CHAPTER XIII
It was some years before the Towers was visited again. Tom went to Oxford and had a not very fortunate career there, which gave his mother a certain justification in resisting all attempts to take her back to what she felt to be so ill-omened a house. Beaufort took the common-sense part in these controversies. What did one house or another matter? he said. Why should one be ill-omened more than another? As well say that Oxford was ill-omened where Tom got into scrapes rather more easily than he could have done elsewhere; indeed, even Easton, the most peaceable place in the world, had not been without dangers for the headstrong boy whose passions were so strong and his prudence so small. A boy who is not to be trusted to keep his word, who cares only for his own pleasure, who likes everything he ought not to like, and cares for nothing that he ought, how should he be safe anywhere? Beaufort was too polite to say all these things about Carry’s boy, but he tried his best to persuade her that the discipline of having guests to entertain, and the occupation of shooting—‘something to do,’ which is so essential for every creature—would be the best things possible for Tom. Probably he was right, and she injudicious. Who can tell beforehand what procedure is the best? But poor Lady Car could not get out of her eyes Tom’s wild aspect as he had burst into the hall on that dreadful evening across the track of the procession going in to dinner. Peccadilloes of this kind had since been kept out of her sight, and she had tried to convince herself that it was the place and not the boy who had been in the wrong. And Janet somehow had come to share her mother’s disinclination for the Towers. Janet had received a letter, not long after her return to Easton, which had plunged her into the deepest alarm; it had, indeed, reached her innocently enough without any remark, being taken for a letter from one of her cousins at Dalrulzian, but it frightened her more than words could say. She had despatched a furtive note in reply, imploring ‘Mr. Charlie’ not to write—oh, not to write any more!—and promising eagerly not to forget either him or the pony if he only would do what she asked, and not write again. And poor Janet had been on the tenterhooks for a long time, terrified every day to see another missive arrive. She could scarcely believe in her good fortune when she found herself unmolested: but she was too much frightened to wish to return to the Towers. And thus time went on, which is so much longer to the young than it is to the old. Lady Car indeed was not old, but the children were so determined on believing her so, and her life of disappointments had been so heavy, that she fell very early into the passive stage. All that she had done had been so ineffectual, the result had been so completely unresponsive to her efforts; at least, it seemed the only policy to accept everything, to attempt nothing. Life at Easton had accordingly fallen into a somewhat dull but exceedingly comfortable routine. Beaufort’s beautiful library was a place where he read the papers, or a novel, or some other unfatiguing book. Sometimes his studies were classical; that is to say, he went over his favourite bits of classical authors, in delightful dilettantism, and felt that his occupations were not frivolous, but the highest that could occupy the mind. He was quite contented, though his life was not an eventful one. He had, he said, no desire to shine. Sometimes he rode into Codalton to the County Club; sometimes he went up to town to the Athenæum, to see what was going on. His wife’s society was always pleasant to him in the intervals. Nothing could be more agreeable, more smooth, and soft, and refined, and pleasurable than his life; nothing more unlike the life of high endeavour and power of which Lady Car had dreamed. Poor Lady Car! She had dreamed of so many things which had come to nothing. And she had much to make her happy: a serene and tranquil life; a husband full of affection. Her son, indeed, was likely, people thought, to give her trouble. No doubt she had reason to be anxious about her son. But, happily, he was not dependent upon his own industry, nor was it of very much importance to him to do well at college. A young man with a good estate may sow his wild oats, and all be well. And this was the only rumpled leaf in her bed of roses, people said.
She herself never disclosed to anybody what was in her inmost heart. She had a smile for them all. The only matter in which she stood for her own way was that question of going to Scotland—not there, not there! but anywhere else—anything else. She fell into a sort of petite santé during these years. She said she was not ill—not ill at all, only languid and lazy; but gradually fell into the quiescent condition which might be appropriate to a mother of seventy, but not to one of forty. Tom and Janet did not see much difference between these ages, and as for Beaufort, the subdued and gentle charm of his wife’s character was quite appropriate to a cessation from active ventures. He liked her better almost upon her sofa, or taking a quiet walk through the garden leaning upon his arm, her wishes all confined within that peaceful enclosure, happy to watch the moon rise and the sun set, and apparently caring for nothing more. He talked to her of the light and shade, the breadth of the quiet soft landscape, the stars in the sky, or about the new books, and sometimes what was going on—everything he would have said. They were spectators of the uneasy world, which rolled on as if they were outside of it in some little Paradise of their own, watching how men ‘play such pranks before high heaven as make the angels weep.’ He was fond of commenting on all this, on the futility of effort, on the way in which people flung themselves against the impossible, trying to do what no man could ever do, to affect the movement of the spheres. He would smile at statesmen and philanthropists, and all kinds of restless people, from his little throne on the lawn, looking out over the peaceful landscape. And Lady Car would respond with a smile, with a glance that often lingered upon him as he talked, and in which he sometimes felt there was something which he did not quite understand. But what could that be—that something that he did not understand? He understood most things, and talked beautifully. He was the most perfect gentleman; his every tone, his every thought was full of refinement. And Lady Car was well pleased, who could doubt? to lie back in her deep chair and listen. What happiness could a woman—a woman no longer young, not in very good health, an idealist, a minor poet—what could she desire more?
There came, however, a time when the claims of the Towers could no longer be ignored. Tom came of age, and Lady Car could no longer combat the necessity of going back to hold the necessary festivities and put him in possession of his lands and his home. Tom had come altogether to blows with his college and all its functionaries by this time, and had been requested to remove himself from the University in a somewhat hasty manner, which he declared loudly was very good fun, but did not perhaps in his secret heart enjoy the joke of so much as he made appear—for he had a great deal of that Scotch pride which cannot bear to fail, even when he had done everything to bring the catastrophe about. He had not met with many reproaches at home, for Lady Car was so convinced of the great futility of anything she could say that, save for the ‘Oh, Tom!’ with which he was received, and the tear which made her eyes more lucid than usual, she made no demonstration at all of her distress. Beaufort looked very grave, but took little notice. ‘It was evident that this must have come sooner or later,’ he said coldly, with a tone in which Tom read contempt.
‘Why did you send me then,’ the young man cried, reddening sullenly, ‘if you knew that this was what must come?’
‘I suppose your mother sent you—because it is considered necessary for a gentleman,’ Beaufort said.
‘And I suppose you mean I’m not one,’ cried Tom.
‘I never said so,’ his stepfather answered coldly. Janet seized upon her brother’s arm and drew him away.
‘Oh, what is the good of quarrelling with Beau? Did you expect nobody was to say a word?’ cried Janet.
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘they can’t prevent me coming of age next year, whatever they do: and then I should like to know, who will have any right to say a word?’