 417
CHAPTER XLII.
LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS 427
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR 437
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE SIEGE OF LONDON 448
CHAPTER XLV.
THE BALL 458
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE BALL CONTINUED 469
CHAPTER XLVII.
NEXT MORNING 480
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE LAST BLOW 491
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE 502
CHAPTER L.
THE EVE OF SORROW 514
CHAPTER LI.
THE LAST CRISIS 522
CHAPTER LII.
THE END 538
CHAPTER I.
HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE.
Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest
half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a
_jeunesse orageuse_; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge;
but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even
after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew
when or where he might appear. He set off to the farthest parts of the
earth at a day's notice, sometimes on pretext of sport, sometimes on no
pretext at all, and re-appeared again as unexpectedly as he had gone
away. He had run out his fortune by these and other extravagances, and
was at forty in one of the most uncomfortable positions in which a man
can find himself, with the external appearance of large estates and an
established and important position, but in reality with scarcely any
income at all, just enough to satisfy the mortgagees, and leave himself
a pittance not much more than the wages of a gamekeeper. If his aunt,
Lady Randolph, had not been so good to him it was uncertain whether he
could have existed at all, and when the heiress, whom an eccentric will
had consigned to her charge, fell in his way, all her friends concluded
as a matter of certainty that Sir Tom would jump at this extraordinary
windfall, this gift of a too kind Providence, which sometimes will care
for a prodigal in a way which he is quite unworthy of, while leaving the
righteous man to struggle on unaided. But for some time it appeared as
if society for once was out in its reckoning. Sir Tom did not pounce
upon the heiress. He was a person of very independent mind, and there
were some who thought he was happier in his untrammelled poverty, doing
what he pleased, than he ever had been as a great proprietor. Even when
it became apparent to the wise and far-seeing that little Miss Trevor
was only waiting till his handkerchief was thrown at her to become the
happiest of women, still he did nothing. He exasperated his kind aunt,
he made all his friends indignant, and what was more, he exposed the
young heiress hourly to many attempts on the part of the inferior class,
from which as a matter of fact she herself sprang; and it was not until
she was driven nearly desperate by those attempts that Sir Tom suddenly
appeared upon the scene, and moved, it was thought, more by a
half-fatherly kindness and sympathy for her, than either by love or
desire of wealth, took her to himself, and made her his wife, to the
great and grateful satisfaction of the girl herself, whose strange
upbringing and brief introduction into a higher sphere had spoiled her
for that homely country-town existence in which every woman flattered
and every man made love to her.
Whether Lucy Trevor was in love with him was as uncertain as whether he
was in love with her. So far as any one knew neither one nor the other
had asked themselves this question. She had, as it were, thrown herself
into his arms in sudden delight and relief of mind when he appeared and
saved her from her suitors; while he had received her tenderly when she
did this, out of kindness and pleasure in her genuine, half-childish
appreciation of him. There were, of course, people who said that Lucy
had been violently in love with Sir Tom, and that he had made up his
mind to marry her money from the first moment he saw her; but neither of
these things was true. They married with a great deal more pleasure and
ease of mind than many people do who are very much in love, for they had
mutual faith in each other, and felt a mutual repose and satisfaction in
their union. Each supplied something the other wanted. Lucy obtained a
secure and settled home, a protector and ever kind and genial guardian,
while Sir Tom got not only a good and dutiful and pleasant companion,
with a great deal of sense, and good-nature and good looks,--all of
which gifts he prized highly,--but at the same time the control of a
great fortune, and money enough at once to clear his estates and restore
him to his position as a great landowner.
There were very peculiar conditions attached to the great fortune, but
to these for the moment he paid very little heed, considering them as
fantastic follies not worth thinking about, which were never likely to
become difficulties in his way. The advantage he derived from the
marriage was enormous. All at once, at a bound, it restored him to what
he had lost, to the possession of his own property, which had been not
more than nominally his for so many years, and to the position of a man
of weight and importance, whose opinion told with all his neighbours and
the county generally, as did those of few others in the district.
Sir Tom, the wanderer, had not been thought very highly of in his
younger days. He had been called wild. He had been thought
untrustworthy, a fellow here to-day and gone to-morrow, who had no
solidity in him. But when the mortgages were all paid off, and the old
hall restored, and Sir Thomas Randolph came to settle down at home, with
his pretty little wife, and an establishment quite worthy of his name,
the county discovered in a day, almost in a moment, that he was very
much improved. He had always been clever enough, they said, for
anything, and now that he had sown his wild oats and learned how to
conduct himself, and attained an age when follies are naturally over,
there was no reason why he should not be received with open arms. Such a
man had a great many more experiences, the county thought with a certain
pride, than other men who had sown no wild oats, and had never gone
farther afield than the recognised round of European cities. Sir Tom had
been in all the four quarters of the globe; he had travelled in America
long before it became fashionable to do so, and even had been in Africa
while it was as yet untrod by any white foot but that of a missionary.
