Wives and Daughters Part 38

"You make your request pretty much as another son did long ago: 'Give me the portion that falleth to me.' But I don't think what he did with his money is much encouragement for me to--." Then the thought of how little he could give his son his "portion," or any part of it, stopped the Squire.

Osborne took up the speech.

"I'm as ready as any man to earn my living; only the preparation for any profession will cost money, and money I haven't got."

"No more have I," said the Squire, shortly.

"What is to be done then?" said Osborne, only half believing his father's words.

"Why, you must learn to stop at home, and not take expensive journeys; and you must reduce your tailor's bill. I don't ask you to help me in the management of the land--you're far too fine a gentleman for that; but if you can't earn money, at least you needn't spend it."

"I've told you I'm willing enough to earn money," cried Osborne, pa.s.sionately at last. "But how am I to do it? You really are very unreasonable, sir."

"Am I?" said the Squire--cooling in manner, though not in temper, as...o...b..rne grew warm. "But I don't set up for being reasonable; men who have to pay away money that they haven't got for their extravagant sons aren't likely to be reasonable. There's two things you've gone and done which put me beside myself, when I think of them; you've turned out next door to a dunce at college, when your poor mother thought so much of you--and when you might have pleased and gratified her so if you chose--and, well! I won't say what the other thing is."

"Tell me, sir," said Osborne, almost breathless with the idea that his father had discovered his secret marriage; but the father was thinking of the money-lenders, who were calculating how soon Osborne would come into the estate.

"No!" said the Squire. "I know what I know; and I'm not going to tell you how I know it. Only, I'll just say this--your friends no more know a piece of good timber when they see it than you or I know how you could earn five pounds if it was to keep you from starving.

Now, there's Roger--we none of us made an ado about him; but he'll have his Fellows.h.i.+p now, I'll warrant him, and be a bishop, or a chancellor, or something, before we've found out he's clever--we've been so much taken up thinking about you. I don't know what's come over me to speak of 'we'--'we' in this way," said he, suddenly dropping his voice,--a change of tone as sad as sad could be. "I ought to say 'I;' it will be 'I' for evermore in this world."

He got up and left the room in quick haste, knocking over his chair, and not stopping to pick it up. Osborne, who was sitting and shading his eyes with his hand, as he had been doing for some time, looked up at the noise, and then rose as quickly and hurried after his father, only in time to hear the study-door locked on the inside the moment he reached it.

Osborne returned into the dining-room chagrined and sorrowful. But he was always sensitive to any omission of the usual observances, which might excite remark; and even with his heavy heart he was careful to pick up the fallen chair, and restore it to its place near the bottom of the table; and afterwards so to disturb the dishes as to make it appear that they had been touched, before ringing for Robinson. When the latter came in, followed by Thomas, Osborne thought it necessary to say to him that his father was not well, and had gone into the study; and that he himself wanted no dessert, but would have a cup of coffee in the drawing-room. The old butler sent Thomas out of the room, and came up confidentially to Osborne.

"I thought master wasn't justly himself, Mr. Osborne, before dinner.

And, therefore, I made excuses for him--I did. He spoke to Thomas about the fire, sir, which is a thing I could in nowise put up with, unless by reason of sickness, which I am always ready to make allowances for."

"Why shouldn't my father speak to Thomas?" said Osborne. "But, perhaps, he spoke angrily, I daresay; for I'm sure he's not well."

"No, Mr. Osborne, it wasn't that. I myself am given to anger; and I'm blessed with as good health as any man in my years. Besides, anger's a good thing for Thomas. He needs a deal of it. But it should come from the right quarter--and that is me, myself, Mr. Osborne. I know my place, and I know my rights and duties as well as any butler that lives. And it's my duty to scold Thomas, and not master's. Master ought to have said, 'Robinson! you must speak to Thomas about letting out the fire,' and I'd ha' given it him well,--as I shall do now, for that matter. But as I said before, I make excuses for master, as being in mental distress and bodily ill-health; so I've brought myself round not to give warning, as I should ha' done, for certain, under happier circ.u.mstances."

