The new year had not opened very auspiciously
at Longmead, neither had the Christmas festivities
been great.
Dick on his first return home had
put on a great appearance of cheerfulness, and had
carried himself much as usual; but Mr. Mayne had been
glum, decidedly glum, and Mrs. Mayne had found it difficult
to adjust the balance of her sympathy between Dick’s
voluble quicksilver on the one hand, and her husband’s
dead weight of ill humor on the other.
The truth was, Mr. Mayne’s sharp
eyes had discerned from the first moment of his son’s
entrance into the house that there was no change in
his purpose.
To an outsider, Dick’s behavior
to his father was as nice as possible. He still
kept up his old jokes, rallying him on his matutinal
activity, and saying a word about the “early
worm,” “so bad for the worm, poor beggar,”
observed Dick. And he sauntered after him into
the poultry-yard, and had a great deal to say about
some Spanish fowls that had been lately imported into
Longmead and that were great sources of pride to Mr.
Mayne.
Dick paid a great deal of dutiful
attention to his father’s hobbies: he put
on his thickest boots every day after luncheon, that
his father might enjoy the long walks in which he
delighted. Dick used to sally forth whistling
to his dogs when they went down Sandy Lane; he was
careful to pause where the four roads met, that Mr.
Mayne might enjoy his favorite view. In all these
things Dick’s behavior was perfect. Nevertheless,
on their return from one of these walks they each had
a secret grievance to pour into Mrs. Mayne’s
ear.
Dick’s turn would come first.
“Mother,” he would say,
as he lounged into the room where she sat knitting
by the firelight and thinking of her boy for
just now she was heart and soul on Dick’s side and
full of yearning for the sweet girl whom he wanted
for his wife, “I don’t know how long this
sort of thing is going on, but I don’t think
I can put up with it much longer.”
“Have you not had a nice walk
with your father?” she asked, anxiously.
“Oh, yes; the walk was well
enough. We had some trouble with Vigo, though,
for he startled a pheasant in Lord Fitzroy’s
preserve, and then he bolted after a hare. I
had quite a difficulty in getting him to heel.”
“These walks do your father so much good, Dick.”
“That is what you always say;
but I do not think I can stand many more of them.
He will talk of everything but the one subject, and
that he avoids like poison. I shall have to bring
him to book directly, and then there will be no end
of a row. It is not the row I mind,” continued
Dick, rather ruefully; “but I hate putting him
out and seeing him cut up rough. If he would
only be sensible and give me my way in this, there
is nothing I would not do to please him. You must
talk to him; you must indeed, mother.” And
then Mrs. Mayne, with a sinking heart, promised that
she would do what she could.
And after that it would be her husband’s turn.
“I tell you what Bessie; I am
not satisfied about that boy,” he remarked,
once, as he came in to warm his hands before going
upstairs to dress for dinner. “I don’t
know from whom he gets his obstinacy, not
from either of us, I am sure of that, but
his cheerfulness does not deceive me. He means
mischief; I can see that plainly.”
“Oh, Richard! And Dick
has been so nice to you ever since he came home.
Why, he has not once asked to have any of his friends
down to stay. And before this he was never content
unless we filled the house. He takes walks with
you, and is as domesticated and quiet as possible,
so different from other young fellows, who are always
racketing about.”
“That is just what bothers me,”
returned her husband, crossly. “You have
no discernment, Bessie, or you would know what I mean.
I should not care a straw if Dick were to cram the
house with young fellows: that sort of larking
is just natural at his age. Why, he quite pooh-poohed
the idea of a dinner-party the other night, though
I planned it for his pleasure. His mind is set
on other things, and that is why I say he is up to
mischief.”
Mrs. Mayne sighed as she smoothed
down her satin dress with her plump white hands; but
she could not gainsay the truth of this speech:
his father was right, Dick’s mind
was set on other things.
“I wish you would let him talk
to you,” she began, timidly, remembering her
promise. “Do, my dear; for I am sure Dick
is very much in earnest.”
“So am I very much in earnest,”
he returned, wrathfully; and his small eyes grew bright
and irritable. “No, it is no use your looking
at me in that way, Bessie. I am determined not
to allow that boy to ruin his prospects for life.
He will thank me one day for being firm; and so will
you, though you do turn against your own husband.”
This was too much for Mrs. Mayne’s
affectionate nature to bear.
“Oh, Richard, how can you talk
so? and I have been a good wife to you all these years!”
And here the poor woman began to sob. “You
might make allowance for a mother’s feelings;
he is my boy as well as yours, and I would cut off
my right hand to make him happy; and I do I
do think you are very hard upon him about Nan.”
