“All else apart, I could not have paid the money to that publishing firm. The dear Adrian must be my first consideration at present, and with the increased amount that he is receiving, the drain upon my purse is too heavy to admit of a personal gratification. Some day the dear fellow will pay it all back, I make no doubt, though even were it not so—but it will be so. And now, Lucilla, we will drop the subject. What I have told you is between ourselves, and we need not refer to it again.”
A very little while later, the Canon began to make minute and elaborate notes for a Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians.
Lucilla, according to her wont, acted as his secretary without comment.
It was more difficult, however, to pursue this course when the Canon, with a look of distress and perplexity, handed to her several closely-written sheets of paper, and observed:
“As you know, I hold very strongly to the sacredness of personal correspondence. It was, indeed, at least partly on that account that I have said nothing to you of a letter from Adrian that has caused me some anxiety. He seems to me to be getting amongst a set of people whom I can only call undesirable. They may be leading him into foolish extravagance—I fear it must be so. It seems to me my clear duty to write to the boy very frankly, but God knows how carefully I have weighed every word, for fear of saying too much. I believe I am justified in letting you read it. A sister’s influence can do much, more especially when she has been obliged to enact the part of mother, and it may even be that Adrian will listen to you more readily than to me.”
The Canon sighed heavily.
Although his sudden, sharp outbursts of anger had, at one time or another, included each and every one of his children, his tolerance was always longest where Adrian was concerned. So, too, was his profound distress when the shortcomings of his youngest-born were made only too manifest.
Lucilla read the letter with considerable inward disquiet.
“My Dearest Adrian,
“First and foremost, I enclose a cheque, with which you must at once discharge outstanding liabilities. You must not, however, take this as an easy method of getting out of difficulties into which you have placed yourself. I shall stop this money out of your allowance, in justice both to yourself and to me, in quarterly instalments. And now, my son, you must bear with me while I write of several things that seem to me to be much amiss in your present way of life. Your letters are so far from explicit (how I wish it were otherwise!) that one can only guess at much which is left unsaid, but your request for money, however veiled, is an admission in itself. You write of ‘others,’ but can you not see that it is absolute dishonesty to give presents, stand host at various small outings, and the like, when this implies the spending of money that I give you for one purpose, on quite another? No one knows better than myself the pleasure to be derived from such little attentions to those whose kindness calls for recognition, or to whom we feel drawn by sympathy, and before whom we perhaps like to pose in the light of a benefactor. Such gratifications are harmless, and may even be beneficial, in themselves, but they are at present amongst the things which you must learn to deny yourself. How I wish I could say this, instead of writing it! Could you not come to us for a few days, and we would thrash all these matters out together as one can only do in a long, tête-à-tête evening talk over the fire, or perhaps a ten-mile tramp far out into the country. Let me know what hope there is of your getting down here, and when.