‘Myself! I am not the sort of fellow. I am no good. I get dead beat; but you that are all muscle and sinew, and that have no tie except my mother——’
‘That to be sure,’ said Edward with a sigh, and he wondered did his brother now at last mean to be confidential and inform him of the engagement with Cara? His heart began to beat more quickly. How different that real sentiment was from the fictitious one which they had both been playing with! Edward’s breath came quickly. Yes, it would be better to know it—to get it over; and then there would be no further uncertainty; but at the same time he was afraid—afraid both of the fact and of Oswald’s way of telling it. If Cara’s name was spoken with levity, how should he be able to bear it? Needless to say, however, that Oswald had no intention of talking about Cara, and nothing to disclose on that subject at least.
‘You that have no tie—except my mother,’ repeated Oswald, ‘(and of course she would always have me), I would think twice before I gave up India. It’s an excellent career, nothing better. The governor (poor old fellow) did very well, I have always heard, and you would do just as well, or more so, with the benefit of his connection. I wonder rather that my mother kept us out of the Indian set, except the old Spy. Poor old man, I daresay he will be cut up about this. He’ll know better than anyone,’ continued Oswald, with a change of tone, ‘what arrangements have been made.’
‘I wonder if it will be long before we can hear?’ Thus they went on talking in subdued tones, the impression gradually wearing off, and even the feeling of solemn importance—the sense that, though not unhappy, they ought to conduct themselves with a certain gravity of demeanour becoming sons whose father was just dead. They had no very distinct impression about the difference to be made in their own future, and even Oswald was not mercenary in the ordinary sense of the word. He thought it would be but proper and right that he should be made ‘an eldest son;’ but he did not think it likely—and in that case, though he would be absolutely independent, he probably would not be very rich—not rich enough to make work on his own part unnecessary. So the excitement on this point was mild. They could not be worse off than they were—that one thing he was sure of, and for the rest, one is never sure of anything. By this time they had reached the region of Clubs. Oswald thought there was nothing out of character in just going in for half an hour to see the papers. A man must see the papers whoever lived or died. When the elder brother unbent thus far, the younger brother went home. He found his mother still in her own room taking a cup of tea. She had been crying, for her eyes were red, and she had a shawl wrapped round her, the chill of sudden agitation and distress having seized upon her. Mr. Meredith’s picture, which had not hitherto occupied that place of honour, had been placed above her mantelpiece, and an old Indian box, sweet with the pungent odour of the sandal-wood, stood on the little table at her elbow. ‘I was looking over some little things your dear papa gave me, long before you were born,’ she said, with tears in her voice. ‘Oh, my poor John!’
‘Mother, you must not think me unfeeling; but I knew so little of him.’
‘Yes, that was true—yes, that was true. Oh, Edward, I have been asking myself was it my fault? But I could not live in India, and he was so fond of it. He was always well. He did not understand how anyone could be half killed by the climate. I never should have come home but for the doctors, Edward.’
She looked at him so appealingly that Edward felt it necessary to take all the responsibility unhesitatingly upon himself. ‘I am sure you did not leave him as long as you could help it, mother.’
‘No, I did not—that is just the truth—as long as I could help it; but it does seem strange that we should have been parted for so much of our lives. Oh, what a comfort it is, Edward, to feel that whatever misunderstanding there might be, he knows all and understands everything now!’
‘With larger, other eyes than ours,’ said Edward piously, and the boy believed it in the confidence of his youth. But how the narrow-minded commonplace man who had been that distinguished civil servant, John Meredith, should all at once have come to this godlike greatness by the mere fact of dying, neither of them could have told. Was it nature in them that asserted it to be so? or some prejudice of education and tradition so deeply woven into their minds that they did not know it to be anything but nature? But be it instinct or be it prejudice, what more touching sentiment ever moved a human bosom? He had not been a man beloved in his life; but he was as the gods now.
By-and-by, however—for reverential and tender as this sentiment was, it was neither love nor grief, and could not pretend to the dominion of these monarchs of the soul—the mother and son fell into talk about secondary matters. She had sent for her dressmaker about her mourning, and given orders for as much crape as could be piled upon one not gigantic female figure, and asked anxiously if the boys had done their part—had got the proper depth of hatbands, the black studs, &c., that were wanted. ‘I suppose you may have very dark grey for the mourning; but it must be very dark,’ she said.