Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/217

204 Evan looked as proud as if he had just clapped down the full amount on the table.

“Out of the History of Portugal, half written, and the prospect of a Government appointment?”

Mrs. Mel raised her eyelids to him.

“In time—in time, mother!”

“Mention your proposal to the creditors when you meet them this day week,” she said.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Then Evan came close to her, saying:

“What is it you want of me, mother?”

"I want nothing, Van—I can support myself.”

“But what would you have me do, mother?”

“Be honest; do your duty, and don’t be a fool about it.”

“I will try,” he rejoined. “You tell me to make the money. Where and how can I make it? I am perfectly willing to work.”

“In this house,” said Mrs. Mel; and, as this was pretty clear speaking, she stood up to lend her figure to it.

“Here?” faltered Evan. “What! be a”

“Tailor!” The word did not sting her tongue.

“I? Oh, that’s quite impossible!” said Evan. And visions of leprosy, and Rose shrinking her skirts from contact with him, shadowed out and away in his mind.

“Understand your choice!” Mrs. Mel imperiously spoke. “What are brains given you for? To be played the fool with by idiots and women? You have 5000l. to pay to save your father from being called a rogue. You can only make the money in one way, which is open to you. This business might produce a thousand pounds a-year and more. In seven or eight years you may clear your father’s name, and live better all the time than many of your bankrupt gentlemen. You have told the creditors you will pay them. Do you think they’re gaping fools, to be satisfied by a History of Portugal? If you refuse to take the business at once, they will sell me up, and quite right too. Understand your choice. There’s Mr. Goren has promised to have you in London a couple of months, and teach you what he can. He is a kind friend. Would any of your gentlemen acquaintance do the like for you? Understand your choice. You will be a beggar—the son of a rogue—or an honest man who has cleared his father’s name!”

During this strenuously-uttered allocution, Mrs. Mel, though her chest heaved but faintly against her crossed hands, showed by the dilation of her eyes, and the light in them, that she felt her words. There is that in the aspect of a fine frame breathing hard facts, which, to a youth who has been tumbled headlong from his card-castles and airy fabrics, is masterful, and like the pressure of a Fate. Evan drooped his head.

“Now,” said Mrs. Mel, “you shall have some supper.”

Evan told her he could not eat.

“I insist upon your eating,” said Mrs. Mel; “empty stomachs are foul counsellors.”

“Mother! do you want to drive me mad?” cried Evan.

She looked at him to see whether the string she held him by would bear this slight additional strain: decided not to press a small point. “Then go to bed and sleep on it,” she said—sure of him—and gave her cheek for his kiss, for she never performed the operation, but kept her mouth, as she remarked, for food and speech, and not for slobbering mummeries.

Evan returned to his solitary room. He sat on the bed and tried to think, oppressed by horrible sensations of self-contempt, that caused whatever he touched to sicken him.

There were the Douglas and the Percy on the wall. It was a happy and a glorious time, was it not, when men lent each other blows that killed outright; when to be brave and cherish noble feelings brought honour; when strength of arm and steadiness of heart won fortune; when the fair stars of earth—sweet women—wakened and warmed the love of squires of low degree. This legacy of the dead man’s hand! Evan would have paid it with his blood; but to be in bondage all his days to it; through it to lose all that was dear to him; to wear the length of a loathed existence!—we should pardon a young man’s wretchedness at the prospect, for it was in a time before our joyful era of universal equality. Yet he never cast a shade of blame upon his father.

The hours moved on, and he found himself staring at his small candle, which struggled more and more faintly with the morning light, like his own flickering ambition against the facts of life.