The little Uncle Max had told me about him had strongly interested me. The Tudors had been wealthy people, and Uncle Max had spent more than one long vacation at their house, coaching Walter Tudor, who was going in for an army examination, and reading Greek with Lawrence (or Laurie, as they generally called him) and another brother, Ben.
Lawrence had meant to enter the army too. Nelson, the eldest of all, was already in India, and had a captaincy. They were all fine, stalwart young men, fond of riding and hunting and any out-of-door pursuit. But there never would have been a parson among them but for the failure of the company in which Mr. Tudor's money was invested. He had been one of the directors, and from wealth he was reduced to poverty.
There was no money to buy Walter a commission, so he enlisted, bringing fresh trouble to his parents by doing so. Ben entered an office, but Lawrence was kept at Oxford by an uncle's generosity, and under strong pressure consented to take orders.
The poor young fellow had no special vocation, and he owned to Max afterwards that he feared that he had done the wrong thing. I am afraid Max thought so too, but he would not discourage him by saying so; on the contrary, he treated him in a bracing manner, telling him that he had put his hand to the plough, and that there must be no looking backward, and bidding him pluck up heart and do his duty as well as he could; and then he smoothed his way by asking him to be his curate and live with him, so saving him from the loneliness and discomfort of some curates' existence, who are at the mercy of their landladies and laundresses.
So the two lived merrily together, and Lawrence Tudor was all the better man and parson for Uncle Max's genial help and sympathy; and though Mrs. Drabble grumbled and did not take kindly to him at first, she made him thoroughly comfortable, and mended his socks and sewed on his buttons in motherly fashion. Mrs. Drabble was quite a character in her way; she was a fair, fussy little woman, who looked meek enough to warrant the best of tempers; she had a soft voice and manner that deceived you, and a vague rambling sort of talk that landed you nowhere; but if ever woman could be a mild virago Mrs. Drabble was that woman. She worshipped her master, and never allowed any one to find fault with him; but with Mr. Tudor, or the maid, or any one who interfered with her, she could be a flaxen-haired termagant; she could scold in a low voice for half an hour together without minding a single stop or pausing to take breath. Mr. Tudor used to laugh at her, or get out of her way, when he had had enough of it; she only tried it on her master once, but Max stood and stared at her with such surprise and such puzzled good-humour that she grew ashamed and stopped in the very middle of a sentence.
But, with all her temper, neither of them could have spared Mrs. Drabble, she made them so comfortable.
CHAPTER V
'WHEN THE CAT IS AWAY'
Aunt Philippa had one very good point in her character: she was not of a nagging disposition. When she scolded she did it thoroughly, and was perhaps a long time doing it, but she never carried it into the next day.