LUCIUS WINS A YEAR'S RESPITE
A week after Mr. Binney's visit to Cambridge, he wrote the following
letter to his son:--
"MY DEAR Lucius,--Yours of 29th ult. to hand. I note you are getting
on with your work and enjoying yourself. I have now relinquished my
attendance at the office, and have left the management in Mr. Walton's
hands, merely dropping in for an hour or two once a week to see how
things are going. As far as I can see he will carry on the business
well during my three years' absence, and at the end of that time I
shall take the reins again and you will begin work there. If all goes
well I shall take you into partnership a year after that, by which time
you ought to have fully mastered the details.
"_Re_ work for Trinity Entrance Examination.
"I have started on above, having engaged a private coach. I had 430
answers to my application. My choice fell on a gentleman named
Minshull, a Peterhouse man who dwells in the vicinity. He took his
degree only last year and expects to enter the Church shortly. He
comes every morning at nine o'clock and we work till one. He lunches
with me, after which we take a walk in the Park or elsewhere, returning
for tea and another two hours' work. Then Minshull leaves me, and
after a light dinner I do preparation for him for another two hours and
then to bed. On Saturday we knock off at one, and I generally take an
outing with Mrs. Higginbotham, who wishes to be kindly remembered to
you. She takes a great interest in my enterprise, and refreshes her
memory and mine during our little jaunts by getting me to repeat to her
without book such things as I have learnt during the week as come
within the limits of the curriculum to which she applied herself during
girlhood. The subjects themselves are hardly such as in my judgment
repay the amount of study necessary to master them. What with the
growing competition in commercial life, and the great influx of
foreigners--Germans and others--it seems to me waste of time to devote
three valuable years of a young man's life in getting up the opinions
of a man like Plato, who lived so many years ago that his ideas are by
no means up-to-date. Or take a poet like Virgil again--if Virgil can
be justly called a poet. Compare his thoughts with those of our own
immortal Shakespeare--the Swan of Avon--or even with Macaulay's _Lays
of Ancient Rome_, if you _must_ have matters of ancient history treated
in poetry. And what is the use of puzzling over the Acts of the
Apostles in the Original Greek, when that book, as well as the rest of
the New Testament, has been so admirably translated in the Revised
Version? What the authorities of our Universities entirely fail to
grasp is that Latin and Greek _are not spoken nowadays_. How much
better young men would be fitted for the business of life if they were
trained to speak and write French and German fluently! This is so
obvious to a man of experience that I seriously thought of writing to
the Chancellor of the University, the Duke of Devonshire, and laying my
views before him, but Minshull dissuaded me, saying that I should be in
a better position to bring to bear any influence I might possess after
I have taken my degree, which is perfectly true. But the truth of it
is there are too many old women at the head of the Universities. What
you want are keen-headed men, men of experience in the world, who would
move with the times, and get Oxford and Cambridge to move with them. I
am so convinced I am right in this opinion, that if it were not for the
cares of business, to which I must return when I have finished with
Cambridge, I should apply for a Trinity fellowship after I have taken
my degree, and try to infuse a little spirit into the counsels of the
college and through it into the University.
"I must now draw to a close and return to my studies. I feel that they
are beneath my powers, but at the same time I must not grumble at
having to begin at the bottom rung of the ladder. 'Thorough' has
always been my motto and will continue so. No more at present, from
your affectionate father,--PETER BINNEY."
Mr. Binney's letters as the time went on became more and more sprightly
in tone. With the cares of business he seemed to have finally laid
aside all the interests commonly felt by gentlemen who have reached
middle age. He relapsed into slang. Minshull, he said, was a "jolly
good sort," only you had to work. It was no good trying to "kid him."
The subjects for examination he now found "beastly stiff," and it was
an "awful sap" getting them up, but he quite expected to have "bowled
them over" by the time the examination was due. He mentioned Mrs.
Higginbotham once or twice as one on whose approval of the course he
was pursuing he greatly relied.
"Confound that old woman," said Lucius when he read this. "She's
backing him up in all this nonsense. She's a sentimental old donkey.
Well, he can't do it in time, that's one comfort;" and Lucius would
encourage himself by dwelling on this conviction, and then tear up his
father's letters.
