الفصل الفصل 37 · 第37章

. If Theobald and Christina had not been too well pleased when Miss

Pontifex first took Ernest in hand, they were still less so when the

connection between the two was interrupted so prematurely. They said

they had made sure from what their sister had said that she was going

to make Ernest her heir. I do not think she had given them so much as a

hint to this effect. Theobald indeed gave Ernest to understand that she

had done so in a letter which will be given shortly, but if Theobald

wanted to make himself disagreeable, a trifle light as air would

forthwith assume in his imagination whatever form was most convenient

to him. I do not think they had even made up their minds what Alethea

was to do with her money before they knew of her being at the point of

death, and as I have said already, if they had thought it likely that

Ernest would be made heir over their own heads without their having at

any rate a life interest in the bequest, they would have soon thrown

obstacles in the way of further intimacy between aunt and nephew.

This, however, did not bar their right to feeling aggrieved now that

neither they nor Ernest had taken anything at all, and they could

profess disappointment on their boy’s behalf which they would have been

too proud to admit upon their own. In fact, it was only amiable of them

to be disappointed under these circumstances.

Christina said that the will was simply fraudulent, and was convinced

that it could be upset if she and Theobald went the right way to work.

Theobald, she said, should go before the Lord Chancellor, not in full

court but in chambers, where he could explain the whole matter; or,

perhaps it would be even better if she were to go herself—and I dare

not trust myself to describe the reverie to which this last idea gave

rise. I believe in the end Theobald died, and the Lord Chancellor (who

had become a widower a few weeks earlier) made her an offer, which,

however, she firmly but not ungratefully declined; she should ever, she

said, continue to think of him as a friend—at this point the cook came

in, saying the butcher had called, and what would she please to order.

I think Theobald must have had an idea that there was something behind

the bequest to me, but he said nothing about it to Christina. He was

angry and felt wronged, because he could not get at Alethea to give her

a piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get at his

father. “It is so mean of people,” he exclaimed to himself, “to inflict

an injury of this sort, and then shirk facing those whom they have

injured; let us hope that, at any rate, they and I may meet in Heaven.”

But of this he was doubtful, for when people had done so great a wrong

as this, it was hardly to be supposed that they would go to Heaven at

all—and as for his meeting them in another place, the idea never so

much as entered his mind.

One so angry and, of late, so little used to contradiction might be

trusted, however, to avenge himself upon someone, and Theobald had long

since developed the organ, by means of which he might vent spleen with

least risk and greatest satisfaction to himself. This organ, it may be

guessed, was nothing else than Ernest; to Ernest therefore he proceeded

to unburden himself, not personally, but by letter.

“You ought to know,” he wrote, “that your Aunt Alethea had given your

mother and me to understand that it was her wish to make you her

heir—in the event, of course, of your conducting yourself in such a

manner as to give her confidence in you; as a matter of fact, however,

she has left you nothing, and the whole of her property has gone to

your godfather, Mr Overton. Your mother and I are willing to hope that

if she had lived longer you would yet have succeeded in winning her

good opinion, but it is too late to think of this now.

“The carpentering and organ-building must at once be discontinued. I

never believed in the project, and have seen no reason to alter my

original opinion. I am not sorry for your own sake, that it is to be at

an end, nor, I am sure, will you regret it yourself in after years.

“A few words more as regards your own prospects. You have, as I believe

you know, a small inheritance, which is yours legally under your

grandfather’s will. This bequest was made inadvertently, and, I

believe, entirely through a misunderstanding on the lawyer’s part. The

bequest was probably intended not to take effect till after the death

of your mother and myself; nevertheless, as the will is actually

worded, it will now be at your command if you live to be twenty-one

years old. From this, however, large deductions must be made. There

will be legacy duty, and I do not know whether I am not entitled to

deduct the expenses of your education and maintenance from birth to

your coming of age; I shall not in all likelihood insist on this right

to the full, if you conduct yourself properly, but a considerable sum

should certainly be deducted, there will therefore remain very

little—say £1000 or £2000 at the outside, as what will be actually

yours—but the strictest account shall be rendered you in due time.

“This, let me warn you most seriously, is all that you must expect from

me (even Ernest saw that it was not from Theobald at all) at any rate

till after my death, which for aught any of us know may be yet many

years distant. It is not a large sum, but it is sufficient if

supplemented by steadiness and earnestness of purpose. Your mother and

I gave you the name Ernest, hoping that it would remind you continually

of—” but I really cannot copy more of this effusion. It was all the

same old will-shaking game and came practically to this, that Ernest

was no good, and that if he went on as he was going on now, he would

probably have to go about the streets begging without any shoes or

stockings soon after he had left school, or at any rate, college; and

that he, Theobald, and Christina were almost too good for this world

altogether.

After he had written this Theobald felt quite good-natured, and sent to

the Mrs Thompson of the moment even more soup and wine than her usual

not illiberal allowance.

