AN UNWILLING MARTYR.
Lucy came into the morning-room shortly after, a little paler than
usual, but with none of the agitation about her which Lady Randolph
expected from Sir Tom's aspect to see. Lucy was not one to bear any
outward traces of emotion. When she wept her eyes recovered rapidly, and
after half an hour were no longer red. She had a quiet respect for other
people, and a determination not to betray anything which she could not
explain, which had the effect of that "proper pride" which is inculcated
upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died
rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled
with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was
necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was
possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but
she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady
Randolph was pale--but at no time had she much colour. She came in
quite simply, without any explanation or giving of reasons, and sat down
in her usual place near the window, from which the sunshine, as it was
now afternoon, was beginning to die away. Then Lucy gave a slight start
to see a letter placed for her on the little table beside her work. She
had few correspondents at any time, and when Jock and Lady Randolph were
both at the Hall received scarcely any letters. She took it up and
looked at its outside with a little surprise.
"I forgot to tell you, Lucy," the Dowager said at this point, "that
there was a letter for you. Tom placed it there. He said it was from
Jock's tutor, and I hope sincerely, my dear, it does not mean that Jock
has got into any scrape----"
"A scrape," said Lucy, "why should he have got into a scrape?" in
unbounded surprise; for this was a thing that never had happened
throughout Jock's career.
"Oh, boys are so often in trouble," Lady Randolph said, while Lucy
opened her letter in some trepidation. But the first words of the letter
disturbed her more than any story about Jock was likely to do. It
brought the crisis nearer, and made immediate action almost
indispensable. It ran as follows:--
"Dear Lady Randolph--In accordance with Jock's request, which he
assured me was also yours, I have made all the inquiries you wished
about the Churchill family. It was not very difficult to do, as
there is but one voice in respect to them. Mr. Churchill himself is
represented to me as a model of all that a clergyman ought to be.
Whatever we may think of his functions, that he should have all the
virtues supposed to be attached to them is desirable in every point
of view; and he is a gentleman of good sense and intelligence
besides, which is not always implied even in the character of a
saint. It seems that the failure of an inheritance, which he had
every reason to expect, was the cause of his first disadvantage in
the world; and since then, in consonance with that curious natural
law which seems so contrary to justice, yet constantly consonant
with fact, this evil has been cumulative, and he has had nothing
but disappointments ever since. He has a very small living now, and
is never likely to get a better, for he is getting old, and
patrons, I am told, scarcely venture to give a cure to a man of his
age lest it should be said they were gratifying their personal
likings at the expense of the people. This seems contrary to
abstract justice in such a case; but it is a doctrine of our time
to which we must all bow.
"The young people, so far as I know, are all promising and good.
Young Churchill, whom Jock knows, is a boy for whom I have the
greatest regard. He is one whom Goethe would have described as a
beautiful soul. His sisters are engaged in educational work, and
are, I am told, in their way equally high-minded and interesting;
but naturally I know little of the female portion of the family.
"It is extremely kind of you and Sir Thomas to repeat your
invitation. I hope, perhaps at Easter, if convenient, to be able to
take advantage of it. I hear with the greatest pleasure from Jock
how much he enjoys his renewed intercourse with his home circle. It
will do him good, for his mind is full of the ideal, and it will be
of endless advantage to him to be brought back to the more ordinary
and practical interests. There are very few boys of whom it can be
said that their intellectual aspirations over-balance their
material impulses. As usual he has not only done his work this half
entirely to my satisfaction, but has more than repaid any services
I can render him by the precious companionship of a fresh and
elevated spirit.
"Believe me, dear Lady Randolph,
"Most faithfully yours,
"MAXIMUS D. DERWENTWATER."
