The Two Guardians Part 35

"You see," Lionel continued, "we must all do something for ourselves; and I am sure my eyes will never be fit for study. To be a clergyman is out of the question for me, even if I was good enough; and so is the law--"

"Yes, yes, certainly."

"Well, then, there is only the army, and there one can't get on without money. Now you know Elliot has been a monstrous expense to my father of late, and the times have grown so bad, and everything altogether has gone wrong; so that I think the only thing for it would be for me to go off to some new part of the world, where, when I once had a start, my own head and hands would maintain me,--no thanks to anybody."

"I dare say it would," said Marian, rather sadly, "I am sure these are right grounds, Lionel; but it is a terrible severing of all home ties."

"O, but I should come back again. I should be an Englishman still, and come back when I had made my fortune."

"O, Lionel, don't be in a hurry to make a fortune; that spoils every one."

"No, no, I am not going to grasp and grub for money; I hate that. Only if the fortune comes, one does not know how, with cattle, or horses, or lands--O, Marian, think of being an Australian stockman, riding after those famous jockeys of wild bulls--hurra!" Lionel rose in his stirrups, and flourished his whip round his head, so as greatly to amaze his steed. "There is a life to lead in a great place bigger than all Europe, instead of being stifled up in this little bit of a poky England, every profession choke full of people!"

"Well done, Lionel, you do want a field indeed!"

"So I do. I hate to be fenced up, and in, every way. I should like to break out in some fresh place, and feel I had all the world before me!

Then I'll tell you what, Marian," and he spoke with infinite relish, "suppose matters got a little worse here, and they were all of them really in distress!"

"O Lionel!"

"Well, but listen. Then I should like to come home with all this fortune that I had made somehow, and get them all on their legs again; buy back the estate, perhaps, and give it to papa again; and then--and then"--his voice quivered a little, and his eyes winked, as if the sun had dazzled them--"see if mamma would not think me worth something, after all!"

This was the only time Lionel had ever said a word to show that he was conscious of his mother's disregard of him; and the feeling it called up made Marian's heart so full that she could not reply. But he wanted no answer, and went on. "Would not that be worth living for, Marian? But, after all, that is all nonsense," he added, with a sigh; "at least it is all a chance. But what I really think is, that I should do much better for myself and every one else, in one of the colonies; and I have a great mind to speak to my father about it. By the by, I wish Mr. Arundel would come here when he has finished his journey with Gerald; I should like to talk to him about the Cape. I rather fancy the Cape, because of the lions; and one might have a chance of a row now and then with the Caffres."

Marian began telling all she could about the Cape, and from that time her _tete-a-tetes_ with Lionel were chiefly spent in discussions upon the comparative merits of the colonies. One thing Lionel was resolved on. "I will go somewhere where there is a Church within a tolerable distance,--say twenty miles; that is a short one for a colony, you know, Marian; for I know I am such a wild fellow, that I should very soon forget everything good, if I had not something to put me in mind of it.

Or, by the by, Marian, what would be jolly would be to get Walter to go; I dare say he would, if it was some place where they were very badly off indeed, with plenty of natives, and all very savage."

Marian understood quite well enough, to agree that it must be some place "very badly off indeed" to invite Walter, and Lionel greatly enjoyed the further arranging of plans for taking care of his intended chaplain, whom he meant to save from roughing it as much as possible. However, this might be regarded as a very aerial pinnacle of his castle, the first foundation of which was yet to be laid, by broaching the subject to his father. Lionel talked over the proposing it many times with his counsellor, and at length resolved upon it, with some slight hope that it might save his eyes from the suffering of another half year at Eton, which, as the holidays came nearer to an end, he began to dread.

"You see, Marian," he said, "I do not like to give out, when I can help it, for they think it s.h.i.+rking, and there was a time when I did s.h.i.+rk; but a great many times last half, I was nearly mad with the aching and smarting of my eyes after I had been reading. And all I did was by bits now and then; for if I went on long the letters danced, and there was a mist between me and them."

"I wish you would tell Mr. Lyddell; I am sure it is not fit to go on in such a way."

"I have told Wells," answered Lionel.

A pause--then Lionel said, "I believe papa is in the library; I'll go and speak to him about the emigration."

