Sir Thomas opened his eyes wide. “Ah, I see! you took what I said au pied de la lettre,” he said, with languid contempt. Now the executor was little experienced in the French or any foreign tongue, and he did not know what the foot of the letter meant. He cried, “Oh, no, not at all!” apologetically, shocked by his own boldness; and went away bewildered all round, and much troubled in his mind about the stability of the Rainy estate. Mr. Chervil was the most honorable of trustees—his own interest had nothing at all to do with his opposition. But prodigality in business matters was, to him, the master sin, above all those of the Decalogue. There was, indeed, no commandment there which ordained, “Thou shalt not waste thy money, or give it injudiciously away.” But Mr. Chervil felt that this was a mere oversight on the part of the great lawgiver, and one which prudent persons had a right to amend on their own account. Mr. Chervil, who here felt an unexpressed confidence that he was better informed (on matters of business) than the Almighty, was very sure that he knew a great deal better than old Trevor. He scouted the old man’s ideas as preposterous. That craze of his about giving it back was evident madness. Give it back! the thing to be done was exactly the contrary. He himself knew the way of doubling every pound, and building up the great Rainy fortune into proportions colossal and magnificent. But he did not think of any advantage to himself in all this. He was quite content that it should be the little sedate figure of the girl which should be raised, ever higher and higher into the blazing heaven of wealth upon that golden pedestal, heaped with new and ever-renewed ingots. And not only was this, his ambition, perfectly honest, but there was even in a way something visionary in it, an ideal, something that stood in the place of poetry and art to Mr. Chervil. It was his way of identifying the highest good, the most perfect beauty.
A fortune does not appeal to the eye like a statue or picture; but sometimes it appeals to the mind in a still more superlative way. Old Trevor’s executor felt himself capable of working at it with an enthusiasm which Phidias, which Michael Angelo could not have surpassed. “Anch’ io pittore.” I too have made something all beautiful, all excellent, all but divine, he would have said, had he known how. And when he contemplated the possibility of having his materials taken from him piecemeal, and scattered over the country to produce quite inappreciable results in private holes and corners, his pain and rage and disappointment were almost as great as the sentiments which would have moved the fierce Buonarotti had some wretched bungler got into his studio, and cut knobs off the very bit of marble in which already he saw his David. Therefore it was not altogether a sordid sentiment which moved him. There was in it something of the desperation of a sincere fanatic, as well as the regret of a man of business over opportunities foolishly thrown away.
And Lucy, if the truth must be told, got no particular satisfaction out of the proceeding. She thought it right to suggest, though very timidly, that instead of the bigger house which poor Mrs. Russell’s desperation had been contemplating, a smaller house, where she could herself be comfortable, would be the best; and the suggestion was not graciously received. The family indeed which she had so greatly befriended contemplates her with a confusion and embarrassment which made poor Lucy wretched. Mary, the one of them whom she had always liked best, avoided the sight of the benefactor who had saved them all from destruction. When she appeared reluctantly, her cheeks red with shame, and her eyes with crying, she could scarcely look Lucy in the face. “Oh, Miss Trevor! I wish you had not done it. We should have struggled through and been honest,” Mary exclaimed, averting her eyes; and then she fell a-crying and begged Lucy’s pardon with half-angry vehemence, declaring she hated herself for her ingratitude. Wondering, bewildered, and sad, Lucy stole away as if she had been a guilty creature from the house to which she had given a little fortune, ease, and security, and comfort. Had she made enemies of them instead of friends? Instead of making them happy she seemed to have destroyed all family accord, and put everything wrong. Nor was this all the trouble the poor girl had. She had scarcely got back from that mission of uncomfortable beneficence, when she saw, by the general aspect of affairs in Lady Randolph’s drawing-room that something was wrong. Lady Randolph herself sat bending, with quite unaccustomed energy, over a piece of work, which Lucy had got to know was her refuge when she was annoyed or disturbed—with a flush under her eyes, which was also a sure sign of atmospheric derangement. Sir Thomas was pacing about the room behind backs, and as Lucy came in she saw him (which even in a moment of violent commotion disturbed her orderly soul) tear a newspaper in several pieces, and throw it into the basket under the writing-table—a new newspaper, for it was Saturday. What could he mean? Near Lady Randolph was seated old Lady Betsinda full in the light, and looking more like a merchant of old clothes than ever; while Mrs. Berry-Montagu had her usual place in the shadow of the curtains; the two visitors had the conversation in their hands.
“My dear Mary Randolph,” Lady Betsinda was saying, “you ought to have taken my advice. Never have anything to do with authors; I say it to everybody, and to you I am sure if I have said it once I have said it a hundred times. They are a beggarly race; they don’t print by subscriptions nowadays, but they do far worse. If they can not get as much out of you as they want they will make you suffer for it. Have not I told you? When you’re good to them, they think they pay you a compliment by accepting it. A great many people think it gives them importance to have such persons about their house; they think that is the way to get a salon like the French, but there never was a greater mistake. Authors, so far as I’ve seen, are the very dullest people going; if they ever have an idea in their heads they save it up carefully for their books.”
“What would you have them to do with it, Lady Betty? Waste it upon you and me? Most likely we should not understand it,” said the other lady, with her soft little sneer. “Come in, come in, Miss Trevor, and sit and learn at Lady Betty’s feet.”
Lady Randolph bent toward the speaker with a rapid whisper.
“Not a word to Lucy about it, for heaven’s sake!” she said.
Mrs. Berry-Montagu made no reply; almost all that could be seen of her was the malicious gleam in her eyes.
“Come and learn wisdom,” she said, “at the feet of Lady Betsinda. When we have a university like the men, there shall be a chair of social experience, and she shall be voted into it by acclamation,” Lady Betsinda was a little deaf, and rarely caught all that was said, but she made no show of this imperfection, and went on without asking any questions.
“I have met a great many authors in my day,” she said; “they used to be more in society in my time. Now it has become a sort of trade, I hear, like cotton-spinning. Oh, yes, cotton-spinners, my dear, get into society—when they are rich enough—and so do the people that write, but not as they used to do. They are commoner now. It seemed so very clever once to write a book; now, I hear, it’s a great deal more clever not to write. I don’t give that as my opinion; ask Cecilia Montagu, it is she who tells me all the new ideas.”