KIT.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Luke Sharp was growing very anxious about her
son, and only child and idol, Christopher. Not that there was anything
at all amiss with his bodily health, so far at least as she could see;
but that he seemed so unsettled in his mind, so absent and
preoccupied, and careless even of his out-door sports, which at one
time were his only care. Of course, at this time of year, there was
very little employment for the gun, but there was plenty of fishing to
be got, such as it was, round Oxford, and it must be a very bad time
of year when there are no rats for little terriers, and badgers for
the larger tribe. Yet none of these things now possessed the proper
charm for Christopher. Wherever he was, he always seemed to be wanting
to be somewhere else; and, like a hydrophobic dog, he hated to be
looked at; while (after the manner of a cat assisted lately by Lucina)
he ran up into his own loft, when he thought there was nobody
watching.
Well arranged as all this might be, and keen, and self-satisfactory,
there was something keener, and not very easy to satisfy, looking
after it. The love of a mother may fairly be trusted to outwit any
such calf-love as was making a fool of this unfledged fellow, fresh
from the feather-bed of a private school.
Considering whence he came, and how he had been brought up and
pampered, Kit Sharp was a very fine young fellow, and--thanks to his
liking for gun and rod--he could scarcely be called a milksop. Still
he was only a boy in mind, and in manner quite unformed and shy; his
father (for reasons of his own) having always refused to enter him at
any of the colleges. He might perhaps have shaped his raw material by
the noblest models, if he had been admitted into the society of
undergraduates. But the members of the University entertained in those
days, and probably still entertain, a just and inevitable contempt for
all the non-togati. Kit Sharp had made some fluttering overtures of
the flag of friendship towards one or two random undergraduates who
had a nice taste for ratting; he had even dined and wined, once or
twice, in a not ignoble college; and had been acknowledged to know a
meerschaum as well as if he owned a statute-book. But the boy always
fancied, perhaps through foolish and shy pride on his part, that these
most hospitable and kind young men had their jokes to themselves about
him. Perhaps it was so; but in pure goodwill. Take him for all in all,
and allow for the needs of his situation--which towards the third year
grow imperative--and the Oxford undergraduate is as good as any other
young gentleman.
But Kit Sharp being exceedingly proud, and most secretive of his
pride, would not long receive, without return, good hospitality. And
this alone, without other suspicions, would have set bounds to his
dealing with a race profusely hospitable. His dear and good mother
would gladly have invited a Cross Duck Houseful of undergraduates, and
left them to get on as they might, if only thereby her pet son might
have sense of salt for salt with them; but Mr. Luke Sharp took a
different view. To his mind, the junior members of the glorious
University were a most disagreeable and unprofitable lot to deal with.
He never, of course, condescended to the Vice-Chancellor's court, and
he despised all little actions, in that large word's legal sense. He
liked a fine old Don, or Head of a House, who had saved a sack of
money, or well earned it by vitality. But for any such young fellows,
with no expectations, or paulo-post-futura such, Mr. Sharp was now too
long established to put a leaf into his dinner-table. This being so,
and Christopher also of restricted pocket-money (so that no dinners at
the Star or Mitre could be contemplated), Master Kit Sharp, in a "town
and gown row," must have lent the weight of his quiet, but very
considerable, fist to the oppidan faction.
"Kit, now, my darling Kit, do tell me," said Mrs. Sharp for about the
fiftieth time, as she sat with her son in the sweet spring twilight,
at the large western window of Cross Duck House; "what is it that
makes you sigh so? You almost break your poor mother's heart. I never
did know you sigh, my own one. Now, is it for want of a rat, my
darling? If rats are a sovereign apiece, you shall have one."
"Rats, mother! Why, I can catch my own, without any appeal to 'the
Filthy!' Rats are never far away from legal premises, like these."
"You should not speak so of your father's house, Kit. And I am sure
that no rats ever come upstairs, or out of the window I must jump. But
now you are only avoiding the subject. What is it that disturbs your
mind, Kit?"
"Once more, mother, I have the greatest objection to being called
'Kit.' It sounds so small, and--and so horribly prosaic. All the
dictionaries say that it means, either the outfit of a common soldier,
or else a diminutive kind of fiddle."
"Christopher, I really beg your pardon. I know how much loftier you
are, of course; but I cannot get over the habit, Kit. Well, well,
then--My darling, I hope you are not at all above being 'my darling,'
Kit."
"Mother, you may call me what you like. It can make no difference in
my destinies."
"Christopher, you make my blood run cold. My darling, I implore you
not to sigh so. Your dear father pays my allowance on Monday. I know
what has long been the aspiration of your heart. Kit, you shall have a
live badger of your own."
"I hate the very name of rats and badgers. Everything is so low and
nasty. How can you look at that noble sunset, and be full of badgers?
Mother, it grieves me to leave you alone; but how can I help it, when
you go on so? I shall go for a walk on the Botley Road."
"Take your pipe, Kit, take your pipe; whatever you do, Kit, take your
pipe," screamed poor Mrs. Sharp, as he stuck his hat on, as if it were
never to come off again. "Oh, Kit, there are such deep black holes; I
will fill your pipe for you, if you will only smoke."
"Mother, you never know how to do it. And once more, my name is
'Christopher.'"
The young man threw a light cloak on his shoulder, and set his
eyebrows sternly; and his countenance looked very picturesque in the
glow of his death's-head meerschaum. It occurred to his mother that
she had never seen anything more noble. As soon as she had heard him
bang the door, Mrs. Sharp ran back to the window, whence she could
watch all Cross Duck Lane, and she saw him striding along towards the
quickest outlet to the country.
