FATHER AND SONS.
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Things were not going on any better at Hamley Hall. Nothing had
occurred to change the state of dissatisfied feeling into which the
Squire and his eldest son had respectively fallen; and the long
continuance merely of dissatisfaction is sure of itself to deepen
the feeling. Roger did all in his power to bring the father and son
together; but sometimes wondered if it would not have been better to
leave them alone; for they were falling into the habit of each making
him their confidant, and so defining emotions and opinions which
would have had less distinctness if they had been unexpressed. There
was little enough relief in the daily life at the Hall to help them
all to shake off the gloom; and it even told on the health of both
the Squire and Osborne. The Squire became thinner, his skin as well
as his clothes began to hang loose about him, and the freshness
of his colour turned to red streaks, till his cheeks looked like
Eardiston pippins, instead of resembling "a Katherine pear on the
side that's next the sun." Roger thought that his father sate indoors
and smoked in his study more than was good for him, but it had
become difficult to get him far afield; he was too much afraid of
coming across some sign of the discontinued drainage works, or being
irritated afresh by the sight of his depreciated timber. Osborne was
wrapt up in the idea of arranging his poems for the press, and so
working out his wish for independence. What with daily writing to
his wife--taking his letters himself to a distant post-office, and
receiving hers there--touching up his sonnets, &c., with fastidious
care--and occasionally giving himself the pleasure of a visit to the
Gibsons, and enjoying the society of the two pleasant girls there,
he found little time for being with his father. Indeed, Osborne was
too self-indulgent or "sensitive," as he termed it, to bear well
with the Squire's gloomy fits, or too frequent querulousness. The
consciousness of his secret, too, made Osborne uncomfortable in his
father's presence. It was very well for all parties that Roger was
not "sensitive," for, if he had been, there were times when it would
have been hard to bear little spurts of domestic tyranny, by which
his father strove to assert his power over both his sons. One of
these occurred very soon after the night of the Hollingford
charity-ball.
Roger had induced his father to come out with him; and the Squire
had, on his son's suggestion, taken with him his long unused spud.
The two had wandered far afield; perhaps the elder man had found the
unwonted length of exercise too much for him; for, as he approached
the house, on his return, he became what nurses call in children
"fractious," and ready to turn on his companion for every remark he
made. Roger understood the case by instinct, as it were, and bore it
all with his usual sweetness of temper. They entered the house by
the front door; it lay straight on their line of march. On the old
cracked yellow-marble slab, there lay a card with Lord Hollingford's
name on it, which Robinson, evidently on the watch for their return,
hastened out of his pantry to deliver to Roger.
"His lordship was very sorry not to see you, Mr. Roger, and his
lordship left a note for you. Mr. Osborne took it, I think, when
he passed through. I asked his lordship if he would like to see Mr.
Osborne, who was indoors, as I thought. But his lordship said he was
pressed for time, and told me to make his excuses."
"Didn't he ask for me?" growled the Squire.
"No, sir; I can't say as his lordship did. He would never have
thought of Mr. Osborne, sir, if I hadn't named him. It was Mr. Roger
he seemed so keen after."
"Very odd," said the Squire. Roger said nothing, although he
naturally felt some curiosity. He went into the drawing-room, not
quite aware that his father was following him. Osborne sate at a
table near the fire, pen in hand, looking over one of his poems, and
dotting the _i_'s, crossing the _t_'s, and now and then pausing over
the alteration of a word.
"Oh, Roger!" he said, as his brother came in, "here's been Lord
Hollingford wanting to see you."
"I know," replied Roger.
"And he's left a note for you. Robinson tried to persuade him it was
for my father, so he's added a 'junior' (Roger Hamley, Esq., junior)
in pencil." The Squire was in the room by this time, and what he had
overheard rubbed him up still more the wrong way. Roger took his
unopened note and read it.
"What does he say?" asked the Squire.
Roger handed him the note. It contained an invitation to dinner to
meet M. Geoffroi St. H----, whose views on certain subjects Roger had
been advocating in the article Lord Hollingford had spoken about to
Molly, when he danced with her at the Hollingford ball. M. Geoffroi
St. H---- was in England now, and was expected to pay a visit at
the Towers in the course of the following week. He had expressed a
wish to meet the author of the paper which had already attracted the
attention of the French comparative anatomists; and Lord Hollingford
added a few words as to his own desire to make the acquaintance of a
neighbour whose tastes were so similar to his own; and then followed
a civil message from Lord and Lady Cumnor.
Lord Hollingford's hand was cramped and rather illegible. The squire
could not read it all at once, and was enough put out to decline any
assistance in deciphering it. At last he made it out.
"So my lord lieutenant is taking some notice of the Hamleys at last.
The election is coming on, is it? But I can tell him we're not to be
got so easily. I suppose this trap is set for you, Osborne? What's
this you've been writing that the French mounseer is so taken with?"
"It is not me, sir!" said Osborne. "Both note and call are for
Roger."
