Sir Tom

"I don"t think I understand you, dear," said Lucy sweetly.

"Oh! you can"t be such a stupid as that," said the boy; "you understand right enough. What did he mean by talking it over with Sir Tom? He thought Sir Tom would put a stop to it, Lucy."

"If Mr. Rushton forms such false ideas, dear, what does it matter? That is not of any consequence either to you or me."

"I wish you would give me a plain answer," said Jock, impatiently. "I ask you one thing, and you say another; you never give me any satisfaction."

She smiled upon him with a look which, clever as Jock was, he did not understand. "Isn"t that conversation?" she said.

"Conversation!" The boy repeated the word almost with a shriek of disdain: "You don"t know very much about that, down here in the country, Lucy. You should hear MTutor; when he"s got two or three fellows from Cambridge with him, and they go at it! That"s something like talk."

"It is very nice for you, Jock, that you get on so well with Mr.

Derwent.w.a.ter," said Lucy, catching with some eagerness at this way of escape from embarra.s.sing questions. "I hope he will come and see us at Easter, as he promised."

"He may," said Jock, with great gravity, "but the thing is, everybody wants to have him; and then, you see, whenever he has an opportunity he likes to go abroad. He says it freshens one up more than anything. After working his brain all the half, as he does, and taking the interest he does in everything, he has got to pay attention, you know, and not to overdo it; he must have change, and he must have rest."

Lucy was much impressed by this, as she was by all she heard of MTutor.

She was quite satisfied that such immense intellectual exertions as his did indeed merit compensation. She said, "I am sure he would get rest with us, Jock. There would be nothing to tire him, and whatever I could do for him, dear, or Sir Tom either, we should be glad, as he is so good to you."

"I don"t know that he"s what you call fond of the country--I mean the English country. Of course it is different abroad," said Jock doubtfully. Then he came back to the original subject with a bound, scattering all Lucy"s hopes. "But we didn"t begin about MTutor. It was the other business we were talking of. Is it true that Sir Tom----"

"Jock," said Lucy seriously. Her mild eyes got a look he had never seen in them before. It was a sort of dilation of unshed tears, and yet they were not wet. "If you know any time when Sir Tom was ever unkind or untrue, I don"t know it. He has always, always been good. I don"t think he will change now. I have always done what he told me, and I always will. But he never told me anything. He knows a great deal better than all of us put together. Of course, to obey him, that is my first duty.

And I always shall. But he never asks it--he is too good. What is his will, is my will," she said. She fixed her eyes very seriously on Jock, all the time she spoke, and he followed every movement of her lips with a sort of astonished confusion, which it is difficult to describe. When she had ceased Jock drew a long breath, and seemed to come to the surface again, after much tossing in darker waters.

"I think that it must be true," he said slowly, after a pause, "as people say--that women are very queer, Lucy. I didn"t understand one word you said."

"Didn"t you, then?" she said, with a smile of gentle benignity; "but what does it matter, when it will all come right in the end? Is that our omnibus, Jock, that is going along with all that luggage? How curious that is, for n.o.body was coming to-day that I know of. Don"t you see it just turning in to the avenue? Now that is very strange indeed," said Lucy, raising herself very erect upon her cushions with a little quickened and eager look. An arrival is always exciting in the country, and an arrival which was quite unexpected, and of which she could form no surmise as to who it could be, stirred up all her faculties. "I wonder if Mrs. Freshwater will know what rooms are best?" she said, "and if Sir Tom will be at home to receive them; or perhaps it may be some friends of Aunt Randolph"s, or perhaps--I wonder very much who it can be."

Jock"s countenance covered itself quickly with a tinge of gloom.

