“The grace of friendship--mind and heart,
Linked with their fellow heart and mind;
The gains of science, gifts of art;
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand--
A large and liberal discontent:
These are the goods in life’s rich hand,
The things that are more excellent.”
William Watson.
|The moment the door had closed behind the boy Sir Matthew’s anger
cooled. For the time it had been genuine, for quite unintentionally
Ralph had used words which stung him as no others could have done. There
were two things in the world that the company promoter sincerely cared
about--successful speculation, and his reputation as a philanthropist.
His adoption of Ralph had been almost entirely a speculation, one of the
specious bits of kindness which he had intended to redound to his own
honour and glory. Having once undertaken the lad’s education he could
not for his own credit’s sake turn back, but from the very first he had
shrewdly guessed that it would prove a bad investment, and Ralph had
been a thorn in his side. To begin with, the boy was in face curiously
like his father, and Sir Matthew had some lingering remains of affection
for his old friend, even though in his heart he despised him for not
being more of a man of the world. He had not lived the life of a company
promoter without having grown perfectly callous to the sufferings of his
victims, but yet the conscience that was not dead but dormant within him
had been faintly stirred at Whinhaven when he realised that the Rector’s
ruin had been his work. Partly to salve his conscience, but chiefly
because the world would applaud the action, he had adopted Ralph. The
boy, however, had not taken kindly to the part assigned him. He never
showed off well before visitors, never learnt to pose as a grateful
recipient of unmerited kindness. On the contrary, Sir Matthew always had
an uncomfortable feeling that Ralph saw through him, and knew him to be
a humbug. As a matter of fact, the taunting allusions he had just made
to Mr. Denmead’s mistakes and errors of judgment had driven his hearer
far from all recollection of Sir Matthew’s actions or character; Ralph
had thought only of that inward picture stamped indelibly upon his
brain of the high-minded and scrupulously honourable father, who somehow
seemed to him more of a living reality as he spoke than the angry,
self-important patron confronting him.
“He was at least an honest man!” The words had intended no reflection
on Sir Matthew, but they had gone straight to the company promoter’s one
vulnerable spot, and for the moment had sharply pained him. Incensed
at the perception that this fellow might hurt his jealously guarded
reputation,--that reputation for benevolence which was part of his
stock-in-trade, he had burst forth into angry denunciation, and in one
indignant sentence had severed all connection between them.
He took out a memorandum book now, and made an entry in it with much
deliberation, then sat for some time wrapped in thought, gnawing
absently at his pencil case, a trick which he had acquired, and of which
the dinted surface of the silver bore tokens.
“One may trust a Denmead to be honourable,” he reflected with a curious
sense of satisfaction. “The boy will never mention that little private
arrangement as to Crosbie’s retiring in four years. I have bought the
living and now the question is how can I use it best to further my own
ends? After all, it’s just as well that this fool has refused it. I can
use it as a bait for some one else, and I’m quit of Ralph for ever.
Though the boy is so like his father in face there’s much more go in him
than there ever was in poor Denmead. He has a bit of the sturdy pluck
and energy of his little Welsh mother. Pshaw! I needn’t trouble about
him. He’s the sort that will swim and not sink, and a little course of
starvation will bring him down from his impossible heights and teach him
that he must do as other men do.”
With that he rose and left the library in search of his wife, and having
chatted pleasantly enough with her at afternoon tea, he casually alluded
to Ralph’s departure.
“What!” said Lady Mactavish, “Is he going out to India, do you mean.”
“Not that I know of,” said Sir Matthew with a laugh.
“He has failed ignominiously in his examination, and has been most
insufferably impertinent to me. I have given him his _congé_, and he
will trouble us no more.”
“The ungrateful boy!” said Lady Mactavish indignantly, “after all that
you have done for him too.”
“He has behaved very badly,” said Sir Matthew; “and I think, my dear, we
are well quit of him. I shall not see him again, but you had better just
say good-bye to him, and by-the-by, I think you might give him a couple
of five-pound notes; I should be sorry to launch him into the world
without a penny in his pockets. It might make people think that I had
been harsh with him.” Ralph had gone straight up to the schoolroom in
search of Evereld, but something had delayed her and he found the place
deserted. Throwing himself down on the window-seat, he let the soft west
wind cool his flushed face and tried to think calmly over the interview
with Sir Matthew. The attack on his father had angered him as nothing
else could have done, and it was over this rather than over his own
future that he mused. The sound of Evereld’s voice singing in the
passage roused him, but before she had reached the schoolroom, the
red baize door leading from the other part of the house creaked on its
hinges, and Lady Mactavish appeared upon the scene.
“I was looking for you, Ralph,” she said, entering the room in front of
Evereld. “I learn, to my great annoyance, that you have failed in your
examination, failed ignominiously. It is quite clear to us all that you
have not been working properly.”
