AN ADVERTISEMENT
Chill was the night. The slight motion of the air was against them, and
made a cutting breeze as they drove on. The gentleman who sat beside him
in a huge cloak and fur cap, with several yards of cashmere swathing his
throat and chin and chops, was taciturn, except when he offered William
a cigar.
The cold, dark, and solitude helped his depression—and longing to see
Dr. Sprague, to whom, in his helplessness, he looked for practical
counsel. The way seemed more than usually long. There was one conclusion
clearly fixed in the chaos of his thoughts. He had done with dependence.
No matter to what level it might reduce him, he would earn his own
bread. He was leaving Gilroyd Hall behind him, and all its dreams, to be
dreamed no more. Perhaps there was in the surrounding gloom that
romantic vista, which youth in its irrepressible hopefulness will open
for itself. And William Maubray in the filmy perspective saw a shadow of
himself as he would be a few years hence—wealthy, famous, the outcast
restored, with the lawn and the chestnuts about him, and pretty old
Gilroyd spreading its faint crimson gables and glittering window-frames
behind, and old Aunt Dinah, and another form in the foreground, all
smiles and tears, and welcome.
Poor fellow! He knows not how few succeed—how long it takes to make a
fortune—how the process transforms, and how seldom that kind of gilding
touches any but white heads, and when the sun is near its setting, and
all the old things past or passing away.
In the morning William Maubray presented himself before Dr. Sprague, who
asked him briskly—“How is Miss Perfect?”
“Quite well, Sir, thank you; but—but something very serious has
happened—very serious Sir, and I am very anxious to ask your advice.”
“Eh!” said the doctor; “wait a moment,” and he quaffed what remained of
his cup of tea, for William had surprised him at breakfast.
“Hey?—nothing very bad, I hope?” and the doctor put on his spectacles
and looked in William’s face, as a physician does into that of a
patient, to read something of his case in his countenance.
So William reported the great debate, and alas! the division on the
question of holy orders, to all which the good little man listened,
leaning back in his chair, with leg crossed and his chin raised.
“You’re in the right, Sir,” he said, so soon as he had heard the young
man out—“_perfectly_. What do you wish me to do? I’ll write to Miss
Perfect if you wish it.”
“Very kind of you, Sir; but I’d rather not, on that subject, at least
till I’m quite out of the way. I should not wish her to suppose that I
could seek to return to my old position of obligation. I must never cost
her a farthing more.”
So William explained his feelings fully and very candidly, and Doctor
Sprague listened, and looked pleased though grave; and, said he—
“You haven’t been writing for any of the magazines, or that sort of
thing?”
No, he had no resource of that kind. He had a good deal of loose
manuscript, he confessed with a blush, but he had no introduction.
“Well, no,” said Doctor Sprague, “you’d probably have a long wait, too
long for your purpose. You have, you know, a trifle of your own, about
twenty-three pounds a year, isn’t it?” and he looked in the direction of
his desk, where the memorandum was; “something thereabout, that I
received for you. There’s a money order for eleven pounds and something
in my desk since yesterday.”
“Don’t you think, Sir, that I should apply that little annuity to pay
back all I can to my aunt, who has been so good to me?”
“Tut-tut, your aunt would not accept a guinea, and would mistake your
motive; don’t talk of any such thing. Her past affection is a matter of
kindly recollection. You could not reduce it to money—no, no; but on the
whole I think you have resolved wisely. You must undertake, for a
little, something in the way of tuition; I don’t mean here. You’re
hardly well enough up in the business for that; but we’ll find out
something _here_,” and he tapped the _Times_, which lay open on the
table beside him, “I dare say, to suit you—not a school, that would not
do either—a tutor in a country house. You need not stay away more than
six months, and you’ll have something to go on with then; and in the
meantime you can send your manuscripts round, and try if you can’t get
into some of the periodicals.”
“It is very odd, Sir, but some months since I spoke of such a plan when
I was at Gilroyd, and my aunt was positively horrified; she is full of
fancies, you know, and she told me that none of my family had ever done
anything of the kind.”
“I don’t know about _that_; but I’ve done it, I can tell you, and better
men than I,” said the doctor.
“I only mean that she made such a point of it; she would think I had
done it expressly to vex her, or she might come wherever I was, and try
to make me leave it.”
“So she might,” said the cleric, and laughed a little to himself, for he
knew her, and fancied a scene, “but what can you do? I think you _must_,
in fact, and the best way will be to tell her nothing about it. She has
cut you, you know, for the present, and you need not, if you think it
would vex her, go in your own name, do you see? We’ll call you Mr.
Herbert, you’re descended maternally, you know, from Herberts; now—not
for a moment, now, just hear me out: there shall be no deception, of
course. _I’ll_ tell them that for certain family reasons I have advised
you to take that measure. I’ll take it all on myself, and say all I
think of you, and know of you, and I saw, just now, in this very paper,
something that I think would answer very nicely. Yes, yes, I’ll make it
all quite straight and easy. But you must do as I say.”
The kind little gentleman was thinking that eccentric and fierce Miss
Perfect might never forgive his engaging himself as a tutor, without at
least that disguise, and he looked forward as he murmured _varium et
mutabile semper_, to a much earlier _redintegratio amoris_ than William
dreamed of.
“It’s unlucky her having made a point of it. But what is the poor fellow
to do? She must not, however, be offended more than we can help and that
will show a wish, as far as was practicable, to consult her feelings.”
Doctor Sprague looked along a column in the _Times_, and said he, after
his scrutiny—
“I think there’s just one of these you’ll like—say which you prefer, and
I’ll tell you if it’s the one I think.”
So William conned over the advertisements, and, in Aunt Dinah’s phrase,
put on his considering cap, and having pondered a good while, “This one,
I think?” he half decided and half inquired.
“The very thing!” said Dr. Sprague, cheerily. “One boy—country-house—just
the thing; he’ll be in his bed early, you know, and you can take your
books and write away till twelve at night; and now you had better drop
them a line—or stay, I’ll do it; you can’t sign your name, you know.”
So, communications being opened, in a day or two it turned out that
Doctor Sprague knew the gentleman who advertised. It was a very old and
long interrupted acquaintance.
“He’s a quiet, kind fellow, and Kincton Hall, they say, a pretty place
and old. I’ll write to Knox.”
The Knoxes of Kincton Hall William had heard Trevor occasionally
mention, but tried in vain to recollect what he used to say of them; six
months, however, was no great venture, and the experiment could hardly
break down very badly in that time.
“Maubray, your cousin, has quarrelled with his father, you heard?”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, just about the time when you left this—a few days ago. Young
Maubray has some little property from his mother, and chooses to take
his own way; and Sir Richard was here with me yesterday, very angry and
violent, poor man, and vows” (the doctor would not say “swears” which
would have described the procedure more accurately) “he’ll cut him off
with a shilling; but that’s all moonshine. The estates are under
settlement, and the young fellow knows it, and that’s at the bottom of
his independence; and he’s gone abroad, I believe, to amuse himself: and
he has been no credit to his college, from all I hear.”
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