CHAPTER LIII.
_MORNING_.
The next post brought a letter from Simon Armour, saying, after his own
peculiar fashion, that it was time the thing were properly understood
between the parties concerned; but, that done, they must attend to the
baronet's wish, and disclose nothing yet: he believed sir Wilton had his
reasons. They must therefore, as soon as possible, make it clear to him
that there was no break in the chain of their proof of Richard's
identity. He proposed, therefore, that his daughter should pay her father
a visit, and bring Richard.
The suggestion seemed good to all concerned. Criminal as she knew
herself, Jane Tuke did not shrink from again facing sir Wilton, with the
nephew by her side whom one and twenty years before she had carried in
her arms to meet his unfatherly gaze! To her surprise she found that she
almost enjoyed the idea.
Richard cashed the post-office-order the old man sent them, and they set
out for his cottage.
The same day Simon went to Mortgrange and saw the baronet, who agreed at
once to go to the cottage to meet his sister-in-law. The moment he
entered the little parlour where they waited to receive him, he made Mrs.
Tuke a polite bow, and held out his hand.
"You are the sister of my late wife, I am told," he said.
Jane made him a dignified courtesy, her resentment, after the lapse of
twenty years, rising fresh at sight of the man who had behaved so badly
to her sister.
"It was you that carried off the child?" said the baronet.
"Yes, sir," answered Jane.
"I am glad I did not know where to look for him. You did me the greatest
possible favour. What these twenty years would have been like, with him
in the house, I dare not think."
"It was for the child's sake I did it!" said Jane.
"I am perfectly aware it was not for mine!" returned sir Wilton. "Ha! ha!
you looked as if you had come to stab me that day you brought the little
object to the library, and gave me such a scare! You presented his
fingers and toes to me as if, by Jove, I was the devil, and had made
them so on purpose!--I tell you, Richard, if that's your name, you
rascal, you have as little idea what a preposterously ugly creature you
were, as I had that you would ever grow to be--well, half-fit to look at!
I was appalled at the sight of you! And a good thing it was! If I had
taken to you, and brought you up at home, it would scarcely have been to
your advantage. You would have been worth less than you are, however
little that may be! But it doesn't follow you're the least fit to be
owned to! You're a tradesman, every inch of you--no more like a gentleman
than--well, not half so like a gentleman as your grandfather there! By
heaven, the anvil must be some sort of education! Why wasn't _I_ bound
apprentice to my old friend Simon there! But, Richard, you don't look a
gentleman, though your aunt looks as if she would eat me for saying
it.--Now listen to me--all of you. It's no use your saying I've
acknowledged him. If I choose to say I know nothing about him, then, as I
told the rascal himself the other day, you'll have to prove your case,
and that will take money! and when you've proved it, you get nothing but
the title, and much good that will do you! So you had better make up all
your minds to do as I tell you--that is, not to say one word about the
affair, but just hold your tongues.--Now none of that looking at one
another, as if I meant to do you! I'm not going to have people say my son
shows the tradesman in him! I'm not going to have the Lestranges knock
under to the Armours! I'm going to have the rascal the gentleman I can
make him!--You're to go to college directly, sir; and I don't want to
hear of or from you till you've taken your degree! You shall have two
hundred a year and pay your own fees--not a penny more if you go on your
marrow-bones for it!--You understand? You're not to attempt communicating
with me. If there's anything I ought to know, let your grandfather come
to me. I will see him when he pleases--or go to him, if he prefers it,
and I'm not too gouty! Only, mind, I make no promises! If I should leave
all I have to the other lot, you will have no right to complain. With the
education I will give you, and the independence your uncle has given you,
and the good sense you have on your own hook, you're provided for. You
can be a doctor or a parson, you know. There's more than one living in my
gift. The Reverend sir Richard Lestrange!--it don't sound amiss. I'm
sorry I shan't hear it. I shall be gone where they crop one of
everything--even of his good works, the parsons say, but I shan't be much
the barer for that! It's hard, confounded hard, though, when they're all
a fellow has got!--Now don't say a word! I don't like being
contradicted!--not at all! It sends one round on the other tack, I tell
you--and there's my gout coming! Only mind this: if once you say who you
are as long as you're at college, or before I give you leave, I have done
with you. I won't have any little plan of mine forestalled for your
vanity! Don't any of you say who he is. It will be better for him--much.
If it be but hinted who he is, he'll be courted and flattered, and then
he'll be stuck up, and take to spending money! But as sure as hell, if he
goes beyond his allowance--well, I'll pay it, but it shall be his last
day at Oxford. He shall go at once into the navy--or the excise, by
George!"
This expression of the baronet's will, if not quite to the satisfaction
of every one concerned, was altogether delightful to Richard.
"May I say one word, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, if it's not arguing."
"I've not read a page of Latin since I left school, and I never knew any
Greek."
"Oh! ah! I forgot that predicament! You must have a tutor to prepare
you!--but you shall go to Oxford with him. I will _not_ have you loafing
about here! You may remain with your grandfather till I find one, but
you're not to come near Mortgrange."
"I may go to London with my mother, may I not?" said Richard.
"I see nothing against that. It will be the better way."
"If you please, sir Wilton," said Mrs. Tuke, "I left evidence at
Mortgrange of what I should have to say."
"What sort of evidence?"
"Things that belonged to the child and myself."
"Where?"
"Hid in the nursery."
