“I should like to meet her very much,” said Lucy, offering her pretty cheek for Cousin Julia’s kiss. “I shall come back for some luncheon if you will have me, and then you can tell me all the rest. My people will be waiting now.”
Mrs. Rolt stood at the window and looked after her admiringly as she went away. Such a young creature—to do so much—and to keep the parish together. But then the good woman reflected that she had now said this of Lucy for some years, and counting back, decided that she must be twenty-three—not so very young to be still unmarried, for Sir John Curtis’s daughter, who might marry anybody. “I wonder if there is some one,” said Cousin Julia to herself, making a private review in her own mind of all the gentlemen she knew—which took her thoughts off the new-comer in Wren Cottage, though she might already be seen at the window gazing out with a certain eagerness, and showing more than one ear.
Lucy went on her way with a little tremble of excitement about her, though she laughed at herself for this absurd fancy of hers about Mrs. Arthur. Why should she think of her brother’s wife? She was not aware that Nancy had left Underhayes, or that anything had happened to the family; and it was too foolish to suppose that the unknown sister-in-law who had left her husband and her duty rather than abandon her family would have thrown them aside again aimlessly to come here. Why should she come here? She had shown no symptom of any desire to make herself acquainted with Arthur’s home; but rather had defied and rejected everything that could connect her with it. And now, after all was over between them, why should she come now? Arthur was a quite well-known surname, as Mrs. Rolt said; and she rebuked herself for the fantastic idea with some vehemence. She went about her business, however, with a mind a little discomposed, feeling she knew not how, as if some new chapter had begun; and half expecting the new-comer to rise up in her path, and interfere with her. But Lucy’s business went on as usual without disturbance from any one. She held her usual business levée, receiving the little savings of the poor women, the scrapings of pennies and threepennies they could put aside for the children’s frocks at Christmas, and heard all their stories of boys who were doing well, and boys who were doing ill, and girls that wanted “placing,” and those that were going to learn the dress-making, or away to Oakenden to service. Many a domestic tale she had to hear and sympathise with, and had to make several promises to “speak to” unruly sons and husbands. The village women had a great confidence in “somebody speaking to” those careless fellows, who would go with their wages to the public-house instead of taking them home. “It ain’t that he’s got a bad heart—but oh, Miss Lucy, he do want talking to!” they would say; and Lucy would request that the offending husband might be sent up to the Hall on some little commission, or inveigled in the afternoon into the school-room. “But he’s got that sharp, he won’t go nigh the school-room now as he knows as you’re there, and what’s a-coming,” one of these plaintive wives said shaking her head. “Then you must say I want to speak to him,” said Lucy, “don’t make any pretence of business, but just say I want to see him up at the House. I will give him a little job to do for me if he behaves himself rightly,” said Lucy. She had not, perhaps, so much faith in “talking to” as they had; but it was, at the worst, a flattering delusion, and the men themselves did not dislike the importance of the “talking to” which elevated them for the moment, though it was an undesirable elevation. She had come among them since she was a child. She had waged war with the public-house since it was half a joke to hear her small denunciations, and both women and men had laughed and cried at Miss Lucy. “Lord bless her! she do speak up bold,” they had said; and this early interference had given her a certain power such as the roughest ploughman will allow, holding his breath, to the child, who in baby rectitude and indignation may sometimes lecture a drunken father. She had done a great deal of business in this way before she went back to take luncheon with Cousin Julia, which was not one of the least of her kind offices. You would have supposed Lucy was the most dainty of epicures to see the little feasts Mrs. Rolt made for her on these parish days. Her husband was seldom at home at that hour, and Cousin Julia was ready to feed on nightingale’s tongues, had they been procurable, the young Lady Bountiful who saved her from a solitary meal. And in the afternoon there were the schools to visit, and the little Cottage Hospital, and the cookery, and all that was going on for the good of her village subjects. Bertie, too, had a way of coming to Mrs. Rolt’s on these parish days, and though she was not fond of him, she avowed, as she was of Lucy, yet Bertie was a cousin too, and it was not possible for the gentle soul to forbear from a little feeble essay at matchmaking when she saw these handsome young people together. Bertie was not good enough for Lucy, but Lucy might like him for all that. Things much more unlikely had been known; while it was probable, indeed, that he, only a clergyman, and humble-minded (perhaps) was afraid to venture to open his mind to Sir John’s daughter. Mrs. Rolt felt that it was only doing as she would be done by—or rather as she would have been done by—to allow them to meet when they could. It was the Curtises who were her relations, not my Lady; and she had a little natural opposition in her mind to Lucy’s mother, who was understood to have little admiration for the Rector. “I hope you will not mind, my love, but poor Bertie is coming to lunch,” she said, in deprecating tones on this particular “parish day.”
“Why do you say poor Bertie? I don’t think he considers himself poor,” said Lucy, half annoyed.
“Ah, my dear, he does not get everything he wishes for any more than the rest of us in this world,” Cousin Julia replied; and to such a very natural and likely fact what could anyone say?
CHAPTER V.
BERTIE came to luncheon; and he had things his own way with Cousin Julia, much more than he ever had at the Hall—especially when Mr. Rolt was absent, Mr. Hubert Curtis was permitted to lay down the law. On ordinary occasions he was in the habit of saying that all these shows of interference with the public-house were a piece of womanish nonsense, and did no good, and that the public-house had its place in society, as well as any other institution. But Lucy, being known to entertain strong opinions on this point, the Rector modified his views, or at least the expression of them, when she was present. Sometimes, however, his indiscreet speeches during his absence were brought home to him, even by Cousin Julia’s misdirected zeal and desire to show him at his cleverest.
“Tell Lucy what you were saying about interfering with the people’s liberty,” she said. “I thought it was very clever, Bertie. I should like Lucy to know your way of thinking.” At this Lucy pricked up her ears, and prepared for battle.
“It was nothing,” said the Rector, confused, and giving his simple patroness a murderous look. “Lucy knows that I don’t go so far as she does in using the influence which our position gives us.”
“Is it about the ‘Curtis Arms’?” said Lucy. “I know I would take away the license to-morrow, if I was papa.”