“But every one says that the Indian Civil is such a dreadfully stiff
exam,” said Evereld, “and he did work very hard in Germany; they all
said so.”
“Don’t interrupt me, my dear,” said Lady Mactavish. “It is not a matter
you can understand. After all that Sir Matthew has done for you. Ralph,
I think at least you might have behaved properly to him. He tells me
that you were so impertinent that he has been forced to order you out of
the house.”
“I had no intention of being rude,” said Ralph, standing before her with
much the same expression of impatience, curbed by a sense of obligation
with which he had always taken her fault-finding.
“I am quite aware that your intentions are always, according to your
own account, immaculate,” she said scathingly, “but, unfortunately,
your words and actions don’t correspond with them. You have behaved
abominably to the man who has fed, and clothed, and housed you all these
years, a man who has wasted hundreds of pounds on your schooling.”
“Believe me, I do not forget what he has done for me,” said Ralph
eagerly. “I am grateful for it. But he used words of my father which
were cruel, words which no son could patiently have listened to.”
“Nothing can excuse the way you have behaved,” said Lady Mactavish, “so
say no more about it. What are your plans?”
“I have made none,” said Ralph, “except to go by the six o’clock train.”
“Where are you going?”
“To London,” he replied.
Lady Mactavish glanced at him a little uneasily. She could not without
prickings of conscience think of turning this boy adrift.
“Sir Matthew, with his usual kindness and generosity, asked me to give
you these,” she said, holding out the bank notes. “Though you have
so much disappointed and pained him, he will not let you be sent away
without money.”
But Ralph drew back; there was a look in his eyes which half frightened
Evereld.
“Thank you,” he said, “but I cannot take them; after what passed just
now in the library it is out of the question.”
Lady Mactavish looked uncomfortable. “You have been so shielded and
cared for that you don’t realise what the world is. You will certainly
be getting into trouble. I desire you to take these.”
“I am sorry to refuse you anything,” he said with studied politeness.
“But you ask what is impossible.”
“Your pride is perfectly ridiculous,” she said, turning away with a look
of annoyance. “However, I shall retain these notes for you, and when you
have realised your foolishness, you can write and ask me for them.”
Something in her tone, touched Ralph. It seemed to him that perhaps
after all she had taken some little thought for his well-being, and that
behind her grumbling, ungracious manner, there was more real heart than
he had dreamed.
“Will you not let me say good-bye to you?” he said. “You must not think
I am ungrateful for the home you have given me all these years.”
She took leave of him more kindly than he had expected, after which
he turned thoughtfully back into the schoolroom, where he found poor
Evereld sobbing her heart out.
“Oh, don’t cry,” he said as if the sight of her tears had added the last
straw to his burden. “It can’t be helped, Evereld, and after all, had
I got through my exam. I should have been going abroad before so very
long. And you are going to school for a year. There will be no end of
friends for you there.”
“They won’t be like you,” sobbed Evereld, “You are just like my brother
now. Oh, how I wish we were really brother and sister, then they
couldn’t turn you out like this.”
“I wish we were,” said Ralph with a sigh, as he realised how utterly
he had now cut himself off from intercourse with her.
“All we can do, I suppose, is to hear of each other through the
Professor and Frau Rosenwald. They will never let me write to you at
school. It’s not as if I were your brother really or even your cousin.
They’re awfully strict at schools about that.”
“Well,” said Evereld, resolutely drying her eyes, “We can write in the
holidays, and in a little more than three years’ time I can do just
exactly what I like. Promise, Ralph, that you will come to me when I am
one and twenty. Promise me faithfully.”
“I promise,” he said. But as he spoke it seemed to him that by that
time a thousand things might have happened to divide them. He had
a perception somehow that, once broken, that brotherly and sisterly
intimacy could never again be the same thing. Later on, Evereld knew
that it was indeed at an end, but for the moment his promise cheered
her, and she set herself to work to make the most of the present.
“Come,” she said, “tea is getting cold, and you must eat all you can,
for who knows where you will dine. Oh, Ralph! what do you mean to do?
Where shall you go in London?”
“I think I shall go first to my father’s solicitor, old Mr. Marriott. He
was kind to me when I left Whinhaven, and he will know the whole truth
about things, and will perhaps advise me.”
“Shall you go in for the Indian Civil again?”
“I don’t think so, for most likely all that part is true enough. I must
have failed badly; I never was any good at exams. No, I have a great
idea of trying my luck on the stage. That was always my wish since the
day when my father took me to see Washington. We often laughed over the
plan and discussed it, and he had none of that horror of the stage which
so many parsons profess to have.”
“That would be delightful,--a thousand times better than going to India!
