One fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual. Anna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen for his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of the stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile, but it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help crying.
“Nannie!” he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along with him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came to kiss him, he said: “What a plague I am!”
Then he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and shrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint occasional gleams:—something like that sad smile on Rex’s face, Anna thought. He felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and did not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being left behind. Anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching him with yearning looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where wagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader’s head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs. Gascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again, Anna, seeing a return of speech in her brother’s eyes, could not resist the impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee, looking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, “Do speak to me.” And he spoke.
“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or somewhere of that sort.” (Rex had not studied the character of our colonial possessions.)
“Oh, Rex, not for always!”
“Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work hard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide quiet.”
“And not take me with you?” said Anna, the big tears coming fast.
“How could I?”
“I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their families. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could make the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could learn how to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than anything—like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we made our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes.”
“Father and mother would not let you go.”
“Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save money; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with.”
There was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it ended in Rex’s being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him when he spoke to his father on the subject.
Of course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother would become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her first, the question would have distressed her.
“Well, my children!” said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered. It was a comfort to see Rex about again.
“May we sit down with you a little, papa?” said Anna. “Rex has something to say.”
“With all my heart.”
It was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them with a face of the same structural type—the straight brow, the nose suddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short upper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the same tone of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was at once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his brow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the habit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex would have seemed a vision of his father’s youth, if it had been possible to imagine Mr. Gascoigne without distinct plans and without command, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of concealment than a sick animal; and Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with hair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of expression, as if they had one soul between them.
“You know all about what has upset me, father,” Rex began, and Mr. Gascoigne nodded.
“I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it will be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn’t do any reading. I should fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your consent to take another course, sir.”
Mr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow deepened, and Anna’s trembling increased.
“If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the colonies and work on the land there.” Rex thought the vagueness of the phrase prudential; “the colonies” necessarily embracing more advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground than any particular settlement.
“Oh, and with me, papa,” said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the proposal even temporarily. “Rex would want some one to take care of him, you know—some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of us, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more.”
Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the question while he spoke to Rex.
“You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for you, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than you can guide yourself?”
Rex was obliged to say, “Yes, sir.”
“And perhaps you will admit—though I don’t wish to press that point—that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?”
“I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir.” Rex in his secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies, but to go to Oxford again—which was the point in question.
“But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which my experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you a dislike to society? Is that what you believe?”
“Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do to live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I shall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you, father, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of life, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places.”
“But suppose I am convinced on good evidence—as I am—that this state of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now? Have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on my assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet—in my opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have received here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me.”
“I’m very sorry; but what can I do? I can’t study—that’s certain,” said Rex.