A long-drawn breath, which sounded like a sigh, burst from Lucy's breast
as she closed this letter. She had, with humility and shrinking, yet
with a certain resolution, disclosed to her husband that when the
occasion occurred she must do her duty according to her father's will,
whether it pleased him or not. She had steeled herself to do this; but
she had prayed that the occasion might be slow to come. Nobody but Jock
knew anything about these Churchills, and Jock was going back to school,
and he was young and perhaps he might forget! But here was another who
would not forget. She read all the recommendations of the family and
their excellences with a sort of despair. Money, it was evident, could
not be better bestowed than in this way. There seemed no opening by
which she could escape; no way of thrusting this act away from her. She
felt a panic seize her. How was she to disobey Tom, how to do a thing of
so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole
world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the
great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a
hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her
sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet
sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad,"
seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and
when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself
about it, Lucy, if it is just a piece of folly. Boys are constantly in
that way coming to grief:" it was with difficulty that Lucy remembered
to what she could refer. Jock! Ah, if it had been but a boyish folly,
Sir Tom would have been the first to forgive that; he would have opened
his kind heart and taken the offender in, and laughed and persuaded him
out of his folly. He would have been like a father to the boy. To feel
all that, and how good he was; and yet determinedly to contradict his
will and go against him! Oh, how could she do it? and yet what else was
there to do?
"It is not about Jock," she answered with a faint voice.
"I beg your pardon, my dear. I was not aware that you knew Jock's tutor
well enough for general correspondence. These gentlemen seem to make a
great deal of themselves now-a-days, but in my time, Lucy----"
"I do not know him very well, Aunt Randolph. He is only sending me some
information. I wish I might ask you a question," she cried suddenly,
looking into the Dowager's face with earnest eyes. This lady had perhaps
not all the qualities that make a perfect woman, but she had always been
very kind to Lucy. She was not unkind to anybody, although there were
persons, of whom Jock was one, whom she did not like. And in all
circumstances to Lucy, even when there was no immediate prospect that
the Randolph family would be any the better for her, she had always been
kind.
"As many as you like, my love," she answered, cordially.
"Yes," said Lucy; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, what I want is that you
should let me ask, without asking anything in return. I want to know
what you think, but I don't want to explain----"
"It is a strange condition," said Lady Randolph; but then she thought in
her superior experience that she was very sure to find out what this
simple girl meant without explanations. "But I am not inquisitive," she
added, with a smile, "and I am quite willing, dear, to tell you anything
I know----"
"It is this," said Lucy, leaning forward in her great earnestness; "do
you think a woman is ever justified in doing anything which her husband
disapproves?"
"Lucy!" cried Lady Randolph, in great dismay, "when her husband is my
Tom, and the thing she wants to do is connected with Jock's tutor----"
Lucy's gaze of astonishment, and her wondering repetition of the words,
"connected with Jock's tutor!" brought Lady Randolph to herself. In
society, such a suspicion being fostered by all the gossips, comes
naturally; but though she was a society-woman, and had not much faith in
holy ignorance, she paused here, horrified by her own suggestion, and
blushed at herself.
"No, no," she said, "that was not what I meant; but perhaps I could not
quite advise, Lucy, where I am so closely concerned."
At which Lucy looked at her somewhat wistfully. "I thought you would
perhaps remember," she said, "when you were like me, Aunt Randolph, and
perhaps did not know so well as you know now----"
This touched the elder lady's heart. "Lucy," she said, "my dear, if you
were not as innocent as I know you are, you would not ask your husband's
nearest relation such a question. But I will answer you as one woman to
another, and let Tom take care of himself. I never was one that was very
strong upon a husband's rights. I always thought that to obey meant
something different from the common meaning of the word. A child must
obey; but even a grown-up child's obedience is very different from what
is natural and proper in youth; and a full-grown woman, you know, never
could be supposed to obey like a child. No wise man, for that matter,
would ever ask it or think of it."
This did not give Lucy any help. She was very willing, for her part, to
accept his light yoke without any restriction, except in the great and
momentous exception which she did not want to specify.
"I think," Lady Randolph went on, "that to obey means rather--keep in
harmony with your husband, pay attention to his opinions, don't take up
an opposite course, or thwart him, be united--instead of the obedience
of a servant, you know: still less of a slave."
She was a great deal cleverer than Lucy, who was not thinking of the
general question at all. And this answer did the perplexed mind little
good. Lucy followed every word with curious attention, but at the end
slowly shook her head.
