“I can be of no use myself in any way?” said Ormiston with some hesitation.
“I thank you, no,” she replied; and then, as if conscious that her tone was cold, she added—“You are very kind: Mr Hawthorne was good enough to say the same. Every one is very kind to us, indeed; but”—and here she stopped again, her emotion threatening to master her; and Ormiston and myself simultaneously took our leave.
Preoccupied as my mind had been by anxiety on Russell’s account, it did not prevent a feeling of awkwardness when I found myself alone with Mr Ormiston outside the door of his lodgings. It was impossible to devise any excuse at the moment for turning off in a different direction, as I felt very much inclined to do; for the little street in which he lived was not much of a thoroughfare. The natural route for both of us to take was that which led towards the High Street, for a few hundred steps the other way would have brought us out into the country, where it is not usual for either tutors or under-graduates to promenade in cap and gown, as they do, to the great admiration of the rustics, in our sister university. We walked on together, therefore, feeling—I will answer at least for one of us—that it would be an especial relief just then to meet the greatest bore with whom we had any pretence of a speaking acquaintance, or pass any shop in which we could frame the most threadbare excuse of having business, to cut short the embarrassment of each other’s company. After quitting any scene in which deep feelings have been displayed, and in which our own have been not slightly interested, it is painful to feel called upon to make any comment on what has passed; we feel ashamed to do so in the strain and tone which would betray our own emotion, and we have not the heart to do so carelessly or indifferently. I should have felt this, even had I been sure that Ormiston’s feelings towards Mary Russell had been nothing more than my own; whereas, in fact, I was almost sure of the contrary; in which case it was possible that, in his eyes, my own locus standi in that quarter, surprised as I had been in an apparently very confidential interview, might seem to require some explanation which would be indelicate to ask for directly, and which it might not mend matters if I were to give indirectly without being asked. So we proceeded some paces up the little quiet street, gravely and silently, neither of us speaking a word. At last Ormiston asked me if I had seen Russell, and how I thought him? adding, without waiting for a reply, “Dr Wilson, I fear from what he told me, thinks but badly of him.”
“I am very sorry to hear you say so,” I replied; and then ventured to remark how very wretched it would be for his sister, in the event of his growing worse, to be left at such a time so utterly helpless and alone.
He was silent for some moments. “Some of her friends,” he said at last, “ought to come down; she must have friends, I know, who would come if they were sent for. I wish Mrs Meredith were returned—she might advise her.”
He spoke rather in soliloquy than as addressing me, and I did not feel called upon to make any answer. The next moment we arrived at the turn of the street, and, by what seemed a mutual impulse, wished each other good-morning.
I went straight down to Smith’s rooms, at —— Hall, to get him to come and dine with me; for I pitied the poor fellow’s forlorn condition, and considered myself in some degree bound to supply Russell’s place towards him. A Bible-clerk’s position in the University is always more or less one of mortification and constraint. It is true that the same academical degree, the same honours—if he can obtain them—the same position in after life—all the solid advantages of a University education, are open to him, as to other men; but, so long as his undergraduateship lasts, he stands in a very different position from other men, and he feels it—feels it, too, through three or four of those years of life when such feelings are most acute, and when that strength of mind which is the only antidote—which can measure men by themselves and not by their accidents—is not as yet matured either in himself or in the society of which he becomes a member. If, indeed, he be a decidedly clever man, and has the opportunity early in his career of showing himself to be such, then there is good sense and good feeling enough—let us say, to the honour of the University, there is sufficient of that true esprit du corps, a real consciousness of the great objects for which men are thus brought together—to ensure the acknowledgment from all but the most unworthy of its members, that a scholar is always a gentleman. But if he be a man of only moderate abilities, and known only as a Bible-clerk, then, the more he is of a gentleman by birth and education, the more painful does his position generally become. There are not above two or three in residence in most colleges, and their society is confined almost wholly to themselves. Some old schoolfellow, indeed, or some man who “knows him at home,” holding an independent rank in college, may occasionally venture upon the condescension of asking him to wine—even to meet a friend or two with whom he can take such a liberty; and even then, the gnawing consciousness that he is considered an inferior—though not treated as such—makes it a questionable act of kindness. Among the two or three of his own table, one is the son of a college butler, another has been for years usher at a preparatory school; he treats them with civility, they treat him with deference; but they have no tastes or feelings in common. At an age, therefore, which most of all seeks and requires companionship, he has no companions; and the period of life which should be the most joyous, becomes to him almost a purgatory. Of course, the radical and the leveller will say at once, “Ay, this comes of your aristocratic distinctions; they ought not to be allowed in universities at all.” Not so: it comes of human nature; the distinction between a dependent and an independent position will always be felt in all societies, mark it outwardly as little as you will. Humiliation, more or less, is a penalty which poverty must always pay. These humbler offices in the University were founded by a charity as wise as benevolent, which has afforded to hundreds of men of talent, but of humble means, an education equal to that of the highest noble in the land, and, in consequence, a position and usefulness in after life, which otherwise they could never have hoped for. And if the somewhat servile tenure by which they are held, (which in late years has in most colleges been very much relaxed,) were wholly done away with, there is reason to fear the charity of the founders would be liable to continual abuse, by their being bestowed upon many who required no such assistance. As it is, this occurs too often; and it is much to be desired that the same regulations were followed in their distribution, throughout the University, which some colleges have long most properly adopted: namely, that the appointment should be bestowed on the successful candidate after examination, strict regard being had to the circumstances of all the parties before they are allowed to offer themselves. It would make their position far more definite and respectable, because all would then be considered honourable to a certain degree, as being the reward of merit; instead of which, too often, they are convenient items of patronage in the hands of the Principal and Fellows, the nomination to them depending on private interest, which by no means ensuring the nominee’s being a gentleman by birth, while it is wholly careless of his being a scholar by education, and tends to lower the general standing of the order in the University.
This struck me forcibly in Smith’s case. Poor fellow! with an excellent heart and a great deal of sound common sense, he had neither the breeding nor the talent to make a gentleman of. I doubt if an University education was any real boon to him. It ensured him four years of hard work—harder, perhaps, than if he had sat at a desk all the time—without the society of any of his own class and habits, and with the prospect of very little remuneration ultimately. I think he might have been very happy in his own sphere, and I do not see how he could be happy at Oxford. And whether he or the world in general ever profited much by the B.A. which he eventually attached to his name, is a point at least doubtful.
I could not get him to come and dine with me in my own college. He knew his own position, as it seemed, and was not ashamed of it; in fact, in his case, it could not involve any consciousness of degradation; and I am sure his only reason for refusing my invitations of that kind was, that he thought it possible my dignity might be compromised by so open an association with him. He would come over to my rooms in the evening to tea, he said; and he came accordingly. When I told him in the morning that Russell had inquired very kindly after him, he was much affected; but it had evidently been a comfort to him to feel that he was not forgotten, and during the hour or two which we spent together in the evening, he seemed much more cheerful.
“Perhaps they will let me see him to-morrow, if he is better?” he said, with an appealing look to me. I assured him I would mention his wish to Russell, and his countenance at once brightened up, as if he thought only his presence were needed to ensure our friend’s recovery.