"My lady had everything moved, and the room fresh-papered after you left.
I remember that distinctly."
"Did she say nothing about finding anything?"
"Nothing.--Of course she wouldn't!"
"I left a box of my own, with--"
"You'll never see it again."
"The things the child always wore when he went out, were under the
wardrobe."
"Oblige me by saying nothing about them. I am perfectly satisfied, and
believe every word you say. I believe Richard there the child of your
sister Robina and myself; and it shall not be my fault if he don't have
his rights! At the same time I promise nothing, and will manage things as
I see best."
"At your pleasure, sir!" answered Mrs. Tuke.
"Should you mind, sir, if I went to see Mr. Wingfold before I go?" asked
Richard.
"Who's he?"
"The clergyman of the next parish, sir."
"I don't know him--don't want to know him!--What have you got to do with
_him_?"
"He was kind to me when I was down here before."
"I don't care you should have much to do with the clergy."
"You said, sir, I might go into the church!"
"_That's_ another thing quite! You would have the thing in your own hands
then!"
Richard was silent. There was no point to argue. The moment sir Wilton
was gone, Simon turned to his grandson.
"It was a pity you asked him about Mr. Wingfold. The only thing is you
mustn't let out his secret. As to seeing Mr. Wingfold, or Miss Wylder
either, just do as you please."
"No, grandfather. If I had not asked him, perhaps I might; but to ask
him, and then not do what he told me, would be a sneaking shame!"
"You're right, my boy! Hold on that way, and you'll never be ashamed--or
make your people ashamed either."
For the meantime, then, Richard went to London with his mother; and so
anxious was old Simon, stimulated in part by the faithfulness of his
grandson, to do nothing that might thwart the pleasure of the tyrant,
that when first Wingfold asked after Richard, he told him he was at home,
and the next time that he was at work in the country.
Richard went on helping his uncle, and going often to see his brother and
sister. When Arthur was able for the journey, both he and Alice went with
him. At the station they were met by Simon, with an old post-chaise he
had to mend up. Having seen Arthur comfortably settled, his brother and
sister went back to London together--Alice to go into a single room, and
betake herself once more to her work, but with new courage and hope;
Richard to the book-binding till his father should have found a tutor for
him.
The Tukes were slowly becoming used, if not reconciled, to his care of
the Mansons. His mother, indignant for her deceased sister, stood out the
stiffest; the bookbinder could not fail to see that the youth was but
putting in practice the socialistic theories he had himself sought to
teach him. True, the thing came straight from the heart of Richard, and
went much farther than his uncle's theories; but his uncle counted it the
result of his own training, and woke at last to the fact that his
theories were better than he had himself known.
With the help of the head of the college to which sir Wilton had resolved
to send his son, a tutor was at length found--happily for Richard, one of
the right sort. They went together to Oxford, and set to work at once. It
would be hard to say which of the two reaped the more pleasure from the
relation, or which, in the duplex process of teaching and learning,
gained the most. For the tutor had in Richard a pupil of practised brain
yet fresh, a live soul ready, for its own need and nourishment, to use
every truth it came near. His penetrative habit made not a few regard him
as a bore: their feeble vitality was troubled by the energy of his; he
could not let a thing go in which he descried a principle: he must see it
close! To the more experienced he was one who had not yet learned, wisely
fearful of the trampling hoof, to carry aside his oyster with its
possible pearl before he opened it. In earnest about everything, he must
work out his liberty before he could gambol. A slave will amuse himself
in his dungeon; a free man must file through his chains and dig through
his prison-walls before he can frolic. Sunlight and air came through his
open windows enough to keep Richard alive and strong, but not enough yet
to make him merry. He was too solemn, thus, for most of those he met,
but, happily, not for his tutor. Finding Richard knew ten times as much
of English literature as himself, he became in this department his
pupil's pupil; and listening to his occasional utterance of a religious
difficulty, had new regions of thought opened in him, to the deepening
and verifying of his nature. The result for the tutor was that he sought
ordination, in the hope of giving to others what had at length become
real to himself.
Richard gained little distinction at his examinations. He did well
enough, but was too eager after real knowledge to care about appearing to
know.
He made friends, but not many familiar friends. He sorely missed
ministration: it had grown a necessity of his nature. It was well that
the habit should be broken for a time. For, laden with consciousness, and
not full of God, the soul will delight in itself as a benefactor, a
regnant giver, the centre of thanks and obligation: and will thus, with a
rampart-mound of self-satisfaction, dam out the original creative life of
its being, the recognition of which is life eternal. But it grew upon
Richard that, if there be a God, it is the one business of a man to find
him, and that, if he would find him, he must obey the voice of his
conscience.
As to the outward show of the man, Richard's carriage was improving.
Level intercourse with men of his own age but more at home in what is
called society, influenced his manners both with and without his will,
while, all the time, he was gathering the confidence of experience. His
rowing, and the daily run to and from the boats, with other exercises
prescribed by his tutor, strengthened the shoulders whose early stoop had
threatened to return with much reading. He was fast growing more than
presentable. With the men of his year, his character more than his
faculty had influence.
Old Simon was doing his best for Arthur. He would not hear of his going
back to London, or attempting anything in the way of work beyond a little
in the garden. He was indeed nowise fit for more.
The blacksmith himself was making progress--the best parts of him
were growing fast. Age was turning the strength into channels and
mill-streams, which before, wild-foaming, had flooded the meadows.
