|At Oxford all that day, Mr. Archibald Gillespie, of Durham College,
found himself in a very singular position indeed for an undergraduate
of such unquestioned and respectable manners. For he was keeping Maud
Plantagenet shut up behind a sported oak in her brother's rooms, and
clandestinely supplying her with lunch, tea and dinner.
This somewhat compromising condition of affairs in the third pair
left of Back Quad New Buildings had been brought about by a pure
concatenation of accidents. When Maud left Chiddingwick that morning,
with nothing in her purse, she had trusted to Dick to supply her with
the wherewithal for paying her way back again. But as Dick was not at
home when she reached his rooms, she had been compelled to wait in for
him till he returned from Chiddingwick. For the same reason she was
obviously unable to supply herself with food at a hotel or restaurant.
Being a Plan-tagenet, indeed, she would have been far too proud to
let Gillespie suspect these facts by overt act or word of hers; but,
somehow, he guessed them for himself, and soon found his suspicions
confirmed by her very silence.
Now, the scouts, or college servants, have a key of the 'oak,' and can
enter men's rooms at any moment without warning beforehand. There
was nothing for it, therefore, but for Gillespie to take Dick's scout
frankly into his confidence; which he did accordingly. Already he had
forgotten his eleven o'clock lecture; Plato's 'Bepublic' had gone to
the wall before a pretty face; and now he went outside the door to plot
still further treason, and shouted, after the primitive Oxford fashion,
for the servant.
'Look here, Robert,' he said, as the scout came up, 'there's a
young lady in deep mourning in Mr. Plantagenet's rooms. She's Mr.
Plantagenet's sister, and she's come up to see him about this dreadful
affair the other day, you understand. But he's gone down home for the
morning to Chiddingwick--they've crossed on the road--and he mayn't
perhaps be back again till late in the evening. Now, I can see the young
lady's got no money about her--she came away hurriedly--and I don't like
to offer her any. So I'm going to telegraph to Mr. Plantagenet to come
back as soon as he can; but he can't be here for some time yet, anyhow.
Of course, the young lady _must_ have something to eat; and I want you
to help me with it. Tell the porter who she is, and that she'll
probably have to stop here till Mr. Plantagenet comes back. Under the
circumstances, nobody will say anything about it. At lunch-time you must
take out something quiet and nice in my name from the kitchen--chicken
cutlets, and so forth--and serve it to the young lady in Mr.
Plantagenet's rooms. When Mr. Plantagenet returns he'll see her out of
college.'
As for Robert, standing by obsequious, he grinned from ear to ear at the
obvious prospect of a good round tip, and undertook for his part with a
very fair grace that the young lady's needs should be properly provided
for. Your scout is a person of infinite resource, the most servile of
his kind; he scents tips from afar, and would sell his soul to earn one.
Even in this age of enlightenment, however, an Oxford college still
retains many traits of the medieval monastery from which it sprang;
women are banned in it; and 'twould have been as much as Mr. Robert's
place was worth to serve the unknown young lady in Dick Plantagenet's
rooms without leave from headquarters. So he made a clean breast of
it. Application to the Dean, however, resulted in his obtaining the
necessary acquiescence; and Gillespie devoted himself through the rest
of that day to making Maud as comfortable as was possible under
the circumstances in her brother's rooms till Dick's return from
Chiddingwick.
So charitably was he minded, indeed, that he hardly left her at all
except at meal-times. Now, in the course of a long day's _tête-à-tête_
two people get to know a wonderful deal of one another, especially if
they have mutually sympathetic natures; and before Dick returned that
evening to set Maud at liberty, she and Gillespie felt already like old
friends together.
Dick didn't get back, as it happened, till long after Hall, and then it
was too late for Maud to catch a train back that evening. The reason for
the delay was simple; Dick hadn't received Archie Gillespie's telegram
till his return from the Rectory. He had stopped there to lunch, at Mrs.
Tradescant's request, after his interview with Mary; and for Mary's sake
he thought it best to accept the invitation. So the end of it all was
that Dick had to find his sister a bed under the friendly roof of a
married Fellow of his college, and that before he took her round there,
he, she, and Gillespie had a long chat together about the prospects of
the situation.
'Mr. Gillespie and I have been talking it over all day, Dick,' Maud said
very decidedly; 'and we're both of us of opinion--most distinctly
of opinion--that you oughtn't, as a duty to mother and to us, to do
anything that'll compel you to take back again the one great forward
step you took in coming to Oxford. Mr. Gillespie says rightly, it's easy
enough to go down, but not by any means so easy, once you're there, to
climb up again.'
'I ought to do whatever makes me earn an immediate income soonest,
though, for all your sakes, Maud,' Dick objected stoutly.
