“Kind!” said Philip at last, thoroughly woke up. He opened his eyes wide and shook himself instinctively. This was what Mrs. Ford meant, and no wonder if she made a scene. “This is a strange step to take, Lucy,” he said, seriously. “I don’t know what it means. I should think, as a relative, and your father’s successor, and—engaged in tuition” (nature had brought the word schoolmaster to his lips, but unless you belong to the higher branches of the profession, you do not like to call yourself a school-master), “that I had the first claim.”
Lucy was greatly distressed. She had never considered the question before in this light. “Oh, Philip! I am so sorry. So you should have had, if I had ever thought! I beg your pardon a thousand times. But then,” she added, recovering her composure, “you have a great many boys—it does not matter to you; and this poor gentleman—”
“Poor gentlemen ought not to come to you,” said Philip, with indignation. “A barrister, a man in bad health—what has he to do with a small boy? Jock ought to have come to me. I proposed it before you went to London; it is the best thing for him. I think that your father meant him to be my successor in Kent’s Lane.”
“Oh, no, no! never that,” said Lucy.
“Is it so much beneath Jock?” Philip said, with a touch of natural bitterness. “But anyhow, it is I that ought to have the charge of him. I do not want to be unkind, Lucy; but I think I begin to see what Mrs. Ford means about your family.”
“Philip!” cried Lucy, indignant; and then she added, almost crying, “You are all so unjust; and if you say so, too, what am I to do?”
“I will not say anything; but it is what I can not help thinking,” said Philip, with the stateliness of offense. It seemed to him, he could scarcely tell how, that he was being defrauded, not of Jock, who was a trifle, but of all share or interest in Lucy’s future. He had come back on purpose to look after her, to keep her out of trouble. While he had been away it had been more and more clear to him that to share Lucy’s fortune was in a manner his right. It would save him at least ten years, it would secure his position at once, and he had a right. He had come to the Terrace that evening full of this idea; and he had played the fool—he could not but allow that he had played the fool. What were poetry and the stars and the mild influences of the Pleiades to him? He was a Rainy, and there was no one who had so much right to share the great Rainy fortune. The energy of opposition awoke him, which nothing else, perhaps, could have done. “You will forgive me,” he said, “but you are only a young girl, and you can not be expected to understand. And it is quite true what Aunt Ford said, there are always a herd of harpies after a young girl with a large fortune. You should take the advice of those who belong to you. You should first consult your true friends.”
Lucy was confounded; she did not know how to reply. Was not Sir Thomas her true friend? He had not been angry with her when she told him about that famous scheme for giving the money back. Some floating idea that Philip would have been able to help her in that respect, that he might have suggested what, for instance, she should give to St. Clair, had been in her mind. But Lucy promptly shut up her impulse of confession. She withdrew a little from his side. He was not ignorant like the Fords—he was a kind of natural adviser. “But what is the use of speaking to any one who does not understand?” Lucy said. So they traversed the rest of the way in silence, Philip occasionally making a severe remark in the same vein, yet feeling, as he did so, that every word he said was a sacrifice of his vantage-ground. He wanted to change his tactics when he saw the evident mistake of strategy he had made. But such matters are not within our own control; when a false key is struck it is not easy to get free of it. Philip was ready to curse himself for his folly; but at the same time his folly and his wrong key-note and the misadventure of the evening altogether gave him a sense of almost aversion to his cousin. “What a contrast!” he said to himself. Thus Lucy, whose simplicity was captivating to such a man of the world as Sir Tom, made the Farafield schoolmaster indignant and impatient beyond measure. Sir Thomas would have been in no sort of danger from little Katie. Thus the world goes on, without any regard to the suitable or possible. They said “good-night” very coolly to each other, and Lucy ran upstairs vexed and troubled—for to be disapproved of wounded her. As for Mrs. Ford, she came out of the parlor, where she now seemed to lie in wait for occurrences, when she heard them come to the door. “Come soon again, Philip,” she whispered, “there’s a good lad. I think the whole town is after her. You are the one that ought to get it all. You will be kindly welcome if you come every day.”
“I have not a notion what it is you want me to get,” said Philip, crossly, as he strode away.