While Lucy’s mind was thus soothed and comforted by the consciousness of doing her duty, a very different effect was produced upon her father’s executors, who, it is scarcely necessary to say, regarded her attempt to fulfill the commands of the secret codicil with mingled consternation and fury. Mr. Chervil, who, being at hand, was the first representative of these legal authorities to be appealed to on the matter, had obeyed her first call with some surprise, and had been, as was not unnatural, driven nearly frantic by the quiet intimation given him by the little girl, whom he looked upon as a child, that she intended to use the power intrusted to her.
“What do you know about Codicil F?” he said. “I don’t know that there is any Codicil F. I don’t believe in it. You are under a mistake, Miss Lucy;” but when she made it apparent to him that her means of knowing were unquestionable, and her determination absolute, Mr. Chervil went a step further—he blasphemed. “It is against every law,” he said. “I don’t believe it would stand in any court. I don’t feel that I should be justified in paying any attention to it. I am sure Rushton would be of my opinion. It was a mere piece of folly, downright madness, delusion— I don’t know what to call it.”
“But whatever it is,” said Lucy, with great prudence, putting forth no theory of her own, “what papa said is law to me.” And though his resistance was desperate she held her own with a gentle pertinacity.
Lucy’s aspect was so entirely that of a submissive and dutiful girl; she was so modestly commonplace, so unlike a heroine, that it was a long time before he could believe that this little creature really meant to make a stand upon her rights. He could scarcely believe, even, that she understood what those rights were, or could stand for a moment against his denial of them. When he was driven to remonstrance, a chill of discouragement succeeded the first fury of his refusal. He tried every oratorical art by sheer stress of nature, denouncing, entreating, imploring all in a breath.
“It is like something out of the Dark Ages,” he cried. “It is mere demoralization. You will make a race of paupers, you will ruin the character of every person who comes near you. For God’s sake! Miss Lucy, think what you want to do. It is not to give away money, it is to spread ruin far and wide—ruin of all the moral sentiments; you will make people dishonest, you will take away their independence, you will be worse than a civil war! And look here,” cried the executor, desperate, “perhaps you think you will get gratitude for it, that people will think you a great benefactor? Not a bit of them! You will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind,” he cried, wrath and despair driving him to that great storehouse of poetry with which early training still supplies the most commonplace of Englishmen.
Lucy listened with great attention, and it was an effort for her to restrain her own awe and respect for “a gentleman,” and the almost terror with which his excitement, as he paced about her little dainty room, shaking the whole house with his hasty steps, filled her. To see her mild countenance, her slight little form, under the hail-storm of his passion, was half pathetic and half ludicrous. Sometimes she cried, sometimes trembled, but never gave in. Other stormy interviews followed, and letters from Mr. Rushton, in which every argument was addressed both to her “good sense” and “good feeling;” but Lucy had neither the good sense to appreciate their conscientious care of her money nor the good feeling to allow that her father had in this particular acted like a fool or a madman. She was wise enough to attempt no argument, but she never gave in; there were moments, indeed, when the two men were in hopes that they had triumphed; but these were only when Lucy herself was wavering and discouraged in regard to the Russells, and unable to decide what to do. The evening after her final interview with Mrs. Russell she sent for Mr. Chervil again; and it was not without a little panic and beating of her heart that Lucy looked forward to this conclusive meeting. She had to prop herself up by all kind of supports, recalling to herself the misery she had seen, and the efforts to conceal that misery, which were almost more painful still to behold, and, on the other hand, the precision of her father’s orders, which entirely suited the case: “If it is a woman, let it be an income upon which she can live and bring up her children;” nothing could be more decided than this. Nevertheless, Lucy felt her heart jump to her mouth when she heard Mr. Chervil’s heavy yet impetuous feet come hastily upstairs.
And Mr. Chervil, as was natural, made a desperate stand, feeling it to be the last. He made Lucy cry, and gave her a great deal of very unpleasant advice; he went further, he bullied her, and made her blush, asking, coarsely, whether it was for the son’s sake that she was so determined to pension the mother? for she had been obliged to give him full particulars of the Russell family and their distresses. It was a terrible morning for the poor little girl. But if the executor ever hoped to make Lucy swerve, or to bully her into giving up her intention, no mistake could be greater. She blushed, and she cried with shame and pain. All the trouble of a child in being violently scolded, the hurts and wounds, the mortification, the sense of injustice, she felt, but she did not yield an inch. Lucy knew the power she had, and no force on earth would have turned her from it. He might hurt her, that was not hard to do, but change her mind he could not; her gentle obstinacy was invincible; she cried, but she stood fast; and naturally the victory fell to her, after that battle. From the beginning Mr. Chervil knew well enough that if she stood out there was nothing to be done, but it seemed to him that fifty must be more than a match for seventeen; and in this he was mistaken, which is not unusual. When, however, all was over, the capitulation signed and sealed, and Lucy, though tearful, intrenched with all her banners flying upon the field of battle, a new sensation awaited the discomfited and angry guardian of her possessions. He thought he had already put up with as much as flesh and blood could bear, but it may be imagined what Mr. Chervil’s feelings were when his ward thus addressed him, putting back a little lock of hair which had got out of its usual tidiness during the struggle (for though there was no actual fighting—far be it from us to insinuate that the angry guardian went the length of blows, though he would have clearly liked to whip her, had he dared—agitation itself puts a girl’s light locks out of order), and pursuing a last tear into the corner of her eyes:
“I want a hundred pounds, if you please, directly; I borrowed it yesterday,” said Lucy, with great composure, “from Sir Thomas, and I said I would pay it back to-day.”
“You—borrowed a hundred pounds—from Sir Thomas!” His voice gurgled in his throat. It was a wonder that he did not have a fit; the blood rushed to his head, his very breath seemed arrested. It was almost as much as his life—being a man of full habit and sanguine temperament—was worth.
“Yes,” said Lucy’s calm, little soft voice. There was still occasionally the echo of a sob in it, as in a child’s voice after a fit of crying, but yet it was quite calm. “Will you write a check for him, if you please?”