CHAPTER IX – ONE TAKEN, THE OTHER LEFT

When the younger girls had rather unwillingly left the room, Leslie took a seat near her mother. Llewellyn, going to a bookcase at the further end of the room, began to fumble with some books.

“Come here, Lew,” called out his sister; “we want you to talk to us and give us your advice; you are always so wise. Come, what are you doing at the other end of the room? Are you not delighted? Are not you as glad as I am?”

Llewellyn responded to Leslie’s invitation unwillingly. His mother looked up at him.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing, mother. I am, on the whole, heartily pleased.”

His reply came slowly, and as though he had weighed each word.

“But I don’t at all know that I ought to accept, even though mother is so good as to give me leave,” said Leslie.

“That’s all rot, you know, Leslie,” said her brother roughly. “Mother has accepted; the thing is done. It is a chance which may never come in your way again.”

“But I don’t want it,” she cried, touched to her very heart’s core by something in his voice. “If it were only your chance, how happy I should be! Oh, Lew, with your tastes, with your wishes, what could you not achieve? You know it has been the passion of your heart since you were a little boy to go to one of the universities, and now – Mother, dear, it is surely not too late; you could speak to Mr. Parker. You could explain to him that Llewellyn is the one in the family with genius; that Llewellyn will do him credit if he sends him to Oxford or Cambridge. Oh, leave me out! I can do without the university training. But, Lew – it would be the making of Lew! I suppose I am fairly well educated. I have passed right through the high school from the beginning, and no girl who does that can be said to be ignorant. This chance ought to be Llewellyn’s. Mother, it would be possible, surely, for you to put it to Mr. Parker in the right light?”

“No, Leslie; he wishes you to go,” said the mother quietly. “I have no choice in the matter. I have accepted for you. Look upon it, my darling, as a settled thing, and do not disturb, with the thought of any indecision, the great joy which ought to be yours.”

“There is a ring at the hall door,” cried Leslie. “I wonder who it can be?”

Mrs. Gilroy started.

“I quite forgot,” she said, coloring slightly. “Mr. Parker asked if he might come round and be introduced to you all. Doubtless that is his ring. Llewellyn, dear, will you go and open the hall door?”

Llewellyn strode across the room.

“I feel quite overcome,” said Leslie to her mother. “I never heard of Mr. Parker until half an hour ago, and now he is an immense factor in my life.”

Her words were interrupted, the door of the little parlor was thrown open, and Mr. Parker, accompanied by Llewellyn, entered.

“Here I am, here I am, as I promised!” called out the former, rubbing his hands as he spoke, and pushing up his red hair from his almost as red forehead. “Here I am, and right glad to see you again, Mrs. Gilroy. And so these are some of the youngsters? What’s your name, young sir?”

“Llewellyn,” replied the boy.

“And how old may you be?”

“Sixteen,” replied Llewellyn.

“’Pon my word, you’re a well-grown chap. We don’t have ’em better in the Bush, notwithstanding all the fine development that hard work gives. But you have fine shoulders – eh, and good stout legs. Fine young chap, Mrs. Gilroy; I congratulate you, ma’am, in possessing him. And so this is the young lady. How do you do, my dear? I am proud to make your acquaintance.”

Mr. Parker’s voice had been rough enough while he was addressing Llewellyn; but when he glanced at Leslie, who, tall, straight, and beautiful, stood before him, a spasm crossed his face and his voice faltered. It sank to a husky whisper; there was emotion in his tone.

“How do you do, my dear?” he said again; and he held out a great rough hand for the girl to shake.

She let her little hand lie in his for half a moment, and then withdrew it. She then went and stood by the fireplace.

“Sit down, please, Mr. Parker,” said Mrs. Gilroy, “Leslie, I think our friend would like a glass of wine; will you get it?”

“No wine for me, thank you, ma’am; no wine for me. I have dined, and admirably. Steak and stout, and boiled apple pudding; that’s fare after my own heart. Simple, ma’am, you can see – simple as my own tastes. Well, I am glad to see you, Mrs. Gilroy, at home; and a nice, snug little parlor you have. No show or pretension, or anything of that kind; just the sort of room I’d expect Gilroy’s widow to have; and,” added the man, glancing at the boy and girl, “just the sort of children too.”

