Part 17 (2/2)
Rufus remarked. ”Well, and what did you say to him, on your side?”
”I gave it to him, I can tell you! 'That's all ostentation,' I said.
'Why can't Regina and I begin life modestly? What do we want with a carriage to drive out in, and champagne on the table, and a footman to answer the door? We want to love each other and be happy. There are thousands of as good gentlemen as I am, in England, with wives and families, who would ask for nothing better than an income of five hundred a year. The fact is, Mr. Farnaby, you're positively saturated with the love of money. Get your New Testament and read what Christ says of rich people.' What do you think he did, when I put it in that unanswerable way? He held up his hand, and looked horrified. 'I can't allow profanity in my office,' says he. 'I have my New Testament read to me in church, sir, every Sunday.' That's the sort of Christian, Rufus, who is the average product of modern times! He was as obstinate as a mule; he wouldn't give way a single inch. His adopted daughter, he said, was accustomed to live in a certain style. In that same style she should live when she was married, so long as he had a voice in the matter.
Of course, if she chose to set his wishes and feelings at defiance, in return for all that he had done for her, she was old enough to take her own way. In that case, he would tell me as plainly as he meant to tell her, that she must not look to a single farthing of his money to help her, and not expect to find her name down in his will. He felt the honour of a family alliance with me as sincerely as ever. But he must abide by the conditions that he had stated. On those terms, he would be proud to give me the hand of Regina at the altar, and proud to feel that he had done his duty by his adopted child. I let him go on till he had run himself out--and then I asked quietly, if he could tell me the way to increase my income to two thousand a year. How do you think he answered me?”
”Perhaps he offered to utilise your capital in his business,” Rufus guessed.
”Not he! He considered business quite beneath me; my duty to myself, as a gentleman, was to adopt a profession. On reflection, it turned out that there was but one likely profession to try, in my case--the Law.
I might be called to the Bar, and (with luck) I might get remunerative work to do, in eight or ten years' time. That, I declare to you, was the prospect he set before me, if I chose to take his advice. I asked if he was joking. Certainly not! I was only one-and-twenty years old (he reminded me); I had plenty of time to spare--I should still marry young if I married at thirty. I took up my hat, and gave him a bit of my mind at parting. 'If you really mean anything,' I said, 'you mean that Regina is to pine and fade and be a middle-aged woman, and that I am to resist the temptations that beset a young man in London, and lead the life of a monk for the next ten years--and all for what? For a carriage to ride out in, champagne on the table, and a footman to answer the door! Keep your money, Mr. Farnaby; Regina and I will do without it.'--What are you laughing at? I don't think you could have put it more strongly yourself.”
Rufus suddenly recovered his gravity. ”I tell you this, Amelius,”
he replied; ”you afford (as we say in my country) meaty fruit for reflection--you do.”
”What do you mean by that?”
”Well, I reckon you remember when we were aboard the boat. You gave us a narrative of what happened in that Community of yours, which I can truly cha_rac_terise as a combination of native eloquence and chastening good sense. I put the question to myself, sir, what has become of that well-informed and discreet young Christian, now he has changed the sphere to England and mixed with the Farnabys? It's not to be denied that I see him before me in the flesh when I look across the table here; but it's equally true that I miss him altogether, in the spirit.”
Amelius sat down again on the sofa. ”In plain words,” he said, ”you think I have behaved like a fool in this matter?”
Rufus crossed his long legs, and nodded his head in silent approval.
Instead of taking offence, Amelius considered a little.
”It didn't strike me before,” he said. ”But, now you mention it, I can understand that I appear to be a simple sort of fellow in what is called Society here; and the reason, I suspect, is that it's not the society in which I have been accustomed to mix. The Farnabys are new to me, Rufus.
When it comes to a question of my life at Tadmor, of what I saw and learnt and felt in the Community--then, I can think and speak like a reasonable being, because I am thinking and speaking of what I know thoroughly well. Hang it, make some allowance for the difference of circ.u.mstances! Besides, I'm in love, and that alters a man--and, I have heard some people say, not always for the better. Anyhow, I've done it with Farnaby, and it can't be undone. There will be no peace for me now, till I have spoken to Regina. I have read the note you left for me. Did you see her, when you called at the house?”
The quiet tone in which the question was put surprised Rufus. He had fully expected, after Regina's reception of him, to be called to account for the liberty that he had taken. Amelius was too completely absorbed by his present anxieties to consider trivial questions of etiquette.
Hearing that Rufus had seen Regina, he never even asked for his friend's opinion of her. His mind was full of the obstacles that might be interposed to his seeing her again.
”Farnaby is sure, after what has pa.s.sed between us, to keep her out of my way if he can,” Amelius said. ”And Mrs. Farnaby, to my certain knowledge, will help him. They don't suspect _you._ Couldn't you call again--you're old enough to be her father--and make some excuse to take her out with you for a walk?”
The answer of Rufus to this was Roman in its brevity. He pointed to the window, and said, ”Look at the rain.”
”Then I must try her maid once more,” said Amelius, resignedly. He took his hat and umbrella. ”Don't leave me, old fellow,” he resumed as he opened the door. ”This is the turning-point of my life. I'm sorely in need of a friend.”
”Do you think she will marry you against the will of her uncle and aunt?” Rufus asked.
”I am certain of it,” Amelius answered. With that he left the room.
Rufus looked after him sadly. Sympathy and sorrow were expressed in every line of his rugged face. ”My poor boy! how will he bear it, if she says No? What will become of him, if she says Yes?” He rubbed his hand irritably across his forehead, like a man whose own thoughts were repellent to him. In a moment more, he plunged into his pockets, and drew out again the letters introducing him to the secretaries of public inst.i.tutions. ”If there's salvation for Amelius,” he said, ”I reckon I shall find it here.”
CHAPTER 4
The medium of correspondence between Amelius and Regina's maid was an old woman who kept a shop for the sale of newspapers and periodicals, in a by-street not far from Mr. Farnaby's house. From this place his letters were delivered to the maid, under cover of the morning newspapers--and here he found the answers waiting for him later in the day. ”If Rufus could only have taken her out for a walk, I might have seen Regina this afternoon,” thought Amelius. ”As it is, I may have to wait till to-morrow, or later still. And then, there's the sovereign to Phoebe.” He sighed as he thought of the fee. Sovereigns were becoming scarce in our young Socialist's purse.
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