However, Mr. Trevor’s mind was so full of this new idea that he could do nothing but show, over and over again, how beautifully it fitted in with every previous arrangement, and how naturally everything led up to this.
“Of course,” he said, “to keep you under control all your days was what I never thought, my dear. What I intended all along was to train you to a right use of your liberty. Only when you are able to bear the burden, Lucy—when you have seen a great many fancies drop off and a great deal that you have believed in fail you, and when you have learned to know what is the best.”
“Do you think that is so hard, papa?” said Lucy, quietly, yet with a faint half gleam of a smile. No doubt it was natural that at his age he should make “a fuss” about everything Lucy felt, though she was so sensible that, of course, she would choose nothing but the best.
“Yes, it is very hard,” said the old man; “one tries a great many things before one comes to that. A good-looking fellow, perhaps, for a lover, or a nice mannered girl for a friend—till you find out that they are naught, neither one nor the other, and that you have got to begin again; that’s the way of the world. Then perhaps you will choose some others quite different, and they will cheat you, too. You get a little more and a little more experience at every step, and then at the end you will find somebody, as I found poor Lucilla, that is really the best.”
Lucy looked up at him aghast. The idea made her tremble; first one bad and then another, and at last a Lucilla who would die, and be in her turn succeeded by another, who was not the best. This gave the girl a shudder.
“I would rather put up with the bad ones,” she cried, “if I am fond of them, than go from one to another; it is horrible what you are saying, papa.”
“Well, perhaps it is,” said old Trevor, “life’s not so very beautiful, whatever you may think just now; but what I am saying is right, that is one thing I am certain of. You may content yourself with what’s inferior if you like, Lucy; but you can’t expect any encouragement from me—”
She looked at him with a little alarm in her eyes. “It would be better to have nothing to do with anybody, to live all alone by one’s self, and never care for anybody,” she cried.
“Many people do that,” said old Trevor, “but I don’t approve of it, Lucy. Take example by me. I had seen a many before I saw your mother, but I never had got any satisfaction to my mind till I met with Lucilla. I used to say to myself, this one won’t do, and that one won’t do. You see I kept my wits about me, and my head clear. Now that’s the plan you must go upon, both with friends and with a husband if you marry. You don’t need to marry unless you like— I don’t say one thing or the other—you are to please yourself. But don’t take the first that comes, don’t take any one till you’ve tried him and tested him. And the same with your friends—take ’em and leave ’em, and choose again till you have found the best.”
“It is horrible, papa!” cried Lucy, almost with tears. Then, though she was not an imaginative girl, there suddenly came across her mind the story which she had been telling to little Jock. She had denied stoutly that it was an allegory, as Jock’s more experienced imagination had at once feared; but there was something in the course of this conversation which chimed in with it, which brought it to her mind. Just so had the giant in that story sought his strongest and greatest. The end of the tale which she had not told to Jock was very incomprehensible to Lucy herself. She had not understood it when it was “read out loud,” but it did not trouble her mind much. She thought it would do for a story to tell Jock, that was all. Now she thought of it again as she sat over the almonds and raisins opposite to her father and listened to him, and shrunk from the map of life which he opened out before her. His revelations went up to just about the same point as the story she had told to Jock. And after that came the incomprehensible part, how to discern the best, how to get to the acquaintance of the mysterious conqueror of all. Jock had said that was the difficult bit. In the story it was all a confusion to Lucy, and she could not understand it at all.