Mr. Plantagenet had missed his son by walking through the archway of the Fellows' Quad, instead of through the Brew House. He emerged from the college by the big front gate. The High Street was lighted and crowded; so he preferred to turn down the dark lanes and alleys at the back of Christ Church, till he came out upon St. Aldate's and the road to the river. Somewhat sobered as he still was by the unwonted excitement of that curious episode, he found the sherry once more beginning to gain the upper hand; it was hard for him to walk erect and straight along the pavement of St. Aldate's, where a few small shops still stood open—for it was Saturday night—and a few people still loitered about in little knots at the corners. With an effort, however, he managed to maintain the perpendicular till he reached Folly Bridge; then he turned in at the wicket that leads down from the main road to the little tow-path along the dark and silent bank of the swollen Isis.
But if Edmund Plantagenet's legs were a trifle unsteady, his heart was all afire with wrath and remorse at this dramatic interlude. For the first time in so many years he began to think bitterly to himself of his wasted opportunities and ruined talents. Such as they were, he had really and truly wasted them; and though perhaps, after all, they were never much to boast of, time had been when Edmund Plantagenet thought highly indeed of them. Nay, in his heart of hearts the broken old dancing-master thought highly of them still, in spite of everything during all those long years. There were nights when he lay awake sobering, on his hard bed at home, and repeated lovingly to himself the 'Stanzas to Evelina' which he had contributed ages ago to the 'Book of Beauty,' or the 'Lines on the Death of Wordsworth' which he printed at the time in theYorkshire Magazine, with a profound conviction that they contained, after all, some of the really most beautiful and least appreciated poetry in the English language. As a rule, Mr. Plantagenet was fairly contented with himself and his relics of character; it was society—harsh, unfeeling, stupid society—that he blamed most of all for his misfortunes and failures. Still, to every one of us there come now and then moments of genuine self-revelation, when the clouds of egotism and perverse misrepresentation, through which we usually behold our own personality in a glorified halo, fade away before the piercing light of truer introspective analysis, forced suddenly upon us by some disillusioning incident or accident of the moment; and then, for one brief flash, we have the misery and agony of really seeing ourselves as others see us. Such days may Heaven keep kindly away from all of us! Such a day Edmund Plantagenet had now drearily fallen upon. He wandered wildly down the dark bank toward Iflley lasher, his whole soul within him stirred and upheaved with volcanic energy by the shame and disgrace of that evening's degradation. The less often a man suffers from these bruts of self-humiliation, the more terrible is their outburst when they finally do arrive to him. Edmund Plantagenet, loathing and despising his present self, by contrast with that younger and idealized image which had perhaps never really existed at all, stumbled in darkness and despair along that narrow path, between the flooded river on one side and the fence that enclosed the damp water-meadows on the other, still more than half drunk, and utterly careless where he went or what on earth might happen to him.
The river in parts had overflowed its banks, and the towing-path for some yards together was often under water. But Mr. Plantagenet, never pausing, walked, slipped, and staggered through the slush and mud, very treacherous under foot, knowing nothing, heeding nothing, save that the coolness about his ankles seemed to revive him a little and to sober his head as he went floundering through it. By-and-by he reached the Long Bridges—a range of frail planks with wooden side-rails, that lead the tow-path across two or three broad stretches of back-water from the Isis. He straggled across somehow, looking down every now and then into the swirling water, where the stars were just reflected in quick flashing eddies, while all the rest about looked black as night, but, oh! so cool and inviting to his fevered forehead. So he wandered on, fiercely remorseful within, burning hot without, till he came abreast of a row of old pollard-willows, close beside the edge of the little offshoot at Iffley lasher. The bank was damp, but he sat down upon it all the same, and grew half drowsy as he sat with the mingled effects of wine and indignation.
After awhile he rose, and stumbled on across a bend of the meadows till he reached the river. Just there the bank was very slippery and treacherous. Even a sober man could hardly have kept his footing on it in so dark a night. 'One false step,' Edmund Plantagenet thought to himself with wild despair, 'and there would be an end of all this fooling. One false step—and splash! A man may slip any day. No suicide in tumbling into a swollen river of a moonless night when the bank's all flooded.'
Still, on and on he walked, having staggered now far, far below Iffley, and away towards the neighbourhood of Sandford lasher. Slippery bank all the distance, and head growing dizzier and dizzier each moment with cold and wet, as well as wine and anger.
At last, of a sudden, a dull splash in the river! Bargemen, come up late in the evening from Abingdon, and laid by now for the night under shelter of the willows on the opposite side two hundred yards down, heard the noise distinctly. Smoking their pipes on deck very late, it being a fine evening, one says to the other:
'Sounds precious like a man, Bill!'
Bill, philosophically taking a long pull, answers calmly at the end:
'More liker a cow, Tom. None ofourbusiness, anyhow. Get five bob, mayhap, for bringin' in the body. Hook it up easy enough to-morrow mornin?
Next morning, sure enough, a body might be seen entangled among the reeds under the steep mud-bank on the Berkshire shore. Bill, taking it in tow and bringing it up to Oxford, got five shillings from the county for his lucky discovery. At the inquest, thought it wise, however, to omit mentioning the splash heard on deck overnight, or that queer little episode of philosophical conversation.
