Tom Brown at Oxford

CHAPTER XXXIII

BROWN PATRONUS

On a Saturday afternoon in August, a few weeks after the eventful ride, Tom returned to the Englebourn Rectory to stay over Sunday, and attend Betty Winburn's funeral. He was strangely attracted to Harry by the remembrance of their old boyish rivalry; by the story which he had heard from his cousin, of the unwavering perseverance with which the young peasant clung to and pursued his suit for Simon's daughter; but, more than all, by the feeling of gratitude with which he remembered the effect his visit to Betty's sick room had had on him, on the day of his ride from Barton Manor. On that day he knew that he had ridden into Englebourn in a miserable mental fog, and had ridden out of it in sunshine, which had lasted through the intervening weeks. Somehow or another he had been set straight then and there, turned into the right road and out of the wrong one, at what he very naturally believed to be the most critical moment of his life.

Without stopping to weigh accurately the respective merits of the several persons whom he came in contact with that day, he credited them all with a large amount of gratitude and good-will, and Harry with his mother's share as well as his own. So he had been longing to do something for him ever since. The more he rejoiced in, and gave himself up to his own new sensations, the more did his gratitude become as it were a burden to him; and yet no opportunity offered of letting off some of it in action. The magistrates, taking into consideration the dangerous state of his mother, had let Harry off with a reprimand for his assault; so there was nothing to be done there. He wrote to Katie offering more money for the Winburns; but she declined – adding, however, to her note, by way of postscript, that he might give it to her clothing club or coal club. Then came the news of Betty's death, and an intimation from Katie that she thought Harry would be much gratified if he would attend the funeral. He jumped at the suggestion. All Englebourn, from the Hawk's Lynch to the Rectory, was hallowed ground to him. The idea of getting back there, so much nearer to Barton Manor, filled him with joy, which he tried in vain to repress when he thought of the main object of his visit on the present occasion.

He arrived in time to go and shake hands with Harry before dinner; and, though scarcely a word passed between them, he saw with delight that he had evidently given pleasure to the mourner. Then he had a charming long evening with Katie, walking in the garden with her between dinner and tea, and after tea discoursing in low tones over her work-table, while Mr. Winter benevolently slept in his arm-chair. Their discourse branched into many paths, but managed always somehow to end in the sayings, beliefs, and perfections of the young lady of Barton Manor. Tom wondered how it had happened so when he got to his own room, as he fancied he had not betrayed himself in the least. He had determined to keep resolutely on his guard, and to make a confident of no living soul till he was twenty-one, and, though sorely tempted to break his resolution in favor of Katie, had restrained himself. He might have spared himself all the trouble; but this he did not know, being unversed in the ways of women, and all unaware of the subtlety and quickness of their intuitions in all matters connected with the heart. Poor, dear, stolid, dim-sighted mankind, how they do see through us and walk round us!

The funeral on the Sunday afternoon between churches had touched him much, being the first he had ever attended. He walked next behind the chief mourner – the few friends, amongst whom David was conspicuous, yielding place to him. He stood beside Harry in church, and at the open grave, and made the responses as firmly as he could, and pressed his shoulder against his, when he felt the strong frame of the son trembling with the weight and burden of his resolutely suppressed agony. When they parted at the cottage door, to which Tom accompanied the mourner and his old and tried friend David, though nothing but a look and a grasp of the hand passed between them, he felt that they were bound by a new and invisible bond; and, as he walked back up the village and passed the churchyard, where the children were playing about on the graves, stopping every now and then to watch the sexton as he stamped down and filled in the mould on the last made one beside which he himself stood as a mourner – and heard the bells beginning to chime for the afternoon service, he resolved within himself that he would be a true and helpful friend to the widow's son. On this subject he could talk freely to Katie; and he did so that evening, expounding how much one in his position could do for a young laboring man if he was really bent on it, and building up grand castles for Harry, the foundations of which rested on his own determination to benefit and patronize him. Katie listened half doubtingly at first, but was soon led away by his confidence, and poured out the tea in the full belief that with Tom's powerful aid all would go well. After which they took to reading the "Christian Year" together, and branched into discussions on profane poetry, which Katie considered scarcely proper for the evening, but which, nevertheless, being of such rare occurrence with her, she had not the heart to stop.

