WHEN Magdalen and her father met in the shrubbery Mr. Vanstone’s face showed plainly that something had happened to please him since he had left home in the morning. He answered the question which his daughter’s curiosity at once addressed to him by informing her that he had just come from Mr. Clare’s cottage; and that he had picked up, in that unpromising locality, a startling piece of news for the family at Combe-Raven.
On entering the philosopher’s study that morning, Mr. Vanstone had found him still dawdling over his late breakfast, with an open letter by his side, in place of the book which, on other occasions, lay ready to his hand at meal-times. He held up the letter the moment his visitor came into the room, and abruptly opened the conversation by asking Mr. Vanstone if his nerves were in good order, and if he felt himself strong enough for the shock of an overwhelming surprise.
“Nerves!” repeated Mr. Vanstone. “Thank God, I know nothing about my nerves. If you have got anything to tell me, shock or no shock, out with it on the spot.”
Mr. Clare held the letter a little higher, and frowned at his visitor across the breakfast-table. “What have I always told you?” he asked, with his sourest solemnity of look and manner.
“A great deal more than I could ever keep in my head,” answered Mr. Vanstone.
“In your presence and out of it,” continued Mr. Clare, “I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is—the enormous prosperity of Fools. Show me an individual Fool, and I will show you an aggregate Society which gives that highly-favored personage nine chances out of ten—and grudges the tenth to the wisest man in existence. Look where you will, in every high place there sits an Ass, settled beyond the reach of all the greatest intellects in this world to pull him down. Over our whole social system, complacent Imbecility rules supreme—snuffs out the searching light of Intelligence with total impunity—and hoots, owl-like, in answer to every form of protest, See how well we all do in the dark! One of these days that audacious assertion will be practically contradicted, and the whole rotten system of modern society will come down with a crash.”
“God forbid!” cried Mr. Vanstone, looking about him as if the crash was coming already.
“With a crash!” repeated Mr. Clare. “There is my theory, in few words. Now for the remarkable application of it which this letter suggests. Here is my lout of a boy—”
“You don’t mean that Frank has got another chance?” exclaimed Mr. Vanstone.
“Here is this perfectly hopeless booby, Frank,” pursued the philosopher. “He has never done anything in his life to help himself, and, as a necessary consequence, Society is in a conspiracy to carry him to the top of the tree. He has hardly had time to throw away that chance you gave him before this letter comes, and puts the ball at his foot for the second time. My rich cousin (who is intellectually fit to be at the tail of the family, and who is, therefore, as a matter of course, at the head of it) has been good enough to remember my existence; and has offered his influence to serve my eldest boy. Read his letter, and then observe the sequence of events. My rich cousin is a booby who thrives on landed property; he has done something for another booby who thrives on Politics, who knows a third booby who thrives on Commerce, who can do something for a fourth booby, thriving at present on nothing, whose name is Frank. So the mill goes. So the cream of all human rewards is sipped in endless succession by the Fools. I shall pack Frank off to-morrow. In course of time he’ll come back again on our hands, like a bad shilling; more chances will fall in his way, as a necessary consequence of his meritorious imbecility. Years will go on—I may not live to see it, no more may you—it doesn’t matter; Frank’s future is equally certain either way—put him into the army, the Church, politics, what you please, and let him drift: he’ll end in being a general, a bishop, or a minister of State, by dint of the great modern qualification of doing nothing whatever to deserve his place.” With this summary of his son’s worldly prospects, Mr. Clare tossed the letter contemptuously across the table and poured himself out another cup of tea.
Mr. Vanstone read the letter with eager interest and pleasure. It was written in a tone of somewhat elaborate cordiality; but the practical advantages which it placed at Frank’s disposal were beyond all doubt. The writer had the means of using a friend’s interest—interest of no ordinary kind—with a great Mercantile Firm in the City; and he had at once exerted this influence in favor of Mr. Clare’s eldest boy. Frank would be received in the office on a very different footing from the footing of an ordinary clerk; he would be “pushed on” at every available opportunity; and the first “good thing” the House had to offer, either at home or abroad, would be placed at his disposal. If he possessed fair abilities and showed common diligence in exercising them, his fortune was made; and the sooner he was sent to London to begin the better for his own interests it would be.
“Wonderful news!” cried Mr. Vanstone, returning the letter. “I’m delighted—I must go back and tell them at home. This is fifty times the chance that mine was. What the deuce do you mean by abusing Society? Society has behaved uncommonly well, in my opinion. Where’s Frank?”
“Lurking,” said Mr. Clare. “It is one of the intolerable peculiarities of louts that they always lurk. I haven’t seen my lout this morning. It you meet with him anywhere, give him a kick, and say I want him.”
Mr. Clare’s opinion of his son’s habits might have been expressed more politely as to form; but, as to substance, it happened, on that particular morning, to be perfectly correct. After leaving Magdalen, Frank had waited in the shrubbery, at a safe distance, on the chance that she might detach herself from her sister’s company, and join him again. Mr. Vanstone’s appearance immediately on Norah’s departure, instead of encouraging him to show himself, had determined him on returning to the cottage. He walked back discontentedly; and so fell into his father’s clutches, totally unprepared for the pending announcement, in that formidable quarter, of his departure for London.
In the meantime, Mr. Vanstone had communicated his news—in the first place, to Magdalen, and afterward, on getting back to the house, to his wife and Miss Garth. He was too unobservant a man to notice that Magdalen looked unaccountably startled, and Miss Garth unaccountably relieved, by his announcement of Frank’s good fortune. He talked on about it, quite unsuspiciously, until the luncheon-bell rang—and then, for the first time, he noticed Norah’s absence. She sent a message downstairs, after they had assembled at the table, to say that a headache was keeping her in her own room. When Miss Garth went up shortly afterward to communicate the news about Frank, Norah appeared, strangely enough, to feel very little relieved by hearing it. Mr. Francis Clare had gone away on a former occasion (she remarked), and had come back. He might come back again, and sooner than they any of them thought for. She said no more on the subject than this: she made no reference to what had taken place in the shrubbery. Her unconquerable reserve seemed to have strengthened its hold on her since the outburst of the morning. She met Magdalen, later in the day, as if nothing had happened: no formal reconciliation took place between them. It was one of Norah’s peculiarities to shrink from all reconciliations that were openly ratified, and to take her shy refuge in reconciliations that were silently implied. Magdalen saw plainly, in her look and manner, that she had made her first and last protest. Whether the motive was pride, or sullenness, or distrust of herself, or despair of doing good, the result was not to be mistaken—Norah had resolved on remaining passive for the future.
Later in the afternoon, Mr. Vanstone suggested a drive to his eldest daughter, as the best remedy for her headache. She readily consented to accompany her father; who thereupon proposed, as usual, that Magdalen should join them. Magdalen was nowhere to be found. For the second time that day she had wandered into the grounds by herself. On this occasion, Miss Garth—who, after adopting Norah’s opinions, had passed from the one extreme of over-looking Frank altogether, to the other extreme of believing him capable of planning an elopement at five minutes’ notice—volunteered to set forth immediately, and do her best to find the missing young............