‘But have you been reading the right books, Dick? – that’s the question,’ his father put in dubiously, with a critical air, making a manful effort to recall the names of the works that were most authoritative in the subject when he himself last looked at a history: ‘Sharon Turner, Kemble, Palgrave, Thierry, Guizot and so forth?’
Richard had too deep a respect for the chief of the Plantagenets, miserable sot though he was, to be betrayed into a smile by this belated catalogue. He only answered with perfect gravity: ‘I’m afraid none of those would be of much use to me nowadays in a Scholarship exam.: another generation has arisen, which knows not Joseph. But I’ve got up all the books recommended in the circular of the Board of Studies – Freeman, you know, and Stubbs and Green, and Froude and Gardner. And I’ve worked especially at the reigns of the earlier Plantagenets, and the development of the towns and guilds, and all that sort of thing, in Brentano and Seebohm.’
Mr. Plantagenet held his peace and looked profoundly wise. He had barely heard the names of any of these gentlemen himself: at the best of times his knowledge had always been shallow – rather showy than exact; a journalist’s stock-in-trade – and since his final collapse into the ignominious position of dancing-master at Chiddingwick he had ceased to trouble himself much about any form of literature save the current newspaper. A volume of ‘Barry Neville’s Collected Essays,’ bound in the antiquated style of the ‘Book of Beauty,’ with a portrait of the author in a blue frock-coat and stock for frontispiece, stood on his shelf by way of fossil evidence to his extinct literary pretensions; but Barry Neville himself had dropped with time into the usual listless apathy of a small English country town. So he held his peace, not to display his ignorance further; for he felt at once, from this glib list of authorities, that Dick’s fluent display of acquaintance with so many new writers, whose very names he had never before heard – though they were well enough known in the modern world of letters to be recommended by an Oxford Board of Studies – put him hopelessly out of court on the subject under discussion.
‘Jones tertius has a brother at Oxford,’ Clarence put in very eagerly; ‘and he’s a howling swell – he lives in a room that’s panelled with oak from top to bottom.’
‘And if you get the Scholarship, Dick,’ his mother went on wistfully, ‘will you have to go and live there, and be away from us always?’
‘Only half the year, mother dear,’ Richard answered coaxingly; for he knew what she was thinking – how hard it would be for her to be left alone in Chiddingwick, among all those unruly children and her drunken husband, without the aid of her one help and mainstay. ‘You know, there’s only about five months of term, and all the rest’s vacation. In vacation I’d come home, and do something to earn money towards making up the deficit.’
‘It’s a very long time, though, five months,’ Mrs. Plantagenet said pensively. ‘But, there!’ she added, after a pause, brightening up, ‘perhaps you won’t get it.’
Grave as he usually was, Richard couldn’t help bursting into a merry laugh at this queer little bit of topsy-turvy self-comfort. ‘Oh, I hope to goodness I shall,’ he cried, with a twinkle, ‘in spite of that, mother. It won’t be five months all in a lump, you know; I shall go up for some six or eight weeks at a time – never more than eight together, I believe – and then come down again. But you really needn’t take it to heart just yet, for we’re counting our chickens before they’re hatched, after all. I mayn’t get it, as you say; and, indeed, as father said just now, when one comes to think how many fellows will be in for it who have been thoroughly coached and crammed at the great public schools, my chance can’t be worth much – though I mean to try it.’
Just at that moment, as Dick leaned back and looked round, the door opened, and Maud, the eldest sister, entered.
She had come home from her singing lesson; for Maud was musical, and went out as daily governess to the local tradesmen’s families. She was the member of the household who most of all shared Dick’s confidence. As she entered Harry looked up at her, full of conscious importance and a mouthful of Dutch cheese.
‘Have you heard the news, Maudie?’ he asked all breathless. ‘Isn’t it just ripping? Dick’s going up to Oxford.’
Maud was pale and tired from a long day’s work – the thankless work of teaching; but her weary face flushed red none the less at this exciting announcement, though she darted a warning look under her hat towards Richard, as much as to say:
‘How could you ever have told him?’
But all she said openly was:
‘Then the advertisement’s come of the Durham Scholarship?’
‘Yes, the advertisement’s come,’ Dick answered, flushing in turn. ‘I got it this morning, and I’m to go up on Wednesday.’
The boys were rather disappointed at this tame announcement. It was clear Maud knew all about the great scheme already. And, indeed, she and Dick had talked it over by themselves many an evening on the hills, and debated the pros and cons of that important new departure.
Maud’s face grew paler again after a minute, and she murmured half regretfully, as she unfastened her hat:
‘I shall miss you if you get it, Dick. It’ll be hard to do without you.’
‘But it’s the right thing for me to do,’ Richard put in almost anxiously.
Maud spoke without the faintest hesitation’ in her voice.
‘Oh yes; it’s the right thing,’ she answered. ‘Not a doubt in the world about that. It’s a duty you owe to yourself, and to us – and to England. Only, of course, we shall all feel your absence a very great deal. Dick, Dick, you’re so much to us! And I don’t know,’ she went on, as she glanced at the little ones with an uncertain air – ‘I don’t know that I’d have mentioned it before babes and sucklings – well, till I was sure I’d got it.’
She said it with an awkward flush; for Dick caught her eye as she spoke, and read her inner meaning. She wondered he had blurted it out prematurely before her father. And Dick, too, saw his mistake. Mr. Plantagenet, big with such important news, would spread it abroad among his cronies in the White Horse parlour before tomorrow was over!
Richard turned to the children.
‘Now, look here, boys,’ he said gravely: ‘this is a private affair, and we’ve talked it over here without reserve in the bosom of the family. But we’ve talked it over in confidence. It mustn’t be repeated. If I were to go up and try for this Scholarship, and then not get it, all Chiddingwick would laugh at me for a fellow that didn’t know his proper place, and had to be taught to know it.
For the honour of the family, boys – and you too, Nellie – I hope you won’t whisper a word of all this to anybody in town. Consider what a disgrace it would be if I came back unsuccessful, and everybody in the parish came up and commiserated me: “We’re so sorry, Mr. Dick, you failed at Oxford. But there, you see, you had such great disadvantages!”’
His handsome face burned bright red at the bare thought of such a disgrace; and the little ones, who, after all, were Plantagenets at heart as much as himself, every one of them made answer with one accord:
‘We won’t say a word about it.’
They promised it so earnestly, and with such perfect assurance, that Dick felt he could trust them. His eye caught Maud’s. The same thought passed instinctively through both their minds. What a painful idea that the one person they couldn’t beg for very shame to hold his tongue was the member of the family most likely to blab it out to the first chance comer!
Maud