Love Eternal Part 24

Just then the oily-headed clerk announced that Mr. Ranson was at liberty. So they both went in to see him, and the rest may be imagined.

The trustees undertook to pay his expenses, even if they had to stretch a point to do so, and gave him 20 to go on with, also a letter of introduction to Sc.o.o.nes, whom he was instructed to see and arrange to join their cla.s.ses. Then General Cubitte hustled off, telling him to come to dine at an address in Kensington two nights later and "report himself."

So within less than an hour G.o.dfrey's future career was settled. He came out of the office feeling rather dazed but happier than when he went in, and inquired his way to Garrick Street, where he was informed that Mr. Sc.o.o.nes had his establishment. He found the place and, by good luck, found Mr. Sc.o.o.nes also, a kindly, keen, white-haired man, who read the letter, made a few inquiries and put him through a brief examination.

"Your information is varied and peculiar," he said, "and not of the sort that generally appeals to Her Majesty's examiners. Still, I see that you have intelligence and, of course, the French is an a.s.set; also the literature to some extent, and the Latin, though these would have counted more had you been going up for the Indian Civil. I think we can get you through in three months if you will work; it all depends on that. You will find a lot of young men here of whom quite seventy per cent. do nothing, except see life. Very nice fellows in their way, but if you want to get into Sandhurst, keep clear of them. Now, my term opens next Monday. I will write to General Cubitte and tell him what I think of you, also that the fees are payable in advance. Good-bye, glad you happened to catch me, which you would not have done half an hour later, as I am going out of town. At ten o'clock next Monday, please."

After this, not knowing what to do, G.o.dfrey returned to the Great Eastern Hotel and wrote a letter to his father, in which, baldly enough, he explained what had happened.

Having posted it in the box in the hall, he bethought him that he must find some place to live in, as the hotel was too expensive for a permanence, and was making inquiries of the porter as to how he should set about the matter when a telegram was handed to him. It ran: "All up as I expected. Meet me Liverpool Street 4.30.--Nurse."

So G.o.dfrey postponed his search for lodgings, and at the appointed hour kept the a.s.signation on the platform. The train arrived, and out of it, looking much more like her old self than she had on the previous day, emerged Mrs. Parsons with the most extraordinary collection of bundles, he counted nine of them, to say nothing of a jackdaw in a cage. She embraced him with enthusiasm, dropping the heaviest of the parcels, which seemed to contain bricks, upon his toe, and in a flood of language told him of the peculiar awfulness of the row between his father and herself which had ensued upon his departure.

"Yes," she ended, "he flung my money at my head and I flung it back at his, though afterwards I picked it up again, for it is no use wasting good gold and silver. And so here I am, beginning life again, like you, and feeling thirty years younger for it. Now, tell me what you are going to do?"

Then they went and had tea in the refreshment room, leaving the jackdaw and the other impediments in charge of a porter, and he told her.

"That's first-rate," she said. "I always hated the idea of seeing you with a black coat on your back. The Queen's uniform looks much better, and I want you to be a man. Now you help me into a cab and by dinner time to-morrow I'll be ready for you at my house at Hampstead, if I have to work all night to do it. Terms--drat the terms. Well, if you must have them, Master G.o.dfrey, ten shillings a week will be more than you will cost me, and I ought to give you five back for your company.

Now I'll make a start, for there will be a lot to do before the place is fit for a young gentleman. I've never seen it but twice, you know."

So she departed, packed into a four-wheeled cab, with the jackdaw on her lap, and G.o.dfrey went to Madame Tussaud's, where he studied the guillotine and the Chamber of Horrors.

On the following morning, having further improved his mind at the Tower, he took a cab also, and in due course arrived at Hampstead with his belongings. The place took some finding, for it was on the top of a hill in an old-fashioned, out of the way part of the suburb, but when found proved to be delightful. It was a little square house, built of stone, on which the old builder had lavished all his skill and care, so that in it everything was perfect, with a garden both in front and behind. The floors were laid in oak, the little hall was oak-panelled, there were hot and cold water in every room, and so forth. Moreover, an odd man was waiting to carry in his things, and in one of the front sitting-rooms, which was excellently furnished, sat Mrs. Parsons knitting as though she had been there for years.

"Here you are," she said, "just as I was beginning to get tired of having nothing to do. Lord! what a fuss we make about things before we face 'em. After all they ain't nothing but bubbles. Blow them and they burst. Look here, Master G.o.dfrey," and she waved her hand about the sitting-room. "Pretty neat, ain't it? Well, I thought it would be all of a hugger-mugger. But what did I find? That those tenants had been jewels and left everything like a new pin, to say nothing of improvements, such as an Eagle range. Moreover, the caretaker is a policeman's wife and a very nice woman always ready to help for a trifle, and that man that brought in your boxes is a relative of hers who does gardening jobs and such-like. Now, come and see your rooms,"

and she led him with pride into a capital back apartment with a large window, in fact an old Tudor one which the builder had produced somewhere, together with the panelling on the walls.