The next morning Tom was to return home. After breakfast he began the subject of his future plans for Harry again, when Katie produced a small paper packet which she handed to him, saying —

"Here is your money again."

"What money?"

"The money you left with me for Harry Winburn. I thought at the time that most probably he would not take it."

"But are you sure he doesn't want it? Did you try hard to get him to take it?" said Tom, holding out his hand reluctantly for the money.

"Not myself. I couldn't offer him money myself, of course; but I sent it by David, and begged him to do all he could to persuade him to take it."

"Well, and why wouldn't he?"

"Oh, he said the club-money which was coming in was more than enough to pay for the funeral and for himself he didn't want it."

"How provoking! I wonder if old David really did his best to get him to take it."

"Yes, I am sure he did. But you ought to be very glad to find some independence in a poor man."

"Bother his independence! I don't like to feel that it costs me nothing but talk – I want to pay."

"Ah, Tom, if you knew the poor as well as I do, you wouldn't say so. I am afraid there are not two other men in the parish who would have refused your money. The fear of undermining their independence takes away all my pleasure in giving."

"Undermining! Why, Katie, I am sure I have heard you mourn over their stubbornness and unreasonableness."

"Oh, yes; they are often provokingly stubborn and unreasonable, and yet not independent about money, or anything they can get out of you. Besides, I acknowledge that I have become wiser of late; I used to like to see them dependent and cringing to me, but now I dread it."

"But you would like David to give in about the singing, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, if he would give in I should be very proud. I have learnt a great deal from him; I used positively to dislike him; but, now that I know him, I think him the best man in the parish. If he ever does give in – and I think he will – it will be worth anything, just because he is so independent."

"That's all very well; but what am I to do to show Harry Winburn that I mean to be his friend, if he won't take money from me?"

"You have come over to his mother's funeral – he will think more of that than of all the money you could give him; and you can show sympathy for him in a great many ways."

"Well, I must try. By the way, about his love affair; is the young lady at home? I have never seen her, you know."

"No she is away with an aunt, looking out for a place. I have persuaded her to get one, and leave home again for the present. Her father is quite well now, and she is not wanted."

"Well, it seems I can't do any good with her, then; but could I not go and talk to her father about Harry? I might help him in that way."

"You must be very careful; Simon is such an odd-tempered old man."

"Oh, I'm not afraid; he and I are great chums; and a little soft soap will go a long way with him. Fancy, if I could get him this very morning to 'sanction Harry's suit,' as the phrase is, what should you think of me?"

"I should think very highly of your powers of persuasion."

Not the least daunted by his cousin's misgivings, Tom started in quest of Simon, and found him at work in front of the greenhouse, surrounded by many small pots and heaps of finely sifted mould, and absorbed in his occupation.

Simon was a rough, stolid Berkshire rustic, somewhat of a tyrant in the bosom of his family, an unmanageable servant, a cross-grained acquaintance; as a citizen, stiff-necked, and a grumbler, who thought that nothing ever went right in the parish; but, withal, a thoroughly honest worker; and, when allowed to go his own way – and no other way would he go, as his mistress had long since discovered – there was no man who earned his daily bread more honestly. He took a pride in his work, and the Rectory garden was always trim and well kept, and the beds bright with flowers from early spring till late autumn.

He was absorbed in what he was about, and Tom came up close to him without attracting the least sign of recognition; so he stopped, and opened the conversation.

"Good day, Simon; it's a pleasure to see a garden looking so gay as yours."