The coroner's jury, for that end empanelled, attentively considering the circumstances which surrounded the last end of Edmund Plantagenet, late of Chiddingwick, Surrey, had more especially to inquire into the question whether or not deceased at the time he met with his sudden death was perfectly sober. Deceased, it seemed, was father of Mr. Richard Plantagenet, of Durham College, who identified the body. On the night of the accident the unfortunate gentleman had dined at his own lodgings in Grove Street, and afterwards went round to take a glass of wine at Mr. T. M. Faussett's rooms in Durham. Mr. Faussett testified that deceased when he left loose rooms was perfectly sober. Mr. Trevor Gillingham, with, the other undergraduates and the college porter, unanimously bore witness to the same effect. Persons in St. Aldate's who had seen deceased on his way to Folly Bridge corroborated this evidence as to sobriety of demeanour. Deceased, though apparently preoccupied, walked as straight as an arrow. On the whole, the coroner considered, all the circumstances seemed to show that Mr. Edmund Plantagenet, who was not a man given to early hours, had strolled off for an evening walk by the river bank to cool himself after dinner, and had slipped and fallen—being a heavy man—owing to the flooded and dangerous state of the tow-path. Jury returned a verdict in accordance with the evidence—accidental death—with a rider suggesting that the Conservators should widen and extend the tow-path.
But Trevor Gillingham, meeting Faussett in quad after Hall that evening, observed to him confidentially in a very low voice:
'By Jove, old man, we've had a precious narrow squeak of it! I only hope the others will be discreetly silent. We might all have got sent down in a lump together for our parts in this curious little family drama. But all's well that end's well, as the Immortal One has it. Might make a capital scene, don't you know, some day—in one of my future tragedies.'
His father's death put Dick at once in a very different position from the one he had previously occupied. It was a family revolution. And on the very evening of the funeral, that poor shabby funeral, Dick began then and there to think the future over.
Poor people have to manage things very differently from rich ones; and when Edmund Plantagenet was laid to rest at last in the Oxford cemetery, no member of the family save, Dick himself was there to assist at the final ceremony. Only Gillespie accompanied him to the side of the grave out of all the college; but when they reached the chapel, they found Gillingham standing there hatless before them—urged, no doubt, by some late grain of remorse for his own prime part in this domestic drama; or was it only perhaps by a strong desire to see the last act of his tragedy played out to its bitter climax? After the ceremony he left hurriedly at once in the opposite direction. The two friends walked home alone in profound silence. That evening Gillespie came up to Dick's rooms to bear him company in his trouble. Dick was deeply depressed. After awhile he grew confidential, and explained to his friend the full gravity of the crisis. For Mr. Plan-tagenet, after all, poor weak sot though he was, had been for many years the chief bread-winner of the family. Dick and Maud, to be sure, had done their best to eke out the housekeeping, expenses, and to aid the younger children as far as possible; but, still, it was the father on whose earnings they all as a family had depended throughout for rent and food and clothing. Only Maud and Dick were independent in any way; Mrs. Plantagenet and the little ones owed everything to the father. He had been a personage at Chiddingwick, a character in his way, and Chiddingwick for some strange reason had always been proud of him. Even 'carriage company' sent their children to learn of him at the White Horse, just because he was 'old Plantagenet,' and a certain shadowy sentiment attached to his name and personality. Broken reprobate as he was, the halo of past greatness followed him down through life to the lowest depths of degradation and penury.
But now that his father was dead, Dick began to realize for the first time how far the whole family had been dependent for support upon the old man's profession. Little as he had earned, indeed, that little had been bread-and-butter to his wife and children. And now that Dick came to face the problem before him like a man, he saw only too plainly that he himself must fill the place Mr. Plantagenet had vacated. It was a terrible fate, but he saw no way out of it. At one deadly blow all his hopes for the future were dashed utterly to the ground. Much as he hated to think it, he saw at once it was now his imperative duty to go down from Oxford. He must do something-without delay to earn a livelihood somehow for his mother and sisters. He couldn't go on living there in comparative luxury while the rest of his family starved, or declined on the tender mercies of the Chiddingwick workhouse.
Gradually, bit by bit, he confided all this, broken-hearted, to Gillespie. There were no secrets between them now; for the facts as to poor Mr. Plantagenet's pitiable profession had come out fully at the inquest, and all Oxford knew that night that Plantagenet of Durham, the clever and rising history man, who was considered safe for the Marquis of Lothian's Essay, was, after all, but the son of a country dancing-master. So Dick, with a crimson face, putting his pride in his pocket, announced to his friend the one plan for the future that now seemed to him feasible—to return at once to Chiddingwick and take up his father's place, so as to keep together theclientele. Clearly he must do something to make money without delay; and that sad resolve was the only device he could think of on the spur of the moment.
