Volume I Part 17 (2/2)

”I see,” said Tom, moodily, as he changed from one foot to the other, and cracked the joints of his fingers, till they seemed dislocated. ”I see it all.”

”What do you mean by that?--what do you see?” asked Conyers, angrily.

”I see that Polly, my sister, was right; that she knew you better than any of us,” said Tom, boldly, for a sudden rush of courage had now filled his heart. ”She said, 'Don't let him turn your head, Tom, with his fine promises. He was in good humor and good spirits when he made them, and perhaps meant to keep them too; but he little knows what misery disappointment brings, and he'll never fret himself over the heavy heart he's giving you, when he wakes in the morning with a change of mind.' And then, she said another thing,” added he, after a pause.

”And what was the other thing?”

”She said, 'If you go up there, Tom,' says she, 'dressed out like a s...o...b..y in his Sunday suit, he'll be actually shocked at his having taken an interest in you. He 'll forget all about your hard lot and your struggling fortune, and only see your vulgarity.' 'Your vulgarity,'--that was the word.” As he said this, his lip trembled, and the chair he leaned on shook under his grasp.

”Go back, and tell her, then, that she was mistaken,” said Conyers, whose own voice now quavered. ”Tell her that when I give my word I keep it; that I will maintain everything I said to you or to your father; and that when she imputed to me an indifference as to the feelings of others, she might have remembered whether she was not unjust to mine.

Tell her that also.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: 140]

”I will,” said Tom, gravely. ”Is there anything more?” ”No, nothing more,” said Conyers, who with difficulty suppressed a smile at the words and the manner of his questioner. ”Good-bye, then. You 'll send for me when you want me,” said Tom; and he was out of the room, and half-way across the lawn, ere Conyers could recover himself to reply.

Conyers, however, flung open the window, and cried to him to come back.

”I was nigh forgetting a most important part of the matter, Tom,” said he, as the other entered, somewhat pale and anxious-looking. ”You told me, t' other day, that there was some payment to be made,--some sum to be lodged before you could present yourself for examination. What about this? When must it be done?”

”A month before I go in,” said Tom, to whom the very thought of the ordeal seemed full of terror and heart-sinking.

”And how soon do you reckon that may be?”

”Polly says not before eight weeks at the earliest. She says we 'll have to go over Bell on the Bones all again, and brush up the Ligaments, besides. If it was the Navy, they 'd not mind the nerves; but they tell me the Army fellows often take a man on the fifth pair, and I know if they do me, it's mighty little of India I 'll see.”

”Plucked, eh?”

”I don't know what you mean by 'plucked,' but I 'd be turned back, which is, perhaps, the same. And no great disgrace, either,” added he, with more of courage in his voice; ”Polly herself says there's days she could n't remember all the branches of the fifth, and the third is almost as bad.”

”I suppose if your sister could go up in your place, Tom, you 'd be quite sure of your diploma?”

”It's many and many a day I wished that same,” sighed he, heavily. ”If you heard her going over the 'Subclavian,' you 'd swear she had the book in her hand.”

Conyers could not repress a smile at this strange piece of feminine accomplishment, but he was careful not to let Tom perceive it. Not, indeed, that the poor fellow was in a very observant mood; Polly's perfections, her memory, and her quickness were the themes that filled up his mind.

”What a rare piece of luck for you to have had such a sister, Tom!”

”Don't I say it to myself?--don't I repeat the very same words every morning when I awake? Maybe I 'll never come to any good; maybe my father is right, and that I 'll only be a disgrace as long as I live; but I hope one thing, at least, I 'll never be so bad that I 'll forget Polly, and all she done for me. And I'll tell you more,” said he, with a choking fulness in his throat; ”if they turn me back at my examination, my heart will be heavier for _her_ than for myself.”

”Come, cheer up, Tom; don't look on the gloomy side. You 'll pa.s.s, I 'm certain, and with credit too. Here 's the thirty pounds you 'll have to lodge--”

”It is only twenty they require. And, besides, I could n't take it; it's my father must pay.” He stammered, and hesitated, and grew pale and then crimson, while his lips trembled and his chest heaved and fell almost convulsively.

”Nothing of the kind, Tom,” said Conyers, who had to subdue his own emotion by an a.s.sumed sternness. ”The plan is all my own, and I will stand no interference with it. I mean that you should pa.s.s your examination without your father knowing one word about it. You shall come back to him with your diploma, or whatever it is, in your hand, and say, 'There, sir, the men who have signed their names to that do not think so meanly of me as you do.'”

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