"Really, Robinson, I think it's all great nonsense," said Osborne, weary of the long story the butler had told him, and to which he had not half attended. "What in the world does it signify whether my father speaks to you or to Thomas? Bring me coffee in the drawing-room, and don't trouble your head any more about scolding Thomas."

Robinson went away offended at his grievance being called nonsense.

He kept muttering to himself in the intervals of scolding Thomas, and saying,--"Things is a deal changed since poor missis went. I don't wonder master feels it, for I'm sure I do. She was a lady who had always a becoming respect for a butler's position, and could have understood how he might be hurt in his mind. She'd never ha' called his delicacies of feelings nonsense--not she; no more would Mr.

Roger. He's a merry young gentleman, and over fond of bringing dirty, slimy creatures into the house; but he's always a kind word for a man who is hurt in his mind. He'd cheer up the Squire, and keep him from getting so cross and wilful. I wish Mr. Roger was here, I do."

The poor Squire, shut up with his grief, and his ill-temper as well, in the dingy, dreary study where he daily spent more and more of his indoors life, turned over his cares and troubles till he was as bewildered with the process as a squirrel must be in going round in a cage. He had out day-books and ledgers, and was calculating up back-rents; and every time the sum-totals came to different amounts.

He could have cried like a child over his sums; he was worn out and weary, angry and disappointed. He closed his books at last with a bang.

"I'm getting old," he said, "and my head's less clear than it used to be. I think sorrow for her has dazed me. I never was much to boast on; but she thought a deal of me--bless her! She'd never let me call myself stupid; but, for all that, I am stupid. Osborne ought to help me. He's had money enough spent on his learning; but, instead, he comes down dressed like a popinjay, and never troubles his head to think how I'm to pay his debts. I wish I'd told him to earn his living as a dancing-master," said the squire, with a sad smile at his own wit. "He's dressed for all the world like one. And how he's spent the money no one knows! Perhaps Roger will turn up some day with a heap of creditors at his heels. No, he won't--not Roger; he may be slow, but he's steady, is old Roger. I wish he was here. He's not the eldest son, but he'd take an interest in the estate; and he'd do up these weary accounts for me. I wish Roger was here!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

OSBORNE HAMLEY REVIEWS HIS POSITION.

Osborne had his solitary cup of coffee in the drawing-room. He was very unhappy too, after his fas.h.i.+on. He stood on the hearth-rug pondering over his situation. He was not exactly aware how hardly his father was pressed for ready-money; the Squire had never spoken to him on the subject without being angry; and many of his loose contradictory statements--all of which, however contradictory they might appear, had their basis in truth--were set down by his son to the exaggeration of pa.s.sion. But it was uncomfortable enough to a young man of Osborne's age to feel himself continually hampered for want of a five-pound note. The princ.i.p.al supplies for the liberal--almost luxurious table at the Hall, came off the estate; so that there was no appearance of poverty as far as the household went; and as long as...o...b..rne was content at home, he had everything he could wish for; but he had a wife elsewhere--he wanted to see her continually--and that necessitated journeys. She, poor thing! had to be supported--where was the money for the journeys and for Aimee's modest wants to come from? That was the puzzle in Osborne's mind just now. While he had been at college his allowance--heir of the Hamleys--had been three hundred, while Roger had to be content with a hundred less. The payment of these annual sums had given the Squire a good deal of trouble; but he thought of it as a merely temporary inconvenience; perhaps unreasonably thought so. Osborne was to do great things; take high honours, get a fellows.h.i.+p, marry a long-descended heiress, live in some of the many uninhabited rooms at the Hall, and help the squire in the management of the estate that would some time be his. Roger was to be a clergyman; steady, slow Roger was just fitted for that, and when he declined entering the Church, preferring a life of more activity and adventure, Roger was to be--anything; he was useful and practical, and fit for all the employments from which Osborne was shut out by his fastidiousness, and his (pseudo) genius; so it was well he was an eldest son, for he would never have done to struggle through the world; and as for his settling down to a profession, it would be like cutting blocks with a razor! And now here was...o...b..rne, living at home, but longing to be elsewhere; his allowance stopped in reality; indeed, the punctual payment of it during the last year or two had been owing to his mother's exertions; but nothing had been said about its present cessation by either father or son; money matters were too sore a subject between them. Every now and then the Squire threw him a ten-pound note or so; but the sort of suppressed growl with which it was given, and the entire uncertainty as to when he might receive such gifts, rendered any calculation based upon their receipt exceedingly vague and uncertain.

