“He’ll have to learn a little Latin,” he explained to my mother, “to
qualify. H’m. He could go down to the chap at the grammar school
here—it’s just been routed into existence again by the Charity
Commissioners and have lessons.”
“What, me learn Latin!” I cried, with emotion.
“A little,” he said.
“I’ve always wanted” I said and; “_Latin!_”
I had long been obsessed by the idea that having no Latin was a
disadvantage in the world, and Archie Garvell had driven the point of
this pretty earnestly home. The literature I had read at Bladesover had
all tended that way. Latin had had a quality of emancipation for me
that I find it difficult to convey. And suddenly, when I had supposed
all learning was at an end for me, I heard this!
“It’s no good to you, of course,” said my uncle, “except to pass exams
with, but there you are!”
“You’ll have to learn Latin because you have to learn Latin,” said my
mother, “not because you want to. And afterwards you will have to learn
all sorts of other things....”
The idea that I was to go on learning, that to read and master the
contents of books was still to be justifiable as a duty, overwhelmed
all other facts. I had had it rather clear in my mind for some weeks
that all that kind of opportunity might close to me for ever. I began
to take a lively interest in this new project.
“Then shall I live here?” I asked, “with you, and study... as well as
work in the shop?”
“That’s the way of it,” said my uncle.
I parted from my mother that day in a dream, so sudden and important
was this new aspect of things to me. I was to learn Latin! Now that the
humiliation of my failure at Bladesover was past for her, now that she
had a little got over her first intense repugnance at this resort to my
uncle and contrived something that seemed like a possible provision for
my future, the tenderness natural to a parting far more significant
than any of our previous partings crept into her manner.
She sat in the train to return, I remember, and I stood at the open
door of her compartment, and neither of us knew how soon we should
cease for ever to be a trouble to one another.
“You must be a good boy, George,” she said. “You must learn.... And you
mustn’t set yourself up against those who are above you and better than
you.... Or envy them.”
“No, mother,” I said.
I promised carelessly. Her eyes were fixed upon me. I was wondering
whether I could by any means begin Latin that night.
Something touched her heart then, some thought, some memory; perhaps
some premonition.... The solitary porter began slamming carriage doors.
“George” she said hastily, almost shamefully, “kiss me!”