'You won't be plucked unless you go out of your senses for the occasion.'
'No thanks to your advice and assistance if I am not. But it would conduce to my equanimity, Jem, to know whether we are quarrelling, as in that case I should know how to demean myself.'
'I've no quarrel with you. You have far more reason-But,' added Jem, catching himself up, 'don't you know I have no leisure for trifling? The Ordination is the second week in March.'
'The Ordination!'
'Ay-you know it! My fellowship depends on it.'
'I never liked to contemplate it.' He sat down and mused, while James continued his occupation. Presently he said, 'Look here. Sir Miles Oakstead asked me if I had any clever Oxford friend to recommend. If he comes into office, he-'
'I'll be no great man's hanger-on.'
'This matter is not imminent. You are barely four-and-twenty. Wait a year or two; even a few months would-'
'You have tried my forbearance often enough,' broke in James; 'my object is-as you very well know-to maintain myself and mine without being liable to obnoxious patronage. If you think I should disgrace the office, speak out!'
Louis, without raising his eyes, only answered with a smile.
'Then, what do you mean? As to your notions of a vocation, ninety- nine out of a hundred are in my case. I have been bred up to this- nothing else is open-I mean to do my duty; and surely that is vocation-no one has a right to object-'
'No one; I beg your pardon,' meekly said Louis, taking up his stick to go; but both knew it was only a feint, and James, whose vehemence was exhausting itself, resumed, in an injured tone, 'What disturbs you? what is this scruple of yours!-you, who sometimes fancy you would have been a curate yourself!'
'I have just inclination enough to be able to perceive that you have none.'
'And is every one to follow his bent?'
'This is not a step to be taken against the grain, even for the best earthly motives. Jem! I only beg you to ask advice. For the very reason that you are irreproachable, you will never have it offered.'
'The present time, for instance?' said James, laughing as best he might.
'That is nothing. I have no faith in my own judgment, but, thinking as I do of the profession and of you, I cannot help believing that my distaste for seeing you in it must be an instinct.'
'Give me your true opinion and its grounds candidly, knowing that I would not ask another man living.'
'Nor me, if I did not thrust it on you.'
'Now for it! Let us hear your objection.'
'Simply this. I do not see that anything impels you to take Holy Orders immediately, except your wish to be independent, and irrevocably fixed before your uncle can come home. This seems to me to have a savour of something inconsistent with what you profess. It might be fine anywhere else, but will it not bear being brought into the light of the sanctuary? No, I cannot like it. I have no doubt many go up for ordination far less fit than you, but- Jem, I wish you would not. If you would but wait a year!'
'No, Fitzjocelyn, my mind is made up. I own that I might have preferred another course, and Heaven knows it is not that I think myself worthy of this; but I have been brought up to this, and I will not waver. It is marked out for me as plainly as your earldom for you, and I will do my duty in it as my appointed calling. There lies my course of honest independence: you call it pride-see what those are who are devoid of it: there lie my means of educating my sister, providing for my grandmother. I can see no scruple that should deter me.'
Fitzjocelyn having said his say, it was his turn and his nature to be talked down.
'In short,' concluded James, walking about the room, 'there is no alternative. Waiting for a College living is bad enough, but nothing else can make happiness even possible.'
'One would think you meant one sort of happiness,' said Louis, with a calm considering tone, and look of inquiry which James could not brook.
'What else?' he cried. 'Fool and madman that I am to dwell on the hopeless-'
'Why should it be hopeless?-' began Louis.
'Hush! you are the last person with whom I could discuss this subject,' he said, trying to be fierce, but with more sorrow than anger. 'I must bear my burthen alone. Believe me, I struggled hard. If you and I be destined to clash, one comfort is, that even I could never quarrel with you.'
'I have not the remotest idea of your meaning.'
'So much the better. No, so much the worse. You are not capable of feeling what I do for her, or you would have hated me long ago. Do not stay here! I do not know that I can quite bear the sight of you -But don't let me lose you, Louis.'
James wrung the hand of his cousin; and no sooner was he alone, than he began to pace the room distractedly.
'Poor Jem!' soliloquized Fitzjocelyn. 'At least, I am glad the trouble is love, not the Ordination. But as to his meaning! He gives me to understand that we are rivals-It is the most absurd thing I ever knew-I declare I don't know whether he means Mary or Isabel. I suppose be would consider Mary's fortune a barrier-No, she is too serene for his storms-worthy, most worthy-but she would hate to be worshipped in that wild way. Besides, I am done for in that quarter. No clashing there-! Nay, the other it can never be- after all his efforts to lash me up at Christmas. Yet, he was much with her, he made Clara sacrifice the clasp to her. Hm! She is an embodied romance, deserving to be raved about; while for poor dear Mary, it would be simply ridiculous. I wish I could guess-it is too absurd to doubt, and worse to ask; and, what's more, he would not stand it. If I did but know! I'm not so far gone yet, but that I could leave the field to him, if that would do him any good. Heigh ho! it would be en regle to begin to hate him, and be as jealous as Bluebeard; but there! I don't know which it is to be about, and one can't be jealous for two ladies at once, luckily, for it would be immensely troublesome, unless a good, hearty quarrel would be wholesome to revive his spirits. It is a bad time for it, though! Well, I hope he does not mean Mary-I could not bear for her to be tormented by him. That other creature might reign over him like the full moon dispersing clouds. Well! this is the queerest predicament I ever heard of!' And on he wandered, almost as much diverted by the humour of the doubt, as annoyed by the dilemma.
He had no opportunity for farther investigation: James removed himself so entirely from his society, that he was obliged to conclude that the prevailing mood was that of not being quite able to bear the sight of him. His consolation was the hope of an opening for some generous proceeding, though how this should be accomplished was not visible, since it was quite as hard to be generous with other people's hearts as to confer a benefit on a Pendragon. At any rate, he was so confident of Jem's superiority, as to have no fear of carrying off the affection of any one whom his cousin wished to win.
James was ordained, and shortly after went to some pupils for the Easter vacation, which was spent by Louis at Christchurch, in studying hard. The preparation for going up for his degree ended by absorbing him entirely, as did every other pursuit to which he once fairly devoted himself, and for the first time he gave his abilities full scope in the field that ought long ago to have occupied them. When, finally, a third class was awarded to him, he was conscious that it might have been a first, but for his past waste of time.
He was sorry to leave Oxford: he had been happy there in his own desultory fashion; and the additional time that his illness had kept him an undergraduate, had been welcome as deferring the dreaded moment of considering what was to come next. He had reached man's estate almost against his will.
He was to go to join his father in London; and he carried thither humiliation for having, by his own fault, missed the honours that too late he had begun to value as a means of gratifying his father.
The Earl, however, could hardly have taken anything amiss from Louis. After having for so many years withheld all the lassez-aller of paternal affection, when the right chord had once been touched, his fondness for his grown-up son had the fresh exulting pride, and almost blindness that would ordinarily have been lavished on his infancy. Lord Ormersfield's sentiments were few and slowly adopted, but they had all the permanence and force of his strong character, and his affection for Fitzjocelyn partook both of parental glory in a promising only son, and of that tenderness, at once protecting and dependent, that fathers feel for daughters. This was owing partly to Louis's gentle and assiduous attentions during the last vacation, and also to his long illness, and remarkable resemblance to his mother, which rendered fondness of him a sort of tribute to her, and restored to the Earl some of the transient happiness of his life.