"I don't understand it," said the Squire. "These Whig fellows have
never done their duty by me; not that I want it of them. The Duke
of Debenham used to pay the Hamleys a respect due to 'em--the
oldest landowners in the county--but since he died, and this
shabby Whig lord has succeeded him, I've never dined at the lord
lieutenant's--no, not once."
"But I think, sir, I've heard you say Lord Cumnor used to invite
you,--only you did not choose to go," said Roger.
"Yes. What d'ye mean by that? Do you suppose I was going to desert
the principles of my family, and curry favour with the Whigs? No!
leave that to them. They can ask the heir of the Hamleys fast enough
when a county election is coming on."
"I tell you, sir," said Osborne, in the irritable tone he sometimes
used when his father was particularly unreasonable, "it is not me
Lord Hollingford is inviting; it is Roger. Roger is making himself
known for what he is, a first-rate fellow," continued Osborne--a
sting of self-reproach mingling with his generous pride in his
brother--"and he's getting himself a name; he's been writing
about these new French theories and discoveries, and this foreign
_savant_ very naturally wants to make his acquaintance, and so Lord
Hollingford asks him to dine. It's as clear as can be," lowering his
tone, and addressing himself to Roger; "it has nothing to do with
politics, if my father would but see it."
Of course the Squire heard this little aside with the unlucky
uncertainty of hearing which is a characteristic of the beginning
of deafness; and its effect on him was perceptible in the increased
acrimony of his next speech.
"You young men think you know everything. I tell you it's a palpable
Whig trick. And what business has Roger--if it is Roger the man
wants--to go currying favour with the French? In my day we were
content to hate 'em and to lick 'em. But it's just like your conceit,
Osborne, setting yourself up to say it's your younger brother they're
asking, and not you; I tell you it's you. They think the eldest son
was sure to be called after his father, Roger--Roger Hamley, junior.
It's as plain as a pike-staff. They know they can't catch me with
chaff, but they've got up this French dodge. What business had you to
go writing about the French, Roger? I should have thought you were
too sensible to take any notice of their fancies and theories; but if
it is you they've asked, I'll not have you going and meeting these
foreigners at a Whig house. They ought to have asked Osborne. He's
the representative of the Hamleys, if I'm not; and they can't get me,
let 'em try ever so. Besides, Osborne has got a bit of the mounseer
about him, which he caught with being so fond of going off to the
Continent, instead of coming back to his good old English home."
He went on repeating much of what he had said before, till he
left the room. Osborne had kept on replying to his unreasonable
grumblings, which had only added to his anger; and as soon as the
Squire was fairly gone, Osborne turned to Roger, and said,--
"Of course you'll go, Roger? ten to one he'll be in another mind
to-morrow."
"No," said Roger, bluntly enough--for he was extremely disappointed;
"I won't run the chance of vexing him. I shall refuse."
"Don't be such a fool!" exclaimed Osborne. "Really, my father is too
unreasonable. You heard how he kept contradicting himself; and such a
man as you to be kept under like a child by--"
"Don't let us talk any more about it, Osborne," said Roger, writing
away fast. When the note was written, and sent off, he came and put
his hand caressingly on Osborne's shoulder, as he sate pretending
to read, but in reality vexed with both his father and his brother,
though on very different grounds.
"How go the poems, old fellow? I hope they're nearly ready to bring
out."
"No, they're not; and if it weren't for the money, I shouldn't care
if they were never published. What's the use of fame, if one mayn't
reap the fruits of it?"
"Come, now, we'll have no more of that; let's talk about the money.
I shall be going up for my Fellowship examination next week, and then
we'll have a purse in common, for they'll never think of not giving
me a Fellowship now I'm senior wrangler. I'm short enough myself at
present, and I don't like to bother my father; but when I'm Fellow,
you shall take me down to Winchester, and introduce me to the little
wife."
"It will be a month next Monday since I left her," said Osborne,
laying down his papers and gazing into the fire, as if by so doing he
could call up her image. "In her letter this morning she bids me give
you such a pretty message. It won't bear translating into English;
you must read it for yourself," continued he, pointing out a line or
two in a letter he drew from his pocket.