'Wouldn't it be better to try for a schoolmaster-ship?' Gillespie suggested cautiously. He had the foresight of his countrymen. 'That wouldn't so much unclass you in the end as the other. You haven't a degree, of course, and the want of one would naturally tell against you. But you might get a vacant place in some preparatory school—though the pay, of course, would be something dreadfully trivial.'
'That's just it,' Dick answered, bursting with shame and misery, but facing it out like a man. 'Gillespie, you're kindness itself—such a dear, good fellow!—and I could say things to you I couldn't say to anybody else on earth that I know of, except my own family. But even to you I can't bear to say what must be said sooner or later. You see, for my mother's sake, for my sisters', for my brothers', Imustdo whatever enables me to make most money. I must pocket my pride—and I've got a great deal—ever so much too much—but I must pocket it all the same, and think only of what's best in the end for the family. Now, I shouldhatethe dancing—oh, my dear, dear fellow, I can't tell you how I should hate it! But it's the one thing by which I could certainly earn most money. There's a good connection there at Chiddingwiok, and it's all in the hands of the family.
People would support me because I was my father's son. If I went home at once, before anybody else came to the town to fill the empty place, I could keep the connection together; and as I wouldn't spend any money—well, in the ways my poor father often spent it—I should easily earn enough to keep myself and the children. It'll break my heart to do it—oh, it'll break my heart!—for I'm a very proud man; but I see no way out of it. And I, who hoped to build up again by legitimate means the fortunes of the Plantagenets!'
Gillespie was endowed with a sound amount of good Scotch common-sense. He looked at things more soberly.
'If I were you,' he said in a tone that seemed to calm Dick's nerves, 'even at the risk of letting the golden opportunity slip, I'd do nothing rashly. A step down in the social scale is easy enough to take; but, once taken, we all know it's very hard to recover. Have you mentioned this plan of yours to your mother or sister?'
'I wrote to Maud about it this, evening,' Dick answered sadly, 'and I told her I might possibly have to make this sacrifice.'
Gillespie paused and reflected. After a minute's consideration, he drew his pipe from his mouth and shook out the ashes.
'If I were you,' he said again, in a very decided voice, 'I'd let the thing hang a bit. Why shouldn't you run down to Chiddingwick tomorrow and talk matters over with your people? It costs money, I know; and just at present I can understand every penny's a penny to you. But I've a profound respect for the opinions of one's women in all these questions. They look more at the social side, I'll admit, than men; yet they often see things more clearly and intelligently, for all that, than we do. They've got such insight. If they demand this sacrifice of you, I suppose you must make it; but if, as I expect, they refuse to sanction it, why, then, you must try to find some other way out of it.'
Gillespie's advice fell in exactly with Dick's own ideas; for not only did he wish to see his mother and Maud, but also he was anxious to meet Mary Tudor again and explain to her with regret that the engagement which had never existed at all between them must now be ended. So he decided to take his friend's advice at once, and start off by the first train in the morning to Chiddingwick.
He went next day. Gillespie breakfasted with him, and remained when he left in quiet possession of the armchair by the fireside. He took up a book—the third volume of Mommsen—and sat on and smoked, without thinking of the time, filling up the interval till his eleven o'clock lecture. For at eleven the Senior Tutor lectured on Plato's 'Republic.' Just as the clock struck ten, a hurried knock at the door aroused Gillespie's attention.
'Come in!' he said quickly, taking his pipe from his mouth.
The door opened with a timid movement, standing a quarter ajar, and a pale face peeped in with manifest indecision.
'A lady!' Gillespie said to himself, and instinctively knocked the unconsumed tobacco out of his short clay pipe as he rose to greet her.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' a small voice said, in very frightened accents. 'I think I must be mistaken. I wanted Mr. Richard Plantagenet's rooms. Can you kindly direct me to them?'
'These are Mr. Plantagenet's rooms,' Gillespie answered, as gently as a woman himself, for he saw the girl was slight, and tired, and delicate, and dressed in deep mourning of the simplest description. 'He left me here in possession when he went out this morning, and I've been sitting ever since in them.'
The slight girl came in a step or two with evident hesitation.
'Will he be long gone?' she asked tremulously. 'Perhaps he's at lecture. I must sit down and wait for him.'
Gillespie motioned her into a chair, and instinctively pulled a few things straight in the room to receive a lady.
'Well, to tell you the truth,' he said, 'Plantagenet's gone down this morning to Chiddingwick. I—I beg your pardon, but I suppose you're his sister.'
Maud let herself drop into the chair he set for her, with a despondent gesture.
'Gone to Chiddingwick! Oh, how unfortunate!' she cried, looking puzzled. 'What am I ever to do? This is really dreadful!'
And, indeed, the situation was sufficiently embarrassing; for she had run up in haste, on the spur of the moment, when she received Dick's letter threatening instant return, without any more money than would pay her fare one way, trusting to Dick's purse to frank her back again. But she didn't mention these facts, of course, to the young man in Dick's rooms, with the blue-and-white boating jacket, who sat and looked hard at her with profound admiration, reflecting to himself, meanwhile, how very odd it was of Plantagenet never to have given him to understand that his sister was beautiful! For Maud was always beautiful, in a certain delicate, slender, shrinking fashion, though she had lots of character; and her eyes, red with tears, and her simple little black dress, instead of spoiling her looks, somehow served to accentuate the peculiar charms of her beauty.
