"My dear," said Mrs. Dennistoun, growing red, "that is a chance we have never taken into account."
"What has that to do with it?" she said. "Is his happiness and his honour to be put in comparison with a chance, a possibility that may never come true? John, for the sake of everything that is good, let him wait till he is a man and knows good from evil."
"It is that I am thinking of, Elinor; a boy of fourteen often knows good from evil much better than a youth of twenty-one, which is, I suppose, what you call a man. My opinion is that it would be better and safer now."
"No!" she said. "And no! I will never consent to it. If you go and poison my boy's mind I will never forgive you, John."
"I have no right to do anything," he said; "it is of course you who must decide, Elinor: I advise only; and I might as well give that up," he added, "don't you think? for you are not to be guided by me."
And she was of course supreme in everything that concerned her son. John, when he could do no more, knew how to be silent, and Mrs. Dennistoun, if not so wise in this respect, was yet more easily silenced than John. And Philip Compton went to the old grammar-school among the dales, where was the young and energetic head-master, who, as Elinor anticipated, found this one pupil like a pearl among the pebbles of the shore, and spared no pains to polish him and perfect him in every way known to the ambitious schoolmaster of modern times.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
It is needless to say that the years which developed Elinor's child into a youth on the verge of manhood, had not passed by the others of the family without full evidence of its progress. John Tatham was no longer within the elastic boundaries of that conventional youth which is allowed to stretch so far when a man remains unmarried. He might have been characterized as encore jeune, according to the fine distinction of our neighbours in France, had he desired it. But he did not desire it. He had never altogether neglected society, having a wholesome liking for the company of his fellow creatures, but neither had he ever plunged into it as those do who must keep their places in the crowd or die. John had pursued the middle path, which is the most difficult. He had cultivated friends, not a mob of acquaintances, although as people say he "knew everybody," as a man who had attained his position and won his success could scarcely fail to do. He had succeeded indeed, not in the fabulous way that some men do, but in a way which most men in his profession looked upon as in the highest degree satisfactory. He had a silk gown like any dowager. He had been leading counsel in many cases which were now of note. He was among, not the two or three perhaps, but the twenty or thirty, who were at the head of his profession. If he had not gone further it was perhaps more from lack of ambition than from want of power. He had been for years in Parliament, but preferred his independence to the chance of office. It is impossible to tell how John's character and wishes might have been modified had he married and had children round him like other men. Had the tall boy in the north, the young hero of Lakeside, been his, what a difference would that have made in his views of life! But Philip was not his, nor Philip's mother—probably, as he always said to himself, from his own fault. This, as the reader is aware, had always been fully recognised by John himself. Perhaps in the old days, in those days when everything was possible, he had not even recognised that there was but one woman in the world whom he could ever wish to marry. Probably it was only her appropriation by another that revealed this fact to him. There are men like this to be found everywhere; not so hotly constituted as to seize for themselves what is most necessary for their personal happiness—possessed by so many other subjects that this seems a thing to be thought of by-and-by—which by-and-by is generally too late.
But John Tatham was neither a disappointed nor an unhappy man. He might have attained a higher development and more brilliant and full life, but that was all; and how few men are there of whom this could not be said! He had become Mr. Tatham of Tatham's Cross, as well as Q.C. and M.P., a county gentleman of modest but effective standing, a lawyer of high reputation, quite eligible either for the bench or for political elevation, had he cared for either, a member of Parliament with a distinct standing, and therefore importance of his own. There was probably throughout England no society in which he could have found himself where his position and importance would have been unknown. He was a man approaching fifty, who had not yet lost any of the power of enjoyment or begun to feel the inroads of decay, at the very height of life, and unconscious that the ground would shortly begin to slope downwards under his feet; indeed, it showed no such indication as yet, and probably would not do so for years. The broad plateau of middle age lasts often till sixty, or even beyond. There was no reason to doubt that for John Tatham it would last as long as for any man. His health was perfect, and his habits those of a man whose self had never demanded indulgences of the vulgar kind. He had given up with some regret, but years before, his chambers in the Temple: that is, he retained them as chambers, but lived in them no longer. He had a house in one of the streets about Belgrave Square, one of those little bits of awkward, three-cornered streets where there are some of the pleasantest houses of a moderate kind in London; furnished from top to bottom, the stairs, the comfortable quaint landings, the bits of corridor and passage, nothing naked or neglected about it—no cold corner; but nothing fantastic; not very much ornament, a few good pictures, a great deal of highly-polished, old-fashioned dark mahogany, with a general flavour of Sherraton and Chippendale: and abundance of books everywhere. John was able to permit himself various little indulgences on which wives are said to look with jealous eyes. He had a fancy for rare editions (in which I sympathise) and also for bindings, which seems to me a weakness—however, it was one which he indulged in moderation. He possessed in his drawing-room (which was not very much used) a beautiful old-fashioned harpsichord, and also he had belonging to him a fiddle of value untold. I ought, of course, to say violin, or rather to distinguish the instrument by its family name; I have no doubt it was a Stradivarius. But there is an affectionate humour in the fiddle which does not consist with fine titles. He had always been fond of music, but even the Stradivarius did not beguile him, in the days of which I speak, to play, nor perhaps was his performance worthy of it, though his taste was said to be excellent. It will be perceived by all this that John Tatham's life had many pleasures.