|Mrs. Plantagenet looked across the table at her son with vague eyes
of misgiving. 'This is all very sudden, Dick,' she faltered out, not
without some slight tremor.
'Sudden for you, dear mother,' Dick answered, taking her hand in his
own; 'but not for me.
Very much otherwise.. I've had it in my mind for a great many months;
and _this_ is what decided me.'
He drew from his pocket as he spoke a small scrap of newspaper and
handed it across to her. It was a cutting from the _Times_.
Mrs. Plantagenet read it through with swimming eyes. 'University
Intelligence: Oxford.--Four Foundation Scholarships will be awarded
after public examination at Durham College on May 20th. Two will be of
the annual value of One Hundred Pounds, for Classics; one of the same
value for Natural Science; and one for Modern History. Application to be
made, on or before Wednesday, the 19th, to the Rev. the Dean, at Durham
College, who will also supply all needful information to intending
candidates.'
The words swam in a mist before Mrs. Planta-genet's eyes. 'What does it
all mean, dear Dick?' she inquired almost tearfully.
'It means, mother,' Dick answered with the gentlest tenderness, 'that
Durham is the only college in the University which gives as good a
Scholarship as a hundred a year for Modern History. Now, ever since I
left the grammar school, I haven't had it out of my mind for a day
to go, if I could, to Oxford. I think it's incumbent upon a man in my
position to give himself, if possible, a University training.'
He said the words without the slightest air of conceit or swagger,
but with a profound consciousness of their import; for to Richard
Plantagenet the myth or legend of the ancient greatness of his family
was a spur urging him ever on to make himself worthy of so glorious
an ancestry. 'So I've been working and saving ever since,' he went on,
'with that idea constantly before me; and I've looked out for twelve
months or more in the _Times_ every day for the announcement of an exam,
for the Durham Scholarship.'
'But you won't get it, my boy,' Mr. Plantagenet put in philosophically,
after a moment's consideration. 'You never can get it. Your
early disadvantages, you know--your inadequate schooling--so many
young fellows well coached from Eton and Harrow!'
'If it had been a classical one, I should agree with you: I couldn't,
I'm afraid,' Bichard responded frankly, for he was by no means given to
over-estimate his own abilities; 'but in history it's different. You
see, so much of it's just our own family pedigree and details of our
ancestry. That acted as a fillip--gave me an interest in the subject
from the very first; and as soon as I determined to begin reading for
Oxford, I felt at once my best chance would lie in Modern History. And
that's why I've been working away at it as hard as ever I could in all
my spare time for more than a twelvemonth.'
'But have you been reading the right books, Dick?--that's the question,'
his father put in dubiously, with a critical air, making a manful effort
to recall the names of the works that were most authoritative in the
subject when he himself last looked at a history: 'Sharon Turner,
Kemble, Palgrave, Thierry, Guizot and so forth?'
Richard had too deep a respect for the chief of the Plantagenets,
miserable sot though he was, to be betrayed into a smile by this belated
catalogue. He only answered with perfect gravity: 'I'm afraid none
of those would be of much use to me nowadays in a Scholarship exam.:
another generation has arisen, which knows not Joseph. But I've got
up all the books recommended in the circular of the Board of
Studies--Freeman, you know, and Stubbs and Green, and Froude and
Gardner. And I've worked especially at the reigns of the earlier
Plantagenets, and the development of the towns and guilds, and all that
sort of thing, in Brentano and Seebohm.'
Mr. Plantagenet held his peace and looked profoundly wise. He had barely
heard the names of any of these gentlemen himself: at the best of
times his knowledge had always been shallow--rather showy than exact;
a journalist's stock-in-trade--and since his final collapse into the
ignominious position of dancing-master at Chiddingwick he had ceased
to trouble himself much about any form of literature save the current
newspaper. A volume of 'Barry Neville's Collected Essays,' bound in the
antiquated style of the 'Book of Beauty,' with a portrait of the author
in a blue frock-coat and stock for frontispiece, stood on his shelf by
way of fossil evidence to his extinct literary pretensions; but Barry
Neville himself had dropped with time into the usual listless apathy of
a small English country town. So he held his peace, not to display
his ignorance further; for he felt at once, from this glib list of
authorities, that Dick's fluent display of acquaintance with so many new
writers, whose very names he had never before heard--though they were
well enough known in the modern world of letters to be recommended by an
Oxford Board of Studies--put him hopelessly out of court on the subject
under discussion.
