CHAPTER VI.

MRS. JERNINGHAM IS PHILANTHROPIC.

MR. DESMOND took the earliest opportunity of carrying out his resolution in the matter of Lucy Alford, otherwise Miss St. Albans. He dined at the Hampton villa within a few days of his visit to Whitecross Street, and entertained Mrs. Jerningham with the story of his tutor’s daughter, her hopes and her struggles. He told the simple little story very pleasantly, and not without a touch of pathos, as he sat by the pretty fireplace in the Hampton drawing-room, after a New Year’s dinner _à trois_ with Mrs. Colton and her niece. The dinner had been a success, the snug circular table crowned with a monster pine of Emily’s own growing; and the châtelaine herself was in a peculiarly amiable mood.

The most delightful of dragons had a habit of dozing after dinner, which was just a little hazardous for the fruit under her guardianship.

She always awoke from her slumbers to declare that she had heard every word of the conversation, and had enjoyed it amazingly; but this declaration was taken with certain qualifications. Seated in her comfortable nook by the low Belgian mantelpiece, half in the shadow of the projecting marble, half in the red light of the fire, she was at once the image of repose and propriety--a statue of Comfort, draped in that neutral-tinted silk which is the privilege of middle age.

“Why do you ever ask stupid people to meet me, Emily?” asked Laurence, when he had finished Lucy Alford’s story. “See how happy we are alone together. It is so nice to be able to talk to you _sans gêne_, with the sense that one is really holding converse with one’s best and truest friend.”

Mrs. Jerningham’s flexible lips were slightly contracted as Laurence said this. His tone was just a little _too_ friendly to be pleasing to her.

“You are very good,” she said, rather coldly, “and I am delighted to find you think my house pleasant this evening. Is your Miss Alford pretty?”

“No, ‘my Miss Alford’ is not particularly pretty,” replied the editor, conscious that the green-eyed monster was not entirely banished from that comfortable paradise; “at least, I suppose not. She is the sort of girl who is usually called interesting. I remember a young man who called all the beauties of the season ‘pleasing.’ His vocabulary contained no warmer epithet. They were all pleasing. I think, without going too far, I may venture to call Miss Alford pleasing.”

“She is young, of course?”

“A mere child.”

“Indeed! a mere child, like Göthe’s Mignon or Hugo’s Esmeralda, I suppose?”

This was a very palpable pat from the paw of the green-eyed one; but Mr. Desmond had set his foot upon the ploughshare, and he was not inclined to withdraw from the ordeal, because the iron proved a little hotter than he had expected to find it.

“She is not in the least like Mignon. She is a very sensible, reasonable young lady, about eighteen years of age. Now, I know that you are dreadfully at a loss for some object upon which to bestow your sympathy, and it has struck me that, with very little trouble to yourself, you might confer much kindness on this friendless girl. She is of gentle blood, of refined rearing; and she is quite alone in the world; for I count her broken-down, drunken father as less than nothing. She is all innocence, gratitude, and affection; and----”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Jerningham. “You appear to have studied her character with considerable attention.”

“She is as simple as a child, and reveals her character in half a dozen sentences. Go and see her, Emily; and if you are not pleased and interested, let your first visit be your last.”

“And if I should be pleased and interested, what then?”

“Your own heart will answer that question. The girl is a lady, exposed to all the miseries of genteel poverty, disappointed of one theatrical engagement, and not likely to be professionally employed for some months. I think your first impulse will be to bring her home with you. Her youth is fast fading in her miserable home, where there is so much anxiety, so little happiness. You have lamented the emptiness of your life, your inability to be of use to your fellow-creatures----”

“Excuse me, Mr. Desmond, I told you very plainly that I have no taste for philanthropy.”

“And I took the liberty to disbelieve you. I am sure you do yourself injustice when you pretend not to be kind and womanly.”

“And am I to go about the world adopting casual orphans, or any amiable young persons who happen to be afflicted with disreputable fathers, in order to gratify the charitable instincts of Mr. Desmond, whose last mania is the rescue of pretty actresses from the anxieties and discomforts of their profession?”

“You will do just as you please, Emily,” Laurence answered, very coldly. “I thought the history of this girl’s trials would have interested you. I might have known that you would receive it in your usual spirit.”

“And pray what is my usual spirit?”

“A very unpleasant one!”