She sat there a minute or two, wondering what on earth to do, while Gillespie stood by in respectful silence. At last she spoke.
'Yes, I'm his sister,' she said simply, raising her face with a timid glance towards the strange young man. 'Did Dick tell you when he was coming back? I'm afraid I must wait for him.'
'I don't think he'll be back till rather late,' Gillespie answered, with sympathy. 'He took his name off Hall. That means to say,' he added in explanation, 'he won't be home to dinner.'
Maud considered for a moment in doubt. This was really serious. Then she spoke once more, rather terrified.
'He won't stop away all night, I suppose?' she asked, turning up her face appealingly to the kindly-featured stranger. For what she could do in that case, in a strange, big town, without a penny in her pocket, she really couldn't imagine.
Gillespie's confident answer reassured her on that head.
'Oh no; he won't stop away,' he replied, 'for he hasn't got leave; and he wouldn't be allowed to sleep out without it. But he mayn't be back, all the same, till quite late at night—perhaps ten or eleven. It would be hardly safe for you, I think, to wait on till then for him. I mean,' he added apologetically, 'it might perhaps be too late to get a train back to Chiddingwick.'
Maud looked down and hesitated. She perused the hearthrug.
'I think,' she said at last, after a very long pause, 'you must be Mr. Gillespie.'
'That's my name,' the young man answered, with an inclination of the head, rather pleased she should have heard of him.
Maud hesitated once more. Then, after a moment, she seemed to make her mind up.
'I'm so glad it's you,' she said simply, with pretty womanly confidence; 'for I know you're Dick's friend, and I dare say you'll have guessed what's brought me up here to-day, even in the midst of our great trouble. Oh, Mr. Gillespie, did he tell you what he wrote last night to me?'
Gillespie gazed down at her. Tears stood in her eyes as she glanced up at him piteously. He thought he had never seen any face before so pathetically pretty.
'Ye—es; he told me,' the young man answered; hardly liking even to acknowledge it. 'He said he thought of going back at once to Chiddingwick, to take up—well, to keep together your poor father's connection.'
With a violent effort Maud held back her tears.
'Yes; that's just what he wrote,' she went on, with downcast eyes, her lips trembling as she said it. Then she turned her face to him yet again.
'But, oh, Mr. Gillespie!' she cried, clasping her hands in her earnestness, 'that's just what he must never, never, never think of!'
'But he tells me it's the only thing—the family has—to live upon,' Gillespie interposed, hesitating.
'Then the family can starve!' Maud cried, with a sudden flash of those tearful eyes. 'We're Plantagenets, and we can bear it. But for Dick to leave Oxford, and spoil all our best hopes for him—oh, Mr. Gillespie, can't you feel it would be too, too dreadful? We could never stand it!'
Gillespie surveyed her from head to foot in admiration of her spirit. Such absolute devotion to the family honour struck a kindred chord in his half-Celtic nature.
'You speak like a Plantagenet,' he, answered very gravely—for he, too, had caught some faint infection of the great Plantagenet myth. 'You deserve to have him stop. You're worthy of such a brother. But don't you think yourself it would be right of him—as he does—to think first of your mother and his sisters and brothers?'
Maud rose and faced him.
'Mr. Gillespie,' she cried, clasping her hands, and looking beautiful as she did so, 'I don't know why I can speak to you so frankly: I suppose it's because you're Dick's friend, and because in this terrible loss which has come upon us so suddenly we stand so much in need of human sympathy. But, oh—it's wrong to say it, of course, yet say it I must; I don't care one penny whether it's right or whether it's wrong; let us starve or not, I dodo want Dick to stop on at Oxford!'
Gillespie regarded her respectfully. Such courage appealed to him.
'Well, I dare say I'm as wrong as you,' he answered frankly; 'but, to tell you the truth—so do I; and I honour you for saying it.'
'Thank you,' Maud cried, letting the tears roll now unchecked, for sympathy overcame her. She fell back again into, her chair. 'Do you know,'-she said unaffectedly, 'we don't care one bit what we do at Chiddingwick; we don't care, not one of us! We'd work our fingers to the bone, even Nellie, who's the youngest, to keep Dick at Oxford. We don't mind if we starve, for we're only the younger ones. But Richard's head of our house now, heir of our name and race; and we were all so proud when he got this Scholarship. We thought he'd be brought up as the chief of the Plantagenets ought to be.' She paused a moment and reflected; then she spoke again. 'To leave Oxford would be bad enough,' she went on, 'and would cost us all sore; it would be a terrible blow to us, though, I suppose, that's inevitable; but to come back to Chiddingwick, and take up my dear father's profession—oh, don't think me undutiful to his memory, Mr. Gillespie, for our father was a man—if you'd known him long ago, before he grew careless—a man we had much to be proud of—but still, well, there! if Dick was to do it, it would break our very hearts for us.'
'I can see it would,' Gillespie answered, glancing away from her gently, for she was crying hard now. His heart warmed to the poor girl. How he wished it had been possible for him to help her effectually!
