"Oh, my lady, haven"t you heard what a singer Miss Beachy has turned out?" Fletcher cried.
Lucy, to whom all this seemed dim and far away as if it had happened years ago, answered with a faint smile--"Yes, she has a lovely voice."
"It is not my place," said Fletcher, "being only a servant, to make remarks; but, my lady, if I might make so bold, it do seem to the like of us an "orrible thing to take advantage of a young lady like your ladyship that thinks no harm."
"You should not make such remarks," said Lucy, roused a little.
"No, my lady; but still a woman is a woman, even though but a servant. I said to Mrs. Freshwater I was sure your ladyship would never sanction it. I never thought that of Miss Beachy, I will allow. I always said she was a nice young lady; but evil communications, my lady--we all know what the Bible says. Gentlemen upstairs in her room and her singing to them, and laughing and talking like as no housemaid in the house as valued her character would do----"
"Fletcher," said Lucy, "you must say no more about this. It was Mr. Jock and Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter only who were with Miss Bice--and with my permission," she added after a moment, "as he is going away to-morrow."
Such deceits are so easy to learn.
"Oh-oh!" Miss Fletcher cried, with a quaver in her voice. "I beg your pardon, my lady; I"m sure--I thought--there must be something underneath, and that Miss Beachy would never---- And when she was down with Sir Thomas in the study it would be the same, my lady?" the woman said.
"With Sir Thomas in the study!" The words went vaguely into Lucy"s mind.
It had not seemed possible to increase the confusion and misery in her brain, but this produced a heightening of it, a sort of wave of bewilderment and pain greater than before, a sense of additional giddiness and failing. She gave a wave of her hand and said something, she scarcely knew what, which silenced Fletcher; and then she went down stairs to the new world. She did not go to the nursery even, as was her wont; her heart turned from little Tom. She felt that to look at him would be more than she could bear. There was no deceit in him, no falsehood--as yet; but perhaps when he grew up he would cheat her too.
He would pretend to love her and betray her trust; he would kiss her, and then go away and scoff at her; he would smile, and smile, and be a villain. Such words were not in Lucy"s mind, and it was altogether out of nature that she should even receive the thought: which made it all the more terrible when it was poured into her soul. And it cannot be told what discoveries she seemed to make even in the course of that morning in this strange condition of her mind. There was a haze over everything, but yet there was an enlightenment even in the haze. She saw in her little way, as Hamlet saw the falsehood of his courtiers, his gallant young companions, and the schemes of Polonius, and even Ophelia in the plot to trap him. She saw how false all these people were in their civilities, in their extravagant thanks and compliments to her as they went away; for the Easter recess was just over, and everybody was going. The mother and her daughters said to her, "Such a delightful visit, dear Lady Randolph!" with kisses of farewell and wreathed smiles; and she perceived, somehow by a sort of second sight, that they added to each other, "Oh, what a bore it has been; n.o.body worth meeting," and "how thankful I am it"s over!" which was indeed what Miss Minnie and Miss Edith said. If Lucy had seen a little deeper she would have known that this too was a sort of conventional falsity which the young ladies said to each other, according to the fashion of the day, without any meaning to speak of; but one must have learned a great many lessons before one comes to that.
Then Jock, who had been woke up in quite a different way, took leave of MTutor, that G.o.d of his old idolatry, without being able to refrain from some semblance of the old absorbing affection.
"I am so sorry you are not coming with me, old fellow," Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter said.
Jock replied, "So am I," with an effort, as if firing a parting volley in honour of his friend: but then turned gloomily with an expression of relief. "I"m glad he"s gone, Lucy."
"Then you did not want to go with him, Jock?"
"I wouldn"t have gone for anything. I"ve just got to that--that I can"t bear him," cried Jock.
And Lucy, in the midst of the ruins, felt her head go round: though here too it was the falsehood that was fict.i.tious, had she but known. It is not, however, in the nature of such a shock that any of those alleviating circ.u.mstances which modify the character of human sentiment can be taken into account. Lucy had taken everything for gospel in the first chapter of existence; she had believed what everybody said; and like every other human soul, after such a discovery as she had made, she went to the opposite extremity now--not wittingly, not voluntarily--but the pillars of the earth were shaken, and nothing stood fast.