“Indeed! I am a most objectionable person because I do not rush to the rescue of Miss Lucy Alford, whom you talk of, by the way, as Lucy, _tout court_. Shall I order the brougham, and go in search of your paragon, to-night.”

Mrs. Jerningham extended her hand, and made as if she would ring the bell. Mrs. Colton’s slumbers were broken by a faint moaning sound, as of remonstrance.

“I shall never again mention the name of my paragon, Mrs. Jerningham,” said Laurence, rising and planting himself with his back to the fireplace; “nor will I ever again ask the smallest favour at your hands. You have a positive genius for aggravation!”

“Thank you very much. It is not given to every one to be so charming as Miss Alford.”

“Good night, Mrs. Colton,” said Laurence, as the image of the proprieties awoke to life, conscious that the atmosphere had changed since she sank to her peaceful slumbers. “I have a little work to do to-night, and must get back to town early.”

This awful threat brought Mrs. Jerningham’s proud spirit to the dust immediately.

“Oh no, you are not going away!” she exclaimed. “Aunt Fanny is just going to give us some tea--why are those people always so long bringing the tea?--and after tea you shall have as much music as you like, or none, if you like that better. I will go and see your tutor’s daughter to-morrow morning, Laurence; and if Aunt Fanny and I find her a nice person--nice in the feminine sense of the adjective, _bien entendu_--we will bring her down to stay with us for a few weeks.”

After this, there was perfect harmony for the rest of the evening. No one could be more gentle, more humble, more charming than Mrs. Jerningham, after she had goaded the man she loved to the verge of madness; but so to goad him was a delight that she could not forego.

Early in the next afternoon the simple inhabitants of Paul’s Terrace were electrified by the apparition of a brougham and pair--a brougham, on the box whereof sat two servants, clad in subdued and unexceptional livery--a brougham which even the untutored denizens of Ball’s Pond recognized as the very archetype of equipages. A tremendous knock at the door of No. 20 set Lucy’s heart beating; a pompous voice asked if Miss Alford was at home; and in the next minute the door of the brougham was opened, and two ladies alighted--ladies whose furs were alone worth a fortune, as the proprietress of No. 20 informed her gossips at the first opportunity.

Lucy’s heart fluttered like some frightened bird, as Mrs. Jerningham advanced to greet her, with outstretched hand and pleasant smile. It was long since she had been accustomed to any but the free-and-easy society of the green-room, where the ladies called her “St. Albans,” and the gentlemen “my dear,” in no impertinent spirit, but with a fatherly familiarity which had, at first, rather amazed her.

Mrs. Jerningham’s carriage, and sables, and elegance, and beauty, were alike startling to her; and this handsome lady was Mr. Desmond’s friend! The world in which he lived was inhabited by such people! Oh, what a vulgar, miserable place Paul’s Terrace must have seemed to him! what a loathsome den the prison in which her father languished, broken-down and desolate! The ex-coach was drinking brandy and water, and maundering about great “wines,” and patrician bear-fights--the battles of Ursa Major--in the prison-ward, as the girl thought of him, and was enjoying life very tolerably after his old fashion.

“Our common friend Mr. Desmond has sent me to call upon you, Miss Alford,” said the lady in sables, with much cordiality of tone and manner, and with Lucy’s timid hand in her own. “We are to be excellent friends, he tells me; and he has given me such an interesting account of your professional career, and your love for the drama, that I feel already as if I knew you quite intimately. I hope I do not seem altogether a stranger to you.”

“Oh no, indeed,” faltered Lucy. “Mr. Desmond told me how kind you are; and I am sure----”

This was all that Miss Alford was capable of saying just yet. Mrs. Jerningham had noted every detail of her appearance by this time, with some touch of that fatal spirit whose influence embittered so much of her life.

“Yes, she is interesting,” thought the visitor, “and not exactly pretty; and yet I am not quite convinced of that. Her eyes are large and blue, and have a tender, earnest look, that is assumed, no doubt, like the rest of her stage-tricks; and, I declare, the minx has long black eyelashes. I wonder whether she has dyed them? That rosy little mouth is painted, no doubt, in order to set off her pale complexion, which of course is pearl-powder, so artfully put on that one cannot see it. No doubt these actresses have a hundred secrets of the Rachel kind.”

Thus whispered jealousy; and then spoke the milder voice of womanly compassion.

