‘If you ask me honestly I must say, no,’ said the Captain. ‘I don’t think you have. I don’t make you out, Ben. You haven’t taken to—— drink, or anything of that kind? That’s poor consolation. My dear fellow, I beg your pardon. One does not know what to suppose.’
‘No; I have not taken to drink,’ said Ben, trying to laugh; but his lip quivered in spite of himself. When he tried a second time he succeeded, but the laugh was harsh. ‘I have been living on my income,’ he said.
Captain Ormerod shook his head. ‘I am very sorry for you, my boy,’ he said; ‘but I hoped you would have taken it better than this. Your mother was very much upset about your silence; but I persuaded her you were not the fellow to sulk, as you say; and Laurie and Frank have really borne it so well.’
‘Don’t speak to me of Laurie and Frank!’ cried Ben, stung beyond bearing. ‘What difference does it make to them? Frank is a boy, and a soldier, with his profession to fall back on; and Laurie is a fellow that would always have mooned his life away; whereas I——’
‘Well, if you talk of mooning,’ said the Captain, sadly; and then he paused. ‘Couldn’t we do something among us, Ben? We ought to have some influence at least. If you had only been a seaman now, one might have managed somehow; but of course there’s heaps of things. Why, there’s all those public offices,’ said the sailor, getting up from his chair, with a little excitement, and waving his hand in the direction of Whitehall and Downing Street; ‘and very good berths, I believe, in some of them. ‘Why can’t we get you something there?’
‘It’s too late, uncle,’ said Ben, gradually waking into rationality as the old life came back and grew familiar to him. He was able even to give a softened momentary laugh at the futility of the proposition. ‘Don’t you know there’s nothing but merit and examinations now-a-days for every office under the sun?’
‘Well,’ said Captain Ormerod, pleased to feel that he had brought the wanderer back to a more natural tone, ‘I don’t see why that should frighten you. I have always heard you had a fine education, Ben.’
Ben laughed again, more softened still, and with moisture creeping into the corners of his eyes. ‘I am too old to go to school again,’ he said. ‘A man has to be shut up and crammed like a turkey before he can go in for that sort of thing. One has to be brought up to it. I am afraid that would not do.’
‘Then why don’t you go to India?’ cried his uncle;—‘or somewhere. You don’t mean to tell me there are no fortunes to be made in the world, when a young fellow has the spirit to try?’
Ben made no answer. What could he say? A sudden sickness of heart came over him. She was going away to-morrow morning. Mrs. Barton’s bill was lying on his table. He had five-and-twenty shillings in his pocket, and despair in his heart. And to be called upon to answer all in a moment, as if it was a thing that could be settled out of hand, how he would choose to go and make his fortune! In his impatience he leaned his head on his two hands, almost hiding his face between them, and turned half away.