They went up to town next day. In the meantime she had little or no intercourse with the Contessa, who was preparing for the journey and absorbed in letter-writing, making known to everybody whom she could think of, the existence of the little house in Mayfair. It is doubtful whether she so much as observed any difference in the demeanour of her hostess, having in fact the most unbounded confidence in Lucy, whom she did not believe capable of any such revulsion of feeling. Bice was more clear-sighted, but she thought Milady was displeased with her own proceedings, and sought no further for a cause. And the only thing the girl could do was to endeavour by all the little devices she could think of to show the warm affection she really felt for Lucy--a method which made the heart of Lucy more and more sick with that sense of falsehood which sometimes rose in her, almost to the height of pa.s.sion. A woman who had ever learned to use harsh words, or to whose mind it had ever been possible to do or say anything to hurt another, would no doubt have burst forth upon the girl with some reproach or intimation of doubt which might have cleared the matter so far as Bice went. But Lucy had no such words at her command. She could not say anything unkind. It was not in her. She could be silent, indeed, but not even that, so far as to "hurt the feelings" of her companion. The effect, therefore, was only that Lucy laboured to maintain a little artificial conversation, which in its turn reacted upon her mind, showing that even in herself there was the same disposition to insincerity which she had begun to discover in the world. She could say nothing to Bice about the matters which a little while before, when all was well, she had grieved over and objected to. Now she had nothing to say on such subjects. That the girl should be set up to auction, that she should put forth all those arts in which she had been trained, to attract and secure young Montjoie, or any like him, were things which had pa.s.sed beyond her sphere. To think of them rendered her heart more sick, her head more giddy. But if Bice married some one whom she did not love, that was not so bad as to think that perhaps she herself all this time had been living with, and loving, in sacred trust and faith, a man who even by her side was full of thoughts unknown to her, given to another. Sometimes Lucy closed her eyes in a sort of sick despair, feeling everything about her go round and round. But she said nothing to throw any light upon the state of her being. Sir Tom felt a little gravity--a little distance in his wife; but he himself was much occupied with a new and painful subject of thought.
And Jock observed nothing at all, being at a stage when man (or boy) is wholly possessed with affairs of his own. He had his troubles, too. He was not easy about that breach with his master now that they were separated. When Bice was kind to him a gleam of triumph, mingled with pity, made him remorseful towards that earlier friend; and when she was unkind a bitter sense of fellowship turned Jock"s thoughts towards that sublime ideal of masculine friendship which is above the lighter loves of women. How can a boy think of his sister when absorbed in such a mystery of his own?--even if he considered his sister at all as a person whom it was needful to think about--which he did not, Lucy being herself one of the pillars of the earth to his unopened eyes.
All this, however, made no difference in Lucy"s determination. She wrote to Mr. Rushton that very morning, after this revolution in her soul, to instruct him as to her intentions in respect to Bice, and to her other trustee in London to request him to see her immediately on her arrival in Park Lane. Nothing should be changed in that matter, for why, she said to herself, should Bice suffer because Sir Tom was untrue? It seemed to her that there was more reason than ever why she should rouse herself and throw off her inaction. No doubt there were many people whom she could make, if not happy, yet comfortable. It was comfortable (everybody said) to have enough of money--to be well off. Lucy had no experience of what it was to be without it. She thought to herself she would like to try, to have only what she actually wanted, to cook the food for her little family, to nurse little Tom all by herself, to live as the cottagers lived. There was in her mind no repugnance to any of the details of poverty. Her wealth was an accident; it was the habit of her race to be poor, and it seemed to Lucy that she would be happier could she shake off now all those external circ.u.mstances which had grown, like everything else, into falsehoods, giving an appearance of well-being which did not exist. But other people thought it well to have money, and it was her duty to give it. A kind of contempt rose within her for all that withheld her previously. To avoid her duty because it would displease Sir Tom--what was that but falsehood too? All was falsehood, only she had never seen it before.
They reached town in the afternoon of a sweet April day, the sky aglow with a golden sunset, against which the trees in the park stood out with their half-developed buds: and all the freshness of the spring was in the long stretches of green, and the softened jubilee of sound to which somehow, as the air warms towards summer, the voices of the world outside tune themselves. The Contessa and Bice in great spirits and happiness, like two children home from school, had left the Randolph party at the railway, to take possession of the little house in Mayfair.