“That brown merino dress is dreadfully shabby, almost threadbare about the sleeves; and what a horrible place to live in, with children playing on the door-step, and fowls--actually fowls!--in the area. Poor little thing! she really seems like a lady--shy and gentle, and alarmed by our grandeur.”

The voice of compassion drowned the green-eyed one’s insidious whisper, and in a very few minutes Mrs. Jerningham had contrived to set Lucy at her ease. She made Miss Alford talk of herself, and her hopes and disappointments, in discoursing whereof Lucy was careful to avoid all mention of the “Cat’s-meat Man.”

“I want you to come and stay a few days with me at Hampton, Miss Alford,” said Emily. “You are not looking at all well, and our nice country air will revive you after all your worries.--A week at Hampton would quite set Miss Alford up in the matter of health, wouldn’t it, Aunt Fanny?”

On this Mrs. Colton, of course, seconded her niece’s proposal; but Lucy was evidently at a loss to reply to this flattering invitation.

“It would be most delightful,” she murmured. “I cannot thank you sufficiently for your kindness. But I think while papa is--away--I ought not to----”

And here she looked down at her threadbare merino dress, and Mrs. Jerningham divined that there lay the obstacle.

“I shall take no refusal,” she said; while Lucy was wondering whether she could enter society in the pink silk she wore for the second act of the _Lady of Lyons_, or the blue moiré antique--a deceitful and spurious fabric with a cotton back--which she wore for Julia in the _Hunchback_. “I have pledged myself to carry you off to Hampton, and I must keep my word. I will not wait for any preparations in the way of toilette; you must come in the dress you have on, and my maid shall run you up two or three dresses to wear while you are with me. I have a mania for buying bargains, and I have always half a dozen unmade dresses in my wardrobe. It will be a real charity to take them off my hands, and leave me free to buy more bargains. I never can resist that insidious man who assails me, just as I have finished my shopping, with the remark that if I happen to want anything in the way of silks, he can call my attention to a most valuable opportunity. And I yield to the voice of the tempter, and burden myself with things I don’t want.”

After this, the question was easily settled. Mrs. Jerningham met all Lucy’s difficulties in the pleasantest manner, while Mrs. Colton put in a kind word every now and then; and, encouraged by so much kindness, Lucy yielded. It was agreed that she should write to her father, and pack her little carpet-bag of indispensables between that hour and five o’clock, during which interval the two ladies were to pay their visits, and take their luncheon, while the horses had their two hours’ rest, and then return, to convey Miss Alford to Hampton in the brougham.

Lucy felt like a creature in a dream when the archetypal carriage had driven away, and she was left alone to make her arrangements for the visit to Hampton. These were not the first refined and well-bred women she had met, but never before had she been on visiting terms with the proprietress of such sables, or such an equipage, as those possessed by Mrs. Jerningham.

“How good of him to give me such kind friends!” she said to herself. She felt gratefully disposed towards Mrs. Jerningham, but her deepest gratitude was given to Laurence, the benefactor and champion who had sent her these new friends in her hour of difficulty.

She had many little duties to perform before the return of the carriage--little bills to pay, a letter to write to her father, and a post-office order to procure for the same helpless individual. After paying all debts due to landlady and tradesmen, she reserved for herself only one sovereign of the money given her by Laurence Desmond. The rest she sent to the prisoner.

“Do not think me unkind if I ask you to be very careful, dear papa,” she wrote. “This money is the last we can expect to receive from Mr. Desmond. He has been more kind than words can express, and I am sure you will feel his kindness as deeply as I do.”

And then came a description of the strange lady, the grand carriage, and the invitation that she would fain have refused.

“You must not imagine that I am enjoying myself while you are unhappy, poor dear papa,” she continued. “I thought that to refuse Mrs. Jerningham’s invitation would seem ungracious to her, and ungrateful to Mr. Desmond; so I am going to Hampton. The train will bring me to town in an hour whenever you wish to see me, and you have only to write one line to me at River Lawn--isn’t that a pretty name for a place?--telling me your wish, in order to be immediately obeyed. I have told Mrs. Wilkins that you may return at any moment, and she has promised to make you comfortable in my absence. She seemed awestruck by the sight of Mrs. Jerningham’s carriage, and has adopted quite a new tone to me within the last hour. You know how disrespectful she has been lately. I think she suspected that you had been taken to that dreadful place; but the appearance of the carriage and the settlement of her account have quite changed her. I hope you do not sit in draughts, and that you take care to secure a corner near the fire. It almost breaks my heart to think of you sitting in that long, dreary room, while I am going away to a pleasant house. It seems almost heartless in me to go; but, believe me, I only do so to avoid offending Mr. Desmond.