'Jones tertius has a brother at Oxford,' Clarence put in very eagerly;
'and he's a howling swell--he lives in a room that's panelled with oak
from top to bottom.'
'And if you get the Scholarship, Dick,' his mother went on wistfully,
'will you have to go and live there, and be away from us always?'
'Only half the year, mother dear,' Richard answered coaxingly; for he
knew what she was thinking--how hard it would be for her to be left
alone in Chiddingwick, among all those unruly children and her drunken
husband, without the aid of her one help and mainstay. 'You know,
there's only about five months of term, and all the rest's vacation. In
vacation I'd come home, and do something to earn money towards making up
the deficit.'
'It's a very long time, though, five months,' Mrs. Plantagenet said
pensively. 'But, there!' she added, after a pause, brightening up,
'perhaps you won't get it.'
Grave as he usually was, Richard couldn't help bursting into a merry
laugh at this queer little bit of topsy-turvy self-comfort. 'Oh, I
hope to goodness I shall,' he cried, with a twinkle, 'in spite of that,
mother. It won't be five months all in a lump, you know; I shall go up
for some six or eight weeks at a time--never more than eight together,
I believe--and then come down again. But you really needn't take it to
heart just yet, for we're counting our chickens before they're hatched,
after all. I mayn't get it, as you say; and, indeed, as father said just
now, when one comes to think how many fellows will be in for it who
have been thoroughly coached and crammed at the great public schools, my
chance can't be worth much--though I mean to try it.'
Just at that moment, as Dick leaned back and looked round, the door
opened, and Maud, the eldest sister, entered.
She had come home from her singing lesson; for Maud was musical, and
went out as daily governess to the local tradesmen's families. She was
the member of the household who most of all shared Dick's confidence. As
she entered Harry looked up at her, full of conscious importance and a
mouthful of Dutch cheese.
'Have you heard the news, Maudie?' he asked all breathless. 'Isn't it
just ripping? Dick's going up to Oxford.'
Maud was pale and tired from a long day's work--the thankless work of
teaching; but her weary face flushed red none the less at this exciting
announcement, though she darted a warning look under her hat towards
Richard, as much as to say:
'How could you ever have told him?'
But all she said openly was:
'Then the advertisement's come of the Durham Scholarship?'
'Yes, the advertisement's come,' Dick answered, flushing in turn. 'I got
it this morning, and I'm to go up on Wednesday.'
The boys were rather disappointed at this tame announcement. It was
clear Maud knew all about the great scheme already. And, indeed, she and
Dick had talked it over by themselves many an evening on the hills, and
debated the pros and cons of that important new departure.
Maud's face grew paler again after a minute, and she murmured half
regretfully, as she unfastened her hat:
'I shall miss you if you get it, Dick. It'll be hard to do without you.'
'But it's the right thing for me to do,' Richard put in almost
anxiously.
Maud spoke without the faintest hesitation' in her voice.
'Oh yes; it's the right thing,' she answered. 'Not a doubt in the world
about that. It's a duty you owe to yourself, and to us--and to England.
Only, of course, we shall all feel your absence a very great deal.
Dick, Dick, you're so much to us! And I don't know,' she went on, as she
glanced at the little ones with an uncertain air--'I don't know that I'd
have mentioned it before babes and sucklings--well, till I was sure I'd
got it.'
She said it with an awkward flush; for Dick caught her eye as she
spoke, and read her inner meaning. She wondered he had blurted it out
prematurely before her father. And Dick, too, saw his mistake. Mr.
Plantagenet, big with such important news, would spread it abroad among
his cronies in the White Horse parlour before tomorrow was over!
Richard turned to the children.
'Now, look here, boys,' he said gravely: 'this is a private affair, and
we've talked it over here without reserve in the bosom of the family.
But we've talked it over in confidence. It mustn't be repeated. If I
were to go up and try for this Scholarship, and then not get it, all
Chiddingwick would laugh at me for a fellow that didn't know his proper
place, and had to be taught to know it.
