Poor people have to manage things very differently from rich ones; and when Edmund Plantagenet was laid to rest at last in the Oxford2 cemetery3, no member of the family save, Dick himself was there to assist at the final ceremony. Only Gillespie accompanied him to the side of the grave out of all the college; but when they reached the chapel4, they found Gillingham standing5 there hatless before them—urged, no doubt, by some late grain of remorse6 for his own prime part in this domestic drama; or was it only perhaps by a strong desire to see the last act of his tragedy played out to its bitter climax7? After the ceremony he left hurriedly at once in the opposite direction. The two friends walked home alone in profound silence. That evening Gillespie came up to Dick's rooms to bear him company in his trouble. Dick was deeply depressed8. After awhile he grew confidential9, and explained to his friend the full gravity of the crisis. For Mr. Plan-tagenet, after all, poor weak sot though he was, had been for many years the chief bread-winner of the family. Dick and Maud, to be sure, had done their best to eke10 out the housekeeping, expenses, and to aid the younger children as far as possible; but, still, it was the father on whose earnings11 they all as a family had depended throughout for rent and food and clothing. Only Maud and Dick were independent in any way; Mrs. Plantagenet and the little ones owed everything to the father. He had been a personage at Chiddingwick, a character in his way, and Chiddingwick for some strange reason had always been proud of him. Even 'carriage company' sent their children to learn of him at the White Horse, just because he was 'old Plantagenet,' and a certain shadowy sentiment attached to his name and personality. Broken reprobate12 as he was, the halo of past greatness followed him down through life to the lowest depths of degradation13 and penury14.
But now that his father was dead, Dick began to realize for the first time how far the whole family had been dependent for support upon the old man's profession. Little as he had earned, indeed, that little had been bread-and-butter to his wife and children. And now that Dick came to face the problem before him like a man, he saw only too plainly that he himself must fill the place Mr. Plantagenet had vacated. It was a terrible fate, but he saw no way out of it. At one deadly blow all his hopes for the future were dashed utterly15 to the ground. Much as he hated to think it, he saw at once it was now his imperative16 duty to go down from Oxford. He must do something-without delay to earn a livelihood17 somehow for his mother and sisters. He couldn't go on living there in comparative luxury while the rest of his family starved, or declined on the tender mercies of the Chiddingwick workhouse.
Gradually, bit by bit, he confided18 all this, broken-hearted, to Gillespie. There were no secrets between them now; for the facts as to poor Mr. Plantagenet's pitiable profession had come out fully19 at the inquest, and all Oxford knew that night that Plantagenet of Durham, the clever and rising history man, who was considered safe for the Marquis of Lothian's Essay, was, after all, but the son of a country dancing-master. So Dick, with a crimson20 face, putting his pride in his pocket, announced to his friend the one plan for the future that now seemed to him feasible—to return at once to Chiddingwick and take up his father's place, so as to keep together the clientele. Clearly he must do something to make money without delay; and that sad resolve was the only device he could think of on the spur of the moment.
'Wouldn't it be better to try for a schoolmaster-ship?' Gillespie suggested cautiously. He had the foresight21 of his countrymen. 'That wouldn't so much unclass you in the end as the other. You haven't a degree, of course, and the want of one would naturally tell against you. But you might get a vacant place in some preparatory school—though the pay, of course, would be something dreadfully trivial.'
'That's just it,' Dick answered, bursting with shame and misery22, but facing it out like a man. 'Gillespie, you're kindness itself—such a dear, good fellow!—and I could say things to you I couldn't say to anybody else on earth that I know of, except my own family. But even to you I can't bear to say what must be said sooner or later. You see, for my mother's sake, for my sisters', for my brothers', I must do whatever enables me to make most money. I must pocket my pride—and I've got a great deal—ever so much too much—but I must pocket it all the same, and think only of what's best in the end for the family. Now, I should hate the dancing—oh, my dear, dear fellow, I can't tell you how I should hate it! But it's the one thing by which I could certainly earn most money. There's a good connection there at Chiddingwiok, and it's all in the hands of the family.
People would support me because I was my father's son. If I went home at once, before anybody else came to the town to fill the empty place, I could keep the connection together; and as I wouldn't spend any money—well, in the ways my poor father often spent it—I should easily earn enough to keep myself and the children. It'll break my heart to do it—oh, it'll break my heart!—for I'm a very proud man; but I see no way out of it. And I, who hoped to build up again by legitimate23 means the fortunes of the Plantagenets!'
Gillespie was endowed with a sound amount of good Scotch24 common-sense. He looked at things more soberly.
'If I were you,' he said in a tone that seemed to calm Dick's nerves, 'even at the risk of letting the golden opportunity slip, I'd do nothing rashly. A step down in the social scale is easy enough to take; but, once taken, we all know it's very hard to recover. Have you mentioned this plan of yours to your mother or sister?'
'I wrote to Maud about it this, evening,' Dick answered sadly, 'and I told her I might possibly have to make this sacrifice.'