“May God bless you, dear papa! and support you in your hour of trouble.

“You ever loving child, “LUCY.”

After this letter to her father, Miss Alford wrote a note to Laurence Desmond, thanking him for his kindness to herself, and putting in a timid little plea for the prisoner in Whitecross Street. By the time these letters were written and posted, and Lucy’s modest carpet-bag packed, the brougham was again a thing of wonder for the inhabitants of Paul’s Terrace, more especially wonderful upon this occasion by reason of two flaming lamps, that flashed like meteors upon the darkness of Ball’s Pond. Lucy could not help feeling a faint thrill of pride as she stepped into this vehicle, attended to the very door by the obsequious Mrs. Wilkins, who insisted on getting in the way-of that grandiose creature in livery, whose business it was to open and shut the door of the brougham.

Mrs. Jerningham’s bays performed the distance between London and Hampton in about two hours; and during the long drive Lucy told the two ladies a good deal about herself and her father, and the old days in which Laurence Desmond had read for “greats” at Henley. All this she related without egotism, and urged thereto by Emily, who seemed interested in all Miss Alford had to tell, but most especially interested in her account of Mr. Desmond’s reading for honours.

“And was he very industrious?” she asked; “did he work very hard?”

“Well, yes, I believe he read sometimes at night; but I was only nine years old, you know,” replied Lucy, “and poor mamma used to send me to bed very early. Mr. Desmond and his two friends used to be on the river nearly all day, sometimes training for boat-races, you know, and sometimes fishing--spinning for jack, I think they used to call it.”

“But surely it was not by spinning for jack that Mr. Desmond got his degree?”

“Oh no! of course he did read, you know, because he came to Henley on purpose to read. I believe there used to be a great deal of reading done every night after the shutters were shut and the lamps lighted. But Mr. Desmond used to say he could never work well until he had used up his idleness; and he declared that he never felt himself in such good training for cramming Thicksides as after a long day’s punting.”

“Cramming Thicksides!” cried Mrs. Jerningham, in amazement; “what, in mercy’s name, did he mean by that?”

“Oh, Thicksides is the Oxonian name for Thucydides.”

“How very charming! And at night, when the lamps were lighted, Mr. Desmond and your father used to cram Thicksides?”

“Yes, and Cicero; the Philippics, you know, and that sort of thing; and all the Greek tragedies, and Demosthenes, and Mill’s Logic, and the Gospels. I believe Mr. Desmond’s friends were both ploughed. Papa said that they were not nearly so clever as he.”

“And your papa thinks him very clever, I suppose?”

“Papa says he is one of the best Balliol men; and Balliol is a college where they work very hard, you know.”

“Indeed! Miss Alford, I know nothing of the kind.”

“I beg your pardon! I only said ‘you know’ in a general sense, you know. Papa has often told me what a silly, vulgar habit it is, you know; but I go on saying it in spite of myself.”

“It is not such a very grave offence, Lucy. May I call you Lucy, Miss Alford?”

“Oh! if you please. I should like it much better than for you to call me Miss Alford.”

“In that case it shall always be Lucy,” replied Mrs. Jerningham, kindly; “Lucy is such a pretty name, and suits you admirably.”

She was thinking of Wordsworth’s familiar lines:--

“A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food.”

“I am not fit for ‘human nature’s daily food,’” she said to herself. “I am what the French call _difficile_; not easily pleased by others, never quite satisfied with myself. The circumstances of my life have always been exceptional; but I doubt if I should have been a happy woman under happier circumstances.”

The question of how much character may or may not be moulded and influenced by circumstances, was a psychological problem too difficult for Mrs. Jerningham’s comprehension. She knew that she was not happy; and there were times when she was inclined to ascribe her unhappiness to some radical defect in her own character, rather than to her exceptional position.

She found herself pleased and interested by Lucy Alford; but she was nevertheless bent on measuring the extent of that young lady’s acquaintance with Laurence Desmond.

“I am glad to think that your father considers Mr. Desmond so clever,” she said, presently, returning to the charge.

