Was it the good of his country he was bidden mind? De Vaux laughed softly, but with more pensive sadness than cynical bitterness in the laugh, at the idea of his being of any service to speak of to the nation. There were better qualified men than he to do the country’s work—men who could stick to a party, and have all the consistency and combined strength which such resolute adhesion gave; men not too scrupulous—not cumbered with a double sight, which saw both sides of a question, or with a vague, hazy farsightedness—he did not count it a gain, he was not meaning to praise himself in reckoning the defects which prevented him from observing clearly and concisely—which was always anticipating dim consequences, magnified to giants in their dimness. At the same time, he really felt he could not work—he could not do himself or any other body justice in union with fellows who were tools of a faction, or slaves to a theory; and he was not such a Don Quixote as to propose to fight the battles of the country and Parliament single-handed.
Was it a suggestion of authorship? He had been a prize-man at Oxford; he had been fond of making researches in various fields of intellect; his style, as shown in his letters when he had been on his travels, had been commended by distinguished literary men and diners out as the juste milieu between simplicity and brilliance. The family papers alone might supply him with delightful subjects for essays.
De Vaux laughed again, and protested that the world was too full of books; that the making of books in his generation, much more than in that of Solomon, was “vanity,” and he was not fool enough to add without any distinct calling to those toppling monster heaps, which, however evanescent, threatened to crush for the present, by the mere force of numbers, the half-dozen books capable of surviving the catastrophe. As for the records of the house, he was not disposed to turn them out for daws to peck at, neither had he any desire to wash his dirty linen in public, if she would forgive him the coarseness of the simile.
Was it a proposal of giving more personal attention to the management of the estate, now that his father was no longer able to take any part in it, or even to consult with the agent, in near prospect of the time when De Vaux should be sole master?
Here the poor lady began to cry, half at being forced to allude to the approaching death of her old husband, half at the recollection that he had always told her that to be an earl and a great landed proprietor were not the sinecures that ignorant people imagined they were. Yet De Vaux, who might have known better from what he had seen of his father’s cares and worries, and with his own cleverness, was taking his future position with unbecoming indifference, and declining to serve any apprenticeship to it since the time when he had been a bright boy, proud to accompany his father to the offices and the home farm.
De Vaux’s affectionate heart was touched. He assured his mother that he hoped his father would still be spared, and trusted he might rally and resume some of his former habits. “In such a case, my dear mother,” he said, “do you think he would like to find me prematurely interfering with his plans, and overturning his arrangements, particularly when Anwell is the briskest, most trustworthy old fellow out. He has a greater knowledge of the capabilities of the estate, and of country interests, than even my father had—don’t be angry; I have often heard him say so—or, I need not add, than I am likely to acquire, though I live to the age of Methuselah, which God forbid. It must have been a heavy task for the oldest of the antediluvians to get along without the comfort of so much as a contemporary to share his penalties. No, no; ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ We have Scripture authority for that, and I shall recommend the vicar to take the text for his homily next Sunday if you will fret about my future troubles. I shall think I am in your way if you are so anxious to get rid of me and my spare time. In order to bring about that, there ought to be a new crusade—quite enough in the unaccountable laziness of your son to justify that. Eh, mum?” He ended with a flash of youthful fun, which was some consolation to his mother for her failure.
But she was more puzzled than ever. It was all De Vaux’s superior cultivation, ability, and good feeling which stood in the way, of course. There was a great deal of good taste, good sense, and good feeling in what he had said, especially in his reluctance to grasp the sceptre falling from his poor father’s hands. It was so different with Lady Netherby’s son, who was little better than an amateur coachman—in those days, too, when coaches had almost ceased to exist; or Lord Dorchester, who was a learned prig as well as a marquis; or young Ascham of Ryelands, who, as everybody knew, had sold himself to the Jews, and was eagerly anticipating his father’s death for his release. She recognised the difference thankfully. On the other hand, though she and her lord had been fairly polished, intelligent, well-disposed persons, she had not been, so to speak,
“Too wise and good
For human nature’s daily food;”