For the honour of the family, boys--and you too, Nellie--I hope you
won't whisper a word of all this to anybody in town. Consider what a
disgrace it would be if I came back unsuccessful, and everybody in
the parish came up and commiserated me: “We're so sorry, Mr. Dick,
you failed at Oxford. But there, you see, you had such great
disadvantages!”'
His handsome face burned bright red at the bare thought of such a
disgrace; and the little ones, who, after all, were Plantagenets at
heart as much as himself, every one of them made answer with one accord:
'We won't say a word about it.'
They promised it so earnestly, and with such perfect assurance, that
Dick felt he could trust them. His eye caught Maud's. The same thought
passed instinctively through both their minds. What a painful idea that
the one person they couldn't beg for very shame to hold his tongue was
the member of the family most likely to blab it out to the first chance
comer!
Maud sat down and ate her supper. She was a pretty girl, very slender
and delicate, with a fair pink-and-white skin, and curious flashing
eyes, most unusual in a blonde, though she was perhaps just a shade less
handsome and distinguished-looking than the Heir Apparent.
All through the meal little else was talked of than this projected
revolution, Dick's great undertaking. The boys were most full of it.
'Our Dick at Oxford! It was ripping--simply ripping! A lark of the first
dimensions!' Clarence made up his mind at once to go up and see Dick his
very first term, in oak-panelled rooms at Durham College. They _must_
be oak-panelled. While Harry, who had feasted on 'Verdant Green' for
weeks, was anxious to know what sort of gown he'd have to wear, and
whether he thought he'd have ample opportunities for fighting the
proctors.
'Twas a foregone conclusion. So innocently did they all discount
'Our Dick's' success, and so firmly did they believe that whatever he
attempted he was certain to succeed in!
After supper Mr. Plantagenet rose with an important air, and unhooked
his hat very deliberately from its peg. His wife and Dick and Maud all
cried out with one voice:
'Why, surely you're not going out to-night, father!'
For to go out, they knew well, in Mr. Planta-genet's dialect, meant to
spend the evening in the White Horse parlour.
'Yes, my dear,' Mr. Plantagenet answered, in his blandest tone, turning
round to his wife with apologetic suavity. 'The fact is, I have a very
particular engagement this evening. No, no, Dick, my boy; don't try to
detain me. Gentlemen are waiting for me. The claims of social life, my
dear son--so much engaged--my sole time for the world--my one hour of
recreation! Besides, strangers have been specially invited to meet me--
people who have heard of my literary reputation! 'Twould be churlish to
disappoint them.'
And, brushing his son aside, Mr. Plantagenet stuck his hat on jauntily
just a trifle askew, with ponderous airiness, and strolled down the
steps as he adjusted his Inverness cape on his ample shoulders, with the
air of a gentleman seeking his club, with his martial cloak around him.
For in point of fact it had occurred to Mr. Plantagenet as they sat at
supper that, if he burst in upon the White Horse as the first bearer of
such novel and important gossip--how his son Richard was shortly going
to enter as an undergraduate at Durham College, Oxford--not only would
he gain for himself great honour and glory, but also some sympathizing
friend, proud to possess the privilege of acquaintance with so
distinguished a family, would doubtless mark his sense of the dignity of
the occasion by offering its head the trifling hospitality of a
brandy-and-soda. And since brandy-and-soda formed the mainspring of Mr.
Plantagenet's scheme of being, so noble an opportunity for fulfilling
the end and aim of his existence, he felt sure, was not to be lightly
neglected.
He strolled out, all smiles, apologetic, but peremptory. As soon as he
was gone, the three remaining elders glanced hard at one another with
blank surmise in their eyes; but they said nothing openly. Only, in
his heart, Richard blamed himself with bitter blame for his unwonted
indiscretion in blurting out the whole truth. He knew that by ten
to-morrow morning all the world of Chidding-wick would have heard of his
projected little trip to Oxford.
When the younger ones were gone to bed, the three still held their peace
and only looked at each other. Mutual shame prevented them from ever
outwardly commenting on the father's weaknesses. Maud was the first to
break the long deep silence.
'After this, Dick,' she said decisively, 'there's no other way out of
it. You've burnt your boats. If you kill yourself to do it, you must win
that Scholarship!'
