Love Eternal, H. Rider Haggard [amazing books to read txt] 📗

at my house at Hampstead, if I have to work all night to do it. Terms--drat the terms. Well, if you must have them, Master Godfrey, ten shillings a week will be more than you will cost me, and I ought to give you five back for your company. Now I'll make a start, for there will be a lot to do before the place is fit for a young gentleman. I've never seen it but twice, you know."

So she departed, packed into a four-wheeled cab, with the jackdaw on her lap, and Godfrey went to Madame Tussaud's, where he studied the guillotine and the Chamber of Horrors.

On the following morning, having further improved his mind at the Tower, he took a cab also, and in due course arrived at Hampstead with his belongings. The place took some finding, for it was on the top of a hill in an old-fashioned, out of the way part of the suburb, but when found proved to be delightful. It was a little square house, built of stone, on which the old builder had lavished all his skill and care, so that in it everything was perfect, with a garden both in front and behind. The floors were laid in oak, the little hall was oak-panelled, there were hot and cold water in every room, and so forth. Moreover, an odd man was waiting to carry in his things, and in one of the front sitting-rooms, which was excellently furnished, sat Mrs. Parsons knitting as though she had been there for years.

"Here you are," she said, "just as I was beginning to get tired of having nothing to do. Lord! what a fuss we make about things before we face 'em. After all they ain't nothing but bubbles. Blow them and they burst. Look here, Master Godfrey," and she waved her hand about the sitting-room. "Pretty neat, ain't it? Well, I thought it would be all of a hugger-mugger. But what did I find? That those tenants had been jewels and left everything like a new pin, to say nothing of improvements, such as an Eagle range. Moreover, the caretaker is a policeman's wife and a very nice woman always ready to help for a trifle, and that man that brought in your boxes is a relative of hers who does gardening jobs and such-like. Now, come and see your rooms," and she led him with pride into a capital back apartment with a large window, in fact an old Tudor one which the builder had produced somewhere, together with the panelling on the walls.

"That's your study," she said, "bookshelves and all complete. Now, follow me," and she took him upstairs to a really charming bedroom.

"But," said Godfrey, surveying these splendours, "this must be the best room in the house. Where do you sleep?"

"Oh! at the back there, my dear. You see, I am accustomed to a small chamber and shouldn't be happy in this big one. Besides, you are going to pay me rent and must be accommodated. And now come down to your dinner."

A very good dinner it was, cooked by the policeman's wife, which Mrs. Parsons insisted on serving, as she would not sit at the table with him. In short, Godfrey found himself in clover, a circumstance that filled him with some sadness. Why, he wondered, should he always be made so miserable at home and so happy when he was away? Then he remembered that famous line about the man who throughout life ever found his warmest welcome at an inn, and perceived that it hid much philosophy. Frequently enough homes are not what fond fancy paints them, while in the bosom of strangers there is much kindliness.

CHAPTER XIII(THE INTERVENING YEARS)

 

Now we may omit a great deal from Godfrey's youthful career. Within a few days he received a letter from his father forwarded to him from the hotel, that was even more unpleasant than the majority of the paternal epistles to which he was accustomed. Mr. Knight, probably from honest conviction and a misreading of the facts of life, was one of those persons who are called Pacifists. Although he never carried out the doctrine in his own small affairs, he believed that nations were enjoined by divine decree to turn the other cheek and indeed every portion of their corporate frame to the smiter, and that by so doing, in some mysterious way, they would attain to profound peace and felicity. Consequently he hated armies, especially as these involved taxation, and loathed the trade of soldiering, which he considered one of licensed murder.

The decision of his son to adopt this career was therefore a bitter blow to him, concerning which he expressed his feelings in the plainest language, ending his epistle by intimating his strong conviction that Godfrey, having taken the sword, was destined to perish by the sword. Also he pointed out to him that he had turned his back upon God Who would certainly remember the affront, being, he remarked, "a jealous God," and lastly that the less they saw of each other in future--here he was referring to himself, not to the Divinity as the context would seem to imply--the better it would be for both of them.

Further there was a postscript about the disgraceful conduct of the woman, Mrs. Parsons, who, after receiving the shelter of his house for many years, had made a scene and departed, leaving him in the lurch. His injunction was that under no circumstances should he, Godfrey, have anything more to do with this violent and treacherous female who had made him a pretext of quarrel, and, having learned that he had money, doubtless wished to get something out of him.

