CHAPTER XXIV. CHARLEY AT OXFORD. take on for the moment any appearance characterizing those about him. His companion was a little taller, and stouter-built than he; with a bearing and I HAVE no time in this selection and gait of conscious importance, not 80 combination of the parts of my story marked as to be at at once offensive. The which are more especially my history, to upper part of his face was fine, the nose dwell upon that portion of it which refers remarkably so, while the lower part was to my own life at Oxford. I was so much decidedly coarse, the chin too large, and of a student of books while there, and had the mouth having little form, except in the so little to do with any of the men except first movement of utterance, when an unCharley, that save as it bore upon my in- pleasant curl took possession of the upper tellect, Oxford had little special share in lip, which I afterwards interpreted as a what life has made of me, and may in the doubt disguising itself in a sneer. There press of other matter be left out. Had I was also in his manner a degree of selftime, however, to set forth what I know assertion which favoured the same concluof my own development more particularly, sion. His hands were very large, a pair I could not pass over the influence of ex- of merely blanched plebeian fists, with ternal Oxford, the architecture and gen- thumbs much turned back- - and altoeral surroundings of which I recognized as gether ungainly. He wore very tight affecting me more than anything I had yet gloves, and never shook hands when he met, with the exception of the Swiss could help it. His feet were scarcely so mountains, pine-woods, and rivers. It is, bad in form; still by no pretence could however, imperative to set forth the pecu- they be held to indicate breeding. His liar charaeter of my relation to and inter- manner where he wished to conciliate, was course with Charley, in order that what pleasing; but to me it was overbearing follows may be properly understood. and unpleasant. He was the only son of Sir Giles Brotherton of Moldwarp Hall. Charley and he did not belong to the same college, but unlike as they were, they had somehow taken to each other. I presume it was the decision of his manner that attracted the wavering nature of Charley, who with generally active impulses, was yet always in doubt when a moment requiring action arrived. For no other reason than that my uncle had been there before me, I went to Corpus Christi, while Charley was at Exeter. It was some days before we met, for I twice failed in my attempts to find him. At length, one afternoon, as I entered the quadrangle to make a third essay, there he was coming towards the gate with a companion. Charley having spoken to me, turned and introduced me to his friend. Geoffrey Brotherton merely nodded. "We were at school together in Switzerland," said Charley. "Yes," said Geoffrey, in a half-interrogatory, half-assenting tone. 66 Till I found your card in my box, I never heard of your coming," said Charley. "It was not my fault," I answered. "I did what I could to find out something about you, but all in vain.” When he caught sight of me, he advanced with a quick yet hesitating stepa step with a question in it: he was not quite sure of me. He was now approaching six feet in height, and of graceful, though not exactly dignified carriage. His complexion remained as pale and his eyes as blue as before. The pallor flushed and the blue sparkled as he made a few final and long strides towards me. The grasp of the hand he gave me was powerful, but broken into sudden almost quivering relaxations and compressions. I could not help fancying also that he was using some little effort to keep his eyes steady upon mine. Altogether, I was not quite satisfied with our first meeting, and had a Now, although I had little special reason strong impression that if our friendship to love Mr. Osborne and knew him to be a was to be resumed, it was about to begin tyrant, I knew also that my old Charley a new course, not building itself exactly could not have thus coolly uttered a disreon the old foundations, but starting afresh. spectful word of him; and I had therefore He looked almost on the way to become a a painful though at the same time an undeman of the world. Perhaps, however, the fined conviction that some degree of moral companionship he was in had something to degeneracy must have taken place before do with this, for he was so nervously re- he could express himself as now. To sponsive, that he would unconsciously many, such a remark will appear absurd "Paternal precaution, I believe," he said, with something that approached a grimace. but I am confident that disrespect for the | I don't see what's to come of it, for I can't preceding generation, and especially for work. Even if my father were a millionthose in it nearest to ourselves, is a sure aire, I couldn't go on living on him. The sign of relaxing dignity, and, in any ex- sooner that is over, the better!" tended manifestation, an equally sure symptom of national and political decadence. My reader knows, however, that there was much to be said in excuse of Charley. His friend sauntered away, and we went on talking. My heart longed to rest with his for a moment on the past. "I had a dreary time of it after you