Simon looked up from his work, and, when he saw who it was, touched his battered old hat, and answered, —

"Mornin' sir! Ees, you finds me allus in blume"

"Indeed I do, Simon; but how do you manage it? I should like to tell my father's gardener."

"'Tis no use to tell un if a haven't found out for hisself. 'Tis nothing but lookin' a bit forrard and farm-yard stuff as does it."

"Well, there's plenty of farm-yard stuff at home, and yet, somehow, we never look half so bright as you do."

"May be as your gardener just takes and hits it auver the top o' the ground, and lets it lie. That's no kind o' good, that beant – 'tis the roots as wants the stuff; and you med jist as well take and put a round o' beef agin my back bwone as hit the stuff auver the ground, and never see as it gets to the roots o' the plants."

"No, I don't think it can be that," said Tom laughing; "our gardener seems always to be digging his manure in, but somehow he can't make it come out in flowers as you do."

"Ther' be mwore waays o' killin' a cat besides choking on un wi' crame," said Simon, chuckling in his turn.

"That's true Simon," said Tom; "the fact is, a gardener must know his business as well as you to be always in bloom, eh?"

"That's about it, sir," said Simon, on whom the flattery was beginning to tell.

Tom saw this, and thought he might now feel his way a little further with the old man.

"I'm over on a sad errand," he said; "I've been to poor Widow Winburn's funeral – she was an old friend of yours, I think?"

"Ees; I minds her long afore she wur married," said Simon, turning to his pots again.

"She wasn't an old woman, after all," said Tom.

"Sixty-two year old cum Michaelmas," said Simon.

"Well, she ought to have been a strong woman for another ten years at least; why, you must be older than she by some years, Simon, and you can do a good day's work yet with any man."

Simon went on with his potting without replying except by a carefully measured grunt, sufficient to show that he had heard the remark, and was not much impressed by it.

Tom saw that he must change his attack; so, after watching Simon for a minute, he began again.

"I wonder why it is that the men of your time of life are so much stronger than the young ones in constitution. Now, I don't believe there are three young men in Englebourn who would have got over that fall you had at Farmer Groves' so quick as you have; most young men would have been crippled for life by it."

"Zo 'em would, the young wosbirds. I dwont make no account on 'em," said Simon.

"And you don't feel any the worse for it, Simon?"

"Narra mossel," replied Simon; but presently he seemed to recollect something, and added, "I wun't saay but what I feels it at times when I've got to stoop about much."

"Ah, I'm sorry to hear that, Simon. Then you oughtn't to have so much stooping to do; potting, and that sort of thing, is the work for you, I should think, and just giving an eye to everything about the place. Anybody could do the digging and setting out cabbages, and your time is only wasted at it." – Tom had now found the old man's weak point.

"Ees, sir, and so I tells miss," he said, "but wi' nothin' but a bit o' glass no bigger'n a cowcumber frame, 'tis all as a man can do to keep a few plants alive droo' the winter."

"Of course," said Tom, looking round at the very respectable greenhouse which Simon had contemptuously likened to a cucumber-frame, "you ought to have at least another house as big as this for forcing."

"Master ain't pleased, he ain't," said Simon, "if he dwon't get his things, his spring wegetables, and his strawberries, as early as though we'd a got forcin' pits and glass like other folk. 'Tis a year and mwore since he promised as I sh'd hev glass along that ther' wall, but 'tis no nigher comin' as I can see. I be to spake to miss about it now, and, when I spakes to her, 'tis, 'oh, Simon, we must wait till the 'spensary's 'stablished,' or 'oh, Simon, last winter wur a werry tryin wun, and the sick club's terrible bad off for funds,' – and so we gwoes on, and med gwo on for aught as I can see, so long as there's a body sick or bad off in all the parish. And that'll be all us. For, what wi' wisitin' on 'em, and sendin' on 'em dinners, and a'al the doctor's stuff as is served out o' the 'spensary – wy, 'tis enough to keep 'em bad a'al ther' lives. Ther ain't no credit in gettin' well. Ther' wur no sich a caddle about sick folk when I wur a bwoy."

