A Family Breakfast-Table
Lord Silverbridge had paid all his Derby losses without any
difficulty. They had not been very heavy for a man in his position,
and the money had come without remonstrance. When asking for it he
was half ashamed of himself, but could still find consolation by
remembering how much worse had befallen many young men whom he knew.
He had never "plunged." In fact he had made the most prudent book in
the world; and had so managed affairs that even now the horse which
had been beaten was worth more than all he had lost and paid. "This
is getting serious," he had said to his partner when, on making out
a rough account, he had brought the Major in a debtor to him of
more than a thousand pounds. The Major had remarked that as he was
half-owner of the horses his partner had good security for the money.
Then something of an unwritten arrangement was made. The "Prime
Minister" was now one of the favourites for the Leger. If the horse
won that race there would be money enough for everything. If that
race were lost, then there should be a settlement by the transfer of
the stud to the younger partner. "He's safe to pull it off," said the
Major.
At this time both his sons were living with the Duke in London. It
had been found impracticable to send Lord Gerald back to Cambridge.
The doors of Trinity were closed against him. But some interest had
been made in his favour, and he was to be transferred to Oxford. All
the truth had been told, and there had been a feeling that the lad
should be allowed another chance. He could not however go to his new
Alma Mater till after the long vacation. In the meantime he was to
be taken by a tutor down to a cottage on Dartmoor and there be made
to read,--with such amusement in the meantime as might be got from
fishing, and playing cricket with the West Devon county club. "It
isn't a very bright look-out for the summer," his brother had said to
him, "but it's better than breaking out on the loose altogether. You
be a credit to the family and all that sort of thing. Then I'll give
up the borough to you. But mind you stick to the Liberals. I've made
an ass of myself." However in these early days of June Lord Gerald
had not yet got his tutor.
Though the father and the two young men were living together they did
not see very much of each other. The Duke breakfasted at nine and the
repast was a very simple one. When they failed to appear, he did not
scold,--but would simply be disappointed. At dinner they never met.
It was supposed that Lord Gerald passed his mornings in reading, and
some little attempts were made in that direction. It is to be feared
they did not come to much. Silverbridge was very kind to Gerald,
feeling an increased tenderness for him on account of that Cambridge
mishap. Now they were much together, and occasionally, by a strong
effort, would grace their father's breakfast-table with their
company.
It was not often that he either reproached them or preached to them.
Though he could not live with them on almost equal terms, as some
fathers can live with their sons, though he could not laugh at their
fun or make them laugh at his wit, he knew that it would have been
better both for him and them if he had possessed this capacity.
Though the life which they lived was distasteful to him,--though
racehorses were an abomination to him, and the driving of coaches a
folly, and club-life a manifest waste of time, still he recognised
these things as being, if not necessary, yet unavoidable evils. To
Gerald he would talk about Oxford, avoiding all allusions to past
Cambridge misfortunes; but in the presence of Silverbridge, whose
Oxford career had been so peculiarly unfortunate, he would make no
allusion to either of the universities. To his eldest son he would
talk of Parliament, which of all subjects would have been the most
congenial had they agreed in politics. As it was he could speak more
freely to him on that than any other matter.
One Thursday night as the two brothers went to bed on returning from
the Beargarden, at a not very late hour, they agreed that they would
"give the governor a turn" the next morning,--by which they meant
that they would drag themselves out of bed in time to breakfast with
him. "The worst of it is that he never will let them get anything to
eat," said Gerald. But Silverbridge explained that he had taken that
matter into his own hands, and had specially ordered broiled salmon
and stewed kidneys. "He won't like it, you know," said Gerald. "I'm
sure he thinks it wicked to eat anything but toasted bacon before
lunch."
At a very little after nine Silverbridge was in the breakfast-room,
and there found his father. "I suppose Gerald is not up yet," said
the Duke almost crossly.
"Oh yes he is, sir. He'll be here directly."
"Have you seen him this morning?"
"No; I haven't seen him. But I know he'll be here. He said he would,
last night."
"You speak of it as if it were an undertaking."
"No, not that, sir. But we are not always quite up to time."
"No; indeed you are not. Perhaps you sit late at the House."
