The Trial [167]
only comes by the way of their chance good-will to one.' 'For shame, Doctor!' said Ethel, pretending to shake him by the collar. 'I was thinking,' he added, 'that we must not require too much. People must have their day, and in their own fashion; and I wish you would tell Tom--I've no patience to do it myself--that I don't mean to hamper him. As long as it is a right line, he may take whichever he pleases, and I'll do my best to set him forward in it; but it is a pity--' 'Perhaps a few years of travelling, or of a professorship, might give him time to think differently,' said Ethel. 'Not he,' said the Doctor; 'the more a man lives in the world, the more he depends on it. Where is the boy? is he gone without vouchsafing a good-bye?' 'Oh no, he has taken pity on Annie and Caroline Cheviot's famine of croquet, and gone with them to the gardens.' 'A spice of flirtation never comes amiss to him.' 'There, that's the way!' said Ethel, half-saucily, half-caressingly; 'that poor fellow never can do right! Isn't it the very thing to keep him away from home, that we all may steal a horse, and he can't look over the wall, no, not with a telescope?' 'I can't help it, Ethel. It may be very wrong and unkind of me-- Heaven forgive me if it is, and prevent me from doing the boy any harm! but I never can rid myself of a feeling of there being something behind when he seems the most straightforward. If he had only not got his grandfather's mouth and nose! And,' smiling after all--'I dont know what I said to be so scolded; all lads flirt, and you can't deny that Master Tom divided his attentions pretty freely last year between Mrs. Pugh and poor Ave Ward.' 'This time, I believe, it was out of pure kindness to me,' said Ethel, 'so I am bound to his defence. He dragged off poor Daisy to chaperon them, that I might have a little peace.' 'Ah! he came down on us this morning,' said the Doctor, 'on Richard and Flora and me, and gave us a lecture on letting you grow old, Ethel--said you were getting over-tasked, and no one heeding it; and looking--let's look'--and he took off his spectacles, put his hand on her shoulder, and studied her face. 'Old enough to be a respectable lady of the house, I hope,' said Ethel. 'Wiry enough for most things,' said the Doctor, patting her shoulder, reassured; 'but we must take care, Ethel; if you don't fatten yourself up, we shall have Flora coming and carrying you off to London for a change, and for Tom to practise on. 'That is a threat! I expected he had been prescribing for me already, never to go near Cocksmoor, for that's what people always begin by--' 'Nothing worse than pale ale.' At which Ethel made one of her faces. 'And to make a Mary of that chit of a Daisy. Well, you may do as you please--only take care, or Flora will be down upon us.' 'Tom has been very helpful and kind to me,' said Ethel. 'And, papa, he has seen Leonard, and he says he looked so noble that to shake hands with him made him feel quite small.' 'I never heard anything so much to Tom's credit! Well, and what did he say of the dear lad?' The next step was to mention Averil's letter to Mary, which could not be sent on till tidings had been permitted by Mr. Cheviot. 'Let us see it,' said the Doctor. 'Do you think Charles Cheviot would like it?' 'Cheviot is a man of sense,' said the open-hearted Doctor, 'and there may be something to authorize preventing this unlucky transfer of her fortune.' Nothing could be further from it; but it was a long and interesting letter, written in evidently exhilarated spirits, and with a hopeful description of the new scenes. Ethel read it to her father, and he told every one about it when they came in. Tom manifested no particular interest; but he did not go by the mail train that night, and was not visible all the morning. He caught Ethel alone however at noon, and said, 'Ethel, I owe you this,' offering the amount she had paid for the letter. 'Thank you,' she said, wondering if this was to be all she should hear about it. 'I am going by the afternoon train,' he added; 'I have been over to Blewer.