Peter Binney Part 21

"Oh, don't, don't," interrupted Mr. Binney in a broken-hearted voice.

"I see it all. Nothing you could say would be so severe as what I say to myself. I can't bear it. I can't really. But just think what an awful thing it would be for him to have it said that his father was sent down for drunkenness. He would bear the brand of it all his life."

"It seems to me," said the Tutor dryly, "that you have already given him something that he will have reason to be ashamed of all his life.

I have a great admiration for your son. I tell you candidly, Mr.

Binney, that I don't know one other undergraduate who could have held up his head in Cambridge after what he has gone through."

"Oh, don't say any more, I beg of you," cried Mr. Binney, cut to the heart. "And don't make things worse for him by sending me down."

"If I thought for a moment that your staying up here would make things easier for him," said Mr. Rimington, "I own I should hesitate, although I don't say that my decision would be altered. But it seems to me that the very kindest course to pursue on his account would be to prevent his having any further cause to be shamed by your conduct up here. No, Mr. Binney. You must go down this afternoon. I have spoken to one or two of my colleagues about it, and our decision is irrevocable. I see no use in protracting this painful interview."

Mr. Binney pleaded and besought, but all to no avail, and left his Tutor's presence at last, a disgraced and despairing man.

The feelings of Lucius towards his father are too painful a subject to dilate upon. Never surely, since the wide doors of Cambridge University were opened to all comers, had any of its members been placed in a more disagreeable position. Looking back on this trying time in after years, Lucius wondered how he could ever have endured life at Cambridge for a single day. But he had attained to that state of sympathetic intimacy with his cousin in which he could pour out some of his troubles to her when they met, and be gently but effectually consoled for them. Betty had never met Mr. Binney, but she knew him by sight, and nourished a fierce and bitter enmity towards him.

Lucius met his cousin, on the morning after his father's fall, outside the lecture room of St. John's College, where she was engaged for an hour three mornings in the week. The other girls who were with her gave Lucius a glance and then hurried off through the gate, leaving them alone.

"Good-bye, Lucius," she said hastily, "I must go. I don't know what those girls are running away for like that."

"Do let me walk back with you, Betty," said Lucius. "I'm so beastly miserable, I don't know what to do."

"Very well, then. Just for once," said Betty, after a look at his face. "We'll go along the Backs."

"I suppose you haven't heard about my father last night, have you?"

asked Lucius, as they made their way across the bridge.

"No. What about him?" asked Betty.

"I really sometimes think he's going off his head," said Lucius despondently. "He was so pleased at his boat going head of the river that he gave a great feed. There was a terrific row. In the middle of it the old fool I have to go and hear preach at home turned up.

Goodness knows what brought him. He came to see me this morning just after breakfast, and seems to think I must have been in it too, although he knew I wasn't there. He began a long solemn jaw, but I was so sick I shut him up. He's an awful old outsider, and he's got nothing to do with me, even if I had done something he didn't approve of, which I haven't."

"But it doesn't matter what _he_ thinks, does it?" asked Betty with all the scorn of the rector's daughter against a member of a usurping caste.

"I don't know," said Lucius dubiously. "His wife is a spiteful old woman. Of course it will get to her ears and then it will be all over the place. There's one good thing, I have been away from home such a lot, and have so many friends outside, that it won't matter so much to me as it might have done. But it will be awful for the poor old governor. I don't think he knows what he's laying up for himself."

"Oh, I shouldn't bother my head about him if I were you," said Betty airily. "It's his own fault, and he's got himself to thank for it.

It's you I'm thinking of." Then she blushed a little.

Lucius blushed too. "You are so awfully kind," he began, "and----"

"Yes. Thank you," interrupted Betty, hastily.

"But I really shouldn't know what to do if it wasn't for you,"

persisted Lucius. "It's like----"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Betty again. "But you haven't told me all about last night yet, have you?"

"No," said Lucius, his face falling again. "The row reached such a pitch that the Proctors came in. My gyp told me that the governor was going to be hauled this morning, and I shouldn't wonder if he were sent down."

"Well, that will be all the better for you, won't it?" inquired Betty, unmoved at the awful announcement.

"I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet," Lucius admitted. "But I'm afraid it will kill the poor old governor. I shall go and see him when I get back. I'm awfully sorry for him, although he has been so tiresome. But don't let's talk any more about it. We're nearly there.

