Chapter II

It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtue’s labours trained:
Pride in a life that slander’s tongue defied,
In fact a noble passion, misnamed Pride.
CRABBE.

The strongly-marked character of the Vavasour family has been noticed in the introduction of this tale. The exception to the hitherto unbroken line of true Vavasours was in Robert. He was no Vavasour. The family pride did not influence him. The “niceness of nature” and “honest haughtiness” were not to be found in him. He was inclined to laugh at his grim old ancestors, and had been heard to wish away some relics of their grandeur. His character was full of good and full of beauty, but it was not the good or the beauty of his own family. In place of their nobility of soul--truly noble, yet somewhat narrow--he had a generous spirit, open and world-wide. In place of their slumbering and self-restrained romance, he had warm affections, ardent but volatile; In place of their unconquerable resolution, he had an altogether different form of resolution--self-will; and in place of their self-control he had no counterpart to offer--for impatient of authority, and fond of pleasure, he was not disposed to be a severe Mentor to himself.

In any family, Robert’s character would have excited care and anxiety; a care as strong as the love he inspired; but in this family it excited a fear amounting to torture. Mr. Vavasour loved his son passionately (in his mind every feeling was a passion); this very love made his eyes sharp and keen to detect Robert’s failures. Every childish fault was seen--not only in its own proportions, but in the dimensions of future years; not as the small shadow of the noonday, but as the long shadow of the evening.

Yet it would have been hard to say wherein lay the fault in Robert’s education. If there was strictness, it was without severity. If there were restraints, there were also unbounded indulgences. Though obedient to the idolizing mother’s wish--the boys were brought up at home--they were not home boys; both were famous in the country for their bold riding and skill in every sport.

The fault was probably in the bounded limits of Mr. Vavasour’s mind and sympathies. He had his standard, his _own_ standard, therefore a narrow one. He endeavoured too much to assimilate Robert to his own idea. He did not go forward to meet the hopes, the thoughts, the qualities, springing up in his differently-moulded son.

Robert may have felt the standard to be too sternly high. It may have strained his eyes to look upon it. Conceiving such a lofty form of virtue to be required, he may have felt an improbability set before him; and the very excellence of the standard may have caused a laxity in his mind. It is possible!

Such criticisms on education are easily made. Such inferences are easily drawn, when a plan has failed to work. It is not so easy for those whose hearts are in their children’s welfare, and who feel their responsibility to God who gave the child, for every thought implanted in its mind, to trace the exact limits of duty, and to discover the point at which an excess of good instruction begins.

Mr. Vavasour was a religious man, and all he did was religiously done. If he failed it was human infirmity that failed; the human infirmity of overmuch pride in his family’s good deeds; the over idolizing cherishing of an honour hitherto without a stain.

* * * * *

It was three years later than the date of the last chapter. Mr. Vavasour’s two sons were on the eve of going to college. Words are not needed to picture the hopes and fears of that time; the hopes of the young; the hopes and far stronger fears of those who send their treasures for the first time into the world’s fiery trials.

The evening passed silently. Mr. Vavasour sat by the fire in profound thought: even his newspapers untouched beside him. On the opposite side of the fire sat Mrs. Vavasour, working with unremitting industry. Tears, very natural ones, were in her eyes, and thus she concealed them.

At a little distance from her sat Robert; and Hope on a lower chair beside him. Hope was unchanged still; like a child and a spirit; and unchanged, too, was the intensity of the gaze with which she watched him. Occasionally he laid his hand caressingly on her head; occasionally smiled, and addressed to her a few laughing words; but for the most part he, too, was silent, and his countenance was sad. Up to this moment he had been looking forward joyfully; but now his happy youth, his home, his mother’s love, rose up like a sweet and soothing picture, and touched him. Robert’s feelings were strong and excitable. If volatile, yet, while they lasted, intense. He saw his mother’s tear-stained and trembling lashes. He saw his father’s thoughtfulness; he knew that fears and hopes filled their hearts for him; hopes great as their love; fears, which his conscience told him were not idle. Agitated with these and other thoughts, he found it hard to restrain his own tears. They came and went--brushed away with a dash of his hand, and a half-ashamed smile; and every smile and every tear gave a new charm to his countenance. In her stealthy glances his mother saw them, and his softness bound a fresh link of love round her already too idolizing heart.

But there was one who was more sad than all. This night had brought to Everard the knowledge, never hitherto so fully understood, that he was _nothing_.

He saw his mother’s rapid glances into Robert’s face; he saw Hope’s unchanging gaze; he saw his father’s meditations; and felt that anxiety for Robert was the cause. He, too, was going into the world, and the world’s temptations, and no love, no prayers of love would watch over his unguarded youth.

The consciousness brought exceeding bitterness. He said in his heart, that he was selfish thus to have his thoughts fastened in himself. He struggled with them, but in vain. The effect of the struggle was, to make his countenance stern, and his voice hard. Once when he spoke his mother looked up with a startled look--so harsh and dry was the tone. Her eye wandered on to Robert’s softened countenance, and almost unconsciously the contrast was remarked upon and felt. Everard felt it himself; hated himself; owned that he was selfish and deserved no love, and knitted his brows into yet sterner meditations. Thus we misjudge others, nay, thus misjudge our ownselves.