Maud leaned forward with clasped hands, and spoke still more earnestly. 'Then you'll help me with it?' she said, drawing a sigh. 'You'll work with me to prevent him? I know Dick thinks a great deal of your advice and opinion. He's often told me so. You'll try to persuade him not to leave Oxford, won't you? Or if he leaves, at least not to come back to Chiddingwick?
Oh, do say you will! for Dick's so much influenced by what you think and say. You see, he'll want to do what's best forus—he's always so unselfish. But that's not what we want: you must try and make him neglectus, and think only of himself; for the more he thinks ofus, the more unhappy and ashamed and desperate he'll make us; and the more he thinks of himself, why, the better we'll all love him.'
It was a topsy-turvy gospel—but one couldn't help respecting it. Gillespie rose and 'sported the oak,' closed the big outer door, which stands as a sign in all Oxford rooms that the occupant is out, or doesn't wish to be disturbed, and so secures men when reading from casual interruption. He told Maud what he had done; and Maud, who had been brought up too simply to distrust her brother's friend, or to recognise the rules of polite etiquette on such subjects, was grateful to him for the courtesy.
'Now, we must talk this out together,' he said, 'more plainly and practically. It's a business matter: we must discuss it as business. But anyhow, Miss Plantagenet, I'll do my very best to help you in keeping Dick on at Oxford.'
At Chiddingwick, meanwhile, Dick Plantagenet himself had been oddly enough engaged on rather opposite business. When he arrived at the house in the High Street, so long his father's, he found Maud flown, of course, and nobody at home but his mother and little Eleanor. Now, if Maud had been there, being a forcible young person in spite of her frail frame, she would soon have stirred up Mrs. Plantagenet to take her own view of the existing situation. But the widow, always weary with the cares of too large a family for her slender means, and now broken by the suddenness of her husband's death—thus left without Maud's aid—was disposed like Dick himself to take the practical side in this pressing emergency. To her, very naturally, the question of bread-and-cheese for the boys and girls came uppermost in consciousness. And though it was terrible they should have to face that sordid question at such a moment as this, yet that was a painful fate they shared, after all, with the vast majority of their fellow-creatures, who constantly have to consider practical difficulties of daily bread at the very time when their affections have just been most deeply lacerated. The more Dick talked with his mother, indeed, the more did he feel himself how imperative a duty it was for him to resign his dream and return home at once, to do what he could for her and his brothers and sisters. He was a Plantagenet, he reflected, andnoblesse oblige. That motto of his race stood him in good stead on all such occasions. If do it he must, then do it he would. A Plantagenet should not be ashamed of earning his livelihood and supporting his family in any honest way, however distasteful. For no matter what trade he might happen to take up, being a Plantagenet himself,ipso factohe ennobled it.
Fired with these sentiments, which, after all, were as proud in their way as Maud's equally strong ones, if not even prouder, Dick went out almost at once to inquire at the White Horse about the possibility of his keeping up the rent of the rooms as his father had paid it; for if the scheme was to be worked no time must be lost over it, so that the lessons might be continuous. He was a capital dancer himself (worse luck!) and a tolerable violinist—and, for the matter of that, Maud could help him with the music; though he shrank, to be sure, from the painful idea that the heiress of the Plantagenets, a born princess of the blood royal of England, should mix herself up any longer with that hateful profession.
Oh, how his soul loathed it! Indeed, on second thoughts he decided 'twould be best for Maud to-be set free from the classes for her ordinary music lessons. While his father lived he couldn't have done without Maud; but now the head of the house was gone, never more should she be subjected to that horrid slavery. Enough that one member of the family should give himself up to it for the common good. Maud, poor, delicate, high-strung Maud, should, at least, be exempt.
If he needed any help he would hire an assistant.
The interview at the White Horse was quite satisfactory—too satisfactory by far, Dick thought, for he longed for a decent obstacle; and as soon as it was finished Dick felt the hardest part of his self-sacrifice was yet to come. For he had to give up not only Oxford, but also Mary Tudor. For her own sake he felt he must really do it. He had never asked her to think of him till he got his Scholarship; and it was on the strength of that small success he first ventured to speak to her. Now that Oxford must fade like a delicious dream behind him, he saw clearly his hopes of Mary must needs go with it.
They were never engaged: from first to last Mary had always said so, and Dick had admitted it. But, still, they had come most perilously near it. During the Long Vacation, when Dick had had some coaching to do for matriculation at a neighbouring town, he and Mary, had almost arrived at an understanding with one another. Dick was a gentleman now—he had always been a gentleman, indeed, in everything except the artificial position; and since he went to Oxford he had that as well, and Mary felt there was no longer any barrier of any sort interposed between them. But now all, all must go, and he must say farewell for ever to Mary.
It was hard, very hard; but duty before everything! With a beating heart he mounted the Rectory steps, and for the first time in his life ventured to ask boldly out if he could see Miss Tudor. It would be the last time, too, he thought bitterly to himself, and so it didn't matter.