Mr. Mayne stared at her in speechless
amazement. Bessie, his long-suffering Bessie, the
wife of his bosom, over whom he had a right to tyrannize, even
she had turned against him, and had taken his son’s
part. “Et tu, Brute!”
he could have said, in his bitterness; but his wrath
was too great.
“I tell you what,” he
said, rising from the seat that was no longer restful
to him, and pointing his finger at her, “you
and your boy together will be the death of me.”
“Oh, Richard, how can you be so wicked?”
“Oh, I am wicked, am I? That is a nice
wifely speech.”
“Yes, you are, when you say
such things to me!” she returned, plucking up
spirit that amazed herself afterwards. “If
you do not know when you have a good wife and son,
I am sorry for you. I say again, I think you
are making a grievous mistake, Richard. Dick’s
heart is set on the girl; and I don’t wonder
at it, a dear pretty creature like that. And
if you cross him, and set him wrong, you will have
to answer to both of us for the consequences.”
And then she, too, rose, trembling in every limb,
and with her comely face very much flushed. Even
a worm will turn, and Bessie Mayne had for once ventured
to speak the truth to her husband.
She had the victory that night, for
he was too much dumbfounded by her rebellion to indulge
in his usual recriminations: he had never imagined
before that Bessie owned a will of her own; but he
felt now, with a pang of wounded self-love, that the
younger Richard had proved a formidable rival.
His wife’s heart relented when
she saw his moody looks; but he would not be reconciled
to her, in spite of her coaxing speeches.
“Come Richard, come,
my dear! you must not be so cross with me,” she
said to him later on that night. “We have
been married three-and-twenty years, and have never
had a serious quarrel; and I don’t like your
black looks at me.”
“Then you should not anger me
by taking that boy’s part,” was his only
answer; and he could not be induced to say anything
more conciliatory. And the poor woman went to
bed weeping.
Things were in this uncomfortable
state, when, one morning, Dick thrust his head into
the study where his father was jotting down some household
accounts; for he managed all such minor details himself,
much to his wife’s relief.
“Are you particularly busy,
father? I want to have a talk with you.”
Mr. Mayne looked up quickly, and his
bushy eyebrows drew together.
“Well, yes, I am, Dick, most
particularly busy just now;” for there was a
look on his son’s face that made him feel disinclined
for conversation.
“Oh, very well, then; I can
leave it until after luncheon,” was the cheerful
response; then Mr. Mayne knew that Dick was determined
to take the bull by the horns.
They went out after luncheon, taking
the dogs with them, and turning their steps in the
direction of Sandy Lane. For the first mile, Dick
said very little; he had his eye on Vigo, who seemed
to be inclined to bolt. But when they had reached
the second mile-stone, he cleared his throat; and
then Mr. Mayne knew that his trouble was beginning.
“Well, father,” commenced
Dick, “I think it is about time we had a little
serious talk together about my future plans. Of
course I want to know if I am to go down next term.”
“I don’t see that we need
discuss that. You will read for your degree,
of course.”
Mr. Mayne spoke fast and nervously;
but Dick was quite cool, at least, outwardly
so.
“There is no ‘of course’
in the matter. I can only read for my degree
on one condition.”
“And what is that, may I ask?”
with rising choler in his voice.
“That you will have Nan down
to Longmead, and that you and my mother sanction our
engagement.”
“Never, sir! never!” in a vehement tone.
“Please don’t excite yourself,
father. I think it is I who ought to be excited;
but, you see, I am quite cool, perfectly
so. I am far too much in earnest to be otherwise.
When a man’s future prospects are at stake,
and his own father seems determined to thwart him,
it is time to summon up all one’s energies.
I hope you are not serious in what you say, that
you do absolutely refuse to sanction my engagement
with Nan?”
“There is no engagement.
If there were, I do absolutely refuse; nay, more,
I am determined actively to oppose it.”
“I am sorry to find you have
not changed your mind; for it makes all the difference
to me, I assure you. Very well: then I must
go in for a City life.”
“Do you threaten me, sir?”
“No, father, I would not be
so undutiful; but it is a pity your throwing all that
money away on my education if I am not to complete
it. If I had taken a good degree, I might have
turned out something; but never mind, it
can’t be helped now. Then you will be kind
enough to write a letter of introduction to Stansfield
& Stansfield?”
“No, sir; I will write no such
letter!” thundered Mr. Mayne; and Dick put his
hands in his pocket and whistled. He felt himself
losing patience; but, as he said afterwards, his father
was in such an awful rage that it was necessary for
one of them to keep cool. So, as soon as he recovered,
he said, quite pleasantly,
“Well, if you will not, you
will not. We may take a horse to the water, but
we can’t make him drink. And the time has
not come yet for a son to order his own father, though
we are pretty well advanced now.”
