Julian Home Part 15

"Dear Miss Home--I enclose you a specimen of the herb Paris, which I promised to procure for you, if I could find one in Barton Wood.

Julian was the actual discoverer, but has kindly allowed me to send it in fulfilment of my promise; he is quite well, and we are all hoping that you may hear in a day or two that he has got the Clerkland scholarship. With kindest remembrances to Mrs Home and your brothers, I remain, dear Miss Home, very truly yours, De Vayne."

Little did Violet dream that this commonplace note had given its author such deep pleasure, and that before he despatched it he had kissed it a thousand times for her sake, and because it was destined for her hand.

De Vayne would not have added the allusion to the Clerkland, but that rumours were already gaining ground in Julian's favour. The universal brilliancy of his earlier papers had already attracted considerable attention, and from mysterious hints at the high table, De Vayne began to gather almost with certainty that Julian was the successful candidate. Similar reports from various quarters were rife among the undergraduates, and were supposed to be traceable to competent authorities.

Wednesday evening came, and next morning the result was to be made known. As certainty approached, and suspense was nearly terminated, Julian awaited his fate with sickening, almost with trembling anxiety.

At nine o'clock he knew that the paper on which was written the name of the Clerkland scholar would be affixed to the senate-house door, but he did not venture to go and read it. He knew that, if he were successful, a hundred men would be eager to rush up to his rooms with the joyful intelligence; if unsuccessful, he still trusted that he had one or two friends sufficiently sincere to put an end to his painful anxiety by telling him the news.

Nine o'clock struck. Oh, for the sound of some footstep on the stairs!

Many must know the result by this time. Julian's hopes were still high, and he could not fail to hear of the numerous and seemingly authoritative reports which had ascribed success to him. He pressed his hands hard together, as he prayed that what was most for his welfare might be granted to him, and thought what boundless delight success would bring with it. What a joy it would be, above all, to write home, and gladden their hearts by the news of his triumph.

Every moment his suspense made him more feverish, and now the clock struck a quarter past nine, and he feared that in this case no news must be bad news. He leaned out of the window, and at this moment Mr Grayson strolled across the bowling-green. Then he heard another don, who was following him, call out--

"I say, do you know that the Clerkland is out?"

"Is it?" said Mr Grayson, with unusual show of interest.

"Yes. Who do you think has got it?"

"A Saint Werner's man, I hope."

"Yes."

"Well, who is it?"

What was the answer--Owen or Home?--at that distance the names sounded _exactly alike_.

"Oh, then, I am very sorry for--" Again Julian _could_ not, with his utmost effort, catch the name with certainty; and, unable any longer to endure this state of doubt, he seized his cap and gown, when the sound of a slow footstep stopped him.

But it was Brogten's step, and Julian heard him pa.s.s into his own room.

A moment of breathless silence, and then another step, or rather the steps of two men; he detected by the sound that they were Lillyston and De Vayne. In one moment he would know the--Was it the best or the worst? He stood with his hand on the handle of the door; but it seemed as if they would never get to the top of the stairs. Why on earth were they so slow?

"Well," said Julian, as they came in sight, "is the Clerkland out?" He knew it was, but would not ask them the result.

"Yes," they both said; and Lillyston added, in a sorrowful tone of voice, "I am sorry for you, Julian, but Owen has got it."

Julian grew very pale, and for one second reeled as if he would faint.

Lord De Vayne caught him as he staggered, and added eagerly, "But you are most honourably mentioned, Julian, 'proxime accessit,' and an allusion to your illness during one paper."

"Nothing, nothing," muttered Julian; "please leave me by myself." They were unwilling to leave him, and both lingered, but he entreated them to go, and respecting his desire for solitude they left him alone.

Julian found relief in a burst of pa.s.sionate tears. He flung himself on the ground and cursed his birth, and his hard fate, and above all he cursed Brogten, who, as was clear, had been the cause, the sole cause, as Julian obstinately said, of his heavy misfortune. "Here I am," he murmured, "a sizar, an orphan, poor, without relations, with others depending on me, with my own way to make in the world, and now he has lost me the one thing I longed for, the one thing which would have made me happy," and as Julian kept brooding on this, on the loss of reputation, of help, of hope, his eyes grew red and swollen, and his temples throbbed with pain. He was far from strong, and the shock of news that shattered all his hopes, and dashed rudely to the ground his long, long cherished desires, came more heavily upon him, because his const.i.tution, naturally delicate, had suffered much during the last week from study and over anxiety. The necessity of writing home haunted him,--to his mother and sister, whose pride in him was so great, and who hoped so much for the honours which they thought him so sure to win,--to his brothers who had seen his diligence, and who would be deeply sorry to know that it had been in vain; to them at least he would be forced to announce the humiliating intelligence of defeat. He might leave his other friends to learn it from accidental sources, but oh, the bitterness of being obliged to announce it for himself, to those to whose disappointment he was most painfully alive, and oh, the intolerable plague of receiving letters of commiseration.