He came up to town for two nights about the end of June on his long
leave. Mr. Binney, of course, was full of his work. He wished to be
treated just like any other youth with the ordeal of an examination
before him, and itched to talk over his chances. But Lucius retired
into his shell whenever Cambridge was mentioned. Mr. Binney, of
course, noticed this and began to get his back up about it. At last he
tackled his son in the most effectual way as they sat together in the
library at Russell Square after dinner.
"Look here, young man," he said, "you may as well get used to this
idea. You and I are going up to Trinity together, and I want to do the
thing fairly and squarely. I shall put us both on an allowance, and at
present I intend to make them equal. But if you're going to be sulky
about it, they won't be equal, or anything like it. So put that in
your pipe and smoke it."
"What allowance?" inquired Lucius with some interest. His father had
always refused to come to the point when he had asked him the same
question before.
"Well, I thought of L300 a year," said Mr. Binney. "Minshull did it on
L200, and did it very well, but, as he says, Trinity is the college
where all the swells go, and if you want to live up to 'em you might
have to spend a bit more. As I say, I want to do the thing well."
"I don't suppose Minshull knows much about it," said Lucius. "Most of
the chaps I know are going to have about four hundred, and hardly any
of them less than three. You have to be jolly careful on three hundred
a year at Trinity."
"Ah, well," said Mr. Binney, "I won't let a hundred a year, or even
two, stand in the way, and we'll share alike if you're sensible about
it. But I'm not going to pay you four hundred a year to look down on
your father, so you had better make up your mind how you're going to
behave before October comes."
Lucius sat silent with a gloomy countenance and his hands in his
pockets. When he was at school the idea of his father accompanying him
to Cambridge as a freshman seemed so absurd that he was sometimes
surprised to find that he was enjoying life much as usual, without
being very much burdened by it. When he was at home and realised how
very much in earnest Mr. Binney was, the dark fate that hung over him
became less remote, and filled him with gloomy forebodings. But youth
is elastic. It seemed almost out of the question that Mr. Binney would
succeed in passing the entrance examination, while Lucius himself was
already admitted a member of Trinity College. The allowance his father
had named seemed to him quite adequate, and he allowed himself to cheer
up a little and inquire after the health of Mrs. Higginbotham.
Mr. Binney coughed in some little embarrassment.
"Mrs. Higginbotham has a bad cold," he said, "and is confined to the
house. I hope she will be well enough to accompany me to Lord's for
the Eton and Harrow match, if the state of her bronchial tubes, which
are giving her a lot of trouble just now, permit of it. You will be
able to introduce us to some of your friends and future companions at
Cambridge."
"I'm very sorry," said Lucius, "but I shan't be there. Henley comes in
the same week."
"I shall be at Henley as well," said Mr. Binney, "and Mrs. Higginbotham
has kindly consented to accompany me. She takes a great interest in
your rowing career, Lucius, as she does in every other manly sport.
Ah! I hope the day may come when I myself--but we mustn't count our
chickens before they are hatched, must we? With regard to Henley, you
will be able to go about with us, I suppose, and see that----"
"Very sorry, father," interrupted Lucius hastily, "I shall be rowing
nearly all day long. We're in for the Grand and the Ladies' Plate.
Besides, the captain of the boats is a terrible fellow. If he caught
one of us so much as speaking to a lady he'd cut up very rough."
"Why is that, pray?" inquired Mr. Binney.
"Oh, I don't know. They might offer us an ice or something. We have
to be awfully strict, you know, over training."
"Ah, well, that's a pity. Mrs. Higginbotham would like to meet a few
of the young fellows who will be my companions for the next three
years. She said so. Perhaps you might get one of your cricketing
friends who would be unoccupied to look after us."
"I'm afraid most of them will have people of their own to look after.
However, if any of them happens to lose his father and mother between
now and Henley, I'll see what can be done."
"And now I must go to bed," said Mr. Binney, "so as to begin work early
to-morrow morning. I don't want to lose a minute more than I can help.
I'm not getting on terms with Mr. Plato as quickly as I should like. I
shall be able to introduce you to Minshull before you start, Lucius.
He's a good chap, and not a bit stand-offish as you might expect,
considering he's a B.A., and I'm not even a freshman yet. You'll find
him quite easy to get on with."
