Part 4 (1/2)
”It strikes me you are taking things very much for granted,” returned his son, trying to speak coolly, but flus.h.i.+ng like a girl over his words. ”I think you might wait, father, until I proposed bringing you home a daughter-in-law.”
”I am only warning you, d.i.c.k, that the Challoner connection would be distasteful to me,” replied Mr. Mayne, feeling that he had gone a little too far. ”If you had brothers and sisters it would not matter half so much; but it would be too hard if my only son were to cross my wishes.”
”Should you disinherit me, father?” observed d.i.c.k, cheerfully. He had recovered his coolness and pluck, and began to feel more equal to the occasion.
”We should see about that, but I hardly think it would be for your advantage to oppose me too much,” returned his father with an ominous pucker of his eyebrows, which warned d.i.c.k, that it was hardly safe to chaff the old boy too much to-night.
”I think I will go to bed, Richard,” put in poor Mrs. Mayne. She had wisely forborne to mix in the discussion, fearing that it would bring upon her the vials of her husband's wrath. Mr. Mayne was as choleric as a Welshman, and had a reserve force of sharp cynical sayings that were somewhat hard to bear. He was disposed to turn upon her on such occasions, and to accuse her of spoiling d.i.c.k and taking his part against his father; between the two Richards she sometimes had a very bad time indeed.
d.i.c.k lighted his mother's candle, and bade her good-night; but all the same she knew she had not seen the last of him. A few minutes afterwards there was a hasty tap at the bedroom door, and d.i.c.k thrust in his head.
”Come in, my dear; I have been expecting you,” she said, with a pleased smile. He always came to her when he was ruffled or put out, and brought her all his grievances; surely this was the very meaning and essence of her motherhood,--this healing and comfort that lay in her power of sympathy.
When he was a little fellow, had she not extracted many a thorn and bound up many a cut finger? and now he was a man, would she be less helpful to him when he wanted a different kind of comfort?
”Come in, my son,” she said, beckoning him to the low chair beside her, into which d.i.c.k threw himself with a petulant yawn.
”Mother, what made the pater so hard on me to-night? he cut up as rough as though I had committed some crime.”
”I don't think he is quite himself to-night,” returned Mrs. Mayne, in her soft, motherly voice. ”I fancy he misses you, d.i.c.k, and is half jealous of the Challoners for monopolizing you. You are all we have, that's where it is,” she finished, stroking the sandy head with her plump hand; but d.i.c.k jerked away from her with a little impatience.
”I think it rather hard that a fellow is to be bullied for doing nothing at all,” replied d.i.c.k, with a touch of sullenness. ”When the pater is in this humor it is no use saying anything to him; but you may as well tell him, mother, that I mean to choose my wife for myself.”
”Oh, my dear, I dare not tell him anything of the kind,” returned Mrs.
Mayne, in an alarmed voice; and then, as she glanced at her son, her terror merged into amus.e.m.e.nt. There was something so absurdly boyish in d.i.c.k's appearance, such a ludicrous contrast between the manliness of his speech and his smooth cheek; the little fringe of hirsute ornament, of which d.i.c.k was so proud, was hardly visible in the dim light; his youthful figure, more clumsy than graceful, had an unfledged air about it, nevertheless, the boldness of his words took away her breath.
”Every man has a right to his own choice in such a matter,” continued d.i.c.k, loftily. ”You may as well tell him, mother, that I intend to select my own wife.”
”My dear, I dare not for worlds----” she began; and then she stopped, and laid her hand on his shoulder. ”Why do you say this to me? there is plenty of time,” she went on hastily; ”that is what your father says, and I think he is right. You are too young for this sort of thing yet. You must see the world; you must look about you; you must have plenty of choice,” continued the anxious mother. ”I shall be hard to please, d.i.c.k, for I shall think no one good enough for my boy; that is the worst of having only one, and he the best son that ever lived,”
finished Mrs. Mayne, with maternal pride in her voice.
d.i.c.k took this effusion very coolly. He was quite used to all this sort of wors.h.i.+p; he did not think badly of himself; he was not particularly humble-minded or given to troublesome introspection; on the whole, he thought himself a good fellow, and was not at all surprised that people appreciated him.
”There are such a lot of cads in the world, one is always glad to fall in with a different sort,” he would say to himself. He was quite of his mother's opinion, that an honest, G.o.d-fearing young fellow, who spoke the truth and shamed the devil, who had no special vices but a dislike for early rising, who had tolerable brains, and more than his share of muscle, who was in the Oxford eleven, and who had earned his blue ribbon,--that such a one might be considered to set an example to his generation.
When his mother told him she would be hard to please, d.i.c.k looked a little wicked, and thought of Nan; but the name was not mentioned between them. Nevertheless, Mrs. Mayne felt with unerring maternal instinct that, in spite of his youth, d.i.c.k's choice was made, and sighed to herself at the thought of the evil days that were to come.
Poor woman, she was to have little peace that night! Hardly had d.i.c.k finished his grumble and sauntered away, before her husband's step was heard in his dressing-room.
”Bessie,” he called out to her, ”why do you allow that boy to keep you up so late at night? Do you know that it is eleven, and you are still fully dressed?”
”Is it so late, Richard?”
”Yes, of course,” he snapped; ”but that is the care you take of your health; and the way you cosset and spoil that boy is dreadful.”
”I don't think d.i.c.k is easily spoiled,” plucking up a little spirit to answer him.
”That shows how little you understand boys,” returned her husband.