"That's your study," she said, "bookshelves and all complete. Now, follow me," and she took him upstairs to a really charming bedroom.

"But," said G.o.dfrey, surveying these splendours, "this must be the best room in the house. Where do you sleep?"

"Oh! at the back there, my dear. You see, I am accustomed to a small chamber and shouldn't be happy in this big one. Besides, you are going to pay me rent and must be accommodated. And now come down to your dinner."

A very good dinner it was, cooked by the policeman's wife, which Mrs.

Parsons insisted on serving, as she would not sit at the table with him. In short, G.o.dfrey found himself in clover, a circ.u.mstance that filled him with some sadness. Why, he wondered, should he always be made so miserable at home and so happy when he was away? Then he remembered that famous line about the man who throughout life ever found his warmest welcome at an inn, and perceived that it hid much philosophy. Frequently enough homes are not what fond fancy paints them, while in the bosom of strangers there is much kindliness.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INTERVENING YEARS

Now we may omit a great deal from G.o.dfrey's youthful career. Within a few days he received a letter from his father forwarded to him from the hotel, that was even more unpleasant than the majority of the paternal epistles to which he was accustomed. Mr. Knight, probably from honest conviction and a misreading of the facts of life, was one of those persons who are called Pacifists. Although he never carried out the doctrine in his own small affairs, he believed that nations were enjoined by divine decree to turn the other cheek and indeed every portion of their corporate frame to the smiter, and that by so doing, in some mysterious way, they would attain to profound peace and felicity. Consequently he hated armies, especially as these involved taxation, and loathed the trade of soldiering, which he considered one of licensed murder.

The decision of his son to adopt this career was therefore a bitter blow to him, concerning which he expressed his feelings in the plainest language, ending his epistle by intimating his strong conviction that G.o.dfrey, having taken the sword, was destined to perish by the sword.

Also he pointed out to him that he had turned his back upon G.o.d Who would certainly remember the affront, being, he remarked, "a jealous G.o.d," and lastly that the less they saw of each other in future--here he was referring to himself, not to the Divinity as the context would seem to imply--the better it would be for both of them.

Further there was a postscript about the disgraceful conduct of the woman, Mrs. Parsons, who, after receiving the shelter of his house for many years, had made a scene and departed, leaving him in the lurch.

His injunction was that under no circ.u.mstances should he, G.o.dfrey, have anything more to do with this violent and treacherous female who had made him a pretext of quarrel, and, having learned that he had money, doubtless wished to get something out of him.

G.o.dfrey did not answer this letter, nor did his father write to him again for quite a long while.

For the rest, on the appointed Monday he presented himself at Garrick Street, and began his course of tuition under the general direction of the wise Mr. Sc.o.o.nes, "cramming" as it was called. This, indeed, exactly describes the process, for all knowledge was rejected except that which was likely to obtain marks in the course of an examination by hide-bound persons appointed to ascertain who were the individuals best fitted to be appointed to various branches of the Public Service.

Anything less calculated to secure the selection of suitable men than such a system cannot well be imagined. However, it was that which certain nebulous authorities had decreed should prevail, and there was an end of it, although in effect it involved, and still involves, the frequent sacrifice of those qualities and characteristics which are essential to a public servant, to others that are quite the reverse.

For instance, to a parrot-like memory and the power of acquiring a superficial acquaintance with much miscellaneous information and remembering the same for, say, six months.

Although he hated the business and thought with longing of his studies, stellar and other, in the Kleindorf observatory, G.o.dfrey was quite clever enough to collect what was needed. In fact, some three months later he pa.s.sed his examination with ease about half-way up the list, and duly entered Sandhurst.

He found the establishment at Garrick Street just such a place as its owner had described. In it were many charming but idle young men, often with a certain amount of means, who were going up for the Diplomatic Service, the Foreign Office, the Indian Civil, or various branches of the army. Of these a large proportion enjoyed life but did little else, and in due course failed in their compet.i.tive encounters with the examiners.

Others were too stupid to succeed, or perhaps their natural talents had another bent, while the remainder, by no means the most brilliant, but with a faculty for pa.s.sing examinations and without any disturbing originality, worked hard and sailed into their desired haven with considerable facility, being of the stuff of which most successful men are made. For the rest, there was the opportunity, and if they did not avail themselves of it Sc.o.o.nes' was not to blame. It was, and perhaps still remains, a most admirable inst.i.tution of its sort, one, indeed, of which the present chronicler has very grateful recollections.