Simon had never been known to make such a long speech before, and Tom argued well for his negotiation.

"Well, Simon," he said, "I've been talking to my cousin, and I think she will do what you want now. The dispensary is set up, and the people are very healthy. How much glass should you want, now, along that wall?"

"A matter o' twenty fit or so," said Simon.

"I think that can be managed," said Tom; "I'll speak to my cousin about it; and then you would have plenty to do in the houses, and you'd want a regular man under you."

"Ees; 'twould take two on us reg'lar to kep things as they should be."

"And you ought to have somebody who knows what he is about. Can you think of anyone who would do, Simon?"

"Ther's a young chap as works for Squire Wurley. I've heard as he wants to better hisself."

"But he isn't an Englebourn man. Isn't there anyone in the parish?"

"Ne'er a one as I knows on."

"What do you think of Harry Winburn – he seems a good hand with flowers?" The words had scarcely passed his lips when Tom saw that he had made a mistake. Old Simon retired into himself at once, and a cunning, distrustful look came over his face. There was no doing anything with him. Even the new forcing house had lost its attractions for him, and Tom, after some further ineffectual attempts to bring him round, returned to the house somewhat crestfallen.

"Well, how have you succeeded?" said Katie, looking up from her work, as he came in and sat down near her table. Tom shook his head.

"I'm afraid I've made a regular hash of it," he said. "I thought at first I had quite come round the old savage by praising the garden, and promising that you would let him have a new house."

"You don't mean to say you did that?" said Katie, stopping her work.

"Indeed, but I did, though. I was drawn on, you know. I saw it was the right card to play; so I couldn't help it."

"Oh, Tom! how could you do so? We don't want another house the least in the world; it is only Simon's vanity. He wants to beat the gardener at the grange at the flower shows. Every penny will have to come out of what papa allows me for the parish."

"Don't be afraid, Katie; you won't have to spend a penny. Of course I reserved a condition. The new house was to be put up if he would take Harry as an under-gardener.

"What did he say to that?"

"Well, he said nothing. I never came across such an old Turk. How you have spoiled him! If he isn't pleased, he won't take the trouble to answer you a word. I was very near telling him a piece of my mind. But he looked all the more. I believe he would poison Harry if he came here. What can have made him hate him so?"

"He is jealous of him. Mary and I were so foolish as to praise poor Betty's flowers before Simon, and he has never forgiven it. I think, too, that he suspects, somehow, that we talked about getting Harry here. I ought to have told you, but I quite forgot it."

"Well, it can't be helped. I don't think I can do any good in that quarter; so now I shall be off to the Grange to see what I can do there."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, Harry is afraid of being turned out of his cottage. I saw how it worried him, thinking about it; so I shall go to the Grange, and say a good word for him. Wurley can't refuse if I offer to pay the rent myself – it's only six pounds a year. Of course, I sha'n't tell Harry; and he will pay it all the same; but it may make all the difference with Wurley, who is a regular screw."

"Do you know Mr. Wurley?"

"Yes, just to speak to. He knows all about me, and he will be very glad to be civil."

"No doubt he will; but I don't like your going to his house. You don't know what a bad man he is. Nobody but men on the turf, and that sort of people, go there now; and I believe he thinks of nothing but gambling and game-preserving."

"Oh, yes; I know all about him. The county people are beginning to look shy at him; so he'll be all the more likely to do what I ask him."

"But you won't get intimate with him?"

"You needn't be afraid of that."

"It is a sad house to go to – I hope it won't do you any harm."

"Ah, Katie!" said Tom, with a smile not altogether cheerful, "I don't think you need be anxious about that. When one has been a year at Oxford, there isn't much snow left to soil; so now I am off. I must give myself plenty of time to cook Wurley."