I say, Betty----"

"I think you'd better go back now," said Betty. "You've come quite far enough," and Lucius was not bold enough to disobey her.

He found Mr. Binney just returned from his visit to his Tutor. "It's all over, Lucius. I'm sent down," he said hopelessly.

Lucius was at a loss for words. The humour of the situation suddenly struck him, and he had hard work to prevent himself smiling.

"I've been a bad father to you, my boy," went on Mr. Binney. "I see it all now. I wish I had behaved differently. But it is too late. All is over. The blow has fallen. I am a disgraced man."

"Oh, come, cheer up, father," said Lucius. "I should think they would give you another show if you promise to keep quiet in future."

"No, they won't," said Mr. Binney. "They think I am spoiling your chances at Cambridge. And they are quite right--oh, _absolutely_ right."

"What nonsense," said Lucius. "Is it only on my account they have sent you down?"

"That chiefly," said Mr. Binney, with the calm voice of despair. "But they have lost faith in me. And quite right too. Oh, _quite_ right."

"Well, I'll tell you what, father," said Lucius, "I'll go and see Rimington and ask him to give you another chance. We're rather pals, and he might listen, although it's rather cheek my tackling him."

"Oh, Lucius, if you only would," exclaimed Mr. Binney, grasping his son eagerly by the arm. "I believe he would listen to you. I do really, and it's my only chance. I thought this morning that I shouldn't care to stay at Cambridge any longer after what has happened. But I can't bear the thought of going down like this. It is too awful."

"Of course not," said Lucius. "I'll go at once."

Mr. Rimington was still receiving when Lucius presented himself in his anteroom. After a time he found himself cordially greeted by his father's Tutor, and sat down without an idea as to how he should begin what he had to say.

"I've come about my father," he said, reddening and playing with the ta.s.sel of his cap. "I hope you'll give him another chance, sir. It wasn't altogether his fault that all the noise was made last night, and he'll be very careful that it doesn't happen again. It will be rather unpleasant for me if he is sent down," he added.

"Has your father asked you to come to me?" asked Mr. Rimington.

"No," said Lucius, "I come of my own accord."

"Wouldn't you be happier up here if your father were--were at home, Binney?"

"I shouldn't be any happier if people could say he had been sent down.

In fact, I don't think I could stand it. He'll keep pretty well in the background after this, I should think, and I don't much mind his being up here if he does that."

"I can't hold out any hopes of our decision being altered," said Mr.

Rimington after a pause. "It is not I alone who am responsible for it.

But I think that your wishes in the matter should certainly be considered. I can't say more than that at present, and, as I say, your father had better not entertain any hopes of our decision being reversed. If there is anything more to say, I will write to him in London."

With this slender thread of hope Mr. Binney travelled home to Russell Square that afternoon in sad and lonely dejection. His head still ached after his excesses of the previous night, and his mood was so dark that he put off the confession which he knew he should have to make to Mrs. Higginbotham, until the next morning. As he dined in solitary state that evening, attended by his neat and soft-footed maids, he found himself wondering how the habits and customs of twenty years could have broken down so completely under the influence of new surroundings. Two years ago he would have been the first to hold up pious hands of horror at the mere mention of an orgie such as he had taken part in the night before. And, having returned once more to his accustomed manner of life, he felt just as far apart from it as he would have done then. But he could not keep his thoughts away for long from the dark fact that he had just been expelled from the University for continuous bad conduct, and it will be agreed that this cannot have been a pleasant recollection for a middle-aged gentleman with a grown-up son.

Dr. Toller had promised Mr. Binney that he would keep to himself all mention of the scene he had surprised. His doing so was only another example of the eternal self-complaisance of human nature. Dr. Toller was about as capable of keeping anything to himself that his wife wanted to hear about, as a puppy is of holding a stick that its master wants to take away. At twelve o'clock Dr. Toller returned from Cambridge to the wife of his bosom. By a quarter past, Mrs. Toller was in possession of the main outlines of his story, which had been filled in before the half hour struck by all the details that Dr. Toller's memory could supply.

"You won't tell anyone else what has happened, my dear, will you?" said Dr. Toller, when his wife had extracted all the information from him he was capable of affording.