Mrs. Tradescant was kinder than usual. Mr. Plantagenet's sudden death had softened her heart for the moment towards the family—perhaps even towards Maud herself, that horrid girl who committed the unpardonable offence, to a mother, of being prettier and more ladylike than her own eldest daughter. The lady of the Rectory was in the schoolroom with Mary when Ellen, the housemaid, came in with the unwonted message that Mr. Richard Plantagenet—'him as has gone up to college at Oxford, ma'am, has called for to see Miss Tudor.'
Mary blushed up to her eyes, and expected Mrs. Tradescant would insist upon going down and seeing Dick with her.
But Mrs. Tradescant had a woman's inkling of what was afoot between the two young people; and now that that horrid old man was dead, and Richard his own master, she really didn't know that it very much mattered. Young Plantagenet was an Oxford man, after all, and might go into the Church, and turn out a very good match in the end for Mary Tudor. So she only looked up and said, with a most unusual smile:
'You'd better run down to him, dear. I dare say you'd like best to see him alone for awhile, after all that's happened.'
Taken aback at such generosity, Mary ran down at once, still blushing violently, to Dick in the drawing-room. She hardly paused for a second at the glass on her way, just to pull her front hair straight and rub her cheek with her hand—quite needlessly—to bring up some colour.
Dick was dressed in black from head to foot, and looked even graver and more solemn than usual. He stretched out both his hands to hers as Mary entered, and took her fingers in his own with a regretful tenderness. Then he looked deep into her eyes for some seconds in silence. His heart was full to bursting. How could he ever break it to her? 'Twas so hard to give up all his dreams for ever. At last he found words.
'Oh, Mary,' he cried, trembling, 'you've heard of all that's happened?'
Mary pressed his hand hard, and answered simply, with a great lump in her throat: 'Yes, Dick dear, I've heard—and all these days long I've lived with you constantly.'
Dick sat down on the sofa and began to tell her all his story. He told her first about his father's death and the things that had followed it; and then he went on to the more immediately practical question of what he was to do for his mother and sisters. His voice trembled as he spoke, for he was very, very fond of her; but he told her all straight out, as a Plantagenet should, without one word of the disgrace he felt it would be. He dwelt only on the absolute necessity of his doing something at once to provide for the family.
'And under these circumstances, Mary,' he said at last, looking down at her with some moisture in his brimming eyes. 'I feel that my duty to you is perfectly plain and clear. I must release you unconditionally from the engagement, which, as we both know, has never existed between us.'
Mary looked at him for a moment as if she hardly took in the full meaning of his words; then, in a. very low and decided voice, she answered clearly: 'ButIdon't releaseyou, dear Dick—and I shall never release you.'
'But, Mary,' Dick cried, unable to conceal his pleasure at her words, in spite of himself, 'you mustn't think of it, you know. It's—it's quite, quite impossible. In the first place, I shall never be able to marry at all now, or if ever, why, only after years and years—oh, Heaven only knows how many!'
('That's nothing!' Mary sobbed out parenthetically; 'if necessary, I could wait a thousand years for you.')
'And then again,' Dick continued, resolved not to spare himself one solitary drop in his cup of degradation, 'it would never do for you to be engaged—to the local dancing-master. If it comes to that, indeed, I'm sure Mrs. Tradeseant wouldn't allow it.'
With a sudden womanly impulse Mary rose all at once and flung herself, sobbing, on her lover's bosom.
'Oh, Dick,' she cried—'dear Dick, I'm proud of you—so proud of you, no matter what you do—prouder now than ever! I think it's just grand of you to be so ready to give up everything for your mother and sisters. You seem to me to think only of them—and of me—and not a word of yourself; and I say it's just beautiful of you. Icouldn'tbe ashamed of you if you sold apples in the street. You'd always be yourself, and I couldn't help being proud of you. And as for Mrs. Tradeseant, if she won't let me be engaged to you, why, I'll throw up the place and take another one, if I can get it—or else go without one. But I'm yours now, Dick, and I shall be yours for ever.' She threw her arms round his neck, and, for the first time in her life, she raised her lips and kissed him. 'Why, what a wretch I should be,' she cried through her tears, 'if I could dream of giving you up just at the very moment when you most want my help and sympathy! Dick, Dick—dear Dick, we never were engaged till now; but now weareengaged, and you won't argue me out of it!'
Dick led her to a seat. For the next few minutes the conversation was chiefly of an inarticulate character. The type-founder's art has no letters to represent it. Then Dick tried to speak again in the English language. (The rest had been common to the human family.)
'This is very good of you, dearest,' he said, holding her hand tight in his own; 'very, very good and sweet of you! It's just what I might have expected; though I confess, being engaged chiefly in thinking of the thing from the practical standpoint, Ididn'texpect it, which was awfully dull of me. But we must be practical—practical. I must devote myself in future to my mother and sisters; andyoumustn't waste all the best of your life in waiting for me—in waiting for a man who will probably never, never be able to marry you.'
