The Hall was a beautiful old house, stately in all its details, huge, and ample, and lofty. To go into it was like walking into a picture. There was a great mirror in the hall, which reflected her slim figure in its new crape and blackness stepping dubiously forward, making her think for a moment that it was some one else she saw, a girl with a pale face, strange to everything, who did not know which way to turn. Lady Randolph took her upstairs to a dim room, pervaded by ruddy firelight, and with glimmering candles lighted here and there. “You shall have this little room to-night, for it is near mine,” Lady Randolph said. Lucy thought it was not a little but a large room, bigger than any bedroom in the Terrace, and more comfortable than anything she had ever dreamed of. The badly built draughty rooms in the Terrace were not half so warm as this soft, silken-cushioned nook. Lucy lay down doubtfully on the sofa as her new friend ordained, but her mind was far too active and her imagination too hazy to permit her perfect rest. Lady Randolph’s maid, a soft-voiced, noiseless person, came to her and brought her tea, opening the little bag she had brought, and arranging everything she wanted, as Lucy’s wants had never been provided for before. All this had a bewildering, yet an awakening effect upon her. She lay for a little while upon the sofa warm and still, and cried a little, which relieved the incipient headache over her heavy eyes. Poor papa! he was gone as he had always planned and intended, and had left her to begin this new life, which he had drawn out and mapped before her feet. And how many things he had left her to do, things which it overawed her to think of! A flutter of anxiety woke in her heart, even now, as she wondered how she should ever be capable of doing them by herself without guidance, so ignorant as she was and inexperienced. But yet she would do them. She would obey everything, she would follow all his instructions, Lucy vowed to herself with a thrill of resolution, and a dropping of tears, which relieved and at the same time exhausted her. But the exhaustion was a land of refreshment. And after awhile Lady Randolph came back, after Lucy had bathed her eyes and smoothed back her fair hair, and took her down-stairs.
“I am glad Tom is away,” Lady Randolph said, “we will have it all to ourselves. To-morrow I will show you the house, and to-night we shall have a little quiet chat, and make friends.”
She gave Lucy’s hand a little pressure with her arm, and led her out of one softly lighted room into another, from the drawing-room, to the dining-room, where they sat down, in the midst of the surrounding dimness, at a shining table, all white and bright, with flowers upon it, unknown at this season in the Terrace. Lucy felt a thrill of awe when the family butler, most respectable of functionaries, put her chair close to the table as she sat down. Once more she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror which reflected her from head to foot, and wondered who it could be sitting there gazing at her with that little pale familiar face.
After the meal was over they went back to a little inner drawing-room, to reach which they had to go through a whole suite of half-lighted, luxurious rooms, all softly warm with firelight. “This used to be my favorite room,” Lady Randolph said, sighing as she looked round. It was called the little drawing-room, and Lady Randolph spoke of it as a little nook; but it was bigger than the drawing-room at the Terrace. Here the girl was set down in a comfortable chair by the fire, and listened while Lady Randolph told of her former life here, and all she had done. “Tom is very kind,” she said; “but how can I come here without meeting ghosts, the ghosts of all my happy days?”
Lucy listened with that devout attention which only youth so innocent and natural as hers can give to the recollections of one who has “gone through” these scenes of actual life which are all mystery and wonder to itself. Lucy had no ghosts in her memory; her father was not far enough off from her, nor was her sense of loss so strong as to make her feel that the world was henceforward peopled with sad recollection; but there was enough enlightenment in the touch of natural grief to make her understand. She was glad to be allowed to listen quietly—to feel the ache in her heart softened and subdued, and the lull of great exhaustion falling over her. That ache of natural, not excessive sorrow, is almost an additional luxury in such a case. It justifies the languor, and gives an ennobling reason for it. And in a mind so young the very existence of sorrow, the first touches of experience, the sense of really experiencing in its own person those emotions which it has heard of all its life, which are the inspiration of all tragedies, and the theme of all stories, carry with them an exquisite consciousness, which is near enjoyment, though it is pain. Lucy was perhaps in her own constitution too simply matter-of-fact to feel all this, yet she did feel it vaguely. She was no longer a school-girl, insignificant and happy, but a pale young woman in deep mourning who had taken a first step into the experiences of life. She leaned back in her chair with that ache in her heart which she was almost proud of, yet with a sense of luxurious well-being round her, warmth, softness, kindness, and her hand in Lady Randolph’s hand. Her shyness had melted away under the kind looks of her new friend; Lucy was too composed to be very shy by nature, but even the silence was not embarrassing to her, which is the greatest test of all.
It was easy after that to go on to talk of herself a little. Lady Randolph had become honestly interested in her young companion; Lucy was in every way so much better than she had expected. Even the hand which she had taken into her own was, now she had time to think of it, an agreeable surprise. Lucy’s hand was small and soft, and as prettily shaped as if she had been born a princess. These indications of race, which are so infallible in romance, do not always hold in actual life. The old school-master’s daughter had no beauty to speak of; but her hand was as delicate as if the bluest blood in the world ran in her veins. Lady Randolph felt that Providence had been very good to her in this respect, for, indeed, she could not but feel that a large red coarse hand was what might have been expected in the little parvenue. But Lucy was not coarse in any particular; she would never come to the pitch of refinement which that princess reached who felt a pea through fifteen mattresses; but her quiet straightforwardness could never be vulgar. This certainty relieved her future chaperon from her worst fears.
“My house is not like this,” Lady Randolph said; “London houses are small; but I try to make it comfortable. I have partly arranged your rooms for you; but I have left you all the finishing touches. It will amuse you to settle your pretty things about you yourself.”
“I have not any pretty things,” said Lucy; “I have nothing but—” Jock, she was going to say; but she was not sure of the prudence of the speech, seeing Jock was her grand difficulty in life.
“Never mind,” said Lady Randolph, “nothing can be easier than to get them; and you must have a maid—unless indeed there is one that you would like to bring with you. I should prefer a new one, a stranger who would not make any comparisons, who would easily fall into the ways of my house.”
“I have no one,” said Lucy, eagerly; “I have never been accustomed to anything of the kind. I never had a maid in my life.”