A Country Gentleman and his Family

CHAPTER XIX

Warrender went off very quickly upon his long walk. He could not but feel, notwithstanding his little bravado of indifference, that it was a very important decision, which he had made irrevocable by thus publishing it. For some time it had been a certainty in his mind; but nothing seems a certainty until it has been said, and now that it had been said, the thought that he had absolutely delivered himself over into the nameless crowd, that he had renounced all further thought of distinction in the only way he knew of for acquiring it, was somewhat awful to him. The unimaginable difference which exists between a man within whose reach a first class is still dangling and him who has no hope but to be "gulfed," is little comprehensible by the unacademical mind; but it is one not to be contemplated without a shudder. When he thought of what he was resigning, when he thought of what he must drop into, the blood seemed to boil in Theo's veins and to ring in his ears. To be a passman; to descend among the crowd; to consort with those who had "pulled through," perhaps with difficulty, who had gone through all sorts of dull workings and struggles, and to whom their books were mere necessary instruments of torture, to be got done with as soon as possible, – these were things terrible to contemplate. And in the silence of his own soul, it was difficult to console himself with those theories about the trade-mark, and the merely professional use of academic distinction. It was all true enough, and yet it was not true. Even now he thought of his tutor with a pang; not the tutor at college, who had dropped him for Brunson, but the genial old tutor at school, who had hoped such great things for him. He said, "Poor old Boreas!" to himself, sympathising in the disappointment with which the news would be received. Warrender a passman! Warrender "gulfed"! Nobody would believe it. This gave him many pangs as he set out upon his walk. He had sacrificed his early glories to the fastidious fancy of youth; but he had never really intended to be distanced by Brunson, to fall out of the ranks at the end.

Softer thoughts began to steal over him as he pursued his way, as he began to draw near the other country in which she abode. Half-way between the houses was a little wood, through which the road passed, and which was like a vestibule to the smiling place where her throne and empire was. To other eyes it was no more smiling than the other side, but as soon as Theo became conscious, in the distance, of the bare height, all denuded of trees, on which Markland stood, the landscape seemed to change for him. There was sunshine in it which was nowhere else, more quiet skies and warmer light. He threw down the burden of his thoughts among the autumn leaves that strewed the brook in that bit of woodland, and, on the other side, remembered with an elation that went to his head, that he had this sacrifice, though she might never know it, to lay at her feet; the flower of his life, the garland of honour, the violet crown, all to scatter on her path. He would rather she should put her foot on them than that they should decorate his brow, – even if she never knew.

With these thoughts, he sped along the country road, which no longer was so green, so warm with sunshine, as before. Markland looked already cold in its bareness against the distant sky, all flushed with flying clouds, the young saplings about, bending before the wind, as if they supplicated for shelter and a little warmth, and the old tottering cedar behind the house, looking as if the next blast would bring it down with a crash. There had been a great deal of planting going on, but this only added to the straggling lines of weak-kneed, uncomfortable younglings, who fluttered their handful of leaves, and shivered in every wind that blew. Lady Markland no longer sat on the terrace. She received her familiar visitor where only intimate friends were allowed to come, in the morning-room, to which its new distinction gave something of the barrenness and rigidity of a room of business. The big writing-table filled up the centre, and nothing remained of its old aspect except Geoff's little settlement within the round of the window; a low table for his few lesson books, where less lawful publications, in the shape of stories, were but too apt to appear, and a low, but virtuously hard chair, on which he was supposed to sit, and – work; but there was not much work done, as everybody knew.

Lady Markland did not rise to receive her visitor. She had a book in her right hand, which she did not even disturb herself to put down. It was her left hand which she held out to Warrender, with a smile: and this mark of a friendship which had gone beyond all ceremony made his heart overflow. By an unusual chance, Geoff was not there, staring with his little sharp eyes, and this made everything sweeter. He had her to himself at last.

"Do I disturb you? Are you busy?" he said.

"Not at all. At least, if I am busy, it is nothing that requires immediate attention. I am a little stupid about those drainages, and what is the landlord's part. I wonder if you know any better? You must have the same sort of things to do?"

"I am ashamed to say I don't, now; but I'll get it all up," he said eagerly, – "that must be perfectly easy, – and give you the result."

"You will cram me, in short," said Lady Markland, with a smile. "You ought to be somebody's private secretary. How well you would do it! That was all right about the lease. Mr. Longstaffe was very much astonished that I should know so much. I did not tell him it was you."

"It was not me!" cried Warrender. "I had only the facts, and you supplied the understanding. I suppose that is to be my trade too; it will be something to think that you have trained me for it."

