3.

“TREDINNIS, Nov. 27, 18—.”

“MOST HONOURED SCHOLAR,—Behold me, an hour ago, a great lady, seated in lonely grandeur at the head of my own ancestral table. This is the first time I have used the dining-room; usually I take all my meals in the morning-room, at a small table beside the fire. But to-night I had the great table spread and the plate spread out, and wore my best gown, and solemnly took my grandfather’s chair and glowered at the ghost of a small girl shivering at the far end of the long white cloth. When I had enough of this (which was pretty soon) I ordered up some champagne and drank to the health of Theophilus John Raymond, Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford. I graciously poured out a second glass for the small ghost at the other end of the table; and it gave her the courage to confess that she, too, in a timid way, had taken an interest in you for years, and hoped you were going to be a great man. Having thus discovered a bond between us, we grew very friendly; and we talked a great deal about you afterwards in the drawing-room, where I lost her for a few minutes and found her hiding in the great mirror over the fire-place—a habit of hers.”

“It is time for me to practise ceremony, for it seems that George and I are to be married some time in the spring. For my part I think my lord would be content to wait longer; for so long as he is happy and sees others cheerful he is not one to hurry or worry. But Sir Harry is the impatient one: and has begun to talk of his decease. He doesn’t believe in it a bit, and at times when he composes his features and attempts to be lugubrious I have to take up a book and hide my smiles. But he is clever enough to see that it worries George.”

“I saw both your father and mother this morning. Mr. Raymond has been kept to the house by a chill; nothing serious: but he is fretting to be out again and at work in that draughty church. He will accept no help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no right to press it on him. I shall never understand men and how they fight. I supposed that the war lay between him and my grandfather. But it seems he was fighting an idea all the while; for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone; and still the Vicar will give no quarter. If you had not assured me that your demy-ship means eighty pounds a year, I could believe that men fight for shadows only. Your mother and grandmother are both well....”

It was a raw December afternoon—within a week of the end of term— and Taffy had returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when he found a telegram lying on his table. There was just time to see the Dean, to pack, and to snatch a meal in hall, before rattling off to his train. At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait for the night-mail westward.

“Your father dangerously ill. Come at once.”

There was no signature. Yet Taffy knew who had ridden to the office with that telegram. The flying dark held visions of her, and the express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp’s gallop. Nor was he surprised at all to find her on the platform at Truro Station. The Tredinnis phaeton was waiting outside.

He seemed to her but a boy after all, as he stepped out of the train in the chill dawn: a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort.

“You must be brave,” said she, gathering up the reins as he climbed to the seat beside her.

Surely yes; he had been telling himself this very thing all night. The groom hoisted in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door they were off. The cold air sang past Taffy’s ears. It put vigour into him, and his courage rose as he faced his shattered prospects, shattered dreams. He must be strong now for his mother’s sake; a man to work and be leant upon.

And so it was that whereas Honoria had found him a boy, Humility found him a man. As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in the midst of her tears that this was not the child she had parted from seven short weeks ago, but a man to act and give orders and be relied upon.

“He called for you... many times,” was all she could say.

For Taffy had come too late. Mr. Raymond was dead. He had aggravated a slight chill by going back to his work too soon, and the bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within sight of his goal. A year before he might have been less impatient. The chill struck into his lungs. On December 1st he had taken to his bed, and he never rallied.

“He called for me?”

“Many times.”

They went up the stairs together and stood beside the bed. The thought uppermost in Taffy’s mind was—“He called for me. He wanted me. He was my father and I never knew him.”

But Humility in her sorrow groped amid such questions as these, “What has happened? Who am I? Am I she who yesterday had a husband and a child? To-day my husband is gone and my child is no longer the same child.”

In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered the first days of her own widowhood, and life seemed to her a very short affair, after all.

Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave. It was no season for out-of-door flowers, and she had rifled her hothouses for a wreath. The exotics shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless, impertinent, in the gusty churchyard. Humility, before the coffin left the house, had brought the dead man’s old blue working-blouse, and spread it for a pall. No flowers grew in the Parsonage garden; but pressed in her Bible lay a very little bunch, gathered, years ago, in the meadows by Honiton. This she divided and, unseen by anyone, pinned the half upon the breast of the patched garment.

On the evening after the funeral and for the next day or two she was strangely quiet, and seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some sign. Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had to find their new positions, each toward each. Now Taffy had known nothing of his parents’ income. He assumed that it was little enough, and that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more than passable smith.... He revolved many schemes, but chiefly found himself wondering what it would cost to enter an architect’s office.

“I suppose,” said he, “father left no will?”

“Oh yes, he did,” said Humility, and produced it: a single sheet of foolscap signed on her wedding day. It gave her all her husband’s property absolutely—whatever it might be.

“Well,” said Taffy, “I’m glad. I suppose there’s enough for you to rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?”

“Who talks about your finding work? You will go back to Oxford, of course.”

“Oh, shall I?” said Taffy, taken aback.

“Certainly; it was your father’s wish.”

“But the money?”

“With your scholarship there’s enough to keep you there for the four years. After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income.”

“But—” He remembered what had been said about the lace-money, and could not help wondering.

“Taffy,” said his mother, touching his hand, “leave all this to me until your degree is taken. You have a race to run and must not start unprepared. If you could have seen his joy when the news came of the demy-ship!”

Taffy kissed her and went up to his room. He found his books laid out on the little table there.