PHILIP RAINY was, as his relation had been obliged to avow, an excellent young man; there was nothing to be found fault with in his moral character, and everything to be applauded in his manners and habits. He had acquired his education in the most laborious way, at the cheapest possible rate, and he had used it, since he was in a condition to do so, in the most admirable manner. He was intelligent and amiable as well as prudent and ambitious, and though he meant to establish a reputation for himself, and a position among those who were considered best in Farafield, yet he never forgot his family, whom he had left behind; nor, though he did not think it necessary to brag that he had begun the world in the lowliest way, did he ever, when it was called for, shrink from an avowal of his origin, humble as that was. Why old Mr. Trevor should dislike him, it would be difficult to say, or rather, though it might be easy enough to divine the causes, it would be almost impossible to offer any justification of them. Old Trevor disliked the young man because—he was so altogether unexceptionable a young man. Every inducement that could have led an old man to patronize and encourage a young one existed here, and yet these very reasons why he should like Philip made his old relation dislike him. He was too good, and, alas, too successful. He had doubled the school in Kent’s Lane, which the old gentleman, distracted by other occupations, had brought down very low, indeed; and this was something which it was rather hard to forgive, though it was worthy of nothing but praise. And he was Lucy’s cousin, on the side of the house from which the fortune came, and perfectly suitable to Lucy in point of age, and in almost every way. How much trouble it would have avoided, how much ease and security it would have given, if Philip had been placed in Lucy’s way, and an attachment encouraged between them! It would have been the most natural thing in the world; it would have restored the fortune to the name, it would have enriched the family of the original possessor, it would have saved all the trouble of the will which old Trevor was elaborating with so much care. Therefore, it was that old Trevor detested Philip Rainy, or, at least, was so near detesting him that only Christian principle prevented that climax of feeling. As it was, with a distinct effort because the sentiment was wrong, the old man restrained his conscious dislike of the young one within the bounds of what he considered permissible hostility. But all he could do could not entirely control that fierce impulse of repugnance. He could not keep his voice from altering, his expression from changing, when Philip Rainy’s name was mentioned. Perhaps at the bottom of all his anxiety about Lucy’s fortune, and his desire to shape and control her actions, was an underlying dread that Lucy’s fate might be lying quite near, and might be decided at any moment before ever his precautions could come into effect.
Philip himself had no conception how far the dislike of his uncle—as he called old Trevor, without being in the least aware that this of itself was an offense—went. He did not even know that it was only to himself that the old man was so systematically ill-tempered. It was seldom he saw old Trevor in the society of other people, and he took it for granted, with much composure, that the sharpness of his gibes and the keenness of his criticisms were natural, and employed against the world in general as well as against himself. Being a young man determined to rise in the world, it was not to be supposed that he had not taken the whole question of his family connections into earnest consideration, or that he was entirely unmoved by the consciousness that within his reach, and accessible to him in many ways not possible for other men, was one of the greatest prizes imaginable, an heiress, whose soft little hand could raise him at once above all the chance of good or evil fortune, and confer upon him a position far beyond anything that was within his possibilities in any other way. On this latter point, however, he was not at all clear; for Philip was young, and had not learned to know these inexorable limits which hem in possibility. He thought he could do a great many things by his unaided powers which he would have easily seen to be impossible for any one else. He believed in occasions arising which would give scope to his talents, and show the world what manner of man it was which the irony of fate confined to the humble occupation of a school-master in a little country town; and he entertained no doubt that when the occasion came he would show himself worthy of it. Therefore, he was not sure that Lucy’s fortune could do much more for him than he could do for himself; but he was too sensible to ignore the difference it would make in his start, the great assistance it would be in his career. It would give him an advantage of ten years, he said to himself, in the musings of that self-confidence which was so determined and arrogant, yet so simple; a difference of ten years—that stands for a great deal in a man’s life. To attain that at thirty which in ordinary circumstances you would only attain at forty, is an advantage which is worthy many sacrifices; but yet, at the same time, if you are sure of attaining at forty, or by good luck at thirty-nine, the good fortune on which your mind is set, it is not perhaps worth your while to make a very serious sacrifice of your self-esteem or pride merely for the sake of saving these ten years. This was why Philip maintained with ease so dignified and worthy a position in respect to his heiress-cousin. She would make a difference of ten years—but that was all; and besides being a young man determined to get on in the world, he was a young man who gave himself credit for fine feelings, and independence of mind, and generosity of sentiment. He could not, at this early stage of his existence, have come to a mercenary decision, and made up his mind to marry for money. He did not see any necessity for it; he felt quite able to encounter fate in his own person; therefore, though he did not refuse to acknowledge that it would be a very good thing to marry an heiress, and very pleasant if the woman with whom he fell in love should belong to that class, he had not proposed to himself the idea either of trying to fall in love with Lucy or attempting to secure her affections to himself. The idea of her hovered before his mind as a possibility—but there were many other possibilities hovering before Philip, and some more enticing, more attractive, than any heiress. Therefore he did not spoil his own prospects by perpetual visits, or by paying her anything that could be called “attention” in the phraseology of the drawing-room. His relations with her were no more than cousinly; he was very “nice;” but then he was even more “nice” to little Jock, who was not his relation at all, than to Lucy. It was part of his admirable character that he was fond of children, and always good to them, so that no suspicion could possibly attach to the very moderate amount of intercourse which was conducted on so reasonable a footing. But the more it was reasonable, the more it was cousinly, the more did old Trevor dislike his child’s relation; he had not the slightest ground for fault-finding, therefore his secret wrath was nursed in secret, and grew and increased. It was all he could do to receive Philip with civility when he came. He came in after dinner in a costume carefully adapted to please, or at least to disarm all objections, a compromise between morning and evening dress; he made judicious inquiries after the old man’s health, not too much, as if there was anything special in his solicitude, but as much as mingled politeness and family affection required.