The two children, thus alluded to, could not help sighing. Llewellyn wished himself fifty miles away. Leslie felt uncomfortable, and did not dare to meet her mother’s eyes.

Meanwhile Mr. Parker glanced around him. The ceiling of the little room was low, and the furniture, although exquisitely clean and orderly, was shabby. He sank back in the armchair which Mrs. Gilroy had invited him to take possession of, and proceeded to speak slowly and thoughtfully.

“This all reminds me of poor Gilroy,” he said; “and yet I expected him, with his talents, to live in a palace by this time. Instead of that, he has his six foot of earth – his six foot of earth, ma’am – just what we all will come to some day; and you are left a widow, and with the care of that big boy on your shoulders.”

“I won’t be on mother’s shoulders any longer,” grumbled Llewellyn.

“Ha! ha! young sir, don’t you be impatient; let me say my say out. This young lady now, she’s my charge for the future. Yes, ma’am, she’s my charge. My dear Miss Leslie, you’ll be a sort of adopted daughter to me. Now, sit down near me, and tell me what your inclinations are. I think your mother would send you to one of those new-fangled women’s colleges if you liked it; but if your inclinations are not set that way, why, I will set you up in business. I’ll give you capital, and you may do well – any line you like; you have only to name it. But your mother suggests that I should make an educated woman of you.”

“To a certain extent Leslie is that already,” interrupted the mother. She saw that the girl found it difficult to reply, that her lips were trembling, and her eyes shining through tears.

“My dear child has the best education I could give her,” continued Mrs. Gilroy. “Please, Llewellyn, take a chair.”

The boy flung himself down on the nearest seat.

“Mr. Parker, I have just been telling my children of your great kindness,” continued Mrs. Gilroy. “Leslie is, of course, delighted. There is nothing in the world she would like better than to go through one of the universities. She wishes, by and by, to earn her bread as a teacher; and, if she does that, it is essential that she should have the best education that can be procured.”

“Well, ma’am, if that’s your whim, it’s mine also,” said Mr. Parker. “I am only gratified to be able to please you in any way. This is a debt I owe, ma’am; so there’s no obligation on your part, nor on yours either, Miss Leslie.”

“A debt you owe?” said Mrs. Gilroy, in some astonishment.

“Well, you see, it was this way,” said Parker. “Gilroy and I were lads together in the same school. I don’t mean to say that we were exactly in the same set, for Gilroy belonged to gentlefolks, whereas I – well, my father kept a grocer’s shop. I always had a wonderful admiration for Gilroy; for, though he was an aristocrat, as they call them, he had no high and mighty haw-haw ideas, and he was good to me, and wouldn’t let the other fellows trample on me – not he, not he. And one day I got out of my depth before I could swim quite well, and he pulled me to shore. He made nothing of it; but, as a matter of fact, he saved my life. So, after that, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him; and when we both left school, and Gilroy was going to one of your fine universities and I was off to the colonies, we had a supper together, and at the end of the supper we made a bargain one with the other. Gilroy said to me, ‘Parker, nobody knows what the chances of life are. It is possible that you may come back some day a rich man; if so, don’t forget that we were chums, that we were lads together, and if you can do a kindness to me or mine, do it. I am an unmarried man, and so are you. We are both young fellows on the threshold of life; but if ever I should have a wife and children, and I myself should be beneath the sod, you will look after them for me, Parker. It shall be a bargain between us, and I will do the same for your wife and children should the position be reversed.’

“Those were his words, ma’am,” said Mr. Parker, standing up as he spoke, “and I never forgot them – never. They followed me all through the years; and when I heard of his death I felt there was nothing in the world for it but to wind up my affairs, and to hurry back as fast as possible. There were Gilroy’s bonds that he had laid upon me, and I had to see to it that I obeyed the last words he ever said to me. Night after night I’d see him standing by my bedside; the light in his eyes seemed to shine into mine, and I felt again the way he gripped my hand. Well, ma’am, it has pleased the Almighty to take my wife and child away from me, and I am here at your service, and with the orders of your dead husband to do what I can for you and yours. My dear,” added Parker, suddenly turning and looking at Leslie, “you have a look of your father, the best fellow that ever breathed. You must let me, to a certain extent, be a father to you. My own wife is dead, and my – my girl, too. Aye, the girl was bonny. I’ll show you her picture some day, Miss Leslie.”

