‘Yours ever, ‘TH. MAY.’
Ethel was not so much surprised as her father, who thought she must have been working upon Tom’s feelings; but this she disavowed, except that it had been impossible not to growl at patients sending at unreasonable hours. Then he hoped that Fleet had not been disappointing the lad; but this notion was nullified by a remonstrance from the knight, on the impolicy of burying such talents for the sake of present help; and even proposing to send a promising young man in Tom’s stead. ‘Not too good for poor Stoneborough,’ said Dr. May, smiling. ‘No, no, I’m not so decrepit as that, whatever he and Tom may have thought me; I fancy I could tire out both of them. I can’t have the poor boy giving up all his prospects for my sake, Ethel. I never looked for it, and I shall write and tell him so! Mind, Ethel, I shall write, not you! I know you would only stroke him down, and bring him home to regret it. No, no, I won’t always be treated like Karl, in “Debit and Credit”, who the old giant thought could neither write nor be written to, because his finger was off.’
And Dr. May’s letter was the first which this son had ever had from him.
‘My Dear Tom,
‘I feel your kind intentions to the heart; it is like all the rest of your dear mother’s children; but the young ought not to be sacrificed to the old, and I won’t have it done. The whole tone of practice has altered since my time, and I do not want to bind you down to the routine. I had left off thinking of it since I knew of your distaste. I have some years of work in me yet, that will see out most of my old patients; and for the rest, Wright is a great advance on poor Ward, and I will leave more to him as I grow older. I mean to see you a great man yet, and I think you will be the greater and happier for the sacrifice you have been willing to make. His blessing on you.
‘Your loving father, ‘R. M.’
What was Tom’s answer, but one of his cool ‘good letters,’ a demonstration that he was actuated by the calmest motives of convenience and self-interest, in preferring the certainties of Stoneborough to the contingencies of London, and that he only wanted time for study and the completion of Dr. Spencer’s book, enforcing his request for the house.
His resolution was, as usual, too evident to be combated, and it was also plain that he chose to keep on the mask of prudent selfishness, which he wore so naturally that it was hard to give him credit for any other features; but this time Dr. May was not deceived. He fully estimated the sacrifice, and would have prevented it if he could; but he never questioned the sincerity of the motive, as it was not upon the surface; and the token of dutiful affection, as coming from the least likely quarter of his family, touched and comforted him. He dwelt on it with increasing satisfaction, and answered all hurries and worries with, ‘I shall have time when Tome is come;’ re-opened old schemes that had died away when he feared to have no successor, and now and then showed a certain comical dread of being drilled into conformity with Tom’s orderly habits.
There was less danger of their clashing, as the son had outgrown the presumptions of early youth, and a change had passed over his nature which Ethel had felt, rather than seen, during his fleeting visits at home, more marked by negatives than positives, and untraced by confidences. The bitterness and self-assertion had ceased to tinge his words, the uncomfortable doubt that they were underlaid by satire had passed away, and methodical and self-possessed as he always was, the atmosphere of ‘number one’ was no longer apparent round all his doings. He could be out of spirits and reserved without being either ill-tempered or ironical; and Ethel, with this as the upshot of her week’s observations, was reassured as to the hopes of the father and son working together without collisions. As soon as the die was cast, and there was no danger of undue persuasion in ‘stroking him down,’ she indulged herself by a warmly-grateful letter, and after she had sent it, was tormented by the fear that it would be a great offence. The answer was much longer than she had dared to expect, and alarmed her lest it should be one of his careful ways of making the worst of himself; but there was a large ‘Private,’ scored in almost menacing letters on the top of the first sheet, and so much blotted in the folding, that it was plain that he had taken alarm at the unreserve of his own letter.
‘My Dear Ethel,
‘I have been to Portland. Really my father ought to make a stir and get Ward’s health attended to; he looks very much altered, but will not own to anything being amiss. They say he has been depressed ever since he heard of Minna’s death. I should say he ought to be doing out-of-doors work—perhaps at Gibraltar, but then he would be out of our reach. I could not get much from him, but that patient, contented look is almost more than one can bear. It laid hold of me when I saw him the first time, and has haunted me ever since. Verily I believe it is what is bringing me home! You need not thank me, for it is sober calculation that convinces me that no success on earth would compensate for the perpetual sense that my father was wearing himself out, and you pining over the sight. Except just at first, I always meant to come and see how the land lay before pledging myself to anything; and nothing can be clearer than that, in the state of things my father has allowed to spring up, he must have help. I am glad you have got me the old house, for I can be at peace there till I have learnt to stand his unmethodical ways. Don’t let him expect too much of me, as I see he is going to do. It is not in me to be like Norman or Harry, and he must not look for it, least of all now. If you did not understand, and know when to hold your tongue, I do not think I could come home at all; as it is, you are all the comfort I look for. I cross to Paris tomorrow. That is a page I am very sorry to close. I had a confidence that I should have hunted down that fellow, and the sight of Portland and the accounts from Massissauga alike make one long to have one’s hands on his throat; but that hope is ended now, and to loiter about Paris in search of him, when it it a plain duty to come away, would be one of the presumptuous acts that come to no good. Let them discuss what they will, there’s nothing so hard to believe in as Divine Justice! And yet that uncomplaining face accepts it! You need say nothing about this letter. I will talk about Leonard with my father when I get home.
‘Ever yours, ‘Thomas May.’
CHAPTER XXV
But soon as once the genial plain Has drunk the life-blood of the slain, Indelible the spots remain; And aye for vengeance call, Till racking pangs of piercing pain Upon the guilty fall. AEschylus. (Translated by Professor Anstice.)
If Tom May’s arrival at home was eagerly anticipated there, it was with a heavy heart that he prepared for what he had never ceased to look on as a treadmill life. He had enjoyed Paris, both from the society and the abstract study, since he still retained that taste for theory rather than practice, which made him prefer diseases to sick people, and all sick people to those of Stoneborough. The student life, in the freedom of a foreign capital, was, even while devoid of license and irregularity, much pleasanter than what he foresaw at home, even though he had obtained a separate establishment. His residence at Paris, with the vague hope it afforded, cost him more in the resignation than his prospects in London. It was the week when he would have been canvassing for the appointment, and he was glad to linger abroad out of reach of Sir Matthew’s remonstrances, and his father’s compunction, while he was engaged in arranging for a French translation of Dr. Spencer’s book, and likewise in watching an interesting case, esteemed a great medical curiosity, at the Hotel Dieu.