He could not do anything, he could not read, or write, or even think, except of the one blow which had thus laid him prostrate. He leaned over his window-sill, and stared stupidly at the great stone bears carved on the portals of Saint Margaret's; his eyes wandered listlessly over the smooth turf of the Fellows' bowling-green, and the trim parterres full of crocus and anemone and violet which fringed it; he watched the boats skim past him on the winding gleams of the Iscam, and shoot among the water-lilies by the bridge and then he stared upwards at the sun, trying to think of nothing until his eyes watered, and then the sight of a don in the garden below made him shrink back, to avoid observation, into his own room.

Some of the Saint Werner's men would be coming soon to condole with him.

What a nuisance it would be! He got up and sported the door. This action recalled in all their intensity his bitterest and angriest feelings, and he flung the door open again, and threw himself full length on the sofa, until a sort of painful stupor came over him, and he became unconscious of how the time went by.

At length a slight sound awoke him, and he saw De Vayne standing by him.

De Vayne was so gentle in heart and manner, so full of sympathy and kindness, that of all others he was the one whom at that moment Julian could best endure to see.

"I am afraid," he said, "that you will think me very foolish, De Vayne.

But to me everything almost depended on this scholarship, and you can hardly tell how absolutely it had engrossed my hopes."

"It is very natural that you should feel it, Julian. But I came to ask if you would like me to save you the trouble of writing home to-day. I could say more, you know, than you could," he added with a pleasant smile, "of the splendid manner in which you acquitted yourself, of which I have heard a great deal that I will tell you some day."

"Thanks, De Vayne. I should be really and truly grateful if you would.

They will expect to hear by to-morrow, and I know that if I write now, I shall be saying something bitter and hasty."

"Very well, I will. Are you inclined for a stroll now?"

"No, thank you," said Julian, unwilling to encounter the many eyes which he knew would look on him with curiosity to see how he bore his loss.

"Good morning then; I shall come again soon."

"Do, I shall like to see _you_," said Julian; and De Vayne went away, thinking with some happiness, that if he had won Julian's affection, that would be something towards helping him to win Violet's too.

Julian had no intention that any strange eye should see how much he had felt his disappointment, so when Mr Admer came to see him, he gave no sign of vexation, and they talked indifferently for a few minutes, till Mr Admer said--

"Well, Home, I'm sorry you haven't got this scholarship. Not that it makes the least difference, you know, really. No sensible man would have thought one atom the better of you for getting it, and even your reputation stands just as high as before.

"Ah, I see you take it to heart rather; all very natural, but when you're my age you'll think less of these things. There are higher successes in the world than these small University affairs."

"But they aren't small to me," said Julian. "Not to men up here," said Mr Admer.

"'They think the rustic cackle of their body The murmur of the world.'"

"Perhaps, after all, if you had got it, it would only have helped to make you as fussy, as foolish, and as self-important as Jones, and Brown, and Robinson, who, because they are dons, think themselves the most important people in England, when really they are only conspicuous for empty-headedness and conceit; or as the senior Wrangler, who entering the theatre at the same moment as the queen, bowed graciously on all sides in acknowledgment of the acclamations. As it is, Home, you are a man who ought to do something in the world."

Julian could not help smiling at Mr Admer's usual style, and would have found some relief in arguing with him, had not Hazlet entered, whose very appearance put Mr Admer to a precipitate flight. There could not have been any human being less likely to give Julian any effectual consolation at such a moment, and he could not help sighing as Mr Admer left him to his persecutor.

"Fugit improbus ac me sub cultro linquit," he said appealingly, secure in Hazlet's ignorance of the Latin tongue; but Mr Admer only shook his head significantly, and disappeared.

With his black shining hair brushed down in unusual lankiness over his receding forehead, and with an expression of sleek resignation unusually sanctimonious, Hazlet sat down, and gave a half groan.

"I am sorry," he said, "dear Julian--"

"Home, if you please, Hazlet," interrupted Julian.

Hazlet was a little taken aback, but he said--

"Well, dear Home--"

"Home _only_, if you please," said Julian still more abruptly.

"Ah! I see you are in a rebellious--excuse me, dear--I mean Home,--a rebellious spirit. I feared it would be so when I saw that G.o.dless young clergyman with you."