"That we have studied together," she said, "with most of the ignorance on my side, and most of the knowledge on yours. Oh, I am not too humble. I allow that I sometimes see my way out of a difficulty, with a jump, before you have reasoned it out. That sort of thing is conceded to a woman. I am 'not without intelligence,' Mr. Longstaffe himself says. But what do you mean to imply by that tone of regret – you suppose it is to be your trade?"

"I don't mean anything, – to make you ask, perhaps. I have no doubt I mean that finding out what was the exact pound of flesh the farmers could demand, and how much on our side we could exact, did not seem very lofty work: until I remembered that you were doing it too."

"My doing it makes no difference," said Lady Markland. "You ought to know better than to make me those little compliments. But for all that, it is a fine trade. Looking after the land is the best of trades. Everything must have begun with it, and it will go on for ever. And the pleasure of thinking one can improve, and hand it over richer and better for the expenditure of a little brains upon it, as well as other condiments – " she said, with a laugh. "Guano, you will say, is of more use perhaps than the brains."

She carried off a little enthusiasm, which had lit up her eyes, with this laugh at the end.

"I don't think so," said Warrender. "Do you think I meant any compliment? but to see you giving yourself up to this, you, who – and to remember that I had been perhaps grumbling, thinking of the schools, and other such paltry honours."

"Oh, not paltry, – not paltry at all; very, very much the reverse. I am sure no one interested in you can think so."

"I think so myself," he said. "I must tell you my little experiences on that subject." And with this he told her all his little story about the devotion of the Dons; about their discovery of his pursuits, and the slackening of their approbation; and about how Brunson (a very good fellow, and quite aware of their real meaning) had taken his place. Lady Markland was duly interested, amused, and indignant; interested enough to be quite sincere in her expressions, and yet independent enough to smile a little at the conflict between wounded feeling and philosophy on Warrender's part.

"But," she added, with a woman's liking for a practicable medium, "you might have postponed your deeper reading till you had done what was necessary, and so pleased both them and yourself."

"I thought one could not serve two masters," said Theo; "and that is why I encourage myself, by your example, to take to the land and its duties, and give up the other poor little bubble of reputation."

"Don't talk of my example," she said. "I am not disinterested. I am making no choice. What I am doing is for the only object I have in life, the only thing I have in the world."

He did not ask any question, but he fixed her with intent, inquiring eyes.

"You need not look as if you had any doubt what it was. It is Geoff, of course. I don't care very much for anything else. But to hand back his inheritance unburdened, to make a man of my poor little Geoff – " Her bright eyes moistened with quick-springing tears. She smiled, and her face looked to Theo like the face of an angel; though he was impatient of the motive, he adored her for it. And she gave her head a little toss, as if to shake off this undue emotion. "I need not talk any high-flown nonsense about such a simple duty, need I?" she said, once more with a soft laugh. Instead of making the most of her pathetic position, she would always ignore the claims she had upon sympathy. Her simple duty, – that was all.

"We must not discuss that question," he said; "for if I were to say what I thought – And this brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about, Lady Markland. Geoff – "

She looked at him, with a sudden catching of her breath. She had no expectation of a sudden invasion of the practical into the vague satisfaction of the pause, which kept Geoff still by his mother's side. And yet she knew that it was her duty to listen, to accept any reasonable suggestion that might be made.

"There was that question, – between a school and a tutor," he said. "I have been thinking a great deal about it. We settled, you remember, that to send him away to school would be too much; not good for himself, as he is delicate: and for you it would be hard. You would miss him dreadfully."

"Miss him!" she said. As if these common words could express the vacancy, the blank solitude, into which her life without Geoff would settle down!

"But it seems to me now that there is another side to the question," he continued, with what seemed to Lady Markland a pitiless persistency. "A tutor here would be too much in your way. You would not like to let him live by himself altogether. His presence would be a constant embarrassment. You could not have him with you, nor could you, for Geoff's sake, keep him quite at a distance."

She held out her hands to stop this too clear exposition. "Don't!" she cried. "Do you think I have not considered all that? You only make me see the difficulties more and more clearly, and I see them so clearly already. But what am I to do?"

"Dear Lady Markland," he said, rising from his chair, "I want to propose something to you." The young man had grown so pale, yet by moments flushed so suddenly, and had altogether such an air of agitation and passionate earnestness, that a certain alarm flashed into her mind. The word had an ominous sound. Could he be thinking – was it possible – She felt a hot flush of shame and a cold shiver of horror and fear at the thought, which after all was not a thought, but only a sharp pang of fright, which went through her like an arrow. He saw that she looked nervously at him, but that was easily explained by what had gone before.