But women, thank God, are profoundly unpractical creatures! Mary looked up in his face through her tears, and made answer solemnly:
'Oh, Dick, you don't know how long I would wait for you! I want to tell you something, dear; to-day I feel I can tell you.Icould never have told you before; I wouldn't tell you now if it weren't for all that has happened. Eighteen months ago, when you first spoke to me, I thought to myself: “He's a charming young man, and I like him very much; he's so kind and so clever; but how could I ever marry him? It wouldn't be right; he's the son of the dancing-master.” And now to-day, dear Dick, you darling good fellow, if you turn dancing-master yourself, or anything else in the world—if you sweep a crossing, even—I shall be proud of you still; I shall feel prouder of you by far than if you stopped there selfishly in your rooms at Oxford, and never gave a thought to your mother and sisters.'
She paused for a second and looked at him. Then once more she flung her arms round his neck and cried aloud, almost hysterically:
'Oh, Dick, dear Dick, whatever on earth you do, I shall always love you; I shall always be proud of you!'
And when they parted that morning, Richard Plantagenet and Mary Tudor were for the first time in their lives engaged to one another.
That's what always happens when you go to see a girl, conscientiously determined, for her sake, much against the grain, to break things off with her for ever. I have been there myself, and I know all about it.
At Oxford all that day, Mr. Archibald Gillespie, of Durham College, found himself in a very singular position indeed for an undergraduate of such unquestioned and respectable manners. For he was keeping Maud Plantagenet shut up behind a sported oak in her brother's rooms, and clandestinely supplying her with lunch, tea and dinner.
This somewhat compromising condition of affairs in the third pair left of Back Quad New Buildings had been brought about by a pure concatenation of accidents. When Maud left Chiddingwick that morning, with nothing in her purse, she had trusted to Dick to supply her with the wherewithal for paying her way back again. But as Dick was not at home when she reached his rooms, she had been compelled to wait in for him till he returned from Chiddingwick. For the same reason she was obviously unable to supply herself with food at a hotel or restaurant. Being a Plan-tagenet, indeed, she would have been far too proud to let Gillespie suspect these facts by overt act or word of hers; but, somehow, he guessed them for himself, and soon found his suspicions confirmed by her very silence.
Now, the scouts, or college servants, have a key of the 'oak,' and can enter men's rooms at any moment without warning beforehand. There was nothing for it, therefore, but for Gillespie to take Dick's scout frankly into his confidence; which he did accordingly. Already he had forgotten his eleven o'clock lecture; Plato's 'Bepublic' had gone to the wall before a pretty face; and now he went outside the door to plot still further treason, and shouted, after the primitive Oxford fashion, for the servant.
'Look here, Robert,' he said, as the scout came up, 'there's a young lady in deep mourning in Mr. Plantagenet's rooms. She's Mr. Plantagenet's sister, and she's come up to see him about this dreadful affair the other day, you understand. But he's gone down home for the morning to Chiddingwick—they've crossed on the road—and he mayn't perhaps be back again till late in the evening. Now, I can see the young lady's got no money about her—she came away hurriedly—and I don't like to offer her any. So I'm going to telegraph to Mr. Plantagenet to come back as soon as he can; but he can't be here for some time yet, anyhow. Of course, the young ladymusthave something to eat; and I want you to help me with it. Tell the porter who she is, and that she'll probably have to stop here till Mr. Plantagenet comes back. Under the circumstances, nobody will say anything about it. At lunch-time you must take out something quiet and nice in my name from the kitchen—chicken cutlets, and so forth—and serve it to the young lady in Mr. Plantagenet's rooms. When Mr. Plantagenet returns he'll see her out of college.'
As for Robert, standing by obsequious, he grinned from ear to ear at the obvious prospect of a good round tip, and undertook for his part with a very fair grace that the young lady's needs should be properly provided for. Your scout is a person of infinite resource, the most servile of his kind; he scents tips from afar, and would sell his soul to earn one.
Even in this age of enlightenment, however, an Oxford college still retains many traits of the medieval monastery from which it sprang; women are banned in it; and 'twould have been as much as Mr. Robert's place was worth to serve the unknown young lady in Dick Plantagenet's rooms without leave from headquarters. So he made a clean breast of it. Application to the Dean, however, resulted in his obtaining the necessary acquiescence; and Gillespie devoted himself through the rest of that day to making Maud as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances in her brother's rooms till Dick's return from Chiddingwick.
So charitably was he minded, indeed, that he hardly left her at all except at meal-times. Now, in the course of a long day'stête-à -têtetwo people get to know a wonderful deal of one another, especially if they have mutually sympathetic natures; and before Dick returned that evening to set Maud at liberty, she and Gillespie felt already like old friends together.
Dick didn't get back, as it happened, till long after Hall, and then it was too late for Maud to catch a train back that evening. The reason for the delay was simple; Dick hadn't received Archie Gillespie's telegram till his return from the Rectory. He had stopped there to lunch, at Mrs. Tradescant's request, after his interview with Mary; and for Mary's sake he thought it best to accept the invitation. So the end of it all was that Dick had to find his sister a bed under the friendly roof of a married Fellow of his college, and that before he took her round there, he, she, and Gillespie had a long chat together about the prospects of the situation.