"It is not that. Lady Randolph, if there was something that was your
duty before you were married, and that is still and always your duty, a
sacred promise you had made; and your husband said no, you must not do
it--tell me what you would have done? The rest is all so easy," cried
Lucy, "one likes what he likes, one prefers to please him. But this is
difficult. What would you have done?"
Here Lady Randolph all at once, after giving forth the philosophical
view which was so much above her companion, found herself beyond her
depth altogether, and incapable of the fathom of that simple soul.
"I don't understand you, Lucy. Lucy, for heaven's sake, take care what
you are doing! If it is anything about Jock, I implore of you give way
to your husband. You may be sure in dealing with a boy that he knows
best."
Lucy sighed. "It is nothing about Jock," she said; but she did not
repeat her demand. Lady Randolph gave her a lecture upon the subject of
relations which was very wide of the question; and, with a sigh, owning
to herself that there was no light to be got from this, Lucy listened
very patiently to the irrelevant discourse. The clever dowager cut it
short when it was but half over, perceiving the same, and asked herself
not without excitement what it was possible Lucy's difficulty could be?
If it was not Jock (and a young brother hanging on to her, with no home
but hers, an inquisitive young intelligence, always in the way, was a
difficulty which anybody could perceive at a glance) what was it? But
Lucy baffled altogether this much experienced woman of the world.
And Jock watched all the day for an opportunity to get possession of
her, and assail her on the other side of the question. She avoided him
as persistently as he sought her, and with a panic which was very
different from her usual happy confidence in him. But the moment came
when she could elude him no longer. Lady Randolph had gone to her own
room after her cup of tea, for that little nap before dinner which was
essential to her good looks and pleasantness in the evening. Sir Tom,
who was too much disturbed for the usual rules of domestic life, had not
come in for that twilight talk which he usually enjoyed; and as Lucy
found herself thus plunged into the danger she dreaded, she was hurrying
after Lady Randolph, declaring that she heard baby cry, when Jock
stepped into her way, and detained her, if not by physical, at least by
moral force--
"Lucy," he said, "are you not going to tell me anything? I know you have
got the letter, but you won't look at me, or speak a word."
"Oh, Jock, how silly! why shouldn't I look at you? but I have so many
things to do, and baby--I am sure I heard baby cry."
"He is no more crying than I am. I saw him, and he was as jolly as
possible. I want awfully to know about the Churchills, and what MTutor
says."
"Jock, I think Mr. Derwentwater is rather grand in his writing. It looks
as if he thought a great deal of himself."
"No, he doesn't," said Jock, hotly, "not half enough. He's the best man
we've got, and yet he can't see it. You needn't give me any information
about MTutor," added the young gentleman, "for naturally I know all that
much better than you. But I want to know about the Churchills. Lucy, is
it all right?"
Lucy gave a little shiver though she was in front of the fire. She said,
reluctantly, "I think they seem very nice people, Jock."
"I know they are," said Jock, exultantly. "Churchill in college is the
nicest fellow I know. He read such a paper at the Poetical Society. It
was on the Method of Sophocles; but of course you would not understand
that."
"No, dear," said Lucy, mildly; and again she murmured something about
the baby crying, "I think indeed, Jock, I must go."
"Just a moment," said the boy, "Now you are satisfied couldn't we drive
into Farafield to-morrow and settle about it? I want to go with you, you
and I together, and if old Rushton makes a row you can just call me."
"But I can't leave Lady Randolph, Jock," cried Lucy, driven to her wits'
end. "It would be unkind to leave her, and a few days cannot do much
harm. When she has gone away----"
"I shall be back at school. Let Sir Tom take her out for once. He might
as well drive her in his new phaeton that he is so proud of. If it is
fine she'll like that, and we can say we have some business."
"Oh! Jock, don't press me so; a few days can't make much difference."
"Lucy," said Jock, sternly, "do you think it makes no difference to keep
a set of good people unhappy, just to save you a little trouble? I
thought you had more heart than that."
"Oh, let me go, Jock; let me go--that is little Tom, and he wants me,"
Lucy cried. She had no answer to make him--the only thing she could do
was to fly.