And perhaps we shall go to see you act. And oh! perhaps you’ll get to
know Macneillie!”
“I have no idea where Macneillie has gone to,” said Ralph. “He has not
played in London for the last six years; somebody told me he had started
a Company of his own in the provinces. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to find
out, and write to him. Unless our hero-worship threw a very deceptive
halo round him, he must be an awfully kind-hearted man. Come! drink
to my good fortune, and then like an angel just help me to sort out my
things. Tea, and this notion of yours about Macneillie make me feel like
a giant refreshed. After all, it will be jolly enough to be on one’s own
hook after eating the bitter bread of charity all this time.”
“Yet I rather wish you had taken those hank notes,” said Evereld. “How
much money have you, Ralph, to start with?”
He felt in one pocket and produced a florin. “That will take me to
London,” he said. He felt in another and produced half a sovereign, “on
that I can live for a week,” he remarked.
“And after that?” said Evereld.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“There are night refuges I believe, where for a penny one can lie in a
box and warm oneself with a leather coverlet. And failing these, there
is always the Park, where you can enjoy part of a bench without any
charge at all.”
“Ralph, I’m not going to allow it,” said Evereld, her firm little mouth
assuming its most resolute expression. “Do you think I should have
let Dick go away to starve upon twelve shillings while I was lapped in
luxury? I took you for my brother, the very first night you came, and
I’m not going to give you up, whatever you say.” She unlocked her desk
and took out four sovereigns. “This is all I have left of my allowance;
I wish it were bank notes like the ones you refused. But you can’t
refuse mine, Ralph.”
He hesitated. “I don’t think I ought to take them,” he said.
“Why not?”
“The world would be shocked. What right have I to your money?”
“Every right, since we belong to each other. And as to the world it has
nothing whatever to do with the matter. Don’t waste time, Ralph. Please
take it for my sake.”
He could not resist the blue eyes brimming with tears, but let her place
the money in his hand and gave her a brotherly hug. Then they hastily
began to collect his possessions, talking bravely of the future, and
many times alluding to their old hero Macneillie.
In the meantime in Geraghty’s pantry two other friends were colloguing;
Bridget having learnt the fate that was to befall her young gentleman
was opening her heart to her elderly _fiancé_.
“It’s turnin’ of him out that they’re after,” she said indignantly,
“And him a fine handsome boy and knowin’ just nothin’ of the world.
Sure thin, Geraghty, it’s a sin, it’s just a mortal sin, and him without
connictions, let alone relations.”
“Where will he be goin’?” asked Geraghty thoughtfully.
“I heard them say he was goin’ to London, and you know what that will
be meanin’ when a boy’s got neither money nor friends to keep him in the
right way. It breaks me heart to think of it.”
“Well, maybe I’d better be tellin’ him of Dan Doolan’s house at
Vauxhall. He’d be with good dacent folk there and they’d not be askin’ a
high rint. Here, give me that tray. I’ll fetch down the schoolroom cups
for ye, and that’ll give me a chance to speak with him.”
Geraghty had always been a favourite in the schoolroom, and Ralph
turned to the old fellow now with a hearty appreciation of his kindly
thoughtfulness.
“We shall all miss you, Mr. Ralph,” he said. “And if I might make so
bold as to be giving you the ricommindation of some rooms in London,
where they tell me you’re going, I think you’d find them respectable,
which is more than can be said for many places. The house belongs to
Dan Doolan, that’s my sister’s husband’s uncle, he and his wife are very
dacent folk and they would do their utmost for you and give you a warm
welcome.”
“Trust the Irish for that,” said Ralph, “I’m very much obliged to
you, Geraghty, for I hadn’t an idea where to look for lodgings. Come,
Evereld, now you will feel much happier about me.”
He took down the address, and then, with the help of
Geraghty and Bridget and Evereld, the packing was finished and the
moment of leave-taking arrived. The butler had carried down the last
portmanteau, Bridget had invoked blessings on his head and gone away
wiping her eyes with her apron, and the two friends were left in the
quiet schoolroom.
“Remember your promise,” said Evereld earnestly.
“I will remember,” said Ralph. “And after all it is likely enough that
we shall meet before that. Courage, dear! Don’t fret. The time will soon
pass.”
“Here is a book for you to read in the train,” she added, afraid to say
much, lest she should break down. “You must have a Dickens to comfort
you, and this will be the best, for the wind is very much in the east
to-day, as dear old Mr. Jarndyce would have said.”
She gave him her own copy of “Bleak House” and Ralph, with a choking
sensation in his throat, bent down and kissed the sweet rosy face that
was still so childlike. After that, without another word, he left the
house, and Evereld, running to her bedroom, watched him until he had
disappeared in the distance, then, throwing herself on the bed, cried as
though her heart would break.