a moment there was silence; then Dick began in an explanatory voice:
‘I’m sorry I’m late; but I had a piece of work to finish to-night, mother – rather particular work, too: a little bit of bookbinding.’
‘You get paid extra for that, Richard, don’t you?’ his father asked, growing interested.
‘Well, yes,’ Dick answered, rather grudgingly;
‘I get paid extra for that; I do it in overtime.
But that wasn’t all,’ he went on hurriedly, well aware that his father was debating in his own mind whether he couldn’t on the strength of it borrow a shilling. ‘It was a special piece of work for the new governess at the Rectory. And, mother, isn’t it odd? her name’s Mary Tudor!’
‘There isn’t much in that,’ his father answered, balancing his cigarette daintily between his first and second finger. ‘“A’ Stuarts are na sib to the King,” you know, Richard. The Plantagenets who left the money had nothing to do with the Royal Family – that is to say, with us,’ Mr. Plantagenet went on, catching himself up by an after-thought.
‘They were mere Sheffield cutlers, people of no antecedents, who happened to take our name upon themselves by a pure flight of fancy, because they thought it high-sounding. Which it is, undoubtedly. And as for Tudors, bless your heart, they’re common enough in Wales. In point of fact – though I’m proud of Elizabeth, as a by-blow of the family – we must always bear in mind that for us, my dear boy, the Tudors were never anything but a distinct mesalliance.’
‘Of course,’ Richard answered with profound conviction.
His father glanced at him sharply. To Mr. Plantagenet himself this shadowy claim to royal descent was a pretty toy to be employed for the mystification of strangers and the aggrandisement of the family – a lever to work on Lady Agatha’s feelings; but to his eldest son it was an article of faith, a matter of the most cherished and the profoundest belief, a reason for behaving one’s self in every position in life so as not to bring disgrace on so distinguished an ancestry.
A moment’s silence intervened; then Dick turned round with his grave smile to Clarence:
‘And how does Thucydides get on?’ he asked with brotherly solicitude.
Clarence wriggled a little uneasily on his wooden chair.
‘Well, it’s not a hard bit,’ he answered, with a shamefaced air. ‘I thought I could do it in a jiffy after you came home, Dick. It won’t take two minutes. It’s just that piece, don’t you know, about the revolt in Corcyra.’
Dick looked down at him reproachfully..
‘Oh, Clarry,’ he cried with a pained face, ‘you know you can’t have looked at it. Not a hard bit, indeed! why, it’s one of the obscurest and most debated passages in all Thucydides! Now, what’s the use of my getting you a nomination, old man, and coaching you so hard, and helping to pay your way at the grammar school, in hopes of your getting an Exhibition in time, if you won’t work for yourself, and lift yourself on to a better position?’ And he glanced at the wooden mantelpiece, on whose vacant scroll he had carved deep with his penknife his own motto in life, ‘Noblesse oblige,’ in Lombardic letters, for his brother’s benefit.
Clarence dropped his eyes and looked really penitent.
‘Well, but I say, Dick,’ he answered quickly, ‘if it’s so awfully difficult, don’t you think it ‘ud be better for me to go over it with you first – just a running construe – and then I’d get a clearer idea of what the chap was driving at from the very beginning?’
‘Certainly not,’ Dick answered gravely, with a little concern in his voice, for he saw in this clever plea somewhat too strong an echo of Mr. Plan-tagenet’s own fatal plausibility. ‘You should spell it out first as well as you can by yourself; and then, when you’ve made out all you’re able to with grammar and dictionary, you should come to me in the last resort to help you. Now sit down to it, there’s a good boy. I shan’t be able in future to help you quite as much in your work as I’ve been used to do.’
He spoke with a seriousness that was above his years. To say the truth, Mr. Plantagenet’s habits had almost reversed their relative places in the family. Dick was naturally conscientious, having fortunately inherited his moral characteristics rather from his mother’s side than from his father’s; and being thrown early into the position of assistant bread-winner and chief adviser to the family, he had grown grave before his time, and felt the weight of domestic cares already heavy upon his shoulders. As for Clarence, who had answered his father with scant respect, he never thought for a moment of disobeying the wishes of his elder brother. He took up the dog-eared Thucydides that had served them both in turn, and the old Liddell and Scott that was still common property, and began conning over the chapter set before him with conspicuous diligence. Dick looked on meanwhile with no little satisfaction, while Eleanor went on with her work, in her chair in the corner, vaguely conscious all the time of meriting his approbation.
At last, just as they sat down to their frugal supper of bread and cheese and water – for by Dick’s desire they were all, save one, teetotalers – Dick sprang a mine upon the assembled company by saying out all at once in a most matter-of-fact voice to his neighbour Clarry:
‘No, I shan’t be able to help you very much in future, I’m afraid – because, next week, I’m going up to Oxford – to try for a scholarship.’
A profound spell of awed silence followed this abrupt disclosure of a long-formed plan. Mr. Plantagenet himself was the first to break it. He rose to the occasion.
‘Well, I’m glad at least, my son,’ he said, in his most grandiose manner, ‘you propose to give yourself the education of a gentleman.’
‘And therefore,’ Dick continued, with a side-glance at Clarence, ‘I shall need all my spare time for my own preparation.’
CHAPTER III. DISCOUNTING IT
Mrs. Plantagenet looked across the table at her son with vague eyes of misgiving. ‘This is all very sudden, Dick,’ she faltered out, not without some slight tremor.
‘Sudden for you, dear mother,’ Dick answered, taking her hand in his own; ‘but not for me.
Very much otherwise.. I’ve had it in my mind for a great many months; and this is what decided me.’
He drew from his pocket as he spoke a small scrap of newspaper and handed it across to her. It was a cutting from the Times. Mrs. Plantagenet read it through with swimming eyes. ‘University Intelligence: Oxford. – Four Foundation Scholarships will be awarded after public examination at Durham College on May 20th. Two will be of the annual value of One Hundred Pounds, for Classics; one of the same value for Natural Science; and one for Modern History. Application to be made, on or before Wednesday, the 19th, to the Rev. the Dean, at Durham College, who will also supply all needful information to intending candidates.’
The words swam in a mist before Mrs. Planta-genet’s eyes. ‘What does it all mean, dear Dick?’ she inquired almost tearfully.
‘It means, mother,’ Dick answered with the gentlest tenderness, ‘that Durham is the only college in the University which gives as good a Scholarship as a hundred a year for Modern History. Now, ever since I left the grammar school, I haven’t had it out of my mind for a day to go, if I could, to Oxford. I think it’s incumbent upon a man in my position to give himself, if possible, a University training.’
He said the words without the slightest air of conceit or swagger, but with a profound consciousness of their import; for to Richard Plantagenet the myth or legend of the ancient greatness of his family was a spur urging him ever on to make himself worthy of so glorious an ancestry. ‘So I’ve been working and saving ever since,’ he went on, ‘with that idea constantly before me; and I’ve looked out for twelve months or more in the Times every day for the announcement of an exam, for the Durham Scholarship.’
‘But you won’t get it, my boy,’ Mr. Plantagenet put in philosophically, after a moment’s consideration.