“That is exactly what I can not tell you,” he said. “I thought it might be some entanglement with that young fellow of the book; but it is not that. It is quite possible she might marry me—”
“Well, but, Tom, why should you be so very particular? Think what it would be for the estate. You might pay off everything, and regain the first position in the county. You ought to have the first position in the county. What is Lord Langton in comparison with the Randolphs? A nobody; and all this that girl could do. Only think what her fortune could do. I am not mercenary— I don’t think I am mercenary—but when you just realize it. Oh, how often I have said to myself, your uncle had no right to marry me. He ought to have married somebody with money. And now if you can set it right, why, oh, why, should you have any absurd scruples? Of course, Lucy would be very glad; and she would make you a good little wife. She is not impassioned—she never will be out of her wits about any one; if that is what you want, Tom.”
“No, I don’t think that is what I want,” he said; “but in the meantime we need not quarrel about it; for you know there are the guardians to be taken into consideration, and it would be foolish to show one’s hand. And then there is plenty of time. One ought to go cautiously to work.”
He laughed as he quoted all her own little speeches to her. But for her part Lady Randolph could have cried—how difficult it is to be patient when you are anxious! She had been alarmed by what she thought a too hasty progress; now she was cast down to the depths of trouble by this sudden suggestion that no progress at all had been made. She did not know what to do. It was no use speaking to Tom, so self-willed was he—always taking his own way. She had no patience with him. Of course Lucy liked him—how could she help it? And to think that he would run the risk of losing all that for the merest fantastic nonsense! Oh, she had no patience with him! But when he only laughed and made a joke of it all what was the use of saying anything? Poor Lady Randolph! She could not let things take their own way. She was unhappy not to be able to guide them, and yet she knew that she could not guide them. Either they would go on too quickly or they would not go on at all.
The effect of this conversation was, that she started in a much less cheerful and hopeful state of mind for that yearly renovation at Homburg. She tried to make a parting effort for Sir Tom, when she said good-bye to Lucy, who was to leave by a later train. “If Tom stays at the Hall, and there is anything you want advice about, never hesitate to apply to him, my love,” she said; “you may have every confidence in him, as much confidence as in myself.”
“Oh, yes, Lady Randolph,” said Lucy, with the warmest sincerity. “I should ask him anything—he has always been so kind to me.”
“It is more than kindness—he has a real interest in you, Lucy; and you need never fear to trust Tom. He has a heart of gold, and he is the truest friend in the world,” Lady Randolph said. She kissed her charge with fervor. Could she say more? When she turned round who should be watching her but Tom himself, with that twinkle in his eye. The poor lady felt as if she had been detected. She made her exit quite crestfallen, while Sir Thomas paused to tell Lucy he would come back for her half an hour before the train started. “It is not everybody that would make himself a railway porter for your service, is it, Miss Lucy?” he said, laughing. “Depend upon it, however specious other people may look, it is ‘Codlin’s the friend.’” He went out after his aunt, still laughing; but as for Lucy, she looked after him somewhat bewildered. Her reading was not her strong point, and she could not think what “Codlin” had to do with it, or who that personage was.
But what a different Lucy it was that took possession of a special carriage reserved for her own party, to Farafield, with her maid and mountain of luggage, from the humble little Lucy, with two black frocks, who had come to town with Lady Randolph in February. Her groom, with her horses and Jock’s pony, had gone the night before. Jock himself, embracing a big book, was the thing of all her surroundings that was the least changed. Lucy’s mind, indeed, was not altered, as were her outward circumstances, but it had expanded and widened, so that she became a little giddy as the journey approached its close, half pleased, half alarmed to think of the old life, the familiar streets, the old white parlor with its blue curtains, and the view from the window across the common to Mrs. Stone’s school. Sir Thomas, who had traveled with her part of the way, now departing to the smoking-carriage, now coming to inquire into her comfort and the progress she was making in the novel with which he had thoughtfully provided her, joined the party at the last important station.
“You have scarcely read twenty pages,” he said, reproachfully, “after all my care in choosing you a pretty book. You have read five times as much, Jock.”
Jock looked up on being addressed. Though he was many fathoms deep below the surface, he always heard when he was spoken to, and often when he was not spoken to. He was lying across the arm of one seat, with his book lying on the cushions of another, in a dark blue valley below him. He gave a sidelong look of disdain to his questioner.