Minshull was one of those people in whose eyes a three years' residence
at Oxford or Cambridge is such a glorious thing, that if they have gone
through it themselves they can talk or think of nothing else throughout
their lives. The healthy pleasant life of the average undergraduate is
idealised into a sort of seventh heaven, and a "blue" takes his place
immediately below the archangels and considerably above any mere
mortal. Seniority of residence forms an almost complete bar to social
intercourse with undergraduates of lower standing, and the little code
of etiquette invented to enliven proceedings in the lesser colleges is
as the laws of the Medes and Persians. To be or to have been "a
'Varsity man" was the only thing quite necessary in Minshull's eyes, if
you were to call yourself a gentleman, and he therefore saw nothing
that was not entirely laudable in Mr. Binney's determination to acquire
this hall-mark of superiority, however late in life. While trying to
instil into his pupil the requisite amount of Latin and Greek, he
imparted to him at the same time his own particular point of view in
matters of undergraduate custom, taught him what to admire and what to
avoid, until Mr. Binney was infused with the spirit of a provincial
youth about to enter the gates of the University paradise from his
country grammar school. Mr. Binney had first of all considered a
belated career at Cambridge as an opportunity for mending a defective
education; under the encouragement of Mrs. Higginbotham's yearnings
after vanished delights he had come to look upon it as a means of
gaining some of the prestige of golden youth; influenced by Minshull's
complacent reverence, he had insensibly drifted away from the careless
acquiescence with which Lucius, for instance, regarded his own proposed
residence at the University, and now felt that he should break his
heart if he was prevented from taking his part in the glamorous
delights which his tutor held before his eyes. He made herculean
efforts to get on terms with his examination subjects, and worked
harder than he had ever done in his life before.
Minshull arrived at nine o'clock the next morning as usual. Mr.
Binney, who had been working since seven and had breakfasted at eight,
had not yet returned from a short constitutional, and Lucius had the
privilege of an interview with his father's tutor.
Minshull was a tall young man, rather shabbily dressed, with a long
solemn face diversified by little ranges of spots of an eruptive
tendency. He greeted Lucius with some respect, for Lucius was a
potential "blue," and Minshull would have been as incapable of keeping
on his hat in church as of talking without due reverence to a "blue."
"How's the governor getting on with his work?" asked Lucius with an
abashed snigger.
"Oh, pretty well," replied Minshull. "He works very hard, but of
course he has to do everything from the beginning."
"No chance of his getting through, I suppose?" said Lucius.
"Oh, I don't know," said Minshull. "If he works as hard as he has been
doing so far for the next three months he may just be able to scrape
through in October."
Lucius began to pace the room.
"If he gets into Trinity I won't go up, that's flat," he said.
"What! Not go up to the ''Varsity' when you've got a chance!"
exclaimed Minshull. "My dear fellow, you don't know what you're
talking about. You will regret it all your life if you don't."
"Look here," said Lucius, "you were at Cambridge, weren't you?"
"Yes, certainly," said Minshull, slightly offended. "I took my degree
last year."
"Well, how would you have liked to have your old governor playing the
fool up there at the same college?"
"I see no reason to suppose that Mr. Binney will play the fool," said
Minshull stiffly. "I have put him up to everything he ought to know.
He won't make mistakes. He is not likely to carry an umbrella with a
cap and gown or anything of that sort."
"Why shouldn't he carry an umbrella if it rains? Look here, can't you
make certain of his getting pilled for this examination?"
Minshull looked horrified. "What! and prevent his going up to the
'Varsity when he wants to?" he exclaimed.
"Or if you can't do that and he's likely to get through, tell him that
you don't think much of Trinity, and get him to go somewhere else."
"There are plenty of good colleges in Cambridge besides Trinity," said
Minshull, "although Trinity men don't seem to think so. My own
college, for instance, Peterhouse, isn't big, but it is one of the
best, if not _the_ best of the smaller ones."
"Is it? Well then, get him to go there. Do you mean to say you don't
think it's a beastly shame him wanting to come up and spoil all my time
at Cambridge?"
"I can't see----" began Minshull, but just then Mr. Binney came in, and
Lucius left them to their labours, with the uncomfortable conviction
that the toils were closing in on him and that there was no help at any
rate to be gained from his father's tutor.
Henley week came round in due course, but Mrs. Higginbotham, alas, did
not come round with it. Her cold had settled on her lungs and the poor
lady was brought very low. At the time Mr. Binney hoped to have been
paddling her about on the Thames in a Canadian canoe she was surveying
the beauties of Torquay in a bathchair. Mr. Binney had been told by
Minshull that if he really wished to pass the Trinity entrance
examination in October, it was absolutely imperative that he should not
lose a single day's work if he could possibly help it, so Lucius won a
reprieve for that occasion, at least, and as the Eton boys managed to
win the Ladies' Plate and rowed a good race in the semi-final heat for
the Grand Challenge Cup, he spent on the whole a pleasant Henley.