"It is this," he said. "It is quite simple; it will cost nobody anything, and give a great deal of pleasure to me. I want you to let me be Geoff's tutor. Wait a moment before you answer. It will be no trouble. I have absolutely nothing to do. My father left all his affairs in complete order; all my farms are let, everything going on quite smoothly. And you must remember our little bit of a place is very different from all you have to think of. No, I don't want to thrust myself upon you. I will ride over, or drive over, or walk over, every day. The distance is nothing; it will do me all the good in the world. And, honours or no honours, I have plenty of scholarship for Geoff. Ah, don't refuse me; it will be such a pleasure. I have set my heart on being tutor to Geoff."

She had listened to him with a great many endeavours to break in. She stopped him at last almost by force, putting out her hand and taking his when he came to a little pause for breath. "Mr. Warrender," she said, almost as breathless as he, tears in her eyes, her voice almost choked, "how can I thank you for the thought! God bless you for the thought. Oh, how good, how kind, how full of feeling! I hope if you are ever in trouble you will have as good a friend as you have been to me."

"If you will be my friend, Lady Markland – "

"That I will," she cried, "all my life; but never be able to make up to you for this." She had put out both her hands, which he held trembling, but dared not stoop to kiss lest he should betray himself. After a moment, half laughing, half sobbing, she bade him sit down again beside her. "You are very, very good," she said; "but there are a few things to be talked over. First, you are going back to Oxford in a week or two."

"I am not going up this term; that is settled already."

"Not going up! But I thought you must go up. You have not taken your degree."

"Oh, that is not till next year," he said lightly, confident in her ignorance of details. "There is no reason why I should hurry; and, in fact, I had made up my mind some time since, so there is no difficulty so far as that goes."

She looked at him with keen scrutiny; her mind in a moment flashing over the whole course of their conversation like a light over a landscape, yet seeing it imperfectly, as a landscape under a sudden flash can only be seen with a perception of its chief features, but nothing more. The young man had been tenderly kind to her all through. Since the moment when he came into this very room to tell her of her husband's accident he had never forsaken her. She had not thought that such chivalrous kindness existed in the world, but she was yet young enough and inexperienced enough to believe in it and in its complete disinterestedness; for what return could she ever make for all he had done? And now, was this a crowning service, an offer of brotherly kindness which was almost sublime, or – what was it? She looked at him as if she could see into his soul. "Oh," she said, "I know your generosity. I feel as if I could not trust you when you say it doesn't matter. How could I ever forgive myself if you were injuring your own prospects for Geoff! – if it was for Geoff."

For Geoff! Warrender laughed aloud, almost roughly, in a way which half offended her. Could anybody suppose for a moment that for that ugly, precocious little boy – ? "You need not distress yourself on that account, Lady Markland," he said. "It is not for Geoff, – I had made up my mind on that question long ago, – but by way of occupying my idle time – And if you think me good enough – "

"Oh, good enough!" she said. But she was too much alarmed and startled to make any definite reply. Almost for the first time she became conscious that Theo was neither a boy nor a visionary young hero of the Sir Galahad kind, but a man like other men. The further discovery which awaited her, that she herself was not a dignified recluse from life, a queen mother ruling the affairs of her son's kingdom for him and not for herself: but in other people's eyes, at least, a young woman, still open to other thoughts, was still far from Lady Markland's mind.

CHAPTER XX

"You will give me my answer after you have thought it all over."

"Certainly you shall have an answer: and in the meantime my thanks; or if there is any word more grateful than thanks, – more than words can say – "

He turned to look back as he closed the little gate for foot passengers at the end of the bare road which was called the avenue, and took off his hat as she waved her hand to him. Then she turned back again towards the house. It was a ruddy October afternoon, the sun going down in gold and crimson, with already the deeper, more gorgeous colours of winter in the sky. Geoff was hanging upon her arm, clinging to it with both of his, walking in her very shadow, as was his wont.

"Why do you thank Theo Warrender like that? What has he done for us?" asked Geoff.

"I don't think, dear, that you should talk of him in that familiar way. Theo! He is old enough to be" – here she paused for a moment, not pleased with the suggestion, and then added – "he might be your elder brother, at least."

"Not unless I had another mamma," said Geoff. "Theo is about as old as you."

"Oh no; much younger than I am. Do you remember you once said you would like him for your tutor, Geoff?"

"I don't think I should now," said the little boy. "That was because he was so clever. I begin to think now, perhaps it would be better not to have such a clever one. When you are very small you don't understand."

"You are not very big still, my dear boy."

"No, but things come different." Geoff had a way of twisting his little face, as he made an observation wiser than usual, which amused the world in general, but not his mother. He was not a pretty boy; there was nothing in his appearance to satisfy a pretty young woman in her ambition and vanity for her child; but his little face was turned into a grotesque by those queer contortions. She put her hand upon his arm hastily.