“Oh yes, he is very clever, and as good as he is clever,” replied Lucy, with more enthusiasm than was quite agreeable to her questioner.

“You have seen a great deal of him in the course of your life?”

“Oh yes; I used to be with him and papa a great deal at Henley, in the punt, you know, when I was nine years old. I used to catch flies for them--blue-bottles, and all sorts of flies. It seemed very cruel to the flies, you know; but Mr. Desmond was so kind to me, and I was pleased to be of any use to him.”

“And have you seen him very often since you were nine years old?”

“Oh no, very seldom; never until two or three weeks ago, when papa wrote to ask him for an introduction to a London manager. But in that short time he has been so kind, so good, so generous, so thoughtful, that----”

The rest was expressed by a little choking sob.

“I am glad to think that he is kind, and generous, and thoughtful,” said Mrs. Jerningham, very seriously. “He is my friend, Lucy--a very old and intimate friend; and I am more pleased to hear him praised than to hear any praise of myself. Your gratitude for his kindness touches me very deeply.”

There was a tone of appropriation in this speech which was felt rather than understood by Lucy. She was conscious that this grand lady of the irreproachable brougham claimed Laurence Desmond for her own, and she began to perceive how frail a link was that accidental association which bound him to herself.

“Laurence has asked me to be your friend, Lucy,” continued Mrs. Jerningham, and something that was almost pain smote Lucy’s heart as the lady uttered his Christian name for the first time in her hearing. “He has requested me to be your friend and adviser; and it will be a great pleasure to me to obey his wish. Of course, it will be much better for you to accept friendship from me than from him, Lucy. That kind of thing could not go on for ever, you know.”

“Oh, of course not,” murmured Lucy. She was too innocent to perceive the real drift of this remark. She thought that Mrs. Jerningham was considering the business entirely from a pecuniary point of view. “Of course, I know that Mr. Desmond could not afford to go on helping papa as he has been helping him,” she said; “it would be very shameful of us to wish it.”

“_You_ could not afford to receive money from him any longer, Lucy,” returned the voice of worldly wisdom from the lips of Mrs. Jerningham. “It would be a most improper position for you to occupy. In future you must tell me your troubles, and I shall be always glad to help you; but all confidences between you and Mr. Desmond had much better come to an end.”

“I do not want to confide in him; that is to say, I do not want to ask favours of him,” replied poor Lucy, much distressed by this stern dictum. “But my friendship for him cannot come to an end. I cannot so easily forget his kindness. If I were at the Antipodes, and with no hope ever to see his face again, I should think of him with the same regard and gratitude to my dying day. If I live to be an old, old woman, I shall always think of him as my truest and kindest friend.”

“Your grateful feelings are very creditable; but I hope you will not express yourself in that manner to other people, Lucy. You talk in a way that sounds theatrical, and rather bold. A girl of your age ought not to be so very enthusiastic about any gentleman.”

“Not when he has been so good, so generous?”

“Not under any circumstances. You may be grateful as Androcles, or the lion--which was it that was grateful, by the bye?--but you need not indulge in that kind of rhapsody; it is not in very good taste.”

This was the first time Lucy had heard of taste, in the modern-society sense of the word. She submitted to Mrs. Jerningham’s sentence. The voice of a lady, admired and respected by Laurence Desmond, must be sacred as the voices of Delphos.

The carriage rolled into the shrubberied drive at River Lawn presently, and then Lucy beheld flashing lights, and a vestibule with bright tesselated pavement, and pictures on the walls, and open doors leading into the brightest, prettiest rooms she had ever seen in her life; and in the dining-room was set forth that banquet so dear to the heart of every true woman--a tea-dinner. Quaint old silver tea and coffee service, turquoise-blue cups and saucers, an antique oval tea-tray, a pierced cake-basket that would make a collector’s mouth water; substantial fare in the way of tongue and chicken and game-pie; a room adorned as only perfect taste, allied with wealth, can adorn a room, were the things that greeted Lucy Alford’s eyes as she looked round her for the first time in her new friend’s home. It was scarcely strange that such a room should seem to her almost like a picture of fairy-land, as contrasted with those dingy lodgings in Ball’s Pond, where the last few weeks of her existence had been spent. She thought of her father in his dreary prison-ward, and she could not quite put away from her the feeling that she had no right to be amidst such pleasant surroundings.