left, Charley," I said." "Not so dreary as I had, Wilfrid, I am certain. You had at least the mountains to comfort you. Anywhere is better than at home, with a meal of Bible oil and vinegar twice a day for certain, and a wineglassful of it now and then in between. Damnation's better than a spoony heaven. To be away from home is heaven enough for me." "But your mother, Charley!" I ventured to say. "My mother is an angel. I could almost be good for her sake. But I never could, I never can get near her. My father reads every letter she writes before it comes to me - I know that by the style of it; and I'm equally certain he reads every letter of mine before it reaches her." "Is your sister at home? "No. She's at school at Clapham - being sand-papered into a saint, I suppose." His mouth twitched and quivered. He was not pleased with himself for talking as he did. "Your father means it for the best," I said. "I know that. He means his best. If I thought it was the best, I should cut my throat and have done with it." "But, Charley, couldn't we do something to find out, after all?" "Find out what, Wilfrid?" "The best thing, you know; - what we are here for." "I'm sick of it all, Wilfrid. I've tried till I'm sick of it. If you should find out anything, you can let me know. I am busy trying not to think. I find that quite enough. If I were to think, I should go mad." "Oh Charley! I can't bear to hear you talk like that," I exclaimed; but there was a glitter in his eye which I did not like, and which made me anxious to change the subject.-"Don't you like being here?" I asked, in sore want of something He was looking down, and gnawing at that tremulous upper lip. I felt miserable. "I wish we were at the same college, Charley!" I said. "I "It's better as it is," he rejoined. should do you no good. You go in for reading, I suppose? "Well, I do. I mean my uncle to have the worth of his money." Charley looked no less miserable than I felt. I saw that his conscience was speaking, and I knew he was the last in the world to succeed in excusing himself. But I understood him better than he understood himself, and believed that his idieness arose from the old unrest, the weariness of that never satisfied questioning which the least attempt at thought was sure to awaken. Once invaded by a question, Charley must answer it, or fail and fall into a stupor. Not an ode of Horace could he read without finding himself plunged in metaphysics. Enamoured of repose above all things, he was from every side stung to inquiry which seldom indeed afforded what seemed solution. Hence, in part at least, it came that he had begun to study not merely how to avoid awaking the Sphinx, but by what opiates to keep her stretched supine with her lovely wo man-face betwixt her fierce lion-paws. This also. no doubt, had a share in his becoming the associate of Geoffrey Brotherton, from whose company, if he had been at peace with himself, he would have recoiled upon the slightest acquaintance. I am at some loss to imagine what coul have made Geoffrey take such a liking to Charley; but I presume it was the confiding air characterizing all Charley's behaviour that chiefly pleased him. He seemed to look upon him with something of the tenderness a coarse man may show for a delicate Italian greyhound, fitter to be petted by a lady. That same evening Charley came to my rooms. His manner was constrained, and yet suggested a whole tide of pent-up friendship which, but for some undeclared barrier, would have broken out and overflowed our intercourse. After this one evening, however, it was some time before I saw him again. When I called upon him next, he was not at home, nor did he come to see me. Again I sought him, but with like failure. After a third attempt I desisted, not a little hurt, I confess, but not in the least inclined to quarrel with him. I gave myself the more diligently to my work. it was night, and I was reading alone in my room - a knock came to the door, and Charley entered. I sprang from my seat and bounded to meet him." "At last, Charley!" I exclaimed. But he almost pushed me aside, left me to shut the door he had opened, sat down in a chair by the fire, and began gnawing the head of his cane. I resumed my seat, moved the lamp so that I could see him, and waited for him to speak. Then first I saw that his face was unnaturally pale and worn, almost even haggard. His eyes were weary, and his whole manner as of one haunted by an evil presence of which he is ever aware. "You are an enviable fellow, Wilfrid," he said at length, with something between a groan and a laugh. Why do you say that, Charley?" I returned. "Why am I enviable?" And now Oxford began to do me harm. I saw so much idleness, and so much wrong of all kinds about me, that I began to consider myself a fine exception. Because I did my poor duty- no better than any honest lad must do it - I became conceited; and the manner in which Charley's new friend treated me, not only increased the fault, but aided in the development of certain other stems from the same root of self-partiality. He never saluted me with other than what I regarded as a supercilious nod of the head. When I met him in company with Charley and the latter stopped to speak to me, he would walk on without the least change of step. The indignation which