'I must,' Dick answered firmly. 'And what's more, I will. I'll get it
or die for it. I could never stand the disgrace, now, of coming back
empty-handed to Chiddingwick without it.'
'Perhaps,' Mrs. Plantagenet suggested, speaking boldly out the thought
that lurked in all their minds, 'he won't say a word of it.'
Maud and Dick looked up at her with incredulous amazement. 'Oh, mother!'
was all they could say. They knew their father's moods too well by far
to buoy themselves up with such impossible expectations.
'Well, it seals the business, anyhow,' Dick went on, after a moment's
pause. 'I _must_ get it now, that's simply certain. Though, to be sure,
I don't know that anything could make me try much harder than I'd have
tried before, for your sake, mother, and for Maud's, and the children's,
and the honour of the family.'
'I wish I had your faith, Dick, in the honour of the family,' Mrs.
Plantagenet sighed wearily. 'I can't feel it myself. I never could feel
it, somehow. Though, of course, it's a good thing if it makes you work
and hold your head up in life, and do the best you ever can for Maud
and the children. Anything's good that's an incentive to exertion. Yet I
often wish, when I see how hard you both have to toil and moil, with the
music and all that, we didn't belong to the royal stock at all, but to
the other Plantagenets, who left the money.'
Both Richard and Maud exclaimed with one accord at these painful
words: 'Oh, don't, dear mother!' To them, her speech sounded like sheer
desecration. Faith in their own unsullied Plan-tagenet blood was for
both a religion. And, indeed, no wonder. It had spurred them on to
all that was highest and best within them. To give up that magnificent
heritage of princely descent for mere filthy lucre would have seemed to
either an unspeakable degradation. They loved their mother dearly; yet
they often reflected, in a vague, half-unconscious sort of undercurrent
of thought, that after all she was not herself a born Plantagenet,
as they were; she had only married into the family, and couldn't be
expected to feel quite as they did on so domestic a matter. It never
struck either of them that in point of fact all those better qualities
in themselves which made them so jealous for the honour of the family
had descended to them solely from their mother's side of the house, and
were altogether alien to the lower nature of that good-humoured, idle,
unprincipled scamp and ne'er-do-well, their father.
At the very same moment, indeed, in the cosiest corner of the White
Horse parlour, Mr. Plantagenet himself, the head of the house, was
observing complacently, in a mellifluous voice, to an eager little group
of admiring listeners: 'Yes, gentlemen, my son Richard, I'm proud to
say, will shortly begin his career at Oxford University. I'm a poor man
myself, I admit; I might have been richer but for untoward events; and
circumstances have compelled me to submit in my old age to a degrading
profession, for which neither my birth, my education, nor my literary
habits have naturally fitted me. But I trust I have, at least, been a
good father to my children. A good--father--to my children. I have given
them the very best education this poor town can afford; and now, though
I know it will sadly cripple my slender resources, I mean to make a
struggle, my friends, a manful struggle, and send my boy Richard up to
Oxford. Richard has brains, undoubted brains; he's proud and reserved,
as you all know, and doesn't shine in society; he lacks the proper
qualities; but he has undoubted brains, for all that; and brilliancy, I
know to my cost'--here he heaved a deep sigh--'is often a pitfall to a
man of genius. Richard hasn't genius; but he's industrious and plodding,
and possesses, I'm told, a remarkable acquaintance with the history of
his country. So I've made up my mind to brave the effort and send him up
to our ancestral University. He may do something in time to repair the
broken fortunes of a respectable family. Gentlemen,' Mr. Plantagenet
went on, glancing round him for confirmation of his coming statement,
'I think you'll all bear me witness that I've never boasted or bragged
about my family in any way; but you'll all admit, too, that my family
is a respectable one, and that the name I bear has not been wholly
undistinguished in the history of this country.--Thank you, sir; I'm
very much obliged indeed to you for your kindness; I don't mind if I
do.--Brandy, if you please, _as_ usual, Miss Brooks--_and_ a split
soda.--Gentlemen, I thank you for your generous sympathy. Misfortune
has not wholly deprived me, I'm proud to notice, of appreciative
friends. I will drain this sparkling beaker, which my neighbour is
good enough to offer, to an appropriate toast--the toast of Success to
Richard Plantagenet of Durham College, Oxford.'