“Yes,” she said, shaking her head, following out her own thoughts. “I suppose it is true that there are a great many poor people in the world.”
“Oh, so many!” Mary said; “poor women struggling and struggling to live. Though we are struggling ourselves, it makes my heart sore; there are so many worse off than we are. But we must get on, whatever happens. I tell mamma so. What is the use of fretting, I say, all will come right in the end; but she can not keep her heart up. It is because she is not strong,” Mary said, a tear coming furtively to her eyes.
“I know what papa meant now,” said Lucy. “I had never thought of it. It is a sin for one to have so much, and others nothing. If it could only be taken and divided, and everybody made comfortable—so much to you, and so much to me, and every one the same—how much better, how much happier! but how am I to do it?” she said, clasping her hands.
Mary stood opening her blue eyes, then laughed, with youthful and frankness, though far from free of tears. “How strange that you should say that! I thought it was only poor people and Radicals that said that. You can’t be a Radical, Miss Trevor? But it would be no good,” said the sensible girl, shaking her head; “even I have seen enough to be sure of that. If we had all the same one day, there would be rich and poor again the next. It is in people’s nature. But this is a long way off from what I came to ask you,” she said, dropping her voice, with a little sigh.
Jock had been in the room all the time. He was one of the children whom no one ever notices, who hear everything, and bide their time. He came forward all at once, startling Mary, who turned to him in alarm, with a little cry. “Are you fond of the ‘Arabian Nights’?” he said. “I am not so very fond of them now—they are for when you are quite little, when you don’t know anything. When I come, I will tell you quantities of things, if you like. I can tell you all Shakespeare. I told Lucy; she does not know much,” Jock said, with genial contempt.
“Perhaps you will think I don’t know very much; but I shall teach you your lessons,” said Mary, with tremulous satisfaction, yet a little pedagogic assertion of her own superiority. Jock looked at her with attention, studying this new specimen of the human race.
“You must not think he is naughty,” said Lucy, interposing eagerly. “He is a very good boy. Though he is so little, he knows a great deal. And he always understands. You may think he is a trouble with his stories, and the fairy books he has read. But he is no trouble,” his sister cried, “he is the greatest comfort. I don’t know what I should have done without Jock; and I am sure you will like him too. We are going to get him his things this afternoon, and to-morrow I am to bring him,” Lucy added, in her usual tranquil tones.
“Then that is all right,” said Mary. She thought it was all her doing—that the question had been a doubtful one, and that it was the decided step she had taken which had secured this important little scholar. He was to pay better than any of the rest, and he was, it might be hoped, the first of a better connection. Mary got up to go home with a satisfaction in her supposed success, which was almost triumph. She did not envy Lucy, though she was an heiress. She saw a long perspective of new boys filing before her, and a handsome house and big playgrounds, and an orderly prosperous establishment. These were the things that were worth wishing for, Mary Russell thought. As for Bertie and his book, she shrugged her youthful shoulders at them. But she believed in herself, and in the little boys to come. “We shall have a struggle,” she repeated, with a smile, “as everybody has; but we shall get on.” She did not envy Lucy; but Lucy, perhaps, feeling the tables turned, was not so magnanimous. She was half vexed that the success of the Russells was so certain, and that here was no case for her to interfere. Alas, there was nothing for her to do but to wring her hands and stand helpless upon her mountain of money, while all those poor people whom Mary knew struggled unaided, yet “got on” at last, without any help of hers.
CHAPTER XXII.
HOW THE RUSSELLS GOT ON.
Lucy was permitted to take Jock to Hampstead by herself in Lady Randolph’s brougham next day. They had spent the morning buying things for him, a school-boy dressing-case, a little desk, various books, and an umbrella—possessions which, up to this time, had been considered too valuable for the child, of whom nobody took any special care. He went to his new home with such an abundance of property as elated even Jock, though he was not given to trivialities. He had a watch too, which was more than property, which was a kind of companion, a demi-living thing to console him when he should be dull; and the child bore up with great heroism in face of the inevitable parting. Indeed, Jock regarded the whole matter in an extremely practical common sense way. Lucy herself was disposed to be tearful during the long drive. She held him close to her side, with her arm round him. “You will be good, Jock,” she said; “you will not be silly, and read books, but do your lessons and your sums, and everything. Promise me that you will do your lessons, Jock.”