And it was whispered that in the days when he was "wild" he had
penetrated into regions nearer at hand, but more obscure and mysterious
even than Africa. All this made the county think more of him now when he
appeared staid yet genial, in the fulness of manhood, with a crisp brown
beard and a few gray hairs about his temples mingled with his abundant
locks, and that capability of paying his way which is dear to every
well-regulated community. But for this last particular the county would
not have been so tolerant, nay almost pleased, with the fact that he had
been "wild." They saw all his qualities in the halo that surrounded the
newly-decorated hall, the liberated farms, the lands upon which no
creditor had now any claim. He was the most popular man in the district
when Parliament was dissolved, and he was elected for the county almost
without opposition, he, at whom all the sober people had shaken their
heads only a few years before. The very name of "Sir Tom," which had
been given rather contemptuously to denote a somewhat careless fellow,
who minded nothing, became all at once the sign of popular amity and
kindness. And if it had been necessary to gain votes for him by any
canvassing tricks, this name of his would have carried away all
objections. "Sir Tom!" it established a sort of affectionate
relationship at once between him and his constituency. The people felt
that they had known him all his life, and had always called him by his
Christian name.
Lady Randolph was much excited and delighted with her husband's success.
She canvassed for him in a modest way, making herself pleasant to the
wives of his supporters in a unique manner of her own which was not
perhaps quite dignified considering her position, but yet was found very
captivating by those good women. She did not condescend to them as other
titled ladies do, but she took their advice about her baby, and how he
was to be managed, with a pretty humility which made her irresistible.
They all felt an individual interest thenceforward in the heir of the
Randolphs, as if they had some personal concern in him; and Lady
Randolph's gentle accost, and the pretty blush upon her cheeks, and her
way of speaking to them all, "as if they were just as good as she was,"
had a wonderful effect. When she received him in the hotel which was the
headquarters of his party, as soon as the result of the election was
known, Sir Tom, coming in flushed with applauses and victory, took his
wife into his arms and kissed her. "I owe this to you, as well as so
much else, Lucy," he said.
"Oh, don't say that! when you know I don't understand much, and never
can do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said
Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and
crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when
his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her
husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with
the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers
and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady
and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of its many voices; and
Lucy, blushing and smiling and crying with pleasure, instead of
shrinking away as everybody feared she would do, stood up in her modest,
pretty youthfulness, shy, but full of sense and courage, and held up the
child, who stared at them all solemnly with big blue eyes, and, after a
moment's consideration, again patted his fat little hands together, an
action which put the multitude beside itself with delight. Sir Tom's
speech did not make nearly so much impression as the baby's
"patti-cake." Every man in the crowd, not to say every woman, and with
still more reason every child, clapped his or her hands too, and shouted
and laughed and hurrahed.
The incident of the baby's appearance before the public, and the early
success he had gained--the earliest on record, the newspapers said--made
quite a sensation throughout the county, and made Farafield famous for
a week. It was mentioned in a leading article in the first newspaper in
the world. It appeared in large headlines in the placards under such
titles as "Baby in Politics," "The Nursery and the Hustings," and such
like. As for the little hero of the moment, he was handed down to his
anxious nurse just as symptoms of a whimper of fear at the alarming
tumult outside began to appear about the corners of his mouth. "For
heaven's sake take him away; he mustn't cry, or he will spoil all," said
the chairman of Sir Tom's committee. And the young mother, disappearing
too into the room behind, sat down in a great chair behind their backs,
and cried to relieve her feelings. Never had there been such a day. If
Sir Tom had not been the thoroughly good-humoured man he was, it is
possible that he might have objected to the interruption thus made in
his speech, which was altogether lost in the tumult of delight which
followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much
delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little
wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called
him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at
her in the tender, kindly, fatherly way which had won Lucy.
"It is you who have got the seat," he said; "I vote that you go and sit
in it, Lady Randolph. You are a born legislator, and your son is a
favourite of the public, whereas I am only an old fogey."
"Oh, Tom!" Lucy said, lifting her simple eyes to his with a mist of
happiness in them. She was accustomed to his nonsense. She never said
anything more than "Oh, Tom!" and indeed it was not very long since she
had given up the title and ceased to say "Oh, Sir Tom!" which seemed
somehow to come more natural. It was what she had said when he came
suddenly to see her in the midst of her early embarrassments and
troubles; when the cry of relief and delight with which she turned to
him, uttering in her surprise that title of familiarity, "Oh, Sir Tom!"
had signified first to her middle-aged hero, with the most flattering
simplicity and completeness, that he had won the girl's pure and
inexperienced heart.
There was no happier evening in their lives than this, when, after all
the commotion, threatenings of the ecstatic crowd to take the horses
from their carriage, and other follies, they got off at last together
and drove home through roads that wound among the autumn fields, on some
of which the golden sheaves were still standing in the sunshine. Sir Tom
held Lucy's hand in his own. He had told her a dozen times over that he
owed it all to her.
"You have made me rich, and you have made me happy," he said, "though I
am old enough to be your father, and you are only a little girl. If
there is any good to come out of me, it will all be to your credit,
Lucy. They say in story books that a man should be ashamed to own so
much to his wife, but I am not the least ashamed."
"Oh, Tom!" she said, "how can you talk so much nonsense," with a laugh,
and the tears in her eyes.
"I always did talk nonsense," he said; "that was why you got to like me.
But this is excellent sense and quite true. And that little beggar; I am
owing you for him, too. There is no end to my indebtedness. When they
put the return in the papers it should be Sir Thomas Randolph, etc.,
returned as representative of his wife, Lucy, a little woman worth as
much as any county in England."
"O, Sir Tom," Lucy cried.
"Well, so you are, my dear," he said, composedly. "That is a mere matter
of fact, you know, and there can be no question about it at all."
For the truth was that she was so rich as to have been called the
greatest heiress in England in her day.