Val’s letter was of a character sufficiently exciting to have made Dick forget anything less important than the crisis which had thus arrived. Its object was to invite him to Oxford, to a place somewhat similar to that which he had held at Eton, in one of the great boating establishments on the river. The master was old, and wanted somebody of trust to superintend and manage his business, with a reasonable hope of succeeding to him. “You had better come up and talk it over,” wrote Val, ever peremptory. “I have always said you must rise in the world, and here is the opportunity for you. They have too much regard for you at Eton to keep you from doing what would be so very advantageous; therefore come up at once and look after it.” Dick’s heart, which had been beating very low in his honest breast, overwhelmed with fear and forebodings, gave one leap of returning confidence; but then he reflected that his mother must be made the final judge, and with a sickening pang of suspense he “knocked off” his work, and rowed himself across to the little house at the corner. His mother was wearied and languid with her long walk on the day before. She had paused in the midst of her morning occupations, and Dick found her seated in the middle of the room, with her back turned to the window, and her face supported on her hands. She was gazing at the wall opposite, much as she gazed into the distant landscape, not seeing it, but longing to see through it—to see something she could not see. She started when Dick came in, and smiled at him deprecating and humble. “I was resting a moment,” she said, with an air of apology that went to his heart. “Have you forgotten something, Dick?”
“No, mother, but I’ve heard of something,” he said, taking out his letter. This made her sit upright, and flushed her cheek suddenly with a surprised alarm for which he could not account—for which, she herself could not account; for it was perhaps the first time in her life that it had occurred to her what would happen if Dick found out the secret of his own story. The possibility of Valentine doing so had crossed her mind, and she had shrunk from it. But what if Dick should find out? the idea had never entered her imagination before.
“It’s a letter from Mr Ross, mother,” said Dick, steadily looking at her. “He says he has heard of a place for me at Oxford where he is himself—a place where I should be almost master at once, have everything to manage, and might succeed, and get it into my own hands. Mother! that would please you? Now to think you should like that when you can’t endure this! It would be the same kind of place.”
“Don’t be hard upon me, Dick,” she said, faltering, and turning away her eyes that he might not see the strange light in them—which she was herself aware must be too remarkable to be overlooked. “I can’t answer for my feelings. It’s a change, I suppose—a change that I want. My old way I can’t go back to, for more things than one. I’m too weak and old; and more than that, I’m changed in my mind. Dick, I think it will be a comfort to you to tell you. It ain’t only my limbs, boy, nor my strength. My mind’s changed; I couldn’t go on the tramp again.”
“No, mother? thank God!”
“I don’t thank God,” she said, shaking her head. “I am not glad; but so it is, and I want a change. Let us go, boy. Please God, I’ll be happier there.”
“Mother,” said Dick, anxiously, “your looks are changed all at once. I’m going to ask you a curious question. Has it anything to do with—Mr Ross?”
She made no answer for the moment, but leant her head upon her hands, and looked vaguely at the wall.
“I know it’s a curious question,” repeated Dick, with an attempt at a smile. “But you were satisfied as long as he was here; and since he’s gone you have fallen back—only since he’s gone! You never got that longing sort of look while he was here. What has Mr Ross to do with you and me? Mother—don’t you suppose I think it’s anything wrong, for I don’t—but what has he to do with you and me?”
“Nothing—nothing, Dick,” she cried—“nothing; never will have, never can have. Don’t ask me. When I was young, when I was a girl, I knew his—people—his—father. There, that’s all. I never meant to have said as much. There is nothing wrong. Yes, I suppose it’s him I miss somehow. Not that he is half to me, or quarter to me, that you are—or anything to me at all.”