“Of course I will help them; but I must think of what is to be done next, and I must be in a place where I can see people—not out here. You are so reasonable, you will understand me, Miss Trevor. It is hard to be living among people who do not understand. I will bring you one of the first copies, if you will let me—the very first, if I have my way,” he said, looking up at her with a glow on his face. As she sat on her horse, swaying a little with the movement, she looked the most desirable thing in all the world to Bertie Russell. To think a girl the best thing you could become possessed of, the most valuable and precious, the highest prize to be aspired to, the creature who can bestow everything you most wish for—is not that being in love with her? If so, Bertie Russell was in love; and he looked at her as if he were so. Lucy’s cheek was a little flushed with surprise, with the confusion of her thoughts, and he interpreted this so as to chime in with the excitement he had himself given way to. It was a genuine excitement. Heavens! if he could but win that girl to be his! what more would there be to wish for? He put out his hand and gently touched and stroked her horse’s neck. This meant the most shy caress to herself, and Lucy felt it so, with a thrill of alarm she could not tell why.
“I am afraid I must go on now,” she said, feeling a blush come over her face again; and he took off his hat, and stood watching as she quickened her pace along the road, calling after her, “I may come then and bring the first copy?” His heart jumped up within him as he saw the color on Lucy’s face. Could she, in her turn, a simple girl not used to much attention, have fallen in love? If so, there would be nothing strange in that. A fine young fellow—a young man of genius about to blaze upon the world. Nothing could be more natural; but the idea made Bertie’s heart beat. It would be the most fortunate—the most desirable of all things. It opened up a perfect heaven of hope and blessedness before his feet. As for Lucy, she rode home with her heart quaking and trembling and full of many thoughts. She did not entertain any doubt of the success of the book, any more than the author of it did, or his mother. But what she had heard from both sides opened Lucy’s eyes. Poor Mrs. Russell! what wild fancy possessed her, making her so feverishly confident in the midst of all those signs of trouble? Youth is intolerant, yet, Lucy was reasonable. She saw some excuse for Bertie too. And now her duty seemed to her very clear. After all her vicissitudes of feeling, she had come back to the starting-point. This made her heart beat, not any thought of the handsome young author. She would have to tell Mrs. Russell herself of what she was about to do. It would be a difficult mission, Lucy thought to herself, with something of a panic; yet it must be done. And when she thought of the house over which such a cloud of trouble and anxiety and approaching ruin seemed to hang, and of Mrs. Russell’s excitement, and Mary’s pale cheeks, her heart smote her for delaying. She must not allow her guardian to hold her hand, or her own timid spirit to shrink from her work. Would it not be better to have it done before the moment came when this poor woman could be undeceived? While she rode back through the suburban roads, Bertie, subduing his pride, took the aid of an omnibus, and made his way to the publisher’s—his head in the air, his mind full of ecstatic visions. He composed a hundred dedications as he rolled and rumbled along, smiling to himself at the idea of the author of “Imogen” being seen on an omnibus. “Why not?” he asked himself. A man of genius, a future lord of society and the age, may go where he will without derogating from his dignity. If all went well, if all went as every indication proved it to be going, other vehicles than omnibuses were waiting for Bertie, golden chariots, cars of triumph. His present humility was a pleasantry at which he could not choose but smile.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DEDICATION.