"What in the world can I do to secure an income?" thought Osborne, as he stood on the hearth-rug, his back to a blazing fire, his cup of coffee sent up in the rare old china that had belonged to the Hall for generations; his dress finished, as dress of Osborne's could hardly fail to be. One could hardly have thought that this elegant young man, standing there in the midst of comfort that verged on luxury, should have been turning over that one great problem in his mind; but so it was. "What can I do to be sure of a present income?

Things cannot go on as they are. I should need support for two or three years, even if I entered myself at the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn. It would be impossible to live on my pay in the army; besides, I should hate that profession. In fact, there are evils attending all professions--I couldn't bring myself to become a member of any I've ever heard of. Perhaps I'm more fitted to take 'orders' than anything else; but to be compelled to write weekly sermons whether one had anything to say or not, and, probably, doomed only to a.s.sociate with people below one in refinement and education! Yet poor Aimee must have money. I can't bear to compare our dinners here, overloaded with joints and game and sweets, as Morgan will persist in sending them up, with Aimee's two little mutton-chops. Yet what would my father say if he knew I'd married a Frenchwoman? In his present mood he'd disinherit me, if that is possible; and he'd speak about her in a way I couldn't stand. A Roman Catholic, too! Well, I don't repent it. I'd do it again. Only if my mother had been in good health--if she could have heard my story, and known Aimee! As it is I must keep it secret; but where to get money? Where to get money?"

Then he bethought him of his poems--would they sell, and bring him in money? In spite of Milton, he thought they might; and he went to fetch his MSS. out of his room. He sate down near the fire, trying to study them with a critical eye, to represent public opinion as far as he could. He had changed his style since the Mrs. Hemans' days. He was essentially imitative in his poetic faculty; and of late he had followed the lead of a popular writer of sonnets. He turned his poems over: they were almost equivalent to an autobiographical pa.s.sage in his life. Arranging them in their order, they came as follows:--

"To Aimee, Walking with a Little Child."

"To Aimee, Singing at her Work."

"To Aimee, Turning away from me while I told my Love."

"Aimee's Confession."

"Aimee in Despair."

"The Foreign Land in which my Aimee dwells."

"The Wedding Ring."

"The Wife."

When he came to this last sonnet he put down his bundle of papers and began to think. "The wife." Yes, and a French wife; and a Roman Catholic wife--and a wife who might be said to have been in service! And his father's hatred of the French, both collectively and individually--collectively, as tumultuous brutal ruffians, who murdered their king, and committed all kinds of b.l.o.o.d.y atrocities--individually, as represented by "Boney," and the various caricatures of "Johnny c.r.a.paud" that had been in full circulation about five-and-twenty years before this time, when the Squire had been young and capable of receiving impressions. As for the form of religion in which Mrs. Osborne Hamley had been brought up, it is enough to say that Catholic emanc.i.p.ation had begun to be talked about by some politicians, and that the sullen roar of the majority of Englishmen, at the bare idea of it, was surging in the distance with ominous threatenings; the very mention of such a measure before the Squire was, as...o...b..rne well knew, like shaking a red flag before a bull.

And then he considered that if Aimee had had the unspeakable, the incomparable blessing of being born of English parents, in the very heart of England--Warwicks.h.i.+re, for instance--and had never heard of priests, or ma.s.s, or confession, or the Pope, or Guy Fawkes, but had been born, baptized, and bred in the Church of England, without having ever seen the outside of a dissenting meeting-house, or a papist chapel--even with all these advantages, her having been a (what was the equivalent for "bonne" in English? 'nursery-governess'

was a term hardly invented) nursery-maid, with wages paid down once a quarter, liable to be dismissed at a month's warning, and having her tea and sugar doled out to her, would be a shock to his father's old ancestral pride that he would hardly ever get over.