'Not at all!' Maud answered with Plantagenet decision, and with wisdom
above her years, dictated no doubt by her love and pride in her brother.
'You oughtn't to sacrifice the future to the present.' Then she turned
to him quite sharply. 'Did you see Mary Tudor to-day?' she asked,
regardless of Gillespie's presence, for she considered him already as an
old friend of the family.
The tell-tale colour rushed up fast into Dick's cheek.
'Yes, I did,' he answered, half faltering. 'And she behaved most nobly.
She behaved as you'd expect such a girl to behave, Maud. She spoke of it
quite beautifully.'
Maud drew back, triumphant. If Mary had been there, she could have
thrown her thin arms round her neck and kissed her.
'Well, and _she_ didn't advise you to go and settle at Chiddingwick!'
Maud cried with proud confidence.
'She didn't exactly _advise_ me,' Dick answered with some little
hesitation; 'but she acquiesced in my doing it; and she said, whatever
I did, she'd always love me equally. In point of fact,' Dick added,
somewhat sheepishly, 'we never were engaged at all before to-day; but
this morning we settled it.'
Maud showed her profound disappointment, nay, almost her contempt, in
her speaking face. To say the truth, it's seldom we can any of us see
anything both from our own point of view and someone else's as well.
Maud could see nothing in all this but profound degradation for Dick,
and indirectly for the family, if Dick went back to Chiddingwick; while
Mary had only thought how noble and devoted it was of her unselfish
lover to give up everything so readily for his mother and sisters.
'I think,' Dick ventured to put in, since Mary's reputation was at stake
in Maud's mind, 'she was most--well, pleased that I should be willing
to--to make this sacrifice--if I may call it so--because I thought it my
duty.'
Maud flung herself on the floor at his side, and held his hand in hers
passionately.
'Oh, Dick,' she cried, clinging to him, 'dear Dick! she oughtn't to have
thought like that! She oughtn't to have thought of _us!_ She ought to
have thought, as I do, of you and your future! If I, who am your sister,
am so jealous for your honour, surely she, who's the girl you mean to
marry, ought to be ten times more so!'
'So she is,' Dick answered manfully. 'Only, don't you see, Maud, there
are different ways of looking at it. She thinks, as I do, that it's best
and most imperative to do one's duty first; she would give me up for
herself, almost, and wait for me indefinitely, if she thought I could do
better so for you and dear mother.'
Maud clung to him passionately still. For it was not to him only she
clung, but also to the incarnate honour of the family. 'Oh, Dick,' she
cried once more, 'you mustn't do it; you mustn't do it; you'll kill me
if you do it! We don't mind starving; that's as easy as anything; but
not a second time shall we draggle in the dust of the street the honour
of the Plantagenets.'
They sat up late that night, and talked it all over from every side
alternately. And the more they talked it over, the more did Gillespie
come round to Maud's opinion on the matter. It might be necessary for
Dick to leave Oxford, indeed; though even that would be a wrench; but
if he left Oxford, it would certainly be well he should take some other
work--whatever work turned up--even if less well paid, that would not
unclass him.
And before they separated for the night, Maud had wrung this concession
at least out of her wavering brother, that he would do nothing decisive
before the end of term; and that, meanwhile, he would try to find some
more dignified employment in London or elsewhere. Only in the last
resort, he promised her, would he return to Chiddingwick--and his
father's calling. That should be treated as the final refuge
against absolute want. And, indeed, his soul loathed it; he had only
contemplated it at first, not for himself, but for his kin, from a stern
sense of duty.
Gillespie saw Maud off at the station next morning with Dick. He was
carefully dressed, and wore, what was unusual with him, a flower in
his button-hole. Maud's last words to him were: 'Now, Mr. Gillespie,
remember: I rely upon you to keep Dick from backsliding.'
And Gillespie answered, with a courteous bow to the slim pale little
creature who sat in deep mourning on the bare wooden seat of the
third-class carriage (South-Eastern pattern): 'You may count upon me,
Miss Plantagenet, to carry out your programme.'
As they walked back together silently up the High towards Durham,
Gillespie turned with a sudden dart to his friend and broke their joint
reverie.
'Is your sister engaged, Dick?' he asked with a somewhat nervous jerk.
'Why, no,' Dick-answered, taken aback--'at least, not that I ever heard
of.'
'I should think she would be soon,' Gillespie retorted meaningly.
'Why so?' Dick inquired in an unsuspecting voice.
'Well, she's very pretty,' Gillespie answered; 'and very clever; and
very distinguished-looking.
'She is pretty,' Dick admitted, unsuspecting as before. No man ever
really remembers his own sisters are women. 'But, you see, she never
meets any young men at Chiddingwick. There's nobody to make love to
her.'
'So much the better!' Gillespie replied, and then relapsed into silence.