After all, little was gained by the consultation, except the assurance that the poor little fellow was as well situated as was possible. A few directions for treatment and discipline were given, but very little hope was held out of any important change for the better.
The verdict disappointed Felix to an extent that surprised Mr. Audley, who had better understood the hopelessness of the case. Of all the family, Felix had the most of the parental instinct for the most helpless; and while he warmly thanked his friend, he looked so mournfully at the child who clung to him, that Mr. Audley said in a voice of sympathy, 'It is a burthen, but one that will never bring the sting of sin.'
'Not a burthen,' said Felix. 'No; as my father said when he gave him to me, he is the Gift of God, the son of my right hand. May it always be able to work for you!' he murmured, as he bent his head over the little one.
'And I think the gift will bring a blessing!' said Mr. Audley.
Theodore was sent home with Sibby, thus restoring Stella to herself, for she had been greatly lost without her speechless companion: but Felix remained in London for a week of business and pleasure. Captain Audley was very good-natured and friendly, and abetted his brother in all his arrangements for showing Felix as much of life as was possible in a week, assuring him that every new experience was a duty to the Pursuivant-a plea that Felix, with his lover-like devotion to every detail of his paper, admitted with a smile. Edgar was of almost all their expeditions, and dined with them nearly every day. That young gentleman's peculiar pleasantness had very nearly averted the remonstrances with which his brother and his guardian had come up armed. There he was, finding his work real, and not a royal road to immediate wealth, idling, lounging, and gratifying his taste for art and music; and when his employer stormed and threatened, listening with aggravating coolness, and even sweetness, merely hinting that his occupation was a mistake; and living all the time as a son of the house, with a handsome allowance, and free access to society and amusement. Thus, when Mr. Audley talked to him, he smiled with a certain resignation, and observed that he was concerned for poor old Tom, to have been unlucky enough to have drawn such a fellow as himself. Probably it was a judgment on him for not having come forward sooner, when he might have had Felix! And when Mr. Audley upheld Felix as an example of hearty sacrifice of taste and inclination, it was to obtain an enthusiastic response. Nobody breathed equal to dear old Fee, and it was the most ardent desire of Edgar's heart to take some of the burthen from his shoulders! When it was hinted that such an allowance as Tom Underwood gave afforded the opportunity, Edgar smiled between melancholy and scorn, saying, 'Times must have altered since your time, Mr. Audley.-No, I forgot. Expense is the rule in our line. Swells can do as they please.'
However, there things rested; Mr. Underwood treated him exactly like an idle son, storming at him sometimes, but really both fond and proud of him, and very gracious to Felix, whom he invited once to a very dull and dazzling dinner, and once sent to the opera with his ladies.
Felix's Sunday was chiefly spent at St. Matthew's, which he was very glad to see without Tina's spectacles. He was amazed to find so much more good sense and reality than the effect on Clement had led him to expect; and Mr. Fulmort, who struck him as one of the most practical-looking men he had ever seen, spoke in high terms of Clement's steadiness and wish to do right; but added, 'I am afraid we have rather spoilt him. He came up to us so unlike the kind of boy we generally get, that we may have made rather too much of him at first.'
Felix smiled. 'Perhaps we had knocked him about, and made too little of him at home,' he said.
'Besides, esprit de corps in so small a place as this is apt to become so concentrated as not to be many removes from egotism. I daresay we have been a terrible bore to you.'
Felix laughed. 'We have always been very grateful to you, Sir.'
'I understand. I am glad he is going farther a-field. He will be much improved by seeing other places, and having his exclusiveness and conceit shaken out of him; but we shall always regard him as the child of the house, and I only hope he may end by working among us.'
'Poor fellow! Conceit has been pretty well shaken out for the present,' said Felix.
'I hope it may last. He was rather hurt at my not making his misfortune of more importance: but it seems to have been accident, all except the priggish self-confidence that led to it.'
Felix increased much in cordiality towards Mr. Fulmort, and at the same time mounted many stages in Clement's estimation on the discovery that, however behindhand his ecclesiastical advantages might be, the Vicar was exceedingly impressed by his excellence.
A day or two after Felix's arrival, Ferdinand Travis was first encountered riding a spirited horse in the park, looking remarkably handsome, though still of the small-limbed slender make that recalled his Indian blood. His delight in the meeting was extreme, and he seemed to be as simple and good as ever. He was in deep mourning, having newly heard of his father having been killed in an American railway accident, and though his uncle seemed proud of him, and continued his liberal allowance, the loss and blank were greatly felt-all the more that he had not found it easy to make friends among his brother officers in the Life Guards. His foreign air was somehow uncongenial; he had no vivacity or cleverness, and being little inclined to some of the amusements of his contemporaries, and on his guard against others, he seemed to find his life rather dull and weary. He did not seem to have anything to love except his horses, especially the creature he was then riding, Brown Murad. He had obtained it after such competition, that he viewed the purchase as an achievement; while Felix heard the amount with an incredulous shudder, and marvelled at Mr. Audley's not regarding it as wildly preposterous. It was a dangerous position; and though Mr. Audley certified himself, through his soldier brother, that Travis was steadiness itself-neither betted, gamed, nor ran into debt-yet while he seemed personally acquainted with all the horses that ran, and apparently entered into no literature but the Racing Calendar, it was impossible not to be anxious about him, even though he seemed perfectly happy to be allowed to be with his two godfathers, and followed them everywhere, from the Houses of Parliament to St. Matthew's.
This was not the last expedition Felix had to make to London that spring. After many appointments of the time, and as many delays, a telegram suddenly summoned him in the beginning of May to bring Fulbert up to London, when the business would be wound up, and Captain Audley would take his brother and the boy in his yacht to Alexandria, there to join the overland passengers.
So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the train was in motion, and then was snatched back, and well shaken and reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher cap had ceased to be visible.
Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven, and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching when he found himself tete-a-tete with Fulbert in a cab; but while he was still considering of the right end by which to take this difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say, I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'