Ernest was deeply, passionately upset by his father’s letter; to think

that even his dear aunt, the one person of his relations whom he really

loved, should have turned against him and thought badly of him after

all. This was the unkindest cut of all. In the hurry of her illness

Miss Pontifex, while thinking only of his welfare, had omitted to make

such small present mention of him as would have made his father’s

innuendoes stingless; and her illness being infectious, she had not

seen him after its nature was known. I myself did not know of

Theobald’s letter, nor think enough about my godson to guess what might

easily be his state. It was not till many years afterwards that I found

Theobald’s letter in the pocket of an old portfolio which Ernest had

used at school, and in which other old letters and school documents

were collected which I have used in this book. He had forgotten that he

had it, but told me when he saw it that he remembered it as the first

thing that made him begin to rise against his father in a rebellion

which he recognised as righteous, though he dared not openly avow it.

Not the least serious thing was that it would, he feared, be his duty

to give up the legacy his grandfather had left him; for if it was his

only through a mistake, how could he keep it?

During the rest of the half year Ernest was listless and unhappy. He

was very fond of some of his schoolfellows, but afraid of those whom he

believed to be better than himself, and prone to idealise everyone into

being his superior except those who were obviously a good deal beneath

him. He held himself much too cheap, and because he was without that

physical strength and vigour which he so much coveted, and also because

he knew he shirked his lessons, he believed that he was without

anything which could deserve the name of a good quality; he was

naturally bad, and one of those for whom there was no place for

repentance, though he sought it even with tears. So he shrank out of

sight of those whom in his boyish way he idolised, never for a moment

suspecting that he might have capacities to the full as high as theirs

though of a different kind, and fell in more with those who were

reputed of the baser sort, with whom he could at any rate be upon equal

terms. Before the end of the half year he had dropped from the estate

to which he had been raised during his aunt’s stay at Roughborough, and

his old dejection, varied, however, with bursts of conceit rivalling

those of his mother, resumed its sway over him. “Pontifex,” said Dr

Skinner, who had fallen upon him in hall one day like a moral landslip,

before he had time to escape, “do you never laugh? Do you always look

so preternaturally grave?” The doctor had not meant to be unkind, but

the boy turned crimson, and escaped.

There was one place only where he was happy, and that was in the old

church of St Michael, when his friend the organist was practising.

About this time cheap editions of the great oratorios began to appear,

and Ernest got them all as soon as they were published; he would

sometimes sell a school-book to a second-hand dealer, and buy a number

or two of the “Messiah,” or the “Creation,” or “Elijah,” with the

proceeds. This was simply cheating his papa and mamma, but Ernest was

falling low again—or thought he was—and he wanted the music much, and

the Sallust, or whatever it was, little. Sometimes the organist would

go home, leaving his keys with Ernest, so that he could play by himself

and lock up the organ and the church in time to get back for calling

over. At other times, while his friend was playing, he would wander

round the church, looking at the monuments and the old stained glass

windows, enchanted as regards both ears and eyes, at once. Once the old

rector got hold of him as he was watching a new window being put in,

which the rector had bought in Germany—the work, it was supposed, of

Albert Dürer. He questioned Ernest, and finding that he was fond of

music, he said in his old trembling voice (for he was over eighty),

“Then you should have known Dr Burney who wrote the history of music. I

knew him exceedingly well when I was a young man.” That made Ernest’s

heart beat, for he knew that Dr Burney, when a boy at school at

Chester, used to break bounds that he might watch Handel smoking his

pipe in the Exchange coffee house—and now he was in the presence of one

who, if he had not seen Handel himself, had at least seen those who had

seen him.

These were oases in his desert, but, as a general rule, the boy looked

thin and pale, and as though he had a secret which depressed him, which

no doubt he had, but for which I cannot blame him. He rose, in spite of

himself, higher in the school, but fell ever into deeper and deeper

disgrace with the masters, and did not gain in the opinion of those

boys about whom he was persuaded that they could assuredly never know

what it was to have a secret weighing upon their minds. This was what

Ernest felt so keenly; he did not much care about the boys who liked

him, and idolised some who kept him as far as possible at a distance,

but this is pretty much the case with all boys everywhere.

At last things reached a crisis, below which they could not very well

go, for at the end of the half year but one after his aunt’s death,

Ernest brought back a document in his portmanteau, which Theobald

stigmatised as “infamous and outrageous.” I need hardly say I am

alluding to his school bill.

This document was always a source of anxiety to Ernest, for it was gone

into with scrupulous care, and he was a good deal cross-examined about

it. He would sometimes “write in” for articles necessary for his

education, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, and sell the same, as

I have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money, probably to buy

either music or tobacco. These frauds were sometimes, as Ernest

thought, in imminent danger of being discovered, and it was a load off

his breast when the cross-examination was safely over. This time

Theobald had made a great fuss about the extras, but had grudgingly

passed them; it was another matter, however, with the character and the

moral statistics, with which the bill concluded.

The page on which these details were to be found was as follows:

REPORT OF THE CONDUCT AND PROGRESS OF ERNEST PONTIFEX.

UPPER FIFTH FORM, HALF YEAR ENDING MIDSUMMER 1851

Classics—Idle, listless and unimproving.

Mathematics " " "

Divinity " " "

Conduct in house.—Orderly.

General Conduct—Not satisfactory, on account of his great unpunctuality

and inattention to duties.

Monthly merit money 1s. 6d. 6d. 0d. 6d. Total 2s. 6d.

Number of merit marks 2 0 1 1 0 Total 4

Number of penal marks 26 20 25 30 25 Total 126

Number of extra penals 9 6 10 12 11 Total 48

I recommend that his pocket money be made to depend upon his merit

money.

S. SKINNER, _Head-master_.