“I think we are, Dick.”
“I confess I am rather disappointed
at not getting that letter. Mr. Stansfield would
have attached some importance to it; but I dare say
I shall get on with the old boy without it. I
may as well tell you that I shall accept anything
he likes to offer me, even if it be only
a clerkship at eighty pounds a year. After all,
I am not worse off than you were at my age. You
began at the bottom of the ladder: so I need
not grumble.”
“Do you mean to say,”
demanded his father, in a tone of grief, “that
you really intend to throw me over, and not only me,
but all your advantages, your prospects in life, for
the sake of this girl?”
“I think it is you who are throwing
me over,” returned his son, candidly. “Put
yourself in my place. When you were a young man,
father, would you have given up my mother, if my grandfather
had wished you to do so?”
“The cases are different, altogether
different,” was the angry response. “I
never would have married a dressmaker.”
“There are dressmakers and dressmakers:
but at least my fiancee is a gentlewoman,”
returned his son, hotly.
Dick meant nothing by this speech
more than his words implied: he was far too good-natured
for an arrière-pensee. But his father chose
to consider himself insulted.
“You insolent young fellow!”
he exclaimed, fuming. “Do you mean your
mother was not as good as Miss Nancy, any day?
I never did believe in those Challoners, never,
in spite of the mother’s airs. I tell you
what, Dick, you are treating me shamefully; after all
the money I have wasted on you, to turn round on me
in this way and talk about the City. I wash my
hands of you, sir. I will have nothing to do with
introductions: you may go your way, but you will
never see a penny of my money.” And he
walked on with a very black look indeed.
“All right,” returned
Dick. But he was not quite so cool now. “Thank
you for all you have done for me, and for letting me
know your future intentions. I am thinking it
is a good thing Nan has learned her business, for,
as we shall be tolerably poor, it will be handy for
her to make her own gowns.”
“Very well, Dick.”
“I shall go up to Mr. Stansfield
to-morrow; and the day after I suppose I had better
write to the Dean. You may not believe me, father,” and
here Dick’s lip quivered for the first time, “but
I am awfully sorry to cross you in this way; but my
heart is so set on Nan that I could not possibly bring
myself to live without her.” But to this
Mr. Mayne made no reply, and they walked the remainder
of the way in silence.
Mrs. Mayne’s heart grew sick
with apprehension when she saw their faces at dinner.
Dick looked decidedly cross.
To do him justice, the poor fellow was thoroughly
miserable; but his aspect was cheerful compared to
that of her husband.
Mr. Mayne would not speak; neither
would he eat. And even the footman, who took
away the untasted viands, looked at his master with
fear and trembling, his countenance was so gloomy.
Dick did not seem to notice his father’s
failure of appetite; but Mrs. Mayne was one of those
women who are given to fancy that if a man refuse
his dinner there is something serious the matter with
him. And as the meal proceeded she cast piteous
looks at her son, but Dick totally ignored them.
As soon as the servants had handed
round the fruit, and had left the room, Mr. Mayne
rose from the table, leaving his claret untasted, and
shut himself into the library, first banging the door
behind him, a sound that made his wife’s heart
palpitate.
“Oh, Dick, what was happened
to your father?” she asked, turning to her boy
for comfort. But Dick was unusually sulky, and
refused to answer.
“You had better ask him, mother,
if you are anxious to know,” he replied, in
a voice he very seldom used to her. “As
for me, I am so sick of the whole thing, and feel
myself so badly used, that I would rather not open
my lips on the subject.”
Then Mrs. Mayne sighed, for she knew
Dick had one of his obstinate fits on him, and that
there would be no further word spoken by him that
night.
Poor woman! She knew it was her
duty to go into the library and speak a word of comfort
to her husband. It might be that Dick had been
contumacious, and had angered his father, and it might
be her task to pour in the balm of sympathy.
Even if he had been hard on her boy, she must not
forget that he was her husband.
But as she opened the door she forgot
her doubts in a moment. Mr. Mayne’s face
was so pale, despite its blackness, that she was moved
to instant pity.
“Oh, Richard, what is it?”
she said, hurrying to him, “My dear, you must
not take it to heart in this way.” And she
took his forehead between her hands and kissed it
with the old tenderness she had once felt for him,
when they, too, had lived and worked for each other,
and there was no Master Dick to plague them and rule
over his mother’s heart.
“Bessie, that boy will be the
death of me,” he groaned. But, notwithstanding
the despondency of these words, the comfort of his
wife’s presence was visibly felt, and by and
by he suffered her to coax the truth from him.