It is pleasure involving no duty that should be given up, if we find it liable to lead us astray.’
‘I see,’ answered Guy, musingly; ‘and this reading comes naturally, and is just what I wanted to keep the pleasant things from getting a full hold of me. I ought to have thought of it sooner, instead of dawdling a whole month in idleness. Then all this would not have happened. I hope it will be very tough.’
‘You have no great love for Latin and Greek?’
‘Oh!’ cried Guy, eagerly, ‘to be sure I delight in Homer and the Georgics, and plenty more. What splendid things there are in these old fellows! But, I never liked the drudgery part of the affair; and now if I am to be set to work to be accurate, and to get up all the grammar and the Greek roots, it will be horrid enough in all conscience.’
He groaned as deeply as if he had not been congratulating himself just before on the difficulty.
‘Who was your tutor?’ asked Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘Mr. Potts,’ said Guy. ‘He is a very clever man; he had a common grammar-school education, but he struggled on—taught himself a great deal—and at last thought it great promotion to be a teacher at the Commercial Academy, as they call it, at Moorworth, where Markham’s nephews went to school. He is very clever, I assure you, and very patient of the hard, wearing life he must have of it there; and oh! so enjoying a new book, or an afternoon to himself. When I was about eight or nine, I began with him, riding into Moorworth three times in a week; and I have gone on ever since. I am sure he has done the best he could for me; and he made the readings very pleasant by his own enjoyment. If Philip had known the difficulties that man has struggled through, and his beautiful temper, persevering in doing his best and being contented, I am sure he could never have spoken contemptuously of him.’
‘I am sure he would not,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘all he meant was, that a person without a university education cannot tell what the requirements are to which a man must come up in these days.’
‘Ah!’ said Guy, laughing, ‘how I wished Mr. Potts had been there to have enjoyed listening to Philip and Mr. Lascelles discussing some new Lexicon, digging down for roots of words, and quoting passages of obscure Greek poets at such a rate, that if my eyes had been shut I could have thought them two withered old students in spectacles and snuff-coloured coats.’
‘Philip was in his element.’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, smiling.
‘Really,’ proceeded Guy, with animation, ‘the more I hear and see of Philip, the more I wonder. What a choice collection of books he has—so many of them school prizes, and how beautifully bound!’
‘Ah! that is one of Philip’s peculiar ways. With all his prudence and his love of books, I believe he would not buy one unless he had a reasonable prospect of being able to dress it handsomely. Did you see the print?’
‘Yes that I did. What glorious loveliness! There is nothing that does it justice but the description in the lecture. Oh I forgot, you have not heard it. You must let me read it to you by and by. Those two little angels, what faces they have. Perfect innocence—one full of reasoning, the other of unreasoning adoration!’
‘I see it!’ suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘I see what you are like in one of your looks, not by any means, in all—it is to the larger of those two angels.’
‘Very seldom, I should guess,’ said Guy; and sinking his voice, as if he was communicating a most painful fact, he added, ‘My real likeness is old Sir Hugh’s portrait at home. But what were we saying? Oh! about Philip. How nice those stories were of Mrs. Deane’s.’
‘She is very fond of him.’
‘To have won so much esteem and admiration, already from strangers, with no prejudice in his favour.—It must be entirely his own doing; and well it may! Every time one hears of him, something comes out to make him seem more admirable. You are laughing at me, and I own it is presumptuous to praise; but I did not mean to praise, only to admire.’
‘I like very much to hear my nephew praised; I was only smiling at your enthusiastic way.’
‘I only wonder I am not more enthusiastic,’ said Guy. ‘I suppose it is his plain good sense that drives away that sort of feeling, for he is as near heroism in the way of self-sacrifice as a man can be in these days.’
‘Poor Philip! if disappointment can make a hero, it has fallen to his share. Ah! Guy, you are brightening and looking like one of my young ladies in hopes of a tale of true love crossed, but it was only love of a sister.’
‘The sister for whom he gave up so much?’
‘Yes, his sister Margaret. She was eight or nine years older, very handsome, very clever, a good deal like him—a pattern elder sister; indeed, she brought him up in great part after his mother died, and he was devoted to her. I do believe it made the sacrifice of his prospects quite easy to him, to know it was for her sake, that she would live on at Stylehurst, and the change be softened to her. Then came Fanny’s illness, and that lead to the marriage with Dr. Henley. It was just what no one could object to; he is a respectable man in full practice, with a large income; but he is much older than she is, not her equal in mind or cultivation, and though I hardly like to say so, not at all a religious man. At any rate, Margaret Morville was one of the last people one could bear to see marry for the sake of an establishment.’
‘Could her brother do nothing?’
‘He expostulated with all his might; but at nineteen he could do little with a determined sister of twenty-seven; and the very truth and power of his remonstrance must have made it leave a sting. Poor fellow, I believe he suffered terribly—just as he had lost Fanny, too, which he felt very deeply, for she was a very sweet creature, and he was very fond of her. It was like losing both sisters and home at once.’
‘Has he not just been staying with Mrs. Henley?’
‘Yes. There was never any coolness, as people call it. He is the one thing she loves and is proud of. They always correspond, and he often stays with her; but he owns to disliking the Doctor, and I don’t think he has much comfort in Margaret herself, for he always comes back more grave and stern than he went. Her house, with all her good wishes, can be no home to him; and so we try to make Hollywell supply the place of Stylehurst as well as we can.’
‘How glad he must be to have you to comfort him!’
‘Philip? Oh no. He was always reserved; open to no one but Margaret, not even to his father, and since her marriage he has shut himself up within himself more than ever. It has, at least I think it is this that has given him a severity, an unwillingness to trust, which I believe is often the consequence of a great disappointment either in love or in friendship.’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Guy: ‘I shall understand him better, and look up to him more. Oh! it is a cruel thing to find that what one loves is, or has not been, all one thought. What must he not have gone through!’
Mrs. Edmonstone was well pleased to have given so much assistance to Guy’s sincere desire to become attached to his cousin, one of the most favourable signs in the character that was winning so much upon her.
CHAPTER 5
A cloud was o’er my childhood’s dream,
I sat in solitude;
I know not how—I know not why,
But round my soul all drearily
There was a silent shroud.
—THOUGHTS IN PAST YEARS
Mrs. Edmonstone was anxious to hear Mr. Lascelle’s opinion of his pupil, and in time she learnt that he thought Sir Guy had very good abilities, and a fair amount