this conduct aroused drove me to think as I had never thought before concerning my social position. I found it impossible to define. As I pondered, however, a certainty dawned upon me rather than was arrived at by me, that there was some secret connected with my descent, upon which bore the history of the watch I carried, and of the sword I had lost. On the mere possibility of some-lences." thing, utterly forgetful that, if the secret existed at all, it might be of a very different nature from my hopes, I began to build castles innumerable. Perceiving of course that one of a decayed yeoman family could stand no social comparison with the heir to a rich baronetcy, I fell back upon absurd imaginings; and what with the self-satisfaction of doing my duty, what with the vanity of my baby manhood, and what with the mystery I chose to believe in and interpret according to my desires, I was fast sliding into a moral condition contemptible indeed. But still my heart was true to Charley. When, after late hours of hard reading, I retired at last to my bed, and allowed my thoughts to wander where they would, seldom was there a night on which they did not turn as of themselves towards the memory of our past happiness. I vowed, although Charley had forsaken me, to keep his chamber in my heart ever empty, and closed against the entrance of another. If ever he pleased to return, he should find he had been waited for. I believe there was much of self-pity, and of selfapproval as well, mingling with my regard for him; but the constancy was there notwithstanding, and I regard the love I thus cherished for Charley as the chief saving element in my condition at the time. One night-I cannot now recall with certainty the time or season- I only know VOL. XXI. 977 LIVING AGE. "Because you can work. I hate the very sight of a book. I am afraid I shall be plucked. I see nothing else for it. And what will the old man say? I have grace enough left to be sorry for him. But he will take it out in sour looks and si "There's time enough yet. I wish you were not so far ahead of me: we might have worked together." "I can't work, I tell you. I hate it. It will console my father, I hope, to find his prophecies concerning me come true. I've heard him abuse me to my mother." "I wish you wouldn't talk so of your father, Charley. It's not like you. I can't bear to hear it." "It's not like what I used to be, Wilfrid. But there's none of that left. What do you take me for? Honestly now?" He hung his head low, his eyes fixed on the hearth-rug, not on the fire, and kept gnawing at the head of his cane. "I don't like some of your companions," I said. "To be sure I don't know much of them!" "The less you know, the better! If there be a devil, that fellow Brotherton will hand me over to him- bodily, before long." 66 Why don't you give him up?" I said. "It's no use trying. He's got such a hold of me. Never let a man you don't know to the marrow pay even a toll-gate for you, Wilfrid.” Such "I am in no danger, Charley. people don't take to me," I said, selfrighteously. "But it can't be too late to break with him. I know my uncle would -I could manage a five-pound note now, I think." "My dear boy, if I had borrowed But I have let him pay for me again and again, and I don't know how to rid the obligation. But it don't signify. It's too late anyhow." Noth "But "But then, you know, you might happen to go right through the river, Charley." "I know what you mean," he said, with a defiant sound like nothing I had ever heard. 66 "But God, Charley "I suggested, hesitating. "What of him? If he should choose to pass a thing by and say nothing about it, that doesn't undo it. It's all nonsense. God himself can't make it that I didn't do what I did do." But with what truthful yet reticent words can I convey the facts of Charley's case? I am perfectly aware it would be to expose both myself and him to the laughter of men of low development who behave as if no more self-possession were demanded of a man than of one of the lower animals. Such might perhaps feel a certain involuntary movement of pitifulness at the fate of a woman first awaking to the consciousness that she can no more hold up her head amongst her kind: but that a youth should experience a similar sense of degradation and loss, they would regard as a degree of silliness and effeminacy below contempt if not beyond belief. But there is a sense of personal purity belonging to the man as well as to the woman; and although I dare not say that in the most refined of masculine natures it asserts itself with the awful majesty with which it makes its presence known in the heart of a woman, the man in whom it speaks with most authority is to be found amongst the worthiest; and to a youth like Charley the result of actual offence against it might be utter ruin. In his That case, however, it was not merely a consciousness of personal defilement which followed; for, whether his companions had so schemed it or not, he supposed himself more than ordinarily guilty. Charley!" I cried, "I can't bear to hear you. You can't have changed so much already as not to trust me. I will do all I can to help you. What have you done?" "Oh, nothing!" he rejoined, and tried to laugh it was a dreadful failure. : "But I can't bear to think of that mother of mine