Marian was very anxious to hear the result of the conference, but she could not find out anything just at first as she had to drive out with Mrs. Lyddell and Caroline to make calls. In the evening, over the game at chess, Lionel told her that his father said he should talk to his mother about it; and two days after he came to her in the hall, saying, "Come and take a turn in the plantation walk, Marian; 'tis nice and shady there, and I have something to tell you."

The something was as follows: "Well, Marian, my father was very kind, paid something about its being a sensible notion, and that he would see about it."

"But are you to go back to Eton?"

"Yes, that must be; and I must scramble on as best I may. It will be better at first, after all this rest. It is something gained that the whole plan is not knocked on the head at once."

"Then he gives his consent?"

"Why, he says it will be time to think of it in a year or two, and I am too young as yet, which is true enough; only, I wish I was to be learning farming, instead of torturing my eyes with what will be no good out there. Then he said, as to giving up the army, I need not think that was necessary, because it was only that he did not want to have two sons in it, and now Johnny is otherwise disposed of; and, besides Mr.

Faulkner had behaved in such a handsome way about Caroline's fortune.'

"O!" said Marian.

"Yes, I don't like that at all," said Lionel. "Johnny always was crazy to be a sailor, so he is all right, and that is not what I care for; but I don't want to be beholden to Mr. Faulkner. I had rather Caroline had her own money, and not that we should all profit by her making this grand marriage."

"I should quite feel with you."

"Marian, we have never talked that over; but I know you cannot bear the Faulkners."

"What is the use of asking me, Lionel?"

"O, I know you can't, as well as if you had said so; and I want to know how you could let Caroline go and do such a thing?"

"I? How could I help it?" said Marian smiling, at the boy's a.s.suming that she had power of which she was far from being conscious. "Besides, I thought you liked Mr. Faulkner; you, all of you, did nothing but praise him at Christmas."

"I did at first, not at last," said Lionel. "Besides, liking a man to go out shooting with is not the same as liking him to marry one's sister."

"By no means!" cried Marian, emphatically. "But what made you think ill of him?"

"Things I heard him say to Elliot when we were out together."

"Did Gerald hear them?" asked Marian, very anxiously, as she remembered what a hero Mr. Faulkner was in her brother's estimation.

"No, I don't think he did. He certainly was not there the worst time of all,--the time that gave a meaning to all the rest. Don't you remember that day when Mr. Faulkner drove Elliot and me in his dog-cart to look at that horse at Salisbury? I am sure I never praised him after that day. He said what Elliot never would have said himself--never."

"How?" Marian could not help asking, though she doubted the next moment whether it was wise to have done so.

"Things about--about religion--the Bible," said Lionel, looking down and mumbling, as if it was with difficulty that he squeezed out the answer.

"Now, you know, I have heard," he added, speaking more freely, "I have heard people make fun with a text or a name out of the Bible many a time; and though that is very bad of them, I think they don't mean much harm by it. Indeed, I have now and then done it myself, and should oftener, if I had not known how you hated it."

"It is a very wrong thing," but I see what you mean,--that some people do it from want of thought."

"Yes, just so; but that is a very different thing from almost quizzing the whole Bible,--at least talking as if it was an absurd thing to accept the whole of it, I do declare, Marian, he was worse when he began to praise it than he was before; for he talked of the Old Testament as if it was just like the Greek mythology, and then he compared it to Homer, and aeschylus, and the Koran. To be sure he did say it was better poetry and morality; but the idea of comparing it! I don't mean comparing as if it must be better, but as if it stood on the same ground."

"And did Elliot listen to all this?" said Marian, thinking the poison must have been in rather too intellectual a form for Elliot.

"He listened," said Lionel. "I don't think he would ever set up to say such things for himself; but I believe he rather liked hearing them said. I am quite sure this Faulkner will make him worse than he is already, for all this talk is a hundred times worse than going on in Elliot's way."

"To be sure it is--a thousand times!"

"But what I want to know is this, Marian? has Caroline got any notion of what sort of a man she has got? Because if she does it with her eyes open, it can't be helped; but if not, I think she ought to be warned; for I don't suppose the man is fool enough to talk in this way to her.

Indeed, I think I heard him say that believing is all very well for women."

"Why don't you tell her, then?"

"That is the very thing I had on my mind all these holidays; but I know no one would ever listen to me. If Walter was here it would be a very different thing, for he is worth attending to, and Caroline knows that; though she thinks I have no sense at all but for mischief."

"She could not think so, if she heard you speak as you do now."