“I hope you are standing the cold pretty well, sir,” he said; “spring is always so trying. I can bear the winter better myself; at all events, one does not expect anything better in December, and one makes up one’s mind to it.”
“At your age,” said old Trevor, “it was all the same to me, December or July; I liked the one as much as the other. But I think we might find something better to talk of than the weather; every idiot does that.”
“That is true,” said the young man, “it is always the first topic among English people. With our uncertain climate—”
“I never was out, of England, for my part,” the old man interrupted him sharply. “English climate is the only climate I know anything about. I don’t pretend to be superior to it, like you folks that talk of Italy and so forth. What have I got to do with Italy? It may be warmer, but warm weather never agreed with me.”
“I have never been out of England, either,” said the young man, with that persistence in the soft word that turns away wrath, which is of all things in the world the most provoking to irritable people; and then he changed the subject gently, but not to his own advantage. “I thought you would like to hear, uncle, how well everything is going on in Kent’s Lane. I am thinking of an assistant, the boys are getting beyond my management; indeed, if things go on as they are doing, I shall soon have enough to do managing, without teaching at all. I have heard of a very nice fellow, a University man. Don’t you think that, on the whole, would be an advantage? people think so much more nowadays—for the mere teaching, you know, only for the teaching—of a man with a degree.”
“A man with a fiddlestick!” said old Trevor. “The question is, are you going into competition with Eton and Harrow, Mr. Philip Rainy, or are you the master of a commercial academy, that’s the question. The man that founded that establishment hadn’t got a degree, no, nor would have accepted one if they had gone on their knees to him. He knew his place, and the sort of thing that was expected from him. Oh, surely, get your man with a degree! or go and buy a degree for yourself (it’s a matter of fees more than anything else, I have always heard), and starve when you have got it. But I’d like you to hand over Kent’s Lane first to somebody that will carry it on as it used to be.”
“I beg your pardon with all my heart, uncle,” cried the young man. “I have not the least intention of abandoning Kent’s Lane. It’s my sheet-anchor, all I have in the world; and I would not alter the character you stamped upon it for any inducement. The only thing is, that so much more attention is paid to the classics nowadays—”
“Curse nowadays, sir!” cried old Trevor, his countenance glowing with anger. Then he pulled himself up, and recollected that such language was far from becoming to his age and dignity, not to speak of his Christian principles. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he added, in a subdued tone; “I don’t want to curse anything. Still I don’t know what the times are coming to with all these absurd novelties. The classics” (he had been boasting of his Latin an hour before) “for a set of shop-keepers’ sons that want to know how to add up their fathers’ books! It’s folly and nonsense, that’s what it is. Even if you could do it, what’s the advantage of snipping all classes out on the same pattern? It’s a great deal better to have a little difference. Women, too—you’d clip them all out like images in paper, the same shape as men. It’s a pity,” he added, grimly, “that your classics and your degrees don’t do more for those that have got them. Many an M. A. I’ve seen in my time tacked to the names of the biggest fools I’ve ever known.”
“Still it is not necessary to be a big fool, sir, because you are an M. A.,” said Philip, always mildly, but with a sigh. “It is a great advantage to a man; I wish I had it. I know what you will say, better men than I have not had it; but just because I am not a better man—”
For the first time old Trevor broke into his habitual chuckle.
“Give him some tea, Lucy,” he said. “I suppose you’re one of the fashionable kind, and have your dinner when I used to have my supper. That’s not the way to thrive, my lad.”
