Julian’s father had a sister much older than himself, who many years before had married a baronet-farmer, Sir Thomas Vinsear of Lonstead Abbey. It was certainly not a love match on the lady’s side, for the baronet was twenty years her senior, and his tastes in no respect resembled hers. But she was already of “a certain age,” and despairing of a lover, accepted the good old country squire, and was located for the rest of her life as mistress of Lonstead Abbey.
As long as he lived all was well; Lady Vinsear, like a sensible wife, conformed herself to all his wishes and peculiarities, and won in no slight degree his gratitude and affection. But he did not long survive his marriage, and after a few years the lady found herself alone and childless in the solitary grandeur of her husband’s home.
Her brother Henry, the Rector of Ildown, had always been her special favourite, and she looked to his frequent visits to enliven her loneliness. But she was piqued by his having married without consulting her, and behaved so uncourteously to Mrs Home, that for a long time the intercourse between them was broken.
One day, however, shortly before his death, she had written to announce an intended visit, and in due time her carriage stood before the rectory door. It so happened that it was Julian’s holiday-time, and he was at home. Changed as the old lady had become by years and disappointment, and the ennui of an aimless widowhood, little relieved by the unceasing attendance of a confidante, yet Lady Vinsear’s childless and withered heart seemed to be touched to life again when she gazed on her brother’s beautiful and modest boy. Courteous without subservience, and attentive without servility, Julian, by his graceful and unselfish demeanour, won her complete affection, and she dropped to the family no ambiguous hints, that, for Julian’s sake, she should renew her intercourse with them, and make him her heir. Circumstanced as he was, Mr Home could not but rejoice in this determination, and the more so from his proud consciousness that not even the vilest detractor could charge him with having courted his rich sister’s favour by open or secret arts. From Julian he would have concealed Lady Vinsear’s intention, but she had herself made him tolerably aware of it, after a fit of violent spleen against Miss Sprong, her confidante, who, seeing how the wind lay, had tried to drop little malicious hints against the favourite nephew, until the old lady had cut them short, by a peremptory order that Miss Sprong should leave the room. That little rebuff the lady never forgot and never forgave, and, under the guise of admiration, she nursed her enmity against the unconscious Julian until due opportunity should have occurred to give it vent.
Every now and then, Julian, when wearied with study, would be tempted to think in his secret heart, “What does it matter my working so hard, when I shall be master of Lonstead Abbey some day?” And then perhaps would follow a rather inconsistent fit of idleness, till Mr Carden, or some other master, applied the spur again.
“I can’t make you out, Julian,” said Lillyston; “sometimes you grind away for a month like—like beans, and then you’re as idle again for a week as the dog that laid his head against a wall to bark.”
“Well, shall I tell you, Hugh?” answered Julian, who had often felt that it would be a relief to put his friend in possession of the secret. And he told Lillyston that he was the acknowledged heir of his aunt’s property.
“Oh, well then,” said Lillyston, “I don’t see why I should work either, seeing as how Lillyston Court will probably come to me some day. I say, Julian, I vote we both try for lag next trials. It’d save lots of grind.”
All this was brought out very archly, and instantly recalled to Julian’s mind the many arguments which he had used to his friend, especially since his father’s death, to prove that, under any circumstances, diligence was a duty which secured its own reward; indeed, he used to maintain that, even on selfish grounds it was best, for in the long run the idlest boys, with their punishments and extras, got far the most work to do—to say nothing of the lassitude that usurps the realm of neglected duty, and that disgraceful ignorance which is the nemesis of wasted time.
He burst out laughing. “You have me on the hip, Hugh, and I give in. In proof whereof, here goes the novel I’m reading; and I’ll at once set to work on my next set of verses;” whereon Julian pitched his green novel to the top of an inaccessible cupboard, got down his Elegiacs for the next day, and had no immediate recurrence of what Lillyston christened the “pudding theory of work.”