'Mr. Gillespie and I have been talking it over all day, Dick,' Maud said very decidedly; 'and we're both of us of opinion—most distinctly of opinion—that you oughtn't, as a duty to mother and to us, to do anything that'll compel you to take back again the one great forward step you took in coming to Oxford. Mr. Gillespie says rightly, it's easy enough to go down, but not by any means so easy, once you're there, to climb up again.'
'I ought to do whatever makes me earn an immediate income soonest, though, for all your sakes, Maud,' Dick objected stoutly.
'Not at all!' Maud answered with Plantagenet decision, and with wisdom above her years, dictated no doubt by her love and pride in her brother. 'You oughtn't to sacrifice the future to the present.' Then she turned to him quite sharply. 'Did you see Mary Tudor to-day?' she asked, regardless of Gillespie's presence, for she considered him already as an old friend of the family.
The tell-tale colour rushed up fast into Dick's cheek.
'Yes, I did,' he answered, half faltering. 'And she behaved most nobly. She behaved as you'd expect such a girl to behave, Maud. She spoke of it quite beautifully.'
Maud drew back, triumphant. If Mary had been there, she could have thrown her thin arms round her neck and kissed her.
'Well, andshedidn't advise you to go and settle at Chiddingwick!' Maud cried with proud confidence.
'She didn't exactlyadviseme,' Dick answered with some little hesitation; 'but she acquiesced in my doing it; and she said, whatever I did, she'd always love me equally. In point of fact,' Dick added, somewhat sheepishly, 'we never were engaged at all before to-day; but this morning we settled it.'
Maud showed her profound disappointment, nay, almost her contempt, in her speaking face. To say the truth, it's seldom we can any of us see anything both from our own point of view and someone else's as well. Maud could see nothing in all this but profound degradation for Dick, and indirectly for the family, if Dick went back to Chiddingwick; while Mary had only thought how noble and devoted it was of her unselfish lover to give up everything so readily for his mother and sisters.
'I think,' Dick ventured to put in, since Mary's reputation was at stake in Maud's mind, 'she was most—well, pleased that I should be willing to—to make this sacrifice—if I may call it so—because I thought it my duty.'
Maud flung herself on the floor at his side, and held his hand in hers passionately.
'Oh, Dick,' she cried, clinging to him, 'dear Dick! she oughtn't to have thought like that! She oughtn't to have thought ofus!She ought to have thought, as I do, of you and your future! If I, who am your sister, am so jealous for your honour, surely she, who's the girl you mean to marry, ought to be ten times more so!'
'So she is,' Dick answered manfully. 'Only, don't you see, Maud, there are different ways of looking at it. She thinks, as I do, that it's best and most imperative to do one's duty first; she would give me up for herself, almost, and wait for me indefinitely, if she thought I could do better so for you and dear mother.'
Maud clung to him passionately still. For it was not to him only she clung, but also to the incarnate honour of the family. 'Oh, Dick,' she cried once more, 'you mustn't do it; you mustn't do it; you'll kill me if you do it! We don't mind starving; that's as easy as anything; but not a second time shall we draggle in the dust of the street the honour of the Plantagenets.'
They sat up late that night, and talked it all over from every side alternately. And the more they talked it over, the more did Gillespie come round to Maud's opinion on the matter. It might be necessary for Dick to leave Oxford, indeed; though even that would be a wrench; but if he left Oxford, it would certainly be well he should take some other work—whatever work turned up—even if less well paid, that would not unclass him.
And before they separated for the night, Maud had wrung this concession at least out of her wavering brother, that he would do nothing decisive before the end of term; and that, meanwhile, he would try to find some more dignified employment in London or elsewhere. Only in the last resort, he promised her, would he return to Chiddingwick—and his father's calling. That should be treated as the final refuge against absolute want. And, indeed, his soul loathed it; he had only contemplated it at first, not for himself, but for his kin, from a stern sense of duty.
Gillespie saw Maud off at the station next morning with Dick. He was carefully dressed, and wore, what was unusual with him, a flower in his button-hole. Maud's last words to him were: 'Now, Mr. Gillespie, remember: I rely upon you to keep Dick from backsliding.'
And Gillespie answered, with a courteous bow to the slim pale little creature who sat in deep mourning on the bare wooden seat of the third-class carriage (South-Eastern pattern): 'You may count upon me, Miss Plantagenet, to carry out your programme.'
As they walked back together silently up the High towards Durham, Gillespie turned with a sudden dart to his friend and broke their joint reverie.
'Is your sister engaged, Dick?' he asked with a somewhat nervous jerk.
'Why, no,' Dick-answered, taken aback—'at least, not that I ever heard of.'
'I should think she would be soon,' Gillespie retorted meaningly.
'Why so?' Dick inquired in an unsuspecting voice.
'Well, she's very pretty,' Gillespie answered; 'and very clever; and very distinguished-looking.
'She is pretty,' Dick admitted, unsuspecting as before. No man ever really remembers his own sisters are women. 'But, you see, she never meets any young men at Chiddingwick. There's nobody to make love to her.'
'So much the better!' Gillespie replied, and then relapsed into silence.