'I say, John,' said Percy, one night, as they were walking to the vicarage, 'I wish you could find me something to do in the West Indies.'
'I should be very sorry to export you--'
'I must do something!' exclaimed Percy. 'I was thinking of emigration; but your sister could not go in the present state of things here; and she will not hear of my going and returning when I have built a nest for her.'
'No, indeed!' said John. 'Your powers were not given for the hewing down of forests.'
'Were not they?' said Percy, stretching and clenching a hard muscular wrist and hand.
''A man's a man for a' that!'
I tell you, John, I am wearying for want of work--hard, downright, substantial work!'
'Well, you have it, have you not?'
'Pshaw! Pegasus won't let himself out on hire. I can't turn my sport into my trade. When I find myself writing for the lucre of gain, the whole spirit leaves me.'
'That is what you have been doing for some time.'
'No such thing. Literature was my holiday friend at first; and if she put a gold piece or two into my pocket, it was not what I sought her for. Then she came to my help to beguile what I thought was an interval of waiting for the serious task of life. I wrote what I thought was wanted. I sent it forth as my way of trying what service I could do in my generation. But now, when I call it my profession, when I think avowedly, what am I to get by it?--Faugh! the Muse is disgusted; and when I go to church, I hang my head at 'Lay not up to yourselves treasures upon earth--''
'A fine way you found of laying them up!'
'It proved the way to get them back.'
'I do not understand your objection. You had laid up that sum--your fair earning.'
'There it was: it had accumulated without positive intention on my part; I mean that I had of course taken my due, and not found occasion to spend it. It is the writing solely for gain, with malice prepense to save it,--that is the stumbling-block. I don't feel as if I was justified in it, nay, I cannot do it; my ideas do not flow even on matters wont to interest me most. It was all very well when waiting on Arthur was an object; but after he was gone, I found it out. I could not turn to writing, and if I did, out came things I was ashamed of. No! an able-bodied man of five-and-thirty is meant for tougher work than review and history-mongering! I have been teaching a ragged school, helping at any charities that needed a hand; but it seems amateur work, and I want to be in the stream of life again!'
'I will not say what most would--it was a pity you resigned your former post.'
'No pity at all. That has made a pair of good folks very happy. If I had kept certain hasty judgments to myself, I should not have been laid on the shelf. It is no more than I deserve, and no doubt it is good for me to be humbled and set aside; but work I will get of some kind! I looked in at a great factory the other day, and longed to apply for a superintendent's place, only I thought it might not be congruous with an Honourable for a wife.'
'You don't mean to give up writing?'
'No, to make it my play. I feel like little Annie, when she called herself puss without a corner. I have serious thoughts of the law. Heigh ho! Good night.'
John grieved over the disappointed tone so unusual in the buoyant Percy, and revolved various devices for finding employment for him; but was obliged to own that a man of his age, whatever his powers, when once set aside from the active world, finds it difficult to make for himself another career. It accounted to John for the degree of depression which he detected in Theodora's manner, which, at all times rather grave, did not often light up into animation, and never into her quaint moods of eccentric determination; she was helpful and kind, but submissive and indifferent to what passed around her.
In fact, Theodora felt the disappointment of which Percy complained, more uniformly than he did himself. He thought no more of it when conversation was going on, when a service was to be done to any living creature, or when he was playing with the children; but the sense of his vexation always hung upon her; perhaps the more because she felt that her own former conduct deserved no happiness, and that his future was involved in hers. She tried to be patient, but she could not be gay.
Her scheme had been for Percy to take a farm, but he answered that he had lived too much abroad, and in towns, to make agriculture succeed in England. In the colonies perhaps,--but her involuntary exclamation of dismay at the idea of letting him go alone, had made him at once abandon the project. When, however, she saw how enforced idleness preyed on him, and with how little spirit he turned to his literary pursuits, she began to think it her duty to persuade him to go; and to this she had on this very night, with a great effort, made up her mind.
'There is space in his composition for more happiness than depends on me,' said she to Violet. 'Exertion, hope, trust in me will make him happy; and he shall not waste his life in loitering here for my sake.'
'Dear Theodora, I fear it will cost you a great deal.'
'Never mind,' said Theodora; 'I am more at peace than I have been for years. Percy has suffered enough through me already.'
Violet looked up affectionately at her fine countenance, and gave one of the mute caresses that Theodora liked from her, though she could have borne them from no one else.
Theodora smiled, sighed, and then, shaking off the dejected tone, said, 'Well, I suppose you will have a letter from Wrangerton to tell you it is settled. I wonder if you will go to the wedding. Oh! Violet, if you had had one particle of selfishness or pettiness, how many unhappy people you would have made!'
Violet's last letter from home had announced that Mr. Fanshawe had come to stay with Mr. Jones, and she was watching eagerly for the next news. She went down-stairs quickly, in the morning, to seek for her own letters among the array spread on the sideboard.
Percy was alone in the room, standing by the window. He started at her entrance, and hardly gave time for a good morning, before he asked where Theodora was.
'I think she is not come in. I have not seen her.'
He made a step to the door as if to go and meet her.
'There is nothing wrong, I hope.'
'I hope not! I hope there is no mistake. Look here.'
He held up, with an agitated grasp, a long envelope with the mighty words, 'On her Majesty's service;' and before Violet's eyes he laid a letter offering him a diplomatic appointment in Italy.
'The very thing above all others I would have chosen. Capital salary! Excellent house! I was staying there a week with the fellow who had it before. A garden of gardens. Orange walks,--fountains,-- a view of the Apennines and Mediterranean at once. It is perfection. But what can have led any one to pitch upon me?'
Arthur had come down in the midst, and leant over his rejoicing wife to read the letter, while Percy vehemently shook his hand, exclaiming, 'There! See! There's the good time come! Did you ever see the like, Arthur! But how on earth could they have chosen me? I know nothing of this man--he knows nothing of me.'
'Such compliments to your abilities and classical discoveries,' said Violet.
'Much good they would do without interest! I would give twenty pounds to know who has got me this.'
'Ha! said Arthur, looking at the signature. 'Did not he marry some of the Delaval connection?'
'Yes,' said Violet; 'Lady Mary--Lord St. Erme's aunt. He was Lord St. Erme's guardian.'
'Then that is what it is,' said Arthur, sententiously. 'Did you not tell me that St. Erme had been examining you about Percy?'
'Yes, he asked me about his writings, and how long he had been at Constantinople,' said Violet, rather shyly, almost sorry that her surprise had penetrated and proclaimed what the Earl no doubt meant to be a secret, especially when she saw that Percy's exultation was completely damped. There was no time for answer, for others were entering, and with a gesture to enforce silence, he pocketed the papers, and said nothing on the subject all breakfast-time. Even while Violet regaled herself with Annette's happy letter, she had anxious eyes and thoughts for the other sister, now scarcely less to her than Annette.
She called off the children from dancing round Uncle Percy after breakfast, and watched him walk off with Theodora to the side arcade in the avenue that always had especial charms for them.
'Theodora, here is something for you to decide.'
'Why, Percy!' as she read, 'this is the very thing! What! Is it not a good appointment? Why do you hesitate?'
'It is an excellent appointment, but this is the doubt. Do you see that name? There can be no question that this