Leslie did not reply; but the tears which had been coming to her eyes now rolled down her cheeks. Mr. Parker noticed her emotion and was not ill pleased with it.

“You go to college if you wish it, young lady,” he said, “and I hold the purse-strings. When you want money you just write to me, and don’t bother that good mother of yours overmuch. So that affair is settled. Now, to turn to the others. This boy, for instance; he is Gilroy’s boy and worthy of his father. What do you mean to do, sir? Do you want a university life, too?”

“Oh, if you would only give it to him!” said Leslie. “Mother says you are rich, and if it is really as you say, and father laid his bond upon you, it does not seem too hard. Oh, if you would only do it!”

Her whole face lit up, her eyes shone, and she laid her hand on Mr. Parker’s arm.

“I’d do anything in the world for you, my dear; so if it is your wish, you have only to say the word. The boy looks intelligent, too. In Australia we would give a boy like that a bit of the bush to clear out, and a house to build, and we would teach him the rough essentials of life, and leave out the polishings; but Australia is Australia, and England is England; and as it seems to be all the development of the brain here – ”

“And the body, too,” said Mrs. Gilroy. “You cannot say that we do not develop the bodies of our lads as long as we have football and cricket.”

“We have those, too, in Australia, and we manage to beat you once in a while,” said Parker, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “But what does the lad want himself – that is the question?”

“Llewellyn wants to go either to Oxford or Cambridge,” said Leslie. “It has been the dream of his life.”

“Yes, it has been the dream of his life,” replied the mother.

She glanced at Llewellyn, whose face was now white as death.

“It is the dream of my life no longer,” he said. His voice was husky, not to say rough.

“Then, what is it you want, my boy?”

Parker went up and clapped his hand heavily on the boy’s shoulder.

“Nothing from you, sir,” was Llewellyn’s answer. “Oh, I am obliged, of course, or I try to be obliged; but I don’t want anything. What is more, sir, I wouldn’t take anything.”

“Llewellyn!” said his mother.

“I don’t wish to take anything from Mr. Parker, mother. I was about to tell you when we were alone; but I will tell you now, instead. I accepted a situation to-day at Lee & Forrest’s.”

“Lee & Forrest’s!” said the mother. “You accepted a situation at that big draper’s round the corner? Llewellyn, you must be mad!”

“I am not. I have been thinking about it for some time; this is not as sudden as it looks to you. You know young Forrest has been my friend at school, and there is a vacancy in the shop. They want a boy to train for the business, and Mr. Forrest is so pleased with me for applying that he is going to start me at once. I saw him to-day, and I accepted it, mother, subject to your leave, which, of course, you will give. Mr. Forrest said it would do him a lot of good to have a lad like me about the place; and young Forrest himself goes to one of the universities. It is a good thing for me, mother, and I have made up my mind.”

There was a dead silence in the room. Mrs. Gilroy’s face looked white; all the pleasure had left it. She glanced at Parker, whose deep-set eyes twinkled half with fun and half with sympathy. He patted Llewellyn again on the shoulder.

“The truth now,” he said; “you are too proud to take help from me?”

“I am,” said Llewellyn.

“That’s a right spirit; but I am going to tempt you. I will give you two hundred a year if you wish to go to Oxford.”

“No, thank you,” answered the boy. He shook the kindly hand off and stepped back a foot.

“But why, my lad?”

“Oh, Llewellyn, why?” said the mother.

“Oh, Llewellyn, are you mad?” cried Leslie.

“I will tell you why, if you all want to know,” said Llewellyn. “I don’t choose to be beholden to anybody, not even to Mr. Parker, who was my father’s friend. I may some day go to the university; but I don’t think there is much chance of it. Sir, I will tell you another reason: I want to help my mother; she needs help at once. She could take it from me when she could not take it from a stranger. If I went to Oxford I could not earn any money for three or four years; now I start at once with a pound a week. I can live at home, too, and half the money will go straight towards the house. In a year’s time my screw is to be raised. It is all settled, sir. I am obliged to you all the same, but I can’t take your help.”