Roger suspected that one or two of the words were wrongly spelt;
but their purport was so gentle and loving, and had such a touch of
simple, respectful gratitude in them, that he could not help being
drawn afresh to the little unseen sister-in-law, whose acquaintance
Osborne had made by helping her to look for some missing article of
the children's, whom she was taking for their daily walk in Hyde
Park. For Mrs. Osborne Hamley had been nothing more than a French
_bonne_, very pretty, very graceful, and very much tyrannized over
by the rough little boys and girls she had in charge. She was a
little orphan girl, who had charmed the heads of a travelling English
family, as she had brought madame some articles of lingerie at an
hotel; and she had been hastily engaged by them as _bonne_ to their
children, partly as a pet and plaything herself, partly because it
would be so good for the children to learn French from a native
(of Alsace!). By-and-by her mistress ceased to take any particular
notice of Aime in the bustle of London and London gaiety; but though
feeling more and more forlorn in a strange land every day, the French
girl strove hard to do her duty. One touch of kindness, however, was
enough to set the fountain gushing; and she and Osborne naturally
fell into an ideal state of love, to be rudely disturbed by the
indignation of the mother, when accident discovered to her the
attachment existing between her children's _bonne_ and a young man
of an entirely different class. Aime answered truly to all her
mistress's questions; but no worldly wisdom, nor any lesson to be
learnt from another's experience, could in the least disturb her
entire faith in her lover. Perhaps Mrs. Townshend did no more than
her duty in immediately sending Aime back to Metz, where she had
first met with her, and where such relations as remained to the girl
might be supposed to be residing. But, altogether, she knew so little
of the kind of people or life to which she was consigning her deposed
protge that Osborne, after listening with impatient indignation to
the lecture which Mrs. Townshend gave him when he insisted on seeing
her in order to learn what had become of his love, that the young man
set off straight for Metz in hot haste, and did not let the grass
grow under his feet until he had made Aime his wife. All this had
occurred the previous autumn, and Roger did not know of the step his
brother had taken until it was irrevocable. Then came the mother's
death, which, besides the simplicity of its own overwhelming sorrow,
brought with it the loss of the kind, tender mediatrix, who could
always soften and turn his father's heart. It is doubtful, however,
if even she could have succeeded in this, for the Squire looked high,
and over high, for the wife of his heir; he detested all foreigners,
and overmore held all Roman Catholics in dread and abomination
something akin to our ancestors' hatred of witchcraft. All these
prejudices were strengthened by his grief. Argument would always have
glanced harmless away off his shield of utter unreason; but a loving
impulse, in a happy moment, might have softened his heart to what he
most detested in the former days. But the happy moments came not now,
and the loving impulses were trodden down by the bitterness of his
frequent remorse, not less than by his growing irritability; so Aime
lived solitary in the little cottage near Winchester in which Osborne
had installed her when she first came to England as his wife, and
in the dainty furnishing of which he had run himself so deeply into
debt. For Osborne consulted his own fastidious taste in his purchases
rather than her simple childlike wishes and wants, and looked upon
the little Frenchwoman rather as the future mistress of Hamley Hall
than as the wife of a man who was wholly dependent on others at
present. He had chosen a southern county as being far removed from
those midland shires where the name of Hamley of Hamley was well and
widely known; for he did not wish his wife to assume, if only for a
time, a name which was not justly and legally her own. In all these
arrangements he had willingly striven to do his full duty by her; and
she repaid him with passionate devotion and admiring reverence. If
his vanity had met with a check, or his worthy desires for college
honours had been disappointed, he knew where to go for a comforter;
one who poured out praise till her words were choked in her throat by
the rapidity of her thoughts, and who poured out the small vials of
her indignation on every one who did not acknowledge and bow down to
her husband's merits. If she ever wished to go to the chteau--that
was his home--and to be introduced to his family, Aime never hinted
a word of it to him. Only she did yearn, and she did plead, for a
little more of her husband's company; and the good reasons which had
convinced her of the necessity of his being so much away when he was
present to urge them, failed in their efficacy when she tried to
reproduce them to herself in his absence.
The afternoon of the day on which Lord Hollingford called Roger
was going upstairs, three steps at a time, when, at a turn on the
landing, he encountered his father. It was the first time he had seen
him since their conversation about the Towers' invitation to dinner.
The Squire stopped his son by standing right in the middle of the
passage.
"Thou'rt going to meet the mounseer, my lad?" said he, half as
affirmation, half as question.
"No, sir; I sent off James almost immediately with a note declining
it. I don't care about it--that's to say, not to signify."
"Why did you take me up so sharp, Roger?" said his father pettishly.
"You all take me up so hastily now-a-days. I think it's hard when a
man mustn't be allowed a bit of crossness when he's tired and heavy
at heart--that I do."
"But, father, I should never like to go to a house where they had
slighted you."
"Nay, nay, lad," said the Squire, brightening up a little; "I think
I slighted them. They asked me to dinner, after my lord was made
lieutenant, time after time, but I never would go near 'em. I call
that my slighting them."
And no more was said at the time; but the next day the Squire again
stopped Roger.
"I've been making Jem try on his livery-coat that he hasn't worn this
three or four years,--he's got too stout for it now."
"Well, he needn't wear it, need he? and Morgan's lad will be glad
enough of it,--he's sadly in want of clothes."
"Ay, ay; but who's to go with you when you call at the Towers? It's
but polite to call after Lord What's-his-name has taken the trouble
to come here; and I shouldn't like you to go without a groom."
"My dear father! I shouldn't know what to do with a man riding at my
back. I can find my way to the stable-yard for myself, or there'll be
some man about to take my horse. Don't trouble yourself about that."
"Well, you're not Osborne, to be sure. Perhaps it won't strike 'em
as strange for you. But you must look up, and hold your own, and
remember you're one of the Hamleys, who've been on the same land for
hundreds of years, while they're but trumpery Whig folk who only came
into the county in Queen Anne's time."