_ Soon after his father and mother had left him Ernest dropped asleep
over a book which Mrs Jay had given him, and he did not awake till
dusk. Then he sat down on a stool in front of the fire, which
showed pleasantly in the late January twilight, and began to muse.
He felt weak, feeble, ill at ease and unable to see his way out of
the innumerable troubles that were before him. Perhaps, he said to
himself, he might even die, but this, far from being an end of his
troubles, would prove the beginning of new ones; for at the best he
would only go to Grandpapa Pontifex and Grandmamma Allaby, and
though they would perhaps be more easy to get on with than Papa and
Mamma, yet they were undoubtedly not so really good, and were more
worldly; moreover they were grown-up people--especially Grandpapa
Pontifex, who so far as he could understand had been very much
grown-up, and he did not know why, but there was always something
that kept him from loving any grown-up people very much--except one
or two of the servants, who had indeed been as nice as anything that
he could imagine. Besides even if he were to die and go to Heaven
he supposed he should have to complete his education somewhere.
In the meantime his father and mother were rolling along the muddy
roads, each in his or her own corner of the carriage, and each
revolving many things which were and were not to come to pass.
Times have changed since I last showed them to the reader as sitting
together silently in a carriage, but except as regards their mutual
relations, they have altered singularly little. When I was younger
I used to think the Prayer Book was wrong in requiring us to say the
General Confession twice a week from childhood to old age, without
making provision for our not being quite such great sinners at
seventy as we had been at seven; granted that we should go to the
wash like table-cloths at least once a week, still I used to think a
day ought to come when we should want rather less rubbing and
scrubbing at. Now that I have grown older myself I have seen that
the Church has estimated probabilities better than I had done.
The pair said not a word to one another, but watched the fading
light and naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a
melancholy cottage by the road side, and the rain that fell fast
upon the carriage windows. It was a kind of afternoon on which nice
people for the most part like to be snug at home, and Theobald was a
little snappish at reflecting how many miles he had to post before
he could be at his own fireside again. However there was nothing
for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the roadside objects
flit by them, and get greyer and grimmer as the light faded.
Though they spoke not to one another, there was one nearer to each
of them with whom they could converse freely. "I hope," said
Theobald to himself, "I hope he'll work--or else that Skinner will
make him. I don't like Skinner, I never did like him, but he is
unquestionably a man of genius, and no one turns out so many pupils
who succeed at Oxford and Cambridge, and that is the best test. I
have done my share towards starting him well. Skinner said he had
been well grounded and was very forward. I suppose he will presume
upon it now and do nothing, for his nature is an idle one. He is
not fond of me, I'm sure he is not. He ought to be after all the
trouble I have taken with him, but he is ungrateful and selfish. It
is an unnatural thing for a boy not to be fond of his own father.
If he was fond of me I should be fond of him, but I cannot like a
son who, I am sure, dislikes me. He shrinks out of my way whenever
he sees me coming near him. He will not stay five minutes in the
same room with me if he can help it. He is deceitful. He would not
want to hide himself away so much if he were not deceitful. That is
a bad sign and one which makes me fear he will grow up extravagant.
I am sure he will grow up extravagant. I should have given him more
pocket-money if I had not known this--but what is the good of giving
him pocket-money? It is all gone directly. If he doesn't buy
something with it he gives it away to the first little boy or girl
he sees who takes his fancy. He forgets that it's my money he is
giving away. I give him money that he may have money and learn to
know its uses, not that he may go and squander it immediately. I
wish he was not so fond of music, it will interfere with his Latin
and Greek. I will stop it as much as I can. Why, when he was
translating Livy the other day he slipped out Handel's name in
mistake for Hannibal's, and his mother tells me he knows half the
tunes in the 'Messiah' by heart. What should a boy of his age know
about the 'Messiah'? If I had shown half as many dangerous
tendencies when I was a boy, my father would have apprenticed me to
a greengrocer, of that I'm very sure," etc., etc.
Then his thoughts turned to Egypt and the tenth plague. It seemed
to him that if the little Egyptians had been anything like Ernest,
the plague must have been something very like a blessing in
disguise. If the Israelites were to come to England now he should
be greatly tempted not to let them go.
Mrs Theobald's thoughts ran in a different current. "Lord
Lonsford's grandson--it's a pity his name is Figgins; however, blood
is blood as much through the female line as the male, indeed,
perhaps even more so if the truth were known. I wonder who Mr
Figgins was. I think Mrs Skinner said he was dead, however, I must
find out all about him. It would be delightful if young Figgins
were to ask Ernest home for the holidays. Who knows but he might
meet Lord Lonsford himself, or at any rate some of Lord Lonsford's
other descendants?"
Meanwhile the boy himself was still sitting moodily before the fire
in Mrs Jay's room. "Papa and Mamma," he was saying to himself, "are
much better and cleverer than anyone else, but, I, alas! shall never
be either good or clever."