A very short time after this Lucy received the parcel of books which had been promised her. The season was growing to its height, and no time had been lost in putting the three volumes into the flimsy cloth binding which places the English novel on a platform of respectability, elevated far above its contemporary of other nations. The author did not bring her the first copy with his own hands, as he had vowed to do. Bertie had been afraid—he had done a thing which was perhaps too daring, and he did not venture to appear in his own person, to meet, perhaps, the storm of Lady Randolph’s displeasure, perhaps the alarmed reproachfulness of Lucy herself. He sent it instead, and awaited the reply with a heart which could scarcely beat higher with any personal excitement than it did with the tumult of hope and fear with which he awaited the issue of his first publication. It seemed to the inexperienced young fellow that the issues of life and death were in it, and that his fate would be fixed one way or another, and that without remedy. His doubt of Lucy’s reception of his offering, therefore, added but a slight element the more to a tumult of feeling already almost too great to be controlled. He brought it himself to the door, but would not go in; leaving a message that the parcel was to be given to Miss Trevor at once. Lady Randolph and she, for a wonder, were dining alone, and the parcel was undone when the dessert was placed on the table, and lay there in a very fashionably artistic binding, of no particular color, with “Imogen” scrawled in large uneven letters on the side. The ladies both took it up with great interest. A new book, though so many of the community have ceased to regard it as anything but a bore, is still interesting more or less to every little feminine circle that knows the author. Lady Randolph was going out to a succession of parties after dinner, and among them to a great intellectual gathering, where all the wits were to be assembled. “I must tell Mrs. Montagu about it,” she said; “I must speak to everybody about it. It is very attentive of the young man to send it at once. We must do what we can for him, Lucy. We must ask for it at all the libraries, and tell everybody to ask for it, and I will speak to the critics. I will speak to Cecilia,” she said, taking up the first volume. But after a momentary interval, a change came over Lady Randolph’s face. She uttered the invariable English monosyllable “Oh!” in startled and troubled tones; then turned upon her companion hastily:
“Did you know of this, Lucy? My dear, my dear, how wrong! how imprudent! Why did not you mention it to me?”
Lucy was eating her strawberries very quietly, looking with a pleased expectation at the two other volumes of the book. It seemed to her a fine thing to be an author, to have actually written all that; and she was a little proud in her own person of knowing all about him, and felt that she would now have something to talk about when Lady Randolph’s visitors tried her, as they were in the habit of doing, on divers subjects. When they talked to her about Lady Mary’s small and early party, or the duchess’s great assembly, Lucy had often found it embarrassing to repeat her humble confessions of ignorance to one after another, and to admit that she had not been there or there; and did not understand the allusions which were being made; and she did not know enough about music to speak of the opera, nor about pictures to prattle about the Exhibitions, as she heard other girls do; but now she would have something to say. “Have you seen the new novel? It is written by a gentleman we know.” With that to talk about, Lucy felt that she might even take the initiative and begin the conversation with any one who did not look very clever and alarming, and this gave her a serene satisfaction. Also she was to spend the evening all by herself, and a new story was a nice companion. She was aroused from these agreeable thoughts by that “Oh-h!” uttered upon two or three notes by Lady Randolph, and looked up to see her friend’s countenance entirely changed, severe as she had never seen it before. “Did you know of this? Why did you not mention it to me?” Lady Randolph said. She was holding out the book for Lucy’s inspection, and the girl looked at it with instinctive alarm, yet all the calm of innocence. This was what she read:
TO THE ANGEL OF HOPE,
LUCY,
TO WHOSE NAME IN REVERENCE
I PREFIX NO TITLE.
THIS FIRST EFFORT OF A MIND
WHICH HER GENTLE ENCOURAGEMENT
HAS INSPIRED WITH CONFIDENCE
IS INSCRIBED.
Lucy’s eyes grew round with amazement, her lips dropped apart with consternation. She looked from the book to Lady Randolph, and then to the book again. After a moment, the color rushed to her face. “Lucy! Oh, you do not suppose he means me?” she said aghast.
“Whom could he mean else? Did you know anything about it? Lucy, don’t let me think I am deceived in you,” Lady Randolph said, with great vehemence. She was more excited than seemed necessary; but then, no doubt, she had a very serious sense of responsibility, in regard to a ward so precious.
“I am very sorry,” said Lucy; “I suppose I do know; he said he would dedicate the book to me, and I said, oh, no, don’t do that; but then we spoke of something else, and I thought of it no more.”