Gillespie paused and reflected. After a minute's consideration, he drew his pipe from his mouth and shook out the ashes.
'If I were you,' he said again, in a very decided25 voice, 'I'd let the thing hang a bit. Why shouldn't you run down to Chiddingwick tomorrow and talk matters over with your people? It costs money, I know; and just at present I can understand every penny's a penny to you. But I've a profound respect for the opinions of one's women in all these questions. They look more at the social side, I'll admit, than men; yet they often see things more clearly and intelligently, for all that, than we do. They've got such insight. If they demand this sacrifice of you, I suppose you must make it; but if, as I expect, they refuse to sanction it, why, then, you must try to find some other way out of it.'
Gillespie's advice fell in exactly with Dick's own ideas; for not only did he wish to see his mother and Maud, but also he was anxious to meet Mary Tudor again and explain to her with regret that the engagement which had never existed at all between them must now be ended. So he decided to take his friend's advice at once, and start off by the first train in the morning to Chiddingwick.
He went next day. Gillespie breakfasted with him, and remained when he left in quiet possession of the armchair by the fireside. He took up a book—the third volume of Mommsen—and sat on and smoked, without thinking of the time, filling up the interval26 till his eleven o'clock lecture. For at eleven the Senior Tutor lectured on Plato's 'Republic.' Just as the clock struck ten, a hurried knock at the door aroused Gillespie's attention.
'Come in!' he said quickly, taking his pipe from his mouth.
The door opened with a timid movement, standing a quarter ajar, and a pale face peeped in with manifest indecision.
'A lady!' Gillespie said to himself, and instinctively27 knocked the unconsumed tobacco out of his short clay pipe as he rose to greet her.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' a small voice said, in very frightened accents. 'I think I must be mistaken. I wanted Mr. Richard Plantagenet's rooms. Can you kindly28 direct me to them?'
'These are Mr. Plantagenet's rooms,' Gillespie answered, as gently as a woman himself, for he saw the girl was slight, and tired, and delicate, and dressed in deep mourning of the simplest description. 'He left me here in possession when he went out this morning, and I've been sitting ever since in them.'
The slight girl came in a step or two with evident hesitation29.
'Will he be long gone?' she asked tremulously. 'Perhaps he's at lecture. I must sit down and wait for him.'
Gillespie motioned her into a chair, and instinctively pulled a few things straight in the room to receive a lady.
'Well, to tell you the truth,' he said, 'Plantagenet's gone down this morning to Chiddingwick. I—I beg your pardon, but I suppose you're his sister.'
Maud let herself drop into the chair he set for her, with a despondent30 gesture.
'Gone to Chiddingwick! Oh, how unfortunate!' she cried, looking puzzled. 'What am I ever to do? This is really dreadful!'
And, indeed, the situation was sufficiently31 embarrassing; for she had run up in haste, on the spur of the moment, when she received Dick's letter threatening instant return, without any more money than would pay her fare one way, trusting to Dick's purse to frank her back again. But she didn't mention these facts, of course, to the young man in Dick's rooms, with the blue-and-white boating jacket, who sat and looked hard at her with profound admiration32, reflecting to himself, meanwhile, how very odd it was of Plantagenet never to have given him to understand that his sister was beautiful! For Maud was always beautiful, in a certain delicate, slender, shrinking fashion, though she had lots of character; and her eyes, red with tears, and her simple little black dress, instead of spoiling her looks, somehow served to accentuate33 the peculiar34 charms of her beauty.
She sat there a minute or two, wondering what on earth to do, while Gillespie stood by in respectful silence. At last she spoke35.
'Yes, I'm his sister,' she said simply, raising her face with a timid glance towards the strange young man. 'Did Dick tell you when he was coming back? I'm afraid I must wait for him.'
'I don't think he'll be back till rather late,' Gillespie answered, with sympathy. 'He took his name off Hall. That means to say,' he added in explanation, 'he won't be home to dinner.'
Maud considered for a moment in doubt. This was really serious. Then she spoke once more, rather terrified.
'He won't stop away all night, I suppose?' she asked, turning up her face appealingly to the kindly-featured stranger. For what she could do in that case, in a strange, big town, without a penny in her pocket, she really couldn't imagine.
Gillespie's confident answer reassured36 her on that head.
'Oh no; he won't stop away,' he replied, 'for he hasn't got leave; and he wouldn't be allowed to sleep out without it. But he mayn't be back, all the same, till quite late at night—perhaps ten or eleven. It would be hardly safe for you, I think, to wait on till then for him. I mean,' he added apologetically, 'it might perhaps be too late to get a train back to Chiddingwick.'
Maud looked down and hesitated. She perused37 the hearthrug.
'I think,' she said at last, after a very long pause, 'you must be Mr. Gillespie.'
'That's my name,' the young man answered, with an inclination38 of the head, rather pleased she should have heard of him.
Maud hesitated once more. Then, after a moment, she seemed to make her mind up.