They had both waved their hands from the carriage window and called out, "Be sure you come and see us," as they drove away. "You will come to-night," they had stipulated with Sir Tom and Jock. It was like a new toy which filled them with glee. Could it be possible that those two adventurers going off to their little temporary home with smiles so genuine, with so simple a delight in their new beginning, were not, in their strange way, innocent, full of guile and shifts as one was, and the other so apt a scholar? Lucy would have joined in all this pleasure two days ago, but she could not now. She went home to her luxurious house, where all was ready, as if she had not been absent an hour. How wonderfully wealth smooths away the inconveniences of change! and how little it has to do, Lucy thought, with the comfort of the soul! No need for any exertion on her part, any scuffling for the first arrival, any trouble of novelty. She came from the Hall to London without any sense of change. Had she been compelled to superintend the arrangement of her house, to make it habitable, to make it pretty, that would have done her good. But the only thing for her to do was to see Mr. Chervil, her trustee, who waited upon her according to her request, and who, after the usual remonstrances, took her instructions about the gift to Bice very unwillingly, but still with a forced submission. "If I cannot make you see the folly of it, Lady Randolph, and if Sir Thomas does not object, I don"t know what more is to be said." "There is nothing more to be said," Lucy said, with a smile; but there was this difficulty in the proceeding which she had not thought of, that Bice"s name all this time was unknown to her--Beatrice di Forno-Populo, she supposed, but the Contessa had never called her so, and it was necessary to be exact, Mr.
Chervil said. He hailed this as an occasion of delay. He was not so violent as he had been on previous occasions when Lucy was young; and he did not, like Mr. Rushton, a.s.sume the necessity of speaking to Sir Tom.
Mr. Chervil was a London solicitor, and knew very little about Sir Tom.
But he was glad to seize upon anything that was good for a little delay.
After this interview was over it was a mingled vexation and relief to Lucy to see the Dowager drive up to the door. Lady Randolph the elder was always in London from the first moment possible. She preferred the first bursting of the spring in the squares and parks. She liked to see her friends arrive by degrees, and to feel that she had so far the better of them. She came in, full as she always was of matter, with a thousand things to say. "I have come to stay to dinner, if you will have me," she said, "for of course Tom will be going out in the evening. They are always so glad to get back to their life." And it was, perhaps, a relief to have Lady Randolph to dinner, to be saved from the purely domestic party, to which Jock scarcely added any new element; but it was hard for Lucy to encounter even the brief questionings which were addressed to her in the short interval before dinner. "So you have got rid of that woman at last," Lady Randolph said; "I hear she has got a house in Mayfair."
"Yes, Aunt Randolph, if you mean the Contessa," said Lucy.
"And that she intends to make a bold _coup_ to get the girl off her hands. These sort of people so often succeed: I shouldn"t wonder if she were to succeed. I always said the girl would be handsome, but I think she might have waited another year."
To this Lucy made no reply, and it was necessary for the Dowager to carry on the conversation, so to speak, at her own cost.
"I hope most earnestly, Lucy," she said, "that now you have got clear of them you will not mix yourself up with them again. You were placed in an uneasy position, very difficult to get out of, I will allow; but now that you have shaken them off, and they have proved they can get on without you, don"t, I entreat you, mix yourself up with them again."
Lucy could not keep the blood from mounting, and colouring her face. She had always spoken of the Contessa calmly before. She tried to keep her composure now. "Dear Aunt Randolph, I have not shaken them off. They have gone away of themselves, and how can I refuse to see them? There is to be a party here for them on the 26th."
"Oh, my dear, my dear, that was very imprudent! I had hoped you would keep clear of them in London. It is one thing showing kindness to an old friend in the country, and it is quite another----"
Here Lucy made an imperative gesture, almost commanding silence. Sir Tom was coming into the room. She was seated in the great bay window against the early twilight, the soft radiance of which dazzled the eyes of the elder lady, and prevented her from perceiving her nephew"s approach. But Lady Randolph, before she rose to meet him, gave a startled look at Lucy. "Have you found it out, then?" she said involuntarily, in her great surprise.
CHAPTER XL.
THE DOWAGER"S EXPLANATION.
The Dowager was a woman far more clever than Lucy, who knew the world.
