There is no reckoning with the infinite possibilities for variation in
human character, which is one of the reasons why all ‘theories’ of
education are doomed to failure. Yet you will sometimes hear the
cleverest men and women lay down general axioms, forgetful of this
qualifying phrase, that may upset the entire calculation.
Richard Meadowes—in other matters a man of considerable acuteness, fell
into this common snare. The axiom which misled him was one which has
been accepted—well-nigh proven by half the world: that youth is fickle
and forgetful. Given fresh interests, new playthings, the young man does
not live (said he) who will not soon forget what so lately charmed him
most. Well, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this may be true; but
that elusive hundredth case must also be reckoned with if one would make
certain.
‘Phil must go into society and see other women; ere six months are
passed he will never give another thought to this Caroline Shepley,’
said the prudent parent, who had indeed, on his way through the world,
seen many a man forget. Phil showed scant desire for society; he
declared his inclinations lay rather in the way of study, and expressed
a special yearning for legal research. But his father opposed this with
wise moderation.
‘There was of course no reason against it—Phil might please himself—he
was, by now, old enough to choose his own path in life—but, if he might
suggest it, a Parliamentary career offered greater scope for his
peculiar talents. Nothing would be easier. A few years hence . . . time
passed quickly—there was much to see and learn meantime . . . there was
the world to see, not to speak of the men in it. . . . Should they go
the Grand Tour of Europe together? . . . No?—ah, well, there was time
enough for that . . . He preferred London? Well, there was of course no
society like London, and the proper study of mankind (“clever mankind,
Phil, my son”) was certainly man—learn men and manners. He did not wish
to go into society? Ah, well, he might stay at home and do some
reading—no time was lost in reading—he had worked too hard at Oxford
and deserved a rest this winter,’ etc. etc.
Phil listened to it all and smiled and took his own way; he knew
perfectly well what his father’s thoughts were.
At first, after his parting with Carrie, Phil was inclined to be rather
sulky and moody, but when he returned to town with his father, and after
he began to attend church with so much regularity, he came to a more
Christian frame of mind, and exhibited indeed such a markedly better
temper that his father smiled to himself and said all was going well.
Phil now showed no disinclination for society, and indeed entered upon
its pleasures with peculiar zest. He even plunged deep into a
flirtation—a hopeful sign—with a certain Lady Hester Ware, a pretty,
witty young Irishwoman, without a penny to her fortune. Meadowes was
delighted; he would have welcomed a daughter of the beggar Lazarus as
Phil’s chosen bride at that moment.
With commendable caution he paid not the slightest attention to the
affair; for he knew the contradictious human spirit, and Phil flirted
on. But at last, when the matter seemed quite an established fact, he
expressed to Phil his great admiration for Lady Hester.
‘There’s a clever woman!’ he exclaimed in conclusion. But his breath was
taken away by Phil’s response—
‘Clever? yes, deucedly clever. I hate clever women, and if you like ’em,
sir, you’re the first man that ever did!’
‘’Pon my soul!’ exclaimed Meadowes, with a long whistle of astonishment;
then he added severely, ‘If you do not like Lady Hester, Phil, you do
very wrong to trifle with her affections, as you have been doing this
many a day.’
‘’Tis, as you say, sir, an unpardonable sin to play a woman false—may
Heaven forbid I should fall into it!’ said Phil in pious tones, and
Meadowes, as he met the boy’s bright eyes, turned uneasily away.
Richard Meadowes had, you see, not added this cynical axiom to his
collection:—that most men, when desperate about one woman, will plunge
into a flirtation with another: so he was at a loss to account for
Phil’s conduct, if it was not actuated by admiration.
Phil was not really doing anything extraordinary—he was only trying to
find an answer to the question ‘how best to pass two years?’—two years
that seemed to him to expand into a lifetime as he looked ahead, for he
was of an impatient temperament. Six months had passed before the happy
expedient of seeing Carrie at church suggested itself to his mind; and
by dint of this device six months more were got over. But with the
spring’s return came a crowd of tender remembrances, and Phil grew very
sulky and despondent again. His father had gone to Fairmeadowes, but
Phil, grown now very emancipated, refused to leave London; ‘The country
was dull,’ said he, who aforetime loved it so well. He had come to an
end of his flirtation—and the lees of a flirtation are the sourest
beverage; he could gain no distraction from it any longer: he was at his
wit’s end.
As he walked moodily down the Square one morning about this time, Phil
heard his name spoken, and, turning round, found Mr. Simon Prior by his
side.
Now, if there was a man that Philip disliked more than another it was
this Simon Prior. A tall man, with shoulders so high that he seemed to
be always shrugging them, and with prominent eyes that had a look of
bullying challenge in them, he certainly did not carry innocence upon
his face. He always assumed great familiarity with Phil—another point
against him with the young man. But he, this morning, was so at a loss
for a new shiver as almost to welcome this man; could he possibly yield
him any amusement?
‘Yes, my father is at Fairmeadowes, sir,’ he said in response to the
elder man’s greeting, and they fell into step.
‘And you, Philip? Once upon a time you too loved Fairmeadowes—why are
times so changed?’
‘Age, sir, age,’ laughed Philip. ‘And indeed I am become very old, for I
can hit on nothing will amuse me these days.’
‘A sad case. What have you tried?’
Phil was prudent; he might almost have been a Scotsman from his reply—
‘What, sir, would you recommend?’
‘Oh, there are many ways for passing the time, Philip.’
‘That’s not all I wish. ’Tis—’tis—oh, there’s no new thing under the
sun!’
‘Women!—there’s considerable variety there,’ began Prior, and he
treated Phil to one of his bullying stares.
Phil shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
‘Well, if you do not fancy that—let me see—gaming, if you can gain or
lose sufficiently large sums, is not amiss, for a distraction.’
‘Which means that you wish me to play with you?’ said Phil. ‘I shall do
so gladly, sir, if so be you’ll play for large enough stakes.’
So Phil played his pockets empty that fine morning, and felt the amusing
sensation of impecuniosity for a few weeks.
He came too into considerable familiarity with Simon Prior these days, a
familiarity he had no wish to encourage, yet found it difficult to shake
off. Wherever he went Prior was sure to appear—quite by accident, it
would seem—till Philip began to suspect that his father had something
to do in the matter. Once this thought had occurred to him, Phil, in
sudden and hot resentment, behaved to Mr. Simon Prior with very scant
courtesy. His resentment burned hotly also against his father. What was
he that he should be spied upon in this way? If his father distrusted
him, why could he not say so to his face instead of setting this odious
man to spy upon him and report his every action? And he had been frank
enough with his father when they first spoke about Carrie; he knew and,
apparently, acquiesced in his resolution to win her. Why then all this
curiosity?—‘Bah, it was disgusting,’ said Phil in his indignation. A
day or two later he left for Fairmeadowes.
‘You had best have me under your own eye, sir,’ he said in reply to his
father’s surprised greeting.