Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/41

 The two men Walter—was a man now—grieved together over the overturned hopes and the extinguished ambition. It was impossible for Walter to attempt to go to college just then. There was no scholarship vacant, and if there had been, the amount to be won might probably have been insufficient for this modest youth. There was no help for it; he must give up the idea. What, then, was he to do? Mr. Ashurst answered that in his usual impulsive way. Walter should become under-master in the school. The number of boys had increased immensely. There was more work than he and Dr. Breitmann could manage; oh yes, he was sure of it, he had thought so a long time, and Walter should become third classical master, with a salary of sixty pounds a year, and board and lodging in Mr. Ashurst's house. It was a rash and wild suggestion, just likely to emanate from such a man as James Ashurst. The number of boys had increased, and Mr. Ashurst's energy had decreased; but there was Dr. Breitmann; a kindly, well-read, well-educated doctor of philosophy, from Leipzig; a fine classical scholar, though he pronounced "amo" as "ahmo," and "Dido" as "Taito;" a gentleman, though his clothes were threadbare, and he only ate meat once a week, and sometimes not then unless he were asked out; and a disciplinarian, though he smoked like a limekiln; a habit which in the Helmingham school-boys' eyes proclaimed the confirmed debauchee of the Giovanni or man-about-town type. Walter Joyce had been a favourite pupil of the doctor's, and was welcomed as a colleague by his old tutor with the utmost warmth. It was understood that his engagement was only temporary; he would soon have enough money to enable him, with a scholarship, to astonish the university, and then! Meanwhile Mr. Ashurst and all around repeated that his talents were marvellous, and his future success indisputable.

That was the reason why Marian Ashurst fell in love with him. As has before been said, she thought nothing of outward appearance, although Walter Joyce had grown into a sufficiently comely man, small indeed, but with fine eyes and an eloquent mouth, and a neatly turned figure; nor, though a refined and educated girl, did she estimate his talents save for what they would bring. He was to make a success in his future life! that was what she thought of—her father said so, and so far in matters of cleverness and book learning, and so on, her father's opinion was worth something. Walter Joyce was to make money and position, the two things of which she thought, and dreamed, and hoped for, night and day. There was no one else among her acquaintance with his power. No farmer within the memory of living generations had done more than to keep up the homestead bequeathed to him whilst attempting to increase the number or the value of his fields; and even the gratification of her love of money would have been but a poor compensation to a girl of Marian's innate good breeding and refinement for being compelled to pass her life in the society of a boor or a churl. No! Walter Joyce combined the advantage of education and good looks, with the prospect of attaining wealth and distinction; he was her father's favourite, and was well thought of by everybody, and—and she loved him very much, and was delighted to comfort herself with the thought that in doing so she had not sacrificed any of what she was pleased to consider the guiding principles of her life.

And he, Walter Joyce, did he reciprocate, was he in love with Marian? Has it ever been your lot to see an ugly or, better still, what is called an ordinary man—for ugliness has become fashionable both in fiction and in society—to see an ordinary looking man hitherto politely ignored, if not snubbed, suddenly taken special notice of by a handsome woman, a recognised leader of her set, who, for some special purpose of her own, suddenly discovering that he has brains, or conversational power, or some peculiar fascination, singles him out from the surrounding ruck, steeps him in the sunlight of her eyes, and intoxicates him with the subtle wiles of her address? It does one good, it acts as a moral shower-bath, to see such a man under such circumstances. Your fine fellow simpers and purrs for a moment, and takes it all as real legitimate homage to his beauty; but the ordinary man cannot, so soon as he has got over his surprise at the sensation, cannot be too grateful, cannot find ways and means—cumbrous frequently and ungraceful, but eminently sincere—of showing his appreciation of the woman. Thus it was with Walter Joyce. The knowledge that he was a grocer's son had added immensely to the original shyness and sensitiveness of his disposition, and the free manner in which his frank and delicate personal appearance had been made the butt of