"Sometimes I do," said the young member, with a feeling almost akin
to shame as he remembered all the hours spent at the Beargarden. "I
have had Gerald there in the Gallery sometimes. It is just as well he
should know what is being done."
"Quite as well."
"I shouldn't wonder if he gets a seat some day."
"I don't know how that may be."
"He won't change as I have done. He'll stick to your side. Indeed I
think he'd do better in the House than I shall. He has more gift of
the gab."
"That is not the first thing requisite."
"I know all that, sir. I've read your letter more than once, and I
showed it to him."
There was something sweet and pleasant in the young man's manner by
which the father could hardly not be captivated. They had now sat
down, and the servant had brought in the unusual accessories for a
morning feast. "What is all that?" asked the Duke.
"Gerald and I are so awfully hungry of a morning," said the son,
apologising.
"Well;--it's a very good thing to be hungry;--that is if you can get
plenty to eat. Salmon, is it? I don't think I'll have any myself.
Kidneys! Not for me. I think I'll take a bit of fried bacon. I also
am hungry, but not awfully hungry."
"You never seem to me to eat anything, sir."
"Eating is an occupation from which I think a man takes the more
pleasure the less he considers it. A rural labourer who sits on the
ditch-side with his bread and cheese and an onion has more enjoyment
out of it than any Lucullus."
"But he likes a good deal of it."
"I do not think he ever over-eats himself,--which Lucullus does. I
have envied a ploughman his power,--his dura ilia,--but never an
epicure the appreciative skill of his palate. If Gerald does not make
haste he will have to exercise neither the one nor the other upon
that fish."
"I will leave a bit for him, sir,--and here he is. You are twenty
minutes late, Gerald. My father says that bread and cheese and onions
would be better for you than salmon and stewed kidneys."
"No, Silverbridge;--I said no such thing; but that if he were a
hedger and ditcher the bread and cheese and onions would be as good."
"I should not mind trying them at all," said Gerald. "Only one never
does have such things for breakfast. Last winter a lot of us skated
to Ely, and we ate two or three loaves of bread and a whole cheese at
a pot-house! And as for beer, we drank the public dry."
"It was because for the time you had been a hedger and ditcher."
"Proby was a ditcher I know, when he went right through into one of
the dykes. Just push on that dish, Silverbridge. It's no good you
having the trouble of helping me half-a-dozen times. I don't think
things are a bit the nicer because they cost a lot of money. I
suppose that is what you mean, sir."
"Something of that kind, Gerald. Not to have money for your
wants;--that must be troublesome."
"Very bad indeed," said Silverbridge, shaking his head wisely, as a
Member of Parliament might do who felt that something should be done
to put down such a lamentable state of things.
"I don't complain," said Gerald. "No fellow ever had less right to
complain. But I never felt that I had quite enough. Of course it was
my own fault."
"I should say so, my boy. But then there are a great many like you.
Let their means be what they may, they never have quite enough. To be
in any difficulty with regard to money,--to owe what you cannot pay,
or even to have to abstain from things which you have told yourself
are necessary to yourself or to those who depend on you,--creates a
feeling of meanness."
"That is what I have always felt," said Silverbridge. "I cannot bear
to think that I should like to have a thing and that I cannot afford
it."
"You do not quite understand me, I fear. The only case in which you
can be justified in desiring that which you cannot afford is when the
thing is necessary;--as bread may be, or clothes."
"As when a fellow wants a lot of new breeches before he has paid his
tailor's bill."
"As when a poor man," said the Duke impressively, "may long to give
his wife a new gown, or his children boots to keep their feet from
the mud and snow." Then he paused a moment, but the serious tone of
his voice and the energy of his words had sent Gerald headlong among
his kidneys. "I say that in such cases money must be regarded as a
blessing."
"A ten-pound note will do so much," said Silverbridge.
"But beyond that it ought to have no power of conferring happiness,
and certainly cannot drive away sorrow. Not though you build palaces
out into the deep, can that help you. You read your Horace, I hope.
'Scandunt eodum quo dominus minæ.'"
"I recollect that," said Gerald. "Black care sits behind the
horseman."
"Even though he have a groom riding after him beautiful with
exquisite boots. As far as I have been able to look out into the
world--"
"I suppose you know it as well as anybody," said Silverbridge,--who
was simply desirous of making himself pleasant to the "dear old
governor."
