Orville College: A Story

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Bertie laughed. "Let us drop old grievances for once, Ray. It's Christmas Day."

"If my mother—who died here—could but rise from her grave and see this!" retorted Trace. He went and stood at the window, looking out, his bosom beating with its wrongs.

Dick leaped three feet into the air when he came in and saw the guests. The more the merrier, was Dick's creed. It was that of Talbot and Irby. And now that they met George Paradyne on equal grounds, away from the prejudices of the school, they all saw how much there was to admire and like in him—Trace excepted. Had George Paradyne suddenly cast his shell as a chrysalis does, and appeared before them an angel, Trace, in his condemning prejudice, would have turned his back upon him. It crossed Trace's mind to refuse to sit down to table. But he feared Sir Simon: it would not do to offend him.

It was at the dessert, when the banquet was nearing its close and Mrs. Paradyne had drawn on her gloves, that Sir Simon told Talbot he was to go and read daily with Paradyne at Mr. Henry's. Mr. Henry's kind offer, he called it; and he spoke a few emphatic words of praise of the hardworking usher. Apparently the theme was not palatable to Mrs. Paradyne. She folded her gloved hands one over the other, said a word or two in slighting disparagement of Mr. Henry, and then resolutely closed her lips. Evidently she had not yet forgiven the mistake which had brought them to Orville. George, as if reading her thoughts and struck with their injustice, glanced reproachfully at her as he turned to Sir Simon.

"Mr. Henry is very kind to me," said the boy: "he is kind to us all. Nobody knows how good he is. He must be very lonely to-day. He was to have dined with us."

Sir Simon gave a start. "I wish I had asked him here! The thoughtless savage I was! No more right feeling about me than if I'd never heard of Christmas. I might as well have been born a Red Indian."

Mr. Henry was at home, eating his dinner alone. Not potatoes or suet-pudding to-day: he had learned to keep Christmas in Germany, and was lavish in its honour. As George—a great deal too open-speaking to please his mother—said, he had been invited to Mrs. Paradyne's, but when she arranged to go to Sir Simon's she sent an apology to Mr. Henry. Mrs. Butter cooked him a fowl and made him a jam-pudding. He went to church in the morning and stayed for the after-service. As he sat over the fire after dinner, in the twilight of the evening, he could not help feeling as if he were alone in the world—that there was nobody to care for him. At the best, his life, in its social aspect, was not a very happy one. He had a great deal of care always upon him, and he saw no chance of its ever being removed; but he was learning to live for a better world than this.

Miss Rose Brabazon had let her tongue run riot the previous day, telling him something confidentially—he could not make out what. Rose's own ideas were obscure upon the point, therefore it was too much to expect they would be clear to him. The young lady thought that "Trace and Emma and 'some of them' feared he might have been capable of taking papa's diamond pencil-case, just as much as the real thief who came in at the glass doors and stole it." It had startled Mr. Henry beyond measure; startled him, and thrown him into a mass of perplexity. The impression conveyed to him was, not that he was suspected of taking the pencil, but, that he might be capable of taking one. What reason could they have for believing him capable of such a thing?

Later in the evening he strolled out in the cold starlight air. He felt so very lonely, so isolated from all the world, that only to look at the gay windows of other people was company. Every house, poor and rich, seemed to be holding its Christmas party. Quite a flood of light streamed from Mr. Gall's—from Dr. Brabazon's; all but himself were keeping Christmas. There was neither envy nor rebellion in his heart. His only thought was, "If they knew I was here alone, they would invite me in." He pictured the inside gladness, and rejoiced in it as though it were his own. "Peace on earth, and goodwill to men!" he murmured gratefully over and over again.

The muslin curtains were before the dining-room windows at Dr. Brabazon's, but not the shutters. It was a large party—all the children and grandchildren. A smile crossed Mr. Henry's lips as he thought of Miss Rose in her element. Save the admiration of the college boys, there was nothing that young damsel liked so much as company. Mr. Henry halted and looked across the lawn, and by so doing apparently disturbed another watcher. A man turned round from the window, against which he had been crouched, and came away.