Mrs Pontifex continued -
"Perhaps it would be best to get young Figgins on a visit to
ourselves first. That would be charming. Theobald would not like
it, for he does not like children; I must see how I can manage it,
for it would be so nice to have young Figgins--or stay! Ernest
shall go and stay with Figgins and meet the future Lord Lonsford,
who I should think must be about Ernest's age, and then if he and
Ernest were to become friends Ernest might ask him to Battersby, and
he might fall in love with Charlotte. I think we have done MOST
WISELY in sending Ernest to Dr Skinner's. Dr Skinner's piety is no
less remarkable than his genius. One can tell these things at a
glance, and he must have felt it about me no less strongly than I
about him. I think he seemed much struck with Theobald and myself--
indeed, Theobald's intellectual power must impress any one, and I
was showing, I do believe, to my best advantage. When I smiled at
him and said I left my boy in his hands with the most entire
confidence that he would be as well cared for as if he were at my
own house, I am sure he was greatly pleased. I should not think
many of the mothers who bring him boys can impress him so
favourably, or say such nice things to him as I did. My smile is
sweet when I desire to make it so. I never was perhaps exactly
pretty, but I was always admitted to be fascinating. Dr Skinner is
a very handsome man--too good on the whole I should say for Mrs
Skinner. Theobald says he is not handsome, but men are no judges,
and he has such a pleasant bright face. I think my bonnet became
me. As soon as I get home I will tell Chambers to trim my blue and
yellow merino with--" etc., etc.
All this time the letter which has been given above was lying in
Christina's private little Japanese cabinet, read and re-read and
approved of many times over, not to say, if the truth were known,
rewritten more than once, though dated as in the first instance--and
this, too, though Christina was fond enough of a joke in a small
way.
Ernest, still in Mrs Jay's room mused onward. "Grown-up people," he
said to himself, "when they were ladies and gentlemen, never did
naughty things, but he was always doing them. He had heard that
some grown-up people were worldly, which of course was wrong, still
this was quite distinct from being naughty, and did not get them
punished or scolded. His own Papa and Mamma were not even worldly;
they had often explained to him that they were exceptionally
unworldly; he well knew that they had never done anything naughty
since they had been children, and that even as children they had
been nearly faultless. Oh! how different from himself! When should
he learn to love his Papa and Mamma as they had loved theirs? How
could he hope ever to grow up to be as good and wise as they, or
even tolerably good and wise? Alas! never. It could not be. He
did not love his Papa and Mamma, in spite of all their goodness both
in themselves and to him. He hated Papa, and did not like Mamma,
and this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy would do after
all that had been done for him. Besides he did not like Sunday; he
did not like anything that was really good; his tastes were low and
such as he was ashamed of. He liked people best if they sometimes
swore a little, so long as it was not at him. As for his Catechism
and Bible readings he had no heart in them. He had never attended
to a sermon in his life. Even when he had been taken to hear Mr
Vaughan at Brighton, who, as everyone knew, preached such beautiful
sermons for children, he had been very glad when it was all over,
nor did he believe he could get through church at all if it was not
for the voluntary upon the organ and the hymns and chanting. The
Catechism was awful. He had never been able to understand what it
was that he desired of his Lord God and Heavenly Father, nor had he
yet got hold of a single idea in connection with the word Sacrament.
His duty towards his neighbour was another bugbear. It seemed to
him that he had duties towards everybody, lying in wait for him upon
every side, but that nobody had any duties towards him. Then there
was that awful and mysterious word 'business.' What did it all
mean? What was 'business'? His Papa was a wonderfully good man of
business, his Mamma had often told him so--but he should never be
one. It was hopeless, and very awful, for people were continually
telling him that he would have to earn his own living. No doubt,
but how--considering how stupid, idle, ignorant, self-indulgent, and
physically puny he was? All grown-up people were clever, except
servants--and even these were cleverer than ever he should be. Oh,
why, why, why, could not people be born into the world as grown-up
persons? Then he thought of Casabianca. He had been examined in
that poem by his father not long before. 'When only would he leave
his position? To whom did he call? Did he get an answer? Why?
How many times did he call upon his father? What happened to him?
What was the noblest life that perished there? Do you think so?
Why do you think so?' And all the rest of it. Of course he thought
Casabianca's was the noblest life that perished there; there could
be no two opinions about that; it never occurred to him that the
moral of the poem was that young people cannot begin too soon to
exercise discretion in the obedience they pay to their Papa and
Mamma. Oh, no! the only thought in his mind was that he should
never, never have been like Casabianca, and that Casabianca would
have despised him so much, if he could have known him, that he would
not have condescended to speak to him. There was nobody else in the
ship worth reckoning at all: it did not matter how much they were
blown up. Mrs Hemans knew them all and they were a very indifferent
lot. Besides Casabianca was so good-looking and came of such a good
family."
And thus his small mind kept wandering on till he could follow it no
longer, and again went off into a doze. _