“What do I mean?” said Miss Wodehouse; “indeed, Lucy dear, we must look it in the face. It is not our drawing-room any longer, you know.” Here she made a pause, and sighed; but somehow a vision of the other drawing-room which was awaiting her in the new rectory, made the prospect less doleful than it might have been. She cleared up in a surprising way as she turned to look at her own property on the table. “My cousin Jack gave me this,” said the gentle woman, brushing a little dust off her pretty desk. “When it came first, there was nothing like it in Carlingford, for that was before Colonel Chiley and those other Indian people had settled here. Jack was rather fond of me in those days, you know, though I never cared for him,” the elder sister continued, with a smile. “Poor fellow! they said he was not very happy when he married.” Though this was rather a sad fact, Miss Wodehouse announced it not without a certain gentle satisfaction. “And, Lucy dear, it is our duty to put aside our own things; they were all presents, you know,” she said, standing up on the chair again to reach down the St. Agnes, which, ever since Lucy had been confirmed, had hung opposite to her on the wall.
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried Lucy. In that little bit of time, not more than five minutes as it appeared, the familiar room, which had just heard the romance of her youth, had come to have a dismantled and desolate look. The agent of this destruction, who saw in her mind’s eye a new scene, altogether surpassing the old, looked complacently upon her work, and piled the abstracted articles on the top of each other, with a pleasant sense of property.
“And your little chair and worktable are yours,” said Miss Wodehouse; “they were always considered yours. You worked the chair yourself, though perhaps Miss Gibbons helped you a little; and the table you know, was sent home the day you were eighteen. It was—a present, you remember. Don’t cry, my darling, don’t cry; oh, I am sure I did not mean anything!” cried Miss Wodehouse, putting down the St. Agnes and flying to her sister, about whom she threw her arms. “My hands are all dusty, dear,” said the repentant woman; “but you know, Lucy, we must look it in the face, for it is not our drawing-room now. Tom may come in any day and say—oh, dear, dear, here is someone coming upstairs!”
Lucy extricated herself from her sister’s arms when she heard footsteps outside. “If it is anybody who has a right to come, I suppose we are able to receive them,” she said, and sat erect over her needlework, with a changed countenance, not condescending so much as to look towards the door.
“But what if it should be Tom? Oh, Lucy dear, don’t be uncivil to him,” said the elder sister. Miss Wodehouse even made a furtive attempt to replace the things, in which she was indignantly stopped by Lucy. “But, my dear, perhaps it is Tom,” said the alarmed woman, and sank trembling into a chair against the St. Agnes, which had just been deposited there.
“It does not matter who it is,” said Lucy, with dignity. For her own part, she felt too much aggrieved to mention his name—aggrieved by her own ignorance, by the deception that had been practised upon her, by the character of the man whom she was obliged to call her brother, and chiefly by his existence, which was the principal grievance of all. Lucy’s brief life had been embellished, almost ever since she had been capable of independent action, by deeds and thoughts of mercy. With her whole heart she was a disciple of Him who came to seek the lost; notwithstanding, a natural human sentiment in her heart protested against the existence of this man, who had brought shame and distress into the family without any act of theirs, and who injured everybody he came in contact with. When the thought of Rosa Elsworthy occurred to her, a burning blush came upon Lucy’s cheek—why were such men permitted in God’s world? To be sure, when she came to be aware of what she was thinking, Lucy felt guilty, and called herself a Pharisee, and said a prayer in her heart for the man who had upset all her cherished ideas of her family and home; but, after all, that was an afterthought, and did not alter her instinctive sense of repulsion and indignation. All this swept rapidly through her mind while she sat awaiting the entrance of the person or persons who were approaching the door. “If it is the—owner of the house, it will be best to tell him what things you mean to remove,” said Lucy; and before Miss Wodehouse could answer, the door was opened. They started, however, to perceive not Wodehouse, but a personage of very different appearance, who came in with an easy air of polite apology, and looked at them with eyes which recalled to Lucy the eyes which had been gazing into her own scarcely an hour ago. “Pardon me,” said this unlooked-for visitor; “your brother, Miss Wodehouse, finds some difficulty in explaining himself to relations from whom he has been separated so long. Not to interfere with family privacy, will you let me assist at the conference?” said Jack Wentworth.