"How wonderful it is!" she said to herself, with tears all ready;
"only the other day he was quite a little boy, and whipped a top, and
cried if a pin ran into him. And now he is, far beyond all dispute,
the finest young man in Oxford; he has the highest contempt for all
vulgar sports, and he bolts the door of his bedroom. His father calls
him thick and soft! Ah, he cannot understand his qualities! There is
the deepest and purest well-spring of unintelligible poetry in Kit.
His great mind is perturbed, and has hurried him into commune with the
evening star. Thank goodness that he has got his pipe!"
Before Mrs. Sharp had turned one page of her truly voluminous thoughts
about her son, a sharp click awoke the front-door lock, and a steady
and well-jointed step made creaks on the old oak staircase. Mrs. Sharp
drew back from her meditative vigil, and trimmed her little curls
aright.
"Miranda, I have some work to do to-night," said Mr. Sharp, in his
quiet even voice; "and I thought it better to come up and tell you, so
that you need not expect me again. Just have the fire in the office
lighted. I can work better there than I can upstairs; and I find the
evenings damp, although the long cold winter is gone at last. If I
should ring about ten o'clock it will be for a cup of coffee. If I do
not ring then, send everybody to bed. And do not expect me until you
see me."
"Certainly, Luke, I quite understand," answered Mrs. Sharp, having
been for years accustomed to such arrangements; "but, my dear, before
you begin, can you spare me five minutes, for a little conversation?"
"Of course I can, Miranda! I am always at your service."
Mrs. Sharp thought to herself that this was a slight exaggeration.
Still on the whole she had little to complain of. Mr. Sharp always
remembered the time when he cast sad distant eyes at her, Miranda
Piper,--more enchanting than a will-case, more highly cherished than
the deed-box of an Earl. Nothing but impudence had enabled him to
marry her; thereby his impudence was exhausted in that one direction,
and he ever remained polite to her.
"Then, Luke, will you just take your favourite chair, and answer me
only one question?" As she said these words, Mrs. Sharp took care to
set the chair so that she could get the last gleam of sunset on her
dear lord's face. Her husband thoroughly understood all this, and
accepted the situation.
"Now, do tell me, Luke--you notice everything, though you do not
always speak of it--have you observed how very strangely Kit has been
going on for some time now? And have you any idea of the reason? And
do you think that we ought to allow it, my dear?"
"Yes, Mrs. Sharp, I have observed it. You need not be at all uneasy
about it. I am observing him very closely. When I disapprove, I shall
stop it at once."
"But surely, my dear, surely I, his mother, am not to be kept in the
dark about it? I know that you always take your own course, and your
course is quite sure to be the right one; but surely, my dear, when
something important is evidently going on about my own child, you
would never have the heart to keep it from me. I could not endure it;
indeed, I could not. I should fret myself away to skin and bone."
"It would take a long time to do that, my dear," replied Mr. Sharp, as
he looked with satisfaction at her fine plump figure. It pleased him
to hear, as he often did, that there was not in Oxford a finer couple
of middle-aged people than Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. "However, I should be
exceedingly grieved ever to initiate such a process. But first, before
I tell you anything at all, I will ask you to promise two things most
clearly."
"My dear, I would promise fifty things rather than put up with this
cruel anxiety."
"Yes, I dare say. But I do not want rash promises, Miranda. You must
pledge yourself to two things, and keep your pledges."
"I will do so in a moment, with the greatest pleasure. You would never
ask anything wrong, I am sure. Only do not keep me waiting so."
"In the first place, then, you must promise me, whether my plan turns
out well or ill, on no account to blame me for it, but to give me the
credit of having acted for the best throughout."
"Nothing can be easier than to promise that. My dear, you always do
act for the best; and what is more, the best always comes of it."
"Very well, you promise that; also, you must pledge yourself to
conceal from every one, and most of all from Christopher, everything I
am about to tell you, and to act under my directions."
"To be sure, my dear; to be sure, I will. Nothing is more reasonable
than that I should keep your secrets."
"I know that you will try, Miranda; and I know that you have much
self-command. Also, you will see the importance of acting as I direct
you. All I fear is that when you see poor Kit moping, or sighing, and
groaning, it may be almost beyond your power to refrain your motherly
heart."
"Have no fear, Luke; have no fear whatever. When I know that it is for
his true interest, as of course it will be, I shall be exceedingly
sorry for him; but still he may go on as much as he pleases; and of
course, he has not behaved well at all, in being so mysterious to his
own mother."
Luke Sharp looked at his wife, to ask whether any offshoot of this
reproach was intended at all to come home to him. If he had discovered
any sign of that, the wife of his bosom would have waited long without
getting another word from him. For seldom as Mr. Sharp showed temper,
he held back, with the chain-curb of expedience, as quick a temper as
ever threatened to bolt with any man's fair repute. But now he
received no irritation. His wife looked back at him kindly and
sweetly, with moist expressive eyes; and he saw that she still was in
her duty.
"Miranda," he said, being touched by this, for he had a great deal of
conscience, "my darling, I will tell you something such as you never
heard before. I have made a bold stroke, a very bold one; but I think
it must succeed. And justice is with me, as you will own, after all
the attempts to rob us. Perhaps you never heard a stranger story; but
still I am sure you will agree with me, that in every step I have
taken I am most completely and perfectly justified."