"As far as my experience goes, the happiest man is he who, being
above the troubles which money brings, has his hands the fullest of
work. If I were to name the class of men whose lives are spent with
the most thorough enjoyment, I think I should name that of barristers
who are in large practice and also in Parliament."
"Isn't it a great grind, sir?" asked Silverbridge.
"A very great grind, as you call it. And there may be the grind and
not the success. But--" He had now got up from his seat at the table
and was standing with his back against the chimney-piece, and as he
went on with his lecture,--as the word "But" came from his lips--he
struck the fingers of one hand lightly on the palm of the other as
he had been known to do at some happy flight of oratory in the House
of Commons. "But it is the grind that makes the happiness. To feel
that your hours are filled to overflowing, that you can barely steal
minutes enough for sleep, that the welfare of many is entrusted
to you, that the world looks on and approves, that some good is
always being done to others,--above all things some good to your
country;--that is happiness. For myself I can conceive none other."
"Books," suggested Gerald, as he put the last morsel of the last
kidney into his mouth.
"Yes, books! Cicero and Ovid have told us that to literature only
could they look for consolation in their banishment. But then they
speak of a remedy for sorrow, not of a source of joy. No young man
should dare to neglect literature. At some period of his life he will
surely need consolation. And he may be certain that should he live to
be an old man, there will be none other,--except religion. But for
that feeling of self-contentment, which creates happiness--hard work,
and hard work alone, can give it to you."
"Books are hard work themselves sometimes," said Gerald.
"As for money," continued the father, not caring to notice this
interruption, "if it be regarded in any other light than as a shield
against want, as a rampart under the protection of which you may
carry on your battle, it will fail you. I was born a rich man."
"Few people have cared so little about it as you," said the elder
son.
"And you, both of you, have been born to be rich." This assertion did
not take the elder brother by surprise. It was a matter of course.
But Lord Gerald, who had never as yet heard anything as to his future
destiny from his father, was interested by the statement. "When I
think of all this,--of what constitutes happiness,--I am almost
tempted to grieve that it should be so."
"If a large fortune were really a bad thing," said Gerald, "a man
could I suppose get rid of it."
"No;--it is a thing of which a man cannot get rid,--unless by
shameful means. It is a burden which he must carry to the end."
"Does anybody wish to get rid of it, as Sindbad did of the Old
Man?" asked Gerald pertinaciously. "At any rate I have enjoyed the
kidneys."
"You assured us just now that the bread and cheese at Ely were just
as good." The Duke as he said this looked as though he knew that he
had taken all the wind out of his adversary's sails. "Though you add
carriage to carriage, you will not be carried more comfortably."
"A second horse out hunting is a comfort," said Silverbridge.
"Then at any rate don't desire a third for show. But such comforts
will cease to be joys when they become matters of course. That a boy
who does not see a pudding once a year should enjoy a pudding when it
comes I can understand; but the daily pudding, or the pudding twice
a day, is soon no more than simple daily bread,--which will or will
not be sweet as it shall or shall not have been earned." Then he
went slowly to the door, but, as he stood with the handle of it in
his hand, he turned round and spoke another word. "When, hereafter,
Gerald, you may chance to think of that bread and cheese at Ely,
always remember that you had skated from Cambridge."
The two brothers then took themselves to some remote part of the
house where arrangements had been made for smoking, and there they
finished the conversation. "I was very glad to hear what he said
about you, old boy." This of course came from Silverbridge.
"I didn't quite understand him."
"He meant you to understand that you wouldn't be like other younger
brothers."
"Then what I have will be taken from you."
"There is lots for three or four of us. I do agree that if a fellow
has as much as he can spend he ought not to want anything more.
Morton was telling me the other day something about the settled
estates. I sat in that office with him all one morning. I could not
understand it all, but I observed that he said nothing about the
Scotch property. You'll be a laird, and I wish you joy with all my
heart. The governor will tell you all about it before long. He's
going to have two eldest sons."
"What an unnatural piece of cruelty to me;--and so unnecessary!"
"Why?"
"He says that a property is no better than a burden. But I'll try and
bear it."