Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/333

. 13, 1862.] she stayed to say. “The room is colder than this. Come.”

The last “come” was addressed conjointly to her son and daughter. Decima responded to it, and followed; Lionel remained where he was.

“The cold room would not hurt me, but I am glad not to go,” began Lucy, subsiding into a more easy tone, a more social manner, than she ventured on in the presence of Lady Verner. “I think morning visiting the greatest waste of time! I wonder who invented it?”

“Somebody who wanted to kill time,” answered Lionel.

“It is not like friends, who really care for each other, meeting and talking. The calls are made just for form’s sake, and for nothing else. I will never fall into it when I am my own mistress.”

“When is that to be?” asked Lionel, smiling.

“Oh! I don’t know,” she answered, looking up at him in all confiding simplicity. “When papa comes home, I suppose.”

Lionel crossed over to where she was sitting.

“Lucy, I thank you for your partisanship of Jan,” he said, in a low, earnest tone. “I do not believe anybody living knows his worth.”

“Yes; for I do,” she replied, her eyes sparkling.

“Only don’t you get to like him too much—as Lady Verner hinted,” continued Lionel, his eyes dancing with merriment at his own words.

Lucy’s eyelashes fell on her hot cheek.

“Please not to be so foolish,” she answered, in a pleading tone.

“Or a certain place—that has been mentioned this morning—might have to go without a mistress for good,” he whispered.

What made him say it? It is true he spoke in a light, joking tone; but the words were not justifiable, unless he meant to follow them up seriously in future. He did mean to do so when he spoke them.

Decima came in, sent by Lady Verner to demand Lionel’s attendance.

“I am coming directly,” replied Lionel.

And Decima went back again.

“You ought to take Jan to live at Verner’s Pride,” said Lucy to him, the words unconsciously proving that she had understood Lionel’s allusion to it. “If he were my brother, I would not let him be always slaving himself at his profession.”

“If he were your brother, Lucy, you would find that Jan would slave just as he does now, in spite of you. Were Jan to come into Verner’s Pride to-morrow, through my death, I really believe he would let it, and live on where he does, and doctor the parish to the end of time.”

“Will Verner’s Pride go to Jan after you?”

“That depends. It would, were I to die as I am now, a single man. But I may have a wife and children some time, Lucy.”

“So you may,” said Lucy, filling up her tumbler from the jug of lemonade. “Please to go into the drawing-room now, or Lady Verner will be angry. Mary Elmsley’s there, you know.”

She gave him a saucy glance from her soft bright eyes. Lionel laughed.

“Who made you so wise about Mary Elmsley, young lady?”

“Lady Verner,” was the answer, her voice subsiding into a confidential tone. “She tells us all about it, me and Decima, when we are sitting by the fire of an evening. She is to be the mistress of Verner’s Pride.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Lionel. “She is, is she. Lucy?”

“Well?”

“If that mistress-ship—is there such a word?—ever comes to pass, I shall not be the master of it.”

Lucy looked pleased.

“That is just what Decima says. She says it to Lady Verner. I wish you would go to them.”

“So I will. Good bye. I shall not come in again. I have a hundred and one things to do this afternoon.”

He took her hand and held it. She, ever courteous of manner, simple though she was, rose and stood before him to say her adieu, her eyes raised to his, her pretty face upturned.

Lionel gazed down upon it. And, as he had forgotten himself once before, so he now forgot himself again. He clasped it to him with a sudden movement of affection, and left on it some fervent kisses, whispering tenderly:

“Take care of yourself, my darling Lucy?”

Leaving her to make the best of the business, Mr. Lionel proceeded to tho drawing-room. A few minutes’ stay in it, and then he pleaded an engagement, and departed.

Things were changed now out of doors. There was no dissatisfaction, no complaining. Roy was deposed from his petty authority, and all men were at peace. With the exception, possibly, of Mr. Peckaby. Mr. Peckaby did not find his shop flourish. Indeed, far from flourishing, so completely was it deserted, that he was fain to give up the trade, and accept work at Chuff, the blacksmith’s forge, to which employment, it appeared, he had been brought up. A few stale articles remained in the shop, and the counters remained; chiefly for show. Mrs. Peckaby made a pretence of attending to customers; but she did not get two in a week. And if those two entered, they could not be served, for she was pretty sure to be out, gossiping.

This state of things did not please Mrs. Peckaby. In one point of view the failing of the trade pleased her, because it left her less work to do; but she did not like the failing of their income. Whether the shop had been actually theirs, or whether it had been Roy’s, there was no doubt that they had drawn sufficient from it to live comfortably and to find Mrs. Peckaby in smart caps. This source was gone, and all they had now was an ignominious fourteen shillings a week, which Peckaby earned. The prevalent opinion in Clay Lane was, that this was quite as much as Peckaby deserved; and that it was a special piece of undeserved good fortune which had taken off the blacksmith’s brother and assistant in the nick of time, Joe Chuff, to make room for him. Mrs. Peckaby, however, was in a state of semi-rebellion; the worse, that she did not know upon whom to