Of Russell's address in town I was up to this moment ignorant, but resolved to find it out, and see him before my return to the University. The next morning, however, a note arrived from him, containing a simple request that I would call. I found him at the place from which he wrote – one of those dull quiet streets that lead out of the Strand – in very humble lodgings; his father's private establishment having been given up, it appeared, immediately. The moment we met, I saw at once, as I expected, that the blow which, to Ormiston, had naturally seemed so terrible a one – no less than the loss, to a young man, of the wealth, rank, and prospects in life to which he had been taught to look forward – had been, in fact, to Russell a merciful relief. The failure of that long-celebrated and trusted house, which was causing in the public mind, according to the papers, so much "consternation" and "excitement," was to him a consummation long foreseen, and scarcely dreaded. It was only the shadow of wealth and happiness which he had lost now; its substance had vanished long since. And the conscious hollowness and hypocrisy, as he called it, of his late position, had been a far more bitter trial to a mind like his, than any which could result from its exposure. He was one to hail with joy any change which brought him back to truth and reality, no matter how rude and sudden the revulsion.
He met me with a smile; a really honest, almost a light-hearted smile. "It is come at last, Hawthorne; perhaps it would be wrong, or I feel as if I could say, thank God. There is but one point which touches me at all; what do they say about my father?" I told him – fortunately, my acquaintance lying but little among men of business, I could tell him so honestly – that I had not heard a syllable breathed to his discredit.
"Well, well; but they will, soon. Oh! Hawthorne; the utter misery, the curse that money-making brings with it! That joining house to house, and field to field, how it corrupts all the better part of a man's nature! I vow to you, I believe my father would have been an honest man if he had but been a poor one! If he had never had any thing to do with interest tables, and had but spent his capital, instead of trying to double and redouble it! One thing I have to thank him for; that he never would suffer me to imbibe any taste for business; he knew the evil and the pollution money-handling brings with it – I am sure he did; he encouraged me, I fear, in extravagance; but I bless him that he never encouraged me in covetousness."
He grew a little calmer by degrees, and we sat down and took counsel as to his future plans. He was not, of course, without friends, and had already had many offers of assistance for himself and his sister; but his heart appeared, for the present, firmly bent upon independence. Much to my surprise, he decided on returning at once to Oxford, and reading for his degree. His sister had some little property settled upon her – some hundred and fifty pounds a-year; and this she had insisted on devoting to this purpose.
"I love her too well," said Russell, "to refuse her: and trifling as this sum is, – I remember the time when I should have thought it little to keep me in gloves and handkerchiefs, – yet, with management, it will be more than I shall spend in Oxford. Of course, I play the gentleman-commoner no longer; I shall descend to the plain stuff gown."
"You'll go to a hall, of course?" said I; for I concluded he would at least avoid the mortification of so palpable a confession of reduced circumstances as this degradation of rank in his old College would be.
"I can see no occasion for it; that is, if they will allow me to change; I have done nothing to be ashamed of, and shall be much happier than I was before. I only strike my false colours; and you know they were never carried willingly."
I did not attempt to dissuade him, and soon after rose to take my leave.
"I cannot ask my sister to see you now," he said, as we shook hands: "she is not equal to it. But some other time, I hope" —
"At any other time, I shall be most proud of the introduction. By the way, have you seen Ormiston? He met me this morning, and sent some kind messages, to offer any service in his power."
"He did, did he?"
"Yes; and, depend upon it, he will do all he can for you in college; you don't know him very well, I think; but I am sure he takes an interest in you now, at all events," I continued, "and no man is a more sincere and zealous friend."
"I beg your pardon, Hawthorne, but I fancy I do know Mr Ormiston very well."
"Oh! I remember, there seemed some coolness between you, because you never would accept his invitations. Ormiston thought you were too proud to dine with him; and then his pride, which he has his share of, took fire. But that misunderstanding must be all over now."
"My dear Hawthorne, I believe Mr Ormiston and I understand each other perfectly. Good-morning; I am sorry to seem abrupt, but I have a host of things, not the most agreeable, to attend to."
It seemed quite evident that there was some little prejudice on Russell's part against Ormiston. Possibly he did not like his attentions to his sister. But that was no business of mine, and I knew the other too well to doubt his earnest wish to aid and encourage a man of Russell's high principles, and in his unfortunate position. None of us always know our best friends.
The step which Russell had resolved on taking was, of course, an unusual one. Even the college authorities strongly advised him to remove his name to the books of one of the halls, where he would enter comparatively as a stranger, and where his altered position would not entail so many painful feelings. Every facility was offered him of doing so at one of them where a relative of our Principal's was the head, and even a saving in expense might thus be effected. But this evident kindness and consideration on their part, only confirmed him in the resolution of remaining where he was. He met their representations with the graceful reply, that he had an attachment to the college which did not depend upon the rank he held in it, and that he trusted he should not be turned out of two homes at once. Even the heart of the splenetic little vice-principal was moved by this genuine tribute to the venerable walls, which to him, as his mistress's girdle to the poet, encircled all he loved, or hoped, or cared for; and had the date been some century earlier – in those remarkable times when a certain fellow was said to have owed his election into that body to a wondrous knack he had at compounding sherry-posset – it is probable Charles Russell would have stepped into a fellowship by special license at once.
He had harder work before him, however, and he set stoutly to it. He got permission to lodge out of college – a privilege quite unusual, and apparently without any sufficient object in his case. A day or two after his return, he begged me to go with him to see the rooms he had taken: and I was surprised to find that although small, and not in a good part of the town, they were furnished in a style by no means, I thought, in accordance with the strict economy I knew him to be practising in every other respect. They contained, on a small scale, all the appointments of a lady's drawing-room. It was soon explained. His sister was coming to live with him. "We are but two, now," said Russell in explanation, "and though poor Mary has been offered what might have been a comfortable home elsewhere, which perhaps would have been more prudent, we both thought why should we be separated? As to these little things you see, they are nearly all hers: we offered them to the creditors, but even the lawyers would not touch them: and here Mary and I shall live. Very strange, you think, for her to be here in Oxford with no one to take care of her but me; but she does not mind that, and we shall be together. However, Hawthorne, we shall keep a dragon: there is an old housekeeper who would not be turned off, and she comes down with Mary, and may pass for her aunt, if that's all; so don't, pray, be shocked at us."
And so the old housekeeper did come down, and Mary with her; and under such guardianship, a brother and an old servant, was that fair girl installed within the perilous precincts of the University of Oxford; perilous in more senses than one, as many a speculative and disappointed mamma can testify, whose daughters, brought to market at the annual "show" at commemoration, have left uncaught those dons of dignity, and heirs-apparent of property, whom they ought to have caught, and caught those well-dressed and good-looking, but undesirable young men, whom they ought not to have caught. Mary Russell, however, was in little peril herself, and, as little as she could help it, an occasion of peril to others. Seldom did she move out from her humble abode, except for an early morning walk with her brother, or sometimes leaning on the arm