"Well, I suppose I must not hinder you," said Katie. "I do hope you will succeed in some of your kind plans for Harry."

"I shall do my best; and it is a great thing to have somebody besides oneself to think about and try to help – some poor person – don't you think so, even for a man?"

"Of course I do. I am sure you can't be happy without it, any more than I. We shouldn't be our mother's children if we could be."

"Well, good-bye, dear; you can't think how I enjoy these glimpses of you and your work. You must give my love to Uncle Robert."

And so they bade each other adieu, lovingly, after the manner of cousins, and Tom rode away with a very soft place in his heart for his cousin Katie. It was not the least the same sort of passionate feeling of worship with which he regarded Mary. The two feelings could lie side by side in his heart with plenty of room to spare. In fact, his heart had been getting so big in the last few weeks that it seemed capable of taking in the whole of mankind, not to mention woman, till, on the whole, it may be safely asserted that, had matters been at all in a more forward state, and could she have seen exactly what was passing in his mind, Mary would probably have objected to the kind of affection which he felt for his cousin at this particular time. The joke about cousinly love is probably as old, and certainly as true, as Solomon's proverbs. However, as matters stood, it could be no concern of Mary's what his feelings were towards Katie, or any other person.

Tom rode in at the lodge gate of the Grange soon after eleven o'clock, and walked his horse slowly through the park, admiring the splendid timber, and thinking how he should break his request to the owner of the place. But his thoughts were interrupted by the proceedings of the rabbits, which were out by hundreds all along the sides of the plantations, and round the great trees. A few of the nearest just deigned to notice him by scampering to their holes under the roots of the antlered oaks, into which some of them popped with a disdainful kick of their hind legs, while others turned round, sat up, and looked at him. As he neared the house he passed a keeper's cottage, and was saluted by the barking of dogs from the neighboring kennel; and the young pheasants ran about round some twenty hen-coops, which were arranged along opposite the door where the keeper's children were playing. The pleasure of watching the beasts and birds kept him from arranging his thoughts, and he reached the hall door without having formed the plan of his campaign.

A footman answered the bell, who doubted whether his master was down, but thought he would see the gentleman if he would send in his name. Whereupon Tom handed in his card, and, in a few minutes a rakish-looking stable boy came round after his horse, and the butler appeared with his master's compliments, and a request that he would step into the breakfast-room. Tom followed this portly personage through the large handsome hall, on the walls of which hung a buff-coat or two and some old-fashioned arms, and large paintings of dead game and fruit – through a drawing room, the furniture of which was all covered up in melancholy cases – into the breakfast parlor, where the owner of the mansion was seated at table in a lounging jacket. He was a man of forty or thereabouts, who would have been handsome, but for the animal look about his face. His cheeks were beginning to fall into chaps, his full lips had a liquorish look about them, and bags were beginning to form under his light blue eyes. His hands were very white and delicate, and shook a little as he poured out his tea; and he was full and stout in body, with small shoulders, and thin arms and legs; in short, the last man whom Tom would have chosen as bow in a pair oar. The only part of him which showed strength were his dark whiskers, which were abundant, and elaborately oiled and curled. The room was light and pleasant, with two windows looking over the park, and furnished luxuriously, in the most modern style, with all manner of easy chairs and sofas. A glazed case or two of well bound books, showed that some former owner had cared for such things; but the doors had, probably, never been opened in the present reign. The master and his usual visitors found sufficient food for the mind in the Racing Calendar, "Boxiana," "The Adventures of Corinthian Tom," and Bell's Life, which lay on a side table; or in the pictures and prints of racers, opera dancers, and steeple-chases, which hung in profusion on the walls. The breakfast table was beautifully appointed in the matter of china and plate; and delicate little rolls, neat pats of butter in ice, two silver hot dishes containing curry and broiled salmon, and a plate of fruit, piled in tempting profusion, appealed, apparently in vain, to the appetite of the lord of the feast.