HUGH’S BATTLE
“What’s the matter, Hugh?”
Dr. Chichester flung the question suddenly into the deep silence which
had fallen on himself and his son, as they sat together by the study fire
on a cold night shortly after Christmas.
They had done a little talking.
Dr. Chichester had said it was a bitter night, and Hugh had assented.
The doctor had remarked that a fire and a book were wonderfully soothing
after a long day’s work, and Hugh had owned the fact. The doctor had
opined that if the frost lasted, there would shortly be skating on
the Serpentine. Hugh had agreed to that as well, but in so absent and
spiritless a manner that his father plainly saw he took no interest
whatever in the skating prospects at the present moment.
And after these attempts at conversation, silence had fallen on them, and
the doctor, forgetful of the book upon his knee, closely scrutinised the
young face before him, with its dark, sad eyes fixed on the glowing fire.
Hugh had been curiously silent ever since that visit to Donisbro’, his
father thought to himself.
And yet, how pleased he had been at being singled out by Sir Anthony to
go with him! And he had come back, having done everything required of him
successfully enough, so far as his father could make out. But he had been
very uncommunicative over his adventures in the quaint cathedral city.
It had been left for Sir Anthony to catch the doctor on the staircase
of Blue-friars’ Hospital, and ask him if “the boy had remembered to
tell his father that Sir Anthony had said he was a credit to the
medical profession.” Hugh had not even mentioned the great man’s rare
commendation.
What had he said about that visit? The doctor went over in his own mind
the rather bald account which the united efforts of the family had with
difficulty pumped out.
Yes, Hugh had seen Sydney. She was looking very well—this in answer to a
question from Mrs. Chichester. She had sent her love to them all. There
hadn’t been much time; Lady Frederica had been in a great hurry to be
off. There was a man with Sydney, a Sir Algernon Bridge. Was he nice?—a
query from Dolly. Well, Hugh hadn’t asked him, but considered that he
looked a sneery brute, although not wishing to say anything against him.
Yes, he had seen Sydney again: she was up the church tower with the
Vicar, who seemed a good sort, and his boy, a jolly little chap. The
incident of Pauly’s rescue somehow failed to transpire at all. No, he
hadn’t been to the Castle—this in reply to some excited inquiries on the
subject of merry-go-rounds from Fred and Prissie. He had lunched with
the Vicar, who had said that Sydney was interested in the cottages, and
took the people soup and things. Hugh didn’t think anything much else had
happened. Oh, how was Sydney dressed? He didn’t know—something blue, he
thought. No, something red, and fur—a lot of fur. Was she looking pretty?
How should he know?
Hugh had become a little irritable at this point, his father recollected:
a circumstance almost as unprecedented as his gravity and silence.
What was wrong with the boy?
The keen-eyed doctor noted his dejected attitude, and the wistfulness of
the gaze turned so persistently upon the fire. If Hugh was reading his
future there it certainly was not a bright one.
Dr. Chichester watched in silence for full another ten minutes, then
repeated his question with a hand upon the young man’s knee.
“Hugh, what’s the matter?”
Hugh started and flushed hotly, becoming conscious of his father’s
scrutiny. Then he pulled himself together, and said, with a lightness
of tone which was rather obviously assumed for convenience’ sake at the
moment, “Oh, nothing, sir. I was thinking, that’s all.”
“Then thinking doesn’t seem to agree with you, my boy,” said the doctor.
Hugh raised himself in his chair, and bent forward with some eagerness.
“Father, do you mind if I go out to my chum, Haviland, in New Zealand? He
wants a partner and—and—I want to go.”
Dr. Chichester considered.
“You have a very good position at the Blue-friars, Hugh,” he said at
length. “Do you want to throw that up?”
Hugh rose, and walked about the room a little restlessly.
“I know it seems foolish,” he said, “but I’ve a fancy for trying new
ground, and Haviland is beginning to establish a practice, and——”
“And you want to get as far away from England as you can?” his father
quietly suggested.