"Whoever it is, I know it will be disgusting," cried the boy. "Just when we have got so much to talk about! and now I shall never see you any more. Lady Randolph was bad enough, and now here"s more of them! I should just as soon go back to school at once," he said, with premature indignation. The servants on the box perceived the other carriage in advance with equal curiosity and excitement. They were still more startled, perhaps, for a profound wonder as to what horses had been sent out, and who was driving them, agitated their minds. The horses, solicited by a private token between them and their driver which both understood, quickened their pace with a slight dash, and the carriage swept along as if in pursuit of the larger and heavier vehicle, which, however, had so much the advance of them, that it had deposited its pa.s.sengers, and turned round to the servants" entrance with the luggage, before Lady Randolph could reach the door. Williams the butler wore a startled look upon his dignified countenance, as he came out on the steps to receive his mistress.

"Some one has arrived," said Lucy with a little eagerness. "We saw the omnibus."

"Yes, my lady. A telegram came for Sir Thomas soon after your ladyship left; there was just time to put in the horses----"

"But who is it, Williams?"

Williams had a curious apologetic air. "I heard say, my lady, that it was some of the party that were invited before Mr. Randolph fell ill.

There had been a mistake about the letters, and the lady has come all the same--a lady with a foreign t.i.tle, my lady----"

"Oh!" said Lucy, with English brevity. She stood startled, in the hall, lingering a little, changing colour, not with any of the deep emotions which Williams from his own superior knowledge suspected, but with shyness and excitement. "It will be the lady from Italy, the Contessa---- Oh, I hope they have attended to her properly! Was Sir Thomas at home when she came?"

"Sir Thomas, my lady, went to meet them at the station," Williams said.

"Oh, that is all right," cried Lucy, relieved. "I am so glad she did not arrive and find n.o.body. And I hope Mrs. Freshwater----"

"Mrs. Freshwater put the party into the east wing, my lady. There are two ladies besides the man and the maid. We thought it would be the warmest for them, as they came from the South."

"It may be the warmest, but it is not the prettiest," said Lucy. "The lady is a great friend of Sir Thomas", Williams."

The man gave her a curious look.

"Yes, my lady, I was aware of that," he said.

This surprised Lucy a little, but for the moment she took no notice of it. "And therefore," she went on, "the best rooms should have been got ready. Mrs. Freshwater ought to have known that. However, perhaps she will change afterwards. Jock, I will just run upstairs and see that everything is right."

As she turned towards the great staircase, so saying, she ran almost into her husband"s arms. Sir Tom had appeared from a side door, where he had been on the watch, and it was certain that his face bore some traces of the new event that had happened. He was not at his ease as usual. He laughed a little uncomfortable laugh, and put his hand on Lucy"s shoulder as she brushed against him. "There," he said, "that will do; don"t be in such a hurry," arresting her in full career.

"Oh, Tom!" Lucy for her part looked at her husband with the greatest relief and happiness. There had been a cloud between them which had been more grievous to her than anything else in the world. She had felt hourly compelled to stand up before him and tell him that she must do what he desired her not to do. The consternation and pain and wrath that had risen over his face after that painful interview had not pa.s.sed away through all the intervening time. There had been a sort of desperation in her mind when she went to Mr. Rushton, a feeling that she so hated the duty which had risen like a ghost between her husband and herself, that she must do it at all hazards and without delay. But this cloud had now departed from Sir Tom"s countenance. There was a little suffusion of colour upon it which was unusual to him. Had it been anybody but Sir Tom, it would have looked like embarra.s.sment, shyness mingled with a certain self-ridicule and sense of the ludicrous in the position altogether. He caught his wife in his arms and met her eyes with a certain laughing shamefacedness, "Don"t," he said, "be in such a hurry, Lucy. _Ces dames_ have gone to their rooms; they have been travelling all night, and they are not fit to be seen. It is only silly little English girls like you that can bear to be looked at at all times and seasons." And with this he stooped over her and gave her a kiss on her forehead, to Lucy"s delight, yet horror--before Williams, who looked on approving, and the footman with the traps, and Jock and all! But what a load it took off her breast! He was not any longer vexed or disturbed or angry. He was indeed conciliatory and apologetic, but Lucy only saw that he was kind.