“What does it matter whether you call it dinner or supper, sir?” said Philip; “and, pardon me, don’t you do the same?”
“It makes a deal of difference,” said the old man. “Parents like to hear that you have your tea at six o’clock, and your supper at nine, like themselves. They don’t like you to give yourself airs, as if you were better than they are. You’re a clever fellow, Philip Rainy, and you think you are getting on like a house on fire. But you’re a fool all the same.”
“Papa, I wish you would not be so uncivil,” said Lucy, who had yet taken no part in their talk.
“I tell you he’s a fool all the same. I kept Kent’s Lane a-going for thirty years, and I ought to know. I’ve taught the best men in the town. Oxford fellows, and Cambridge fellows, and all sorts, have come to me for their mathematics, though I never had a degree; and I eat my dinner at two, and my tea at six as regular as clock-work all the time. That’s the way to do, if you mean to keep it up all your life, and lay by a little money, and leave the place to your son after you. If Jock had been older that’s what I should have made him do; that is the way to succeed in Kent’s Lane.”
There was a little pause after this, for Philip was a little angry too, and had not command for the moment of that soft word of which he made so determined a use; and at the same time he was resolved not to quarrel with Lucy’s father. He said, after a while, in as easy a tone as he could assume:
“I wish you would let me have Jock. He is old enough for school now, and whatever you want to do with him I could always begin his education; of course, you will give him every advantage—”
“I will give him as good as I had myself, Philip, and as you had. Do you think I am going to take Lucy’s money for that child? Not a penny! He shall be bred up according to his own rank in life; and by the time he’s a man, you’ll have grown too grand for the old place, and you can hand it over to him.”
Philip opened his eyes in spite of himself.
“Then Lucy will be a great lady,” he said, half laughing, “and her brother a little school-master in Kent’s Lane.”
Lucy, who was standing behind her father at the moment, began to make the most energetic signs of dissent. She made her mouth into a puckered circle of inarticulate “No-os,” and shook her head with vehement contradiction. Just below, and all unconscious of this pantomime, the old man grinned upon his visitor, delighted with the opportunity at once of declaring his intentions, and of inflicting a salutary snub.
“That is exactly what I intend,” he said, “you have hit it. Even if it hadn’t been just, it would have been a fine thing to do as an example; but it is just as well. Is a fine lady any better than a poor school-master? Not a bit! Each one in the rank of life that is appointed, and one as good as another; that’s always been my principle. I wouldn’t have stepped out of my rank of life, or the habits of my rank of life, not if you had given me thousands for it; not, I promise you,” cried old Trevor, with a snarl, “for the sake of being asked to dinner here and there, as some folks are; but being in my own rank of life I thought myself as good as the king; and that’s why Lucy shall be a great lady, and her brother a little school-master, whether or not he’s in Kent’s Lane.”
“But he shall not be so, papa, if I can help it,” Lucy said.
“You won’t be able to help it, my pet,” said her father, relapsing Into a chuckle, “not you, nor any one else; that’s one thing of which I can make sure.”
The two young people looked at each other over his old head. They made no telegraphic signs this time. Philip was for the moment overawed by the old man’s determination, while Lucy, the most dutiful of daughters, was mute, in a womanly confidence of somehow or other finding a way to balk him. She had not in the least realized how life was to be bound and limited by the imperious will of the father who grudged her nothing. But Lucy accepted it all quite tranquilly, whatever it might be—except this. When she went with her cousin to the door, she confided to him the one exception to her purposes of obedience.
“Papa does not think what he is saying; I never believe him when he talks like that. I to be rich and Jock poor! He only says it for fun, Philip, don’t you think?”
“It does not look much like fun,” Philip said, with a rueful shake of his head.
“Well! but old people—old people are very strange; they think a thing is a joke that does not seem to us at all like a joke. I will do all that papa wishes, but not about Jock.”
“And I hope you won’t let him persuade you to think,” said Philip, lingering with her hand in his to say good-night, “that I am neglecting my work, or giving myself airs, or—”
“Oh, that is only his fun,” said Lucy, nodding her head to him with a pleasant smile as he went out into the night.
She was not pretty, he thought, as he walked away, but her face was very soft and round and pleasant; her blue eyes very steady and peaceful, with a calmness in them, which, in its way, represented power. Philip, who was, though so steady, somewhat excitable, and apt to be fretted and worried, felt that the repose in her was consolatory and soothing. She would be good to come home to after a man had been baited and bullied in the world. He had thought her an insignificant little girl, but to-night he was not so sure that she was insignificant, and Philip did not know anything, at all about the will and its iron rod.