Godfrey did not answer this letter, nor did his father write to him again for quite a long while.

For the rest, on the appointed Monday he presented himself at Garrick Street, and began his course of tuition under the general direction of the wise Mr. Scoones, "cramming" as it was called. This, indeed, exactly describes the process, for all knowledge was rejected except that which was likely to obtain marks in the course of an examination by hide-bound persons appointed to ascertain who were the individuals best fitted to be appointed to various branches of the Public Service. Anything less calculated to secure the selection of suitable men than such a system cannot well be imagined. However, it was that which certain nebulous authorities had decreed should prevail, and there was an end of it, although in effect it involved, and still involves, the frequent sacrifice of those qualities and characteristics which are essential to a public servant, to others that are quite the reverse. For instance, to a parrot-like memory and the power of acquiring a superficial acquaintance with much miscellaneous information and remembering the same for, say, six months.

Although he hated the business and thought with longing of his studies, stellar and other, in the Kleindorf observatory, Godfrey was quite clever enough to collect what was needed. In fact, some three months later he passed his examination with ease about half-way up the list, and duly entered Sandhurst.

He found the establishment at Garrick Street just such a place as its owner had described. In it were many charming but idle young men, often with a certain amount of means, who were going up for the Diplomatic Service, the Foreign Office, the Indian Civil, or various branches of the army. Of these a large proportion enjoyed life but did little else, and in due course failed in their competitive encounters with the examiners.

Others were too stupid to succeed, or perhaps their natural talents had another bent, while the remainder, by no means the most brilliant, but with a faculty for passing examinations and without any disturbing originality, worked hard and sailed into their desired haven with considerable facility, being of the stuff of which most successful men are made. For the rest, there was the opportunity, and if they did not avail themselves of it Scoones' was not to blame. It was, and perhaps still remains, a most admirable institution of its sort, one, indeed, of which the present chronicler has very grateful recollections.

Among the pupils studying there was a young man named Arthur Thorburn, an orphan, with considerable expectations, who lived with an aunt in a fine old house at Queen Anne's Gate. He was a brilliant young man, witty and original, but rash and without perseverance, whom his guardians wished to enter the Diplomatic Service, a career in which, without doubt, had he ever attained to it, he would have achieved a considerable failure. In appearance he was of medium height, round- faced, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a constant and most charming smile, in every way a complete contrast to Godfrey. Perhaps this was the reason of the curious attachment that the two formed for each other, unless, indeed, such strong and strange affinities have their roots in past individual history, which is veiled from mortal eyes. At any rate, it happened that on Godfrey's first day at Scoones' he sat next to Arthur Thorburn in two classes which he attended. Godfrey listened intently and made notes; Arthur caricatured the lecturer, an art for which he had a native gift, and passed the results round the class. Godfrey saw the caricature and sniggered, then when the lectures were over gravely reproved the author, saying that he should not do such things.

"Why not?" asked Arthur, opening his blue eyes. "Heaven intended that stuffy old parrot" (he had drawn this learned man as a dilapidated fowl of that species) "to be caricatured. Observe that his nose is already half a beak. Or perhaps it is a beak developing into a nose; it depends whether he is on the downward or upward path of evolution."

"Because you made me laugh," replied Godfrey, "whereby I lost at least eighteenpennyworth of information."

"A laugh is worth eighteenpence," suggested Arthur.

"That depends upon how many eighteenpences one possesses. You may have lots, some people are short of them."

"Quite true. I never looked at it in that way before. I am obliged to you for putting it so plainly," said Arthur with his charming smile.

Such was the beginning of the acquaintance of these two, and in some cases might have been its end. But with them it was not so. Arthur conceived a sincere admiration for Godfrey who could speak like this to a stranger, and at Scoones' and as much as possible outside, haunted him like a shadow. Soon it was a regular thing for Godfrey to go to dine at the old Georgian house in Queen Anne's Gate upon Sunday evenings, where he became popular with the rather magnificent early- Victorian aunt who thought that he exercised a good influence upon her nephew. Sometimes, too, Arthur would accompany Godfrey to Hampstead and sit smoking and making furtive caricatures of him and Mrs. Parsons, while he worked and she beamed admiration. The occupation sounds dull, but somehow Arthur did not find it so; he said that it rested his overwrought brain.

"Look here, old fellow," said Godfrey at length, "have you any intention of passing that examination of yours?"

"In the interests of the Diplomatic Service and of the country I think