Hugh’s back was turned towards him and he did not answer. The doctor went
to his son, and put an arm through his.
“Sit down, my boy, and tell me all about it,” he said gently.
“Well, I see you know,” cried poor Hugh. “I always cared specially for
Sydney, more than I did for Mildred, or Dolly, or the rest. I didn’t
know why—just I did. And then she got carried off by this Lord St.
Quentin, and you bet they mean to marry her to that idiot with a drawl
and eye-glass, who was with her at Donisbro’. She was quite different on
the church tower, but I saw that she minded, bless her! Of course I tried
to make her think I was all right. I couldn’t have her worry herself
thinking I was angry at the way she treated me. _She_ wasn’t to blame,
anyway. I think she thought I was—all right; but I _must_ get right away
from England and forget it all. There’s no other way.”
“There is,” said the doctor. “Look here, my boy. This is a hard thing
for you, I know; but running away from a trouble is not the best way of
getting over it, by any means. I’m not going to talk to you about the
help you are at home with the younger boys, nor what it will mean to your
mother and myself if we have to give up our eldest son. You are a man,
making your own way in the world, and you have a perfect right to judge
for yourself. More, if you find the struggle too hard for you to face,
and face cheerfully, I counsel you to go abroad, and start a new life
there. If at the end of a week you still want to go to New Zealand, I’m
not the man to put difficulties in your path. My poor boy, I wish I could
say to you, as they do in novels, ‘Make yourself worthy of our little
girl’s acceptance, and then Love will win.’ I can’t say that, but I can
tell you something finer still: Make yourself worthy to love her, and
some day you’ll thank God, Who gave you the love, though not its earthly
fulfilment. I wouldn’t wish you not to love the child, for love is God’s
best gift. Only take it as God meant His gifts to be taken—thankfully,
and not asking more than He is pleased to offer. Do you remember our
little girl going wild over that copy of ‘Dorothy Osborne’s Letters,’
which I got for her last birthday, and reading bits aloud whenever
she could get a listener? Dorothy Osborne’s lover called himself her
‘servant.’ There, that’s something for you to think of, eh, my boy? True
love wants to serve humbly and not grasp.”
“If I thought she’d ever need my service——” Hugh began impulsively.
“Who knows that she may not?” said the doctor with a smile. “But decide
nothing in a hurry, dear boy; and go to bed now, for it’s after one.”
“Just one thing more?” Hugh said, his hand on the door. “You—you would
rather that I stuck to the Blue-friars, I suppose?”
“I would rather you did what seems best to you when you have thought it
over for a week,” the doctor said. “Good-night, and God bless you, my
boy.”
“Good-night, father,” Hugh said, and so went thoughtfully upstairs to his
attic bedroom, leaving the doctor to sit down again over the dying fire,
and think sadly of his boy’s trouble, this cloud which seemed so little
likely to roll away.
That week was a very long one to the doctor and to Hugh’s mother; the
others were in ignorance of the decision in course of making.
Hugh was very quiet all the time, doing his work day by day, and when at
home noting all that went on with a new observance.
But when the appointed day arrived, he seemed suddenly to have cast off
his troubles.
His father and mother exchanged glances as he romped with Fred and
Prissie before they went to bed, and seemed in all ways to have returned
to his old cheery self.
“What shall we do without him?” was the thought in both their minds, for
they could not doubt his high spirits to be caused by the thought of
beginning on a new life with the old troubles left behind him.
The evening came to an end at last, and all the juniors except Hugh and
Mildred had retired to bed.
Hugh fidgeted with the lamp for a minute, and then threw himself down
upon the rug, his head upon his mother’s knee. She smoothed his hair with
loving fingers. “Well, dear?”
“Well, I wrote to Haviland this morning and declined his offer,” Hugh
answered; “told him I had too good a berth at the Blue-friars to throw
it up, but ‘thanked him kindly all the same,’ and——”
“You’re going to stay, my boy?” his father cried, in a voice that was not
quite so firm as usual.
“Yes,” Hugh said steadily, “I’m going to stay.”