During the first few weeks of his holidays he was training for and
rowing in some of the up-river regattas, and September he spent with
various school-fellows in Scotland, so it was not until just before he
was due at Cambridge that he found himself once more in the house in
Russell Square and the society of his father. Mr. Binney, in the
meantime, fired with a mighty ambition to show his mettle and acquit
himself well in his examination, had retired to an east coast village
with Minshull, and devoted himself strenuously to his books. He had
worked very hard for six months, but a man who has left a cheap
commercial school at the age of fourteen, and that thirty years before,
can hardly expect to do in that time what a public school boy has been
working steadily up to ever since his education began. A month before
the examination, Minshull saw that his pupil had no chance of success,
and told him so one morning as they were walking together by the sea.
Mr. Binney was heart-broken.
"_No_ chance, Minshull?" he asked plaintively. "I don't mind working
another two hours a day, you know. Isn't there _any_ chance?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Binney," said Minshull. "You have worked very
hard; you couldn't have done better; but you see the work is all new to
you. You might get in at the Hall, perhaps, or if you cared about it I
should think I might have enough influence with the Peterhouse
authorities to----"
"Never," said Mr. Binney firmly. "Trinity or nowhere. If I make up my
mind to a thing, I stick to it. I shouldn't have made my fortune if I
hadn't."
"I should advise you, sir, to give up all ideas of attempting the
October examination," said Minshull. "I can assure you you can't
possibly pass it, and if you do very badly it may be prejudicial to
your chances in the future. Take a month's holiday, or you'll knock
yourself up. Then set to work again and be ready for them next spring."
"I feel you're right," said poor Mr. Binney. "I feel you're right,
Minshull, but it's a sad blow. You'll excuse me if I just walk on
alone for a bit. I shall get over it better."
Minshull left him, and Mr. Binney spent a very bitter hour by himself.
He had never been beaten before when he had made up his mind to
succeed, and it enraged him to think of the two hundred beardless boys
who would enter Trinity College as freshmen in a month's time, most of
whom had succeeded without any difficulty in doing what he could not do
even with the most strenuous endeavours. Lucius, for instance, had
taken the whole thing very calmly, although he was not a particularly
clever nor a particularly diligent boy. Then his thoughts passed on to
Mrs. Higginbotham--Martha. That was the worst thought of all. He had
written once a week to Mrs. Higginbotham, alluding in an airy way to
his new acquaintances, Plato and Virgil and Euclid, as if he and they
were on the most intimate terms of familiarity. Now he would have to
tell her that their thoughts were too deep for him--for him who had
familiarised all England with the mind of a Shakespeare--and that the
languages by means of which they expressed their thoughts still
presented such a mountain of obstacles to him that it was doubtful if
he would ever succeed in getting over them. Still, the confession
would have to be made, and Mr. Binney, with that directness which
characterised all his actions, determined that it should be made that
very night. "I am very, very sorry, Martha," he wrote, "I have really
done my best. I shouldn't have been worthy of you if I hadn't. I'm
afraid your Peter is a bit of a dunce, although he never thought so
before. Write and say you will not throw me over for it, and I shall
set to work again with renewed earnestness."
Mrs. Higginbotham, although deeply disappointed, wrote a very kind and
consoling letter from Torquay, where her bronchial tubes, which had
assumed complete mastery over all her actions, still detained her.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again," she wrote, and
thought she had said a very original thing. "I always found, when I
was a young lady at school, that if I couldn't master my tasks
immediately, the only thing for it was, not to give them up, but to
determine that I _would_ master them in time; and my mistress, Miss
Dolby--now an angel--used frequently to point me out to the parents of
other pupils, and say, 'That child has great determination, and will
undoubtedly make her mark.' I am aware that I have not fulfilled Miss
Dolby's prophecy up to present date, but your triumphs are mine, Peter,
and I trust that we shall both grow famous together."
Mr. Binney was much encouraged by Mrs. Higginbotham's letter. He took
a holiday and went to Torquay, and by the time Lucius went up to
Cambridge early in October, very much relieved at the idea of at least
one year free from the companionship of his father as a fellow
undergraduate, he had settled down for a hard winter's work in Russell
Square.