“But—but—Charley—there is the money part of it.”
Charley’s fair, freckled face flushed.
“That’s all right,” he said. “You know, mother, I wrote that I had saved a few pounds—saved and made, I should have said. Well, to cut a long story short, the few pounds have turned out more than I expected. I have a hundred, a clear hundred, mother, ready for this scheme of mine. And a hundred pounds will go a long way with two people like my father and Phil; he knowing the ground so well, and she so economical and managing as I know she is. Besides, once my father made up his mind to go, he would no doubt put something to the hundred.”
Mrs Raynsworth, well as she knew her son, was greatly touched.
“My dearest boy,” she said again, “I cannot tell you how good I think it of you to have planned such a thing. But I fear your father would never consent to take your money—your own earnings.”
Charley laid his hand on his mother’s arm and drew her forward again. It felt rather chilly standing still.
“My dearest mother,” he said, as they resumed their stroll, “leave that to me. How can you think such a thing, when you remember all my father and you have done for me? Stinting yourselves, and even, indirectly, my sisters too a little, to give me the best of educations. It is all thanks to that that I am now where I am, certain of earning my own livelihood at the very worst, and with every reasonable prospect of greater success. Leave it to me, my dear mother; only promise me to back me up when I have broached the idea with both my father and Phil.”
The promise was given and acted upon. For the more Mrs Raynsworth thought over her son’s idea the more it commended itself to her. And the verdict of the doctor—an old friend who knew him well—whom Mr Raynsworth appealed to with the expectation of his pronouncing the proposed holiday, however agreeable, by no means a necessity, decided the turning of the scale. The benefit to Philippa herself was not made prominent, though in her heart the mother was almost as glad of the proposed scheme for her daughter’s sake as for her husbands. But Charley was not without his reward. The glow of pleasure which overspread the girl’s face at the first mention of the plan made her brother determine that it should be carried out, and Philippa’s misgivings that it would be “selfish” and wrong to leave home for so long, and that “mamma” should profit by Charley’s generosity rather than herself, were overruled by her father’s assurance that no one except her brother could be as useful to him as his already well-trained little secretary.
Circumstances in other directions too added their influence. Captain Headfort telegraphed his arrival by the next mail but one, and under the new aspect of things it became much easier to arrange for his making his headquarters at Greenleaves—the Raynsworths’ home—with his family for the first few months of the year, during which his eventual plans were to be decided.
“I could not have gone away with any sort of comfort, Phil dear, you see,” said her mother. “And as it is, I shall really enjoy the time at home with Charley and Duke, and helping Evelyn to settle what to do, and with no anxiety about your father on my mind. I think everything has fitted in beautifully.”