'I'm so glad it's you,' she said simply, with pretty womanly confidence; 'for I know you're Dick's friend, and I dare say you'll have guessed what's brought me up here to-day, even in the midst of our great trouble. Oh, Mr. Gillespie, did he tell you what he wrote last night to me?'
Gillespie gazed down at her. Tears stood in her eyes as she glanced up at him piteously. He thought he had never seen any face before so pathetically pretty.
'Ye—es; he told me,' the young man answered; hardly liking39 even to acknowledge it. 'He said he thought of going back at once to Chiddingwick, to take up—well, to keep together your poor father's connection.'
With a violent effort Maud held back her tears.
'Yes; that's just what he wrote,' she went on, with downcast eyes, her lips trembling as she said it. Then she turned her face to him yet again.
'But, oh, Mr. Gillespie!' she cried, clasping her hands in her earnestness, 'that's just what he must never, never, never think of!'
'But he tells me it's the only thing—the family has—to live upon,' Gillespie interposed, hesitating.
'Then the family can starve!' Maud cried, with a sudden flash of those tearful eyes. 'We're Plantagenets, and we can bear it. But for Dick to leave Oxford, and spoil all our best hopes for him—oh, Mr. Gillespie, can't you feel it would be too, too dreadful? We could never stand it!'
Gillespie surveyed her from head to foot in admiration of her spirit. Such absolute devotion to the family honour struck a kindred chord in his half-Celtic nature.
'You speak like a Plantagenet,' he, answered very gravely—for he, too, had caught some faint infection of the great Plantagenet myth. 'You deserve to have him stop. You're worthy40 of such a brother. But don't you think yourself it would be right of him—as he does—to think first of your mother and his sisters and brothers?'
Maud rose and faced him.
'Mr. Gillespie,' she cried, clasping her hands, and looking beautiful as she did so, 'I don't know why I can speak to you so frankly41: I suppose it's because you're Dick's friend, and because in this terrible loss which has come upon us so suddenly we stand so much in need of human sympathy. But, oh—it's wrong to say it, of course, yet say it I must; I don't care one penny whether it's right or whether it's wrong; let us starve or not, I dodo want Dick to stop on at Oxford!'
Gillespie regarded her respectfully. Such courage appealed to him.
'Well, I dare say I'm as wrong as you,' he answered frankly; 'but, to tell you the truth—so do I; and I honour you for saying it.'
'Thank you,' Maud cried, letting the tears roll now unchecked, for sympathy overcame her. She fell back again into, her chair. 'Do you know,'-she said unaffectedly, 'we don't care one bit what we do at Chiddingwick; we don't care, not one of us! We'd work our fingers to the bone, even Nellie, who's the youngest, to keep Dick at Oxford. We don't mind if we starve, for we're only the younger ones. But Richard's head of our house now, heir of our name and race; and we were all so proud when he got this Scholarship. We thought he'd be brought up as the chief of the Plantagenets ought to be.' She paused a moment and reflected; then she spoke again. 'To leave Oxford would be bad enough,' she went on, 'and would cost us all sore; it would be a terrible blow to us, though, I suppose, that's inevitable42; but to come back to Chiddingwick, and take up my dear father's profession—oh, don't think me undutiful to his memory, Mr. Gillespie, for our father was a man—if you'd known him long ago, before he grew careless—a man we had much to be proud of—but still, well, there! if Dick was to do it, it would break our very hearts for us.'
'I can see it would,' Gillespie answered, glancing away from her gently, for she was crying hard now. His heart warmed to the poor girl. How he wished it had been possible for him to help her effectually!
Maud leaned forward with clasped hands, and spoke still more earnestly. 'Then you'll help me with it?' she said, drawing a sigh. 'You'll work with me to prevent him? I know Dick thinks a great deal of your advice and opinion. He's often told me so. You'll try to persuade him not to leave Oxford, won't you? Or if he leaves, at least not to come back to Chiddingwick?
Oh, do say you will! for Dick's so much influenced by what you think and say. You see, he'll want to do what's best for us—he's always so unselfish. But that's not what we want: you must try and make him neglect us, and think only of himself; for the more he thinks of us, the more unhappy and ashamed and desperate he'll make us; and the more he thinks of himself, why, the better we'll all love him.'
It was a topsy-turvy gospel—but one couldn't help respecting it. Gillespie rose and 'sported the oak,' closed the big outer door, which stands as a sign in all Oxford rooms that the occupant is out, or doesn't wish to be disturbed, and so secures men when reading from casual interruption. He told Maud what he had done; and Maud, who had been brought up too simply to distrust her brother's friend, or to recognise the rules of polite etiquette43 on such subjects, was grateful to him for the courtesy.
'Now, we must talk this out together,' he said, 'more plainly and practically. It's a business matter: we must discuss it as business. But anyhow, Miss Plantagenet, I'll do my very best to help you in keeping Dick on at Oxford.'
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1
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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eke
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| v.勉强度日，节约使用 | |
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earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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reprobate
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| n.无赖汉；堕落的人 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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instinctively
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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40
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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41
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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