"Poor lady," cried Lucy, "has she been travelling all night? And I am so sorry she has been put into the east wing. If I had been at home I should have said the blue rooms, Tom, which you know are the nicest----"

"I think they are quite comfortable, my dear," said Sir Tom, with his usual laugh, which was half-mocking half-serious, "you may be sure they will ask for anything they want. They are quite accustomed to making themselves at home."

"Oh, I hope so, Tom," said Lucy, "but don"t you think it would be more polite, more respectful, if I were to go and ask if they have everything? Mrs. Freshwater is very well you know, Tom, but the mistress of the house----"

He gave her another little hug, and laughed again. "No," he said, "you may be sure Madame Forno-Populo is not going to let you see her till she has repaired all ravages. It was extremely indiscreet of me to go to the station," he continued, still with that chuckle, leading Lucy away. "I had forgotten all these precautions after a few years of you, Lucy. I was received with a shriek of horror and a double veil."

Lucy looked at him with great surprise, asking: "Why? wasn"t she glad to see you?" with incipient indignation and a sense of grievance.

"Not at all," cried Sir Tom, "indeed I heard her mutter something about English savagery. The Contessa expresses herself strongly sometimes.

Freshwater and the maid, and the excellent breakfast Williams has ordered, knowing her ways----"

"Does Williams know her ways?" asked Lucy, wondering. There was not the faintest gleam of suspicion in her mind; but she was surprised, and her husband bit his lip for a moment, yet laughed still.

"He knows those sort of people," he said. "I was very much about in society at one time you must know, Lucy, though I am such a steady old fellow now. We knew something of most countries in these days. We were _bien vu_, he and I, in various places. Don"t tell Mrs. Williams, my love." He laughed almost violently at this mild joke, and Lucy looked surprised. But still no shadow came upon her simple countenance. Lucy was like Desdemona, and did not believe that there were such women. She thought it was "fun," such fun as she sometimes saw in the newspapers, and considered as vulgar as it was foolish. Such words could not be used in respect to anything Sir Tom said, but even in her husband it was not good taste, Lucy thought. She smiled at the reference to Mrs. Williams with a kind of quiet disdain, but it never occurred to her that she too might require to be kept in the dark.

"I dare say most of what you are talking is nonsense," she said; "but if Madame Forno ----"--Lucy was not very sure of the name, and hesitated--"is really very tired, perhaps it may be kindness not to disturb her. I hope she will go to bed, and get a thorough rest. Did she not get your second letter, Tom? and what a thing it is that dear baby is so much better, and that we can really pay a little attention to her."

"Either she did not get my letter, or I didn"t write, I cannot say which it was, Lucy. But now we have got her we must pay attention to her, as you say. You will have to get up a few dinner parties, and ask some people to stay. She will like to see the humours of the wilderness while she is in it."

"The wilderness--but, Tom, everybody says society is so good in the county."

"Everybody does not know the Forno-Populo," cried Sir Tom; and then he burst out into a great laugh. "I wonder what her Grace will say to the Contessa; they have met before now."

"Must we ask the d.u.c.h.ess?" cried Lucy, with awe and alarm, coming a little nearer to her husband"s side.

But Sir Tom did nothing but laugh. "I"ve seen a few pa.s.sages of arms,"

he said. "By Jove, you don"t know what war is till you see two ---- at it tooth and nail. Two--what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for the Forno-Populo herself----"

"Dear Tom" said Lucy with gentle gravity, "Is it nice to speak of ladies so? If any one called me the Randolph, I should be, oh, so----"

"You," cried her husband with a hot and angry colour rising to his very hair, and then he perceived that he was betraying himself, and paused.

"You see, my love, that"s different," he said. "Madame di Forno-Populo is--an old stager: and you are very young, and n.o.body ever thought of you but with--reverence, my dear. Yes, that"s the word, Lucy, though you are only a bit of a girl."

"Tom," said Lucy with great dignity, "I have you to take care of me, and I have never been known in the world. But, dear, if this poor lady has no one--and I suppose she is a widow, is she not, Tom?"