And she was apt perhaps, instead of missing the meaning of the facts around her, to put too much significance in them. Now, when the little party met at dinner, Lady Randolph saw in the faces of both husband and wife more than was there, though much was there. Sir Tom was more grave than became a man who had returned into life, as his aunt said, and was looking forward to resuming the better part of existence--the House, the clubs, the quick throb of living which is in London. His countenance was full of thought, and there was both trouble and perplexity in it, but not the excitement which the Dowager supposed she found there, and those signs of having yielded to an evil influence which eyes accustomed to the world are so ready to discover. Lucy for her part was pale and silent. She had little to say, and scarcely addressed her husband at all. Lady Randolph, and that was very natural, took those signs of heart sickness for tokens of complete enlightenment, for the pa.s.sion of a woman who had entered upon that struggle with another woman for a man"s love which, even when the man is her husband, has something degrading in it. There had been a disclosure, a terrible scene, no doubt, a stirring up of all the pa.s.sions, Lady Randolph thought. No doubt that was the reason why the Contessa had loosed her clutches, and left the house free of her presence; but Lucy was still trembling after the tempest, and had not learned to take any pleasure in her victory. This was the conclusion of the woman of the world.
The dinner was not a lengthy one, and the ladies went upstairs again, with a suppressed constraint, each anxious to know what the other was on her guard not to tell. They sat alone expectant for some time, making conversation, taking their coffee, listening, and watching each how the other listened, for the coming of the gentlemen, or rather for Sir Tom; for Jock, in his boyish insignificance, counted for little. The trivial little words that pa.s.sed between them during this interval were charged with a sort of moral electricity, and stung and tingled in the too conscious silence. At length, after some time had elapsed: "I am glad I came," said Lady Randolph, "to sit with you, Lucy, this first evening; for of course Tom cannot resist, the first evening in town, the charms of his club."
"His club! Oh, I think he has gone to see the house," Lucy said. "He promised----; it is not very far off."
"The house? You mean that woman"s house. Lucy, I have no patience with you any more than I have with Tom. Why don"t you put a stop to it? why don"t you--for I suppose you have found out what sort of a woman she is by this time, and why she came here?"
"She came----to introduce Bice and establish her in the world," Lucy said, in a faint tone. "Oh! Aunt Randolph, please do not let us discuss it! It is not what I like to think of. Bice will be sacrificed to the first rich man who asks her; or at least that is what the Contessa means."
"My dear Lucy," said the Dowager, calmly, "that is reasonable enough. I wish the Contessa meant no worse than that. Most girls are persuaded to marry a rich man if he asks them. I don"t think so much of that. But it will not be so easy as she thinks," the Dowager added. "It is true that beauty does much--but not everything; and a girl in that position, with no connections, or, at least, none that she would not be better without----"
Lucy"s attention strayed from this question, which once had been so important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must be maintained. She said at random: "She has a beautiful voice."
"Has she? And the Contessa herself sings very well. That will no doubt be another attraction," said Lady Randolph, in her impartial way. "But the end of it all is, who will she get to go, and who will invite them?
It is vain to lay snares if there is nothing to be caught."
"They will be invited--here," said Lucy, faltering a little. "I told you I am to have a great gathering on the 26th."
"I could not believe my ears. You!--and she is to appear here for the first time to make her _debut_. Good heavens, Lucy! What can I say to you--_that_ girl!"
"Why not, Aunt Randolph?" said Lucy (oh, what does it matter--what does it matter, that she should make so much fuss about it? she was saying in herself); "I have always liked Bice, and she has been very good to little Tom."
"Well," cried the angry lady, forgetting herself, and smiling the fierce smile of wrath, "there is no doubt that it is perfectly appropriate--the very thing that ought to happen if we lived according to the rules of nature, without thought of conventionalities and decorums, and so forth--oh, perfectly appropriate! If you don"t object I know no one who has any right to say a word."
Even now Lucy was scarcely roused enough to be surprised by the vehemence of these words. "Why should I object?" she said; "or why should any one say a word?" Her calm, which was almost indifference, excited Lady Randolph more and more.
"You are either superhuman," she said, with exasperation, "or you are---- Lucy, I don"t know what words to use. You put one out of every reckoning. You are like n.o.body I ever knew before. Why should you object? Why, good heavens! you are the only person that has any right---- Who should object if not you?"
"Aunt Randolph," said Lucy, rousing herself with an effort, "would you please tell me plainly what you mean? I am not clever. I can"t make things out. I have always liked Bice. To save her from being made a victim I am going to give her some of the money under my father"s will--and if I could give her---- What is the matter?" she cried, stopping short suddenly, and in spite of herself growing pale.
Lady Randolph flung up her hands in dismay. She gave something like a shriek as she exclaimed: "And Tom is letting you do this?" with horror in her tone.