Among the pupils studying there was a young man named Arthur Thorburn, an orphan, with considerable expectations, who lived with an aunt in a fine old house at Queen Anne's Gate. He was a brilliant young man, witty and original, but rash and without perseverance, whom his guardians wished to enter the Diplomatic Service, a career in which, without doubt, had he ever attained to it, he would have achieved a considerable failure. In appearance he was of medium height, round-faced, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a constant and most charming smile, in every way a complete contrast to G.o.dfrey. Perhaps this was the reason of the curious attachment that the two formed for each other, unless, indeed, such strong and strange affinities have their roots in past individual history, which is veiled from mortal eyes. At any rate, it happened that on G.o.dfrey's first day at Sc.o.o.nes' he sat next to Arthur Thorburn in two cla.s.ses which he attended. G.o.dfrey listened intently and made notes; Arthur caricatured the lecturer, an art for which he had a native gift, and pa.s.sed the results round the cla.s.s. G.o.dfrey saw the caricature and sn.i.g.g.e.red, then when the lectures were over gravely reproved the author, saying that he should not do such things.

"Why not?" asked Arthur, opening his blue eyes. "Heaven intended that stuffy old parrot" (he had drawn this learned man as a dilapidated fowl of that species) "to be caricatured. Observe that his nose is already half a beak. Or perhaps it is a beak developing into a nose; it depends whether he is on the downward or upward path of evolution."

"Because you made me laugh," replied G.o.dfrey, "whereby I lost at least eighteenpennyworth of information."

"A laugh is worth eighteenpence," suggested Arthur.

"That depends upon how many eighteenpences one possesses. You may have lots, some people are short of them."

"Quite true. I never looked at it in that way before. I am obliged to you for putting it so plainly," said Arthur with his charming smile.

Such was the beginning of the acquaintance of these two, and in some cases might have been its end. But with them it was not so. Arthur conceived a sincere admiration for G.o.dfrey who could speak like this to a stranger, and at Sc.o.o.nes' and as much as possible outside, haunted him like a shadow. Soon it was a regular thing for G.o.dfrey to go to dine at the old Georgian house in Queen Anne's Gate upon Sunday evenings, where he became popular with the rather magnificent early-Victorian aunt who thought that he exercised a good influence upon her nephew. Sometimes, too, Arthur would accompany G.o.dfrey to Hampstead and sit smoking and making furtive caricatures of him and Mrs. Parsons, while he worked and she beamed admiration. The occupation sounds dull, but somehow Arthur did not find it so; he said that it rested his overwrought brain.

"Look here, old fellow," said G.o.dfrey at length, "have you any intention of pa.s.sing that examination of yours?"

"In the interests of the Diplomatic Service and of the country I think not," replied Arthur reflectively. "I feel that it is a case where true altruism becomes a duty."

"Then what do you mean to do with yourself?"

"Don't know. Live on my money, I suppose, and on that of my respected aunt after her lamented decease which, although I see no signs of it, she tells me she considers imminent."

"I don't wonder, Arthur, with you hanging about the house. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. A man is made to work his way through the world, not to idle."

"Like a beetle boring through wood, not like a b.u.t.terfly flitting over flowers; that's what you mean, isn't it? Well, b.u.t.terflies are nicer than beetles, and some of us like flowers better than dead wood. But, I say, old chap, do you mean it?"

"I do, and so does your aunt."

"Let us waive my aunt. Like the poor she is always with us, and I, alas! am well acquainted with her views, which are those of a past epoch. But I am not obstinate; tell me what to do and I'll do it--anything except enter the Diplomatic Service, to lie abroad for the benefit of my country, in the words of the ancient saying."

"There is no fear of that, for you would never pa.s.s the examination,"

said the practical G.o.dfrey. "You see, you are too clever," he added by way of explanation, "and too much occupied with a dozen things of which examiners take no account, the merits of the various religious systems, for instance."

"So are you," interrupted Arthur.

"I know I am; I love them. I'd like to talk to you about reincarnation and astronomy, of which I know something, and even astrology and the survival of the dead and lots of other things. But I have got to make my way in the world, and I've no time. You think me a heavy bore and an old fogey because I won't go to parties to which lots of those nice fellows ask me. Do you suppose I shouldn't like the parties and all the larks afterwards and the jolly actresses and the rest? Of course I should, for I'm a man like others. But I tell you I haven't time. I've flouted my father, and I'm on my honour, so to speak, to justify myself and get on. So I mean to pa.s.s that tomfool examination and to cram down a lot of stuff in order to do so, which is of no more use to me than though I had swallowed so much brown paper. Fool-stuff, pulped by fools to be the food of fools--that's what it is. And now I'm going to shove some spoonfuls of it down my throat, so light your pipe, and please be quiet."