The Pillars of the House Part 54

Felix increased much in cordiality towards Mr. Fulmort, and at the same time mounted many stages in Clement's estimation on the discovery that, however behindhand his ecclesiastical advantages might be, the Vicar was exceedingly impressed by his excellence.

A day or two after Felix's arrival, Ferdinand Travis was first encountered riding a spirited horse in the park, looking remarkably handsome, though still of the small-limbed slender make that recalled his Indian blood. His delight in the meeting was extreme, and he seemed to be as simple and good as ever. He was in deep mourning, having newly heard of his father having been killed in an American railway accident, and though his uncle seemed proud of him, and continued his liberal allowance, the loss and blank were greatly felt--all the more that he had not found it easy to make friends among his brother officers in the Life Guards. His foreign air was somehow uncongenial; he had no vivacity or cleverness, and being little inclined to some of the amus.e.m.e.nts of his contemporaries, and on his guard against others, he seemed to find his life rather dull and weary. He did not seem to have anything to love except his horses, especially the creature he was then riding, Brown Murad. He had obtained it after such compet.i.tion, that he viewed the purchase as an achievement; while Felix heard the amount with an incredulous shudder, and marvelled at Mr. Audley's not regarding it as wildly preposterous. It was a dangerous position; and though Mr. Audley certified himself, through his soldier brother, that Travis was steadiness itself--neither betted, gamed, nor ran into debt--yet while he seemed personally acquainted with all the horses that ran, and apparently entered into no literature but the Racing Calendar, it was impossible not to be anxious about him, even though he seemed perfectly happy to be allowed to be with his two G.o.dfathers, and followed them everywhere, from the Houses of Parliament to St.

Matthew's.

This was not the last expedition Felix had to make to London that spring. After many appointments of the time, and as many delays, a telegram suddenly summoned him in the beginning of May to bring Fulbert up to London, when the business would be wound up, and Captain Audley would take his brother and the boy in his yacht to Alexandria, there to join the overland pa.s.sengers.

So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the train was in motion, and then was s.n.a.t.c.hed back, and well shaken and reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher cap had ceased to be visible.

Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven, and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching when he found himself tete-a-tete with Fulbert in a cab; but while he was still considering of the right end by which to take this difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say, I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'

'I believe it is for your good,' said Felix.

'You'll get on better without me,' repeated Fulbert; then, with an effort, 'Look here. It isn't that I don't know you're a brick and all that, but somehow nothing riles me like your meddling with me.'

'I know it,' answered Felix. 'I wish I could have helped it; but what could be done, when there was n.o.body else?'

'Ay,' responded Fulbert, 'I know I have been a sulky, nasty brute to you, and I should do it again; and yet I wish I hadn't.'

'I should be as bad myself if I were a junior,' was the moral reflection Felix produced for his brother's benefit. 'Only, Ful, if you try that on with Mr. Audley out there, you'll come to grief.'

'I don't mean to,' said Fulbert.

'And you'll keep in mind what my father meant us to be, Ful--that we have got to live so as to meet him again.'

Fulbert nodded his head emphatically.

'It is his name you have to keep unstained in the new country,' added Felix, the fresh thought rising to his lips; but it was met by a gush of feeling that quite astonished him.

'Ay, and yours, Felix! I do--I do want to be a help, and not a drag to you. I _really_ don't think so much of any of them--not even Lance--as of you. I _hope_ I shouldn't have been better to my father than I have been to you; and when--when I'm out there, I do hope to show--that I do care.'

The boy was fighting with very hard sobs, and for all the frightful faces he made the tears were running down his cheeks. Felix's eyes were overflowing too, but with much of sudden comfort and thankfulness.

'I always knew you were a good fellow, Ful,' he said, with his hand on his brother's knee, 'and I think you'll keep so, with Mr. Audley to keep you up to things, and show you how to be helped.'

All after this was bustle and hurry. Fulbert had to be sent alone to take leave of Alda, while his brother and Mr. Audley transacted their business. Edgar came back with him; and after some hurried rus.h.i.+ngs out in search of necessaries forgotten, the last farewells were spoken, and Fulbert, with the two Audley brothers, was out of sight; while Felix, after drawing a long, deep sigh, looked at his watch, and spoke of going to see Alda.

'Don't run your head into a hornet's nest,' said Edgar; 'it's all up with me there. Come this way, and I'll tell you all about it.'

'All up with you!'

'There are limits to human endurance, and Tom and I have overpa.s.sed each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for the pleading of personal predilections.'

'What is it now?'

'Only a set of etchings from Atalanta in Caledon. That was the straw that broke the camel's back,' said Edgar, so coolly as to make Felix exclaim--

'How much or how little do you mean?'

'Separated on account of irreconcilable incompatibility.'

'Impossible!'

'Possible, because true.'

'Why did you not tell before Mr. Audley was gone?'

'It would have been bad taste to obtrude one's own little affairs, and leave him with vexatious intelligence to ruminate on his voyage.

Nay, who knows but that he might have thought it his duty to wait to compose matters, and so a bright light might have been lost to the Antipodes.'

'You actually mean me to understand that you have broken with Tom Underwood?'

'The etchings were the text of an awful row, in which the old gentleman exposed himself more than I am willing to repeat, and called on me to choose between his hides and tallow and what he was pleased to call my tomfoolery.'

Felix groaned.

'Exactly so. You are conscious that his demand was not only tyrannical but impracticable. One can't change the conditions of one's nature.'

'Are you absolutely dismissed?'

'Nothing can be more so.'

'And what do you mean to do?' demanded Felix, stung, though to a certain degree rea.s.sured, by his tranquillity.

'Study art.'

'And live--?'

'On my own two hundred. You will advance it? I only want sixteen months of years of discretion, and then I'll pay it back with more than interest.'

'I must know more first,' said Felix. 'I must understand what terms you are on with Tom Underwood, and whether you have any reasonable or definite plans.'

'Spoken like an acting partner! Well, come to Renville, he will satisfy you as to my plans. I am to be his pupil; he teaches at the South Kensington Museum, and is respectability itself. In fact, he requires my responsible brother to be presented to him. Come along.'

'Stay, Edgar. I do not think it right by Tom Underwood to see any one before him. I shall go to him before anything else is done.'

'Do not delude yourself with the hope of patching up matters like Audley last winter, losing me five months of time and old Tom of temper.'

'How long ago was this?'

'The crisis was yesterday. I was just packing to come home when Fulbert burst upon the scene.'

Nothing could be worse news, yet Edgar's perfect self-possession greatly disarmed Felix. Never having thought his brother and the work well suited, he was the less disposed to anger, especially as the yoke of patronage was trying to his character; but he persisted in seeing Thomas Underwood before taking any steps for Edgar's future career, feeling that this was only due to the cousin to whom his father had entrusted the lad. So Edgar, with a shrug, piloted him to the Metropolitan Railway, and then to the counting-house where, in the depths of the City, Kedge and Underwood dealt for the produce of the corrals of South America.

Edgar, as he entered the office full of clerks, nodded to their bald- headed middle-aged senior in a half-patronising manner. 'Don't be afraid, Mr. Spooner; I'm not coming back on your hands, whatever this good brother of mine may intend. Is the Governor in?'

'Mr. Underwood is in his room, Mr. Edgar,' was the very severe answer; 'but after this most serious annoyance, I would not answer for the consequences.'

'Wouldn't you indeed?' said Edgar quietly, in a nonchalant tone that made the younger lads bend down to sniggle behind their desks, while he moved on to the staircase.