"If he saw her!" thought Osborne. "If he could but see her!" But if the Squire were to see Aimee, he would also hear her speak her pretty broken English--precious to her husband, as it was in it that she had confessed brokenly with her English tongue, that she loved him soundly with her French heart--and Squire Hamley piqued himself on being a good hater of the French. "She would make such a loving, sweet, docile little daughter to my father--she would go as near as any one could towards filling up the blank void in this house, if he would but have her; but he won't; he never would; and he sha'n't have the opportunity of scouting her. Yet if I called her 'Lucy' in these sonnets; and if they made a great effect--were praised in _Blackwood_ and the _Quarterly_--and all the world was agog to find out the author; and I told him my secret--I could if I were successful--I think then he would ask who Lucy was, and I could tell him all then.

If--how I hate 'ifs.' 'If me no ifs.' My life has been based on 'whens;' and first they have turned to 'ifs,' and then they have vanished away. It was 'when Osborne gets honours,' and then 'if Osborne,' and then a failure altogether. I said to Aimee, 'when my mother sees you,' and now it is 'if my father saw her,' with a very faint prospect of its ever coming to pa.s.s." So he let the evening hours flow on and disappear in reveries like these; winding up with a sudden determination to try the fate of his poems with a publisher, with the direct expectation of getting money for them, and an ulterior fancy that, if successful, they might work wonders with his father.

When Roger came home Osborne did not let a day pa.s.s before telling his brother of his plans. He never did conceal anything long from Roger; the feminine part of his character made him always desirous of a confidant, and as sweet sympathy as he could extract. But Roger's opinion had no effect on Osborne's actions; and Roger knew this full well. So when Osborne began with--"I want your advice on a plan I have got in my head," Roger replied: "Some one told me that the Duke of Wellington's maxim was never to give advice unless he could enforce its being carried into effect; now I can't do that; and you know, old boy, you don't follow out my advice when you've got it."

"Not always, I know. Not when it doesn't agree with my own opinion.

You're thinking about this concealment of my marriage; but you're not up in all the circ.u.mstances. You know how fully I meant to have done it, if there hadn't been that row about my debts; and then my mother's illness and death. And now you've no conception how my father is changed--how irritable he has become! Wait till you've been at home a week! Robinson, Morgan--it's the same with them all; but worst of all with me."

"Poor fellow!" said Roger; "I thought he looked terribly changed: shrunken, and his ruddiness of complexion altered."

"Why, he hardly takes half the exercise he used to do, so it's no wonder. He has turned away all the men off the new works, which used to be such an interest to him; and because the roan cob stumbled with him one day, and nearly threw him, he won't ride it; and yet he won't sell it and buy another, which would be the sensible plan; so there are two old horses eating their heads off, while he is constantly talking about money and expense. And that brings me to what I was going to say. I'm desperately hard up for money, and so I've been collecting my poems--weeding them well, you know--going over them quite critically, in fact; and I want to know if you think Deighton would publish them. You've a name in Cambridge, you know; and I daresay he would look at them if you offered them to him."

"I can but try," said Roger; "but I'm afraid you won't get much by them."

"I don't expect much. I'm a new man, and must make my name. I should be content with a hundred. If I'd a hundred pounds I'd set myself to do something. I might keep myself and Aimee by my writings while I studied for the bar; or, if the worst came to the worst, a hundred pounds would take us to Australia."

"Australia! Why, Osborne, what could you do there? And leave my father! I hope you'll never get your hundred pounds, if that's the use you're to make of it! Why, you'd break the Squire's heart."

"It might have done once," said Osborne, gloomily, "but it wouldn't now. He looks at me askance, and s.h.i.+es away from conversation with me. Let me alone for noticing and feeling this kind of thing. It's this very susceptibility to outward things that gives me what faculty I have; and it seems to me as if my bread, and my wife's too, were to depend upon it. You'll soon see for yourself the terms which I am on with my father!"