At length the clock struck half-past ten. It was the usual hour of separation: and accustomed to please the husband and father in his love of order and punctuality, all had been in the habit of obeying the signal; but this evening there was no movement. The next word was to be--farewell. The boys were to start before day the following morning, and Mr. Vavasour had desired that no further leave-takings should take place. Robert’s eyes were on his mother. He waited for her to speak. She sat with cast-down eyes awaiting some other signal.

The silence was broken by Mr. Vavasour. He raised his head from his thoughtful posture, and simply said, “I wish to speak to you, my boys.”

“Yes father,” they replied with tremulous eagerness; Robert was in the mood for admonition; to Everard his father’s words were always pearls of great price.

Concisely, but forcibly, as was his wont, Mr. Vavasour gave his words of parting advice. His first charge was to both his sons together, and consisted of an admonition to fear God, and to honour their name. The first was dwelt on at greater length: but there was a pathos in his voice as he spoke of the second, which betrayed how near an idol it was to his heart.

When he addressed them separately, it was with a special regard to the probable temptations of each. Both must have felt, both did feel, that the minutest circumstances of their past life, and future prospects, had been revolved in their father’s mind. He spoke to Robert as his heir. He pointed to the duties and responsibilities for which he must prepare himself, and dwelt on the temptations of those who are exempted from the original curse, “In the sweat of thy brow, thou shalt eat bread.” “Make yourself worthy, my boy,” were his concluding words, “of the position to which, before many years, God will call you. Bind upon yourself the yoke He has laid lightly on your shoulders, and remember, Robert,” he added in a solemn and tremulous voice, “the words of the wise man, ‘_My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the love of thy mother; for a wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son puts his mother to shame._’”

There were strong resolves in Robert’s breast, and the “I will remember, father,” was spoken with vehement earnestness. He drew nearer to his mother, and placed his hand in hers--the movement of the body expressing that the guide of his life was chosen.

His fathers eyes followed him with a softened smile, and a look of glad confidence. They rested on him for a moment; then he roused himself to address his younger son. There was more to be said to Everard. There were explanations to be made; and his voice, as he resumed, had a drier and more business-like tone, which grated on his son’s ear.

The explanations to Everard were regarding “the portion of goods” that would fall to him. Having but two sons, Mr. Vavasour said, and being well known to possess large estates, and full power over what he had, “it might be Everard’s expectation, it would certainly be the expectation of others, that for him an ample provision would be made.” This he warned him would not be the case. He spoke minutely of the state of his affairs, and pointed out the strong necessity that no divisions, no deductions should be made.

“What is just, Everard,” he gravely said, “you will have, but let your dependence be on yourself.”

Then leaving his drier tone, he spoke with a kindling eye of his hopes from the industry of his son.

“I am ambitious for you; yes, my boy, I own it. I would have you bring fresh honour to our name. I put that name, I put that honour in your hands, and confess to you that it is your father’s dearest treasure. And yet,” he added, in a lower tone, “there is something beyond ambition. It is in God’s hands whether or not you can be great; it is in yours with His help that you can be good. My prayer for you both is that you may guard our name from taint of vice, and bring it honour by your virtuous deeds. Let this be done, and I am content. And now, my boys,” he said, “God bless you.”

He rose hastily from his seat, and extended a hand to each; then drawing them nearer, with something of solemnity, kissed their brows. “And now Joan,” he continued, “bid them good-bye.”

Violent exhibitions of feeling were distasteful to Mr. Vavasour. All knew it. Swiftly therefore and silently the farewell was taken. Robert, softened and overcome, flew to his own room. Mrs. Vavasour, fearful of grieving her husband by her overmuch sorrow, followed his example. The drawing-room door closed, and Everard and Hope went up the stairs together.

Hope rarely cried, and was not crying now; but her thoughts were not with her companion, as she walked silently by his side; and when they reached the landing-place where their ways separated, she passed on without perceiving him.

He stopped her with an expression almost of anguish on his countenance. “I wish you would say good-bye to me Hope.

“I did,” she replied, in some surprise; but immediately and kindly held out her little hand.

“You did not say it as if you cared. I wish you would sometimes think of me, Hope. I know you pray for Robert; I wish you would sometimes say a prayer for me, that I may never disappoint my father.”

“I will, Everard,” she replied; “but you don’t want it;” and she shook her head with a melancholy shake, as if thinking of one who did.

“I do,” he cried, passionately. “Why do you say that, Hope? It is unkind of you.”

She looked at him, as if startled and puzzled by his vehemence; but, after a moment’s thought, in her sweet, kind voice, she replied to him--“I am sure, dear Everard, I will think of you, and pray for you, if it will make you happy; but you know you are not like poor Robert; and you must not be angry if I think most of him. Oh! Everard,” she continued, clasping her hands together, and for once speaking out all the fears and troubles of her heart, “I am sometimes so frightened when I think--if Robert should forget all that my uncle says, what will become of him? He is so good--so good,” she repeated fondly; “but he does forget. Will you think of him, dear Everard, and remind him when he is far away?”

“I will, if I can. But don’t be afraid, Hope. How can Robert forget, when he thinks of _you_? Good-bye,” and the hard-featured boy stooped and kissed his young cousin, with a mother’s tenderness.

“Good-bye,” she said softly, and held out her hand again, before she glided away.

He stood looking after her, till the last glimpse of her white dress disappeared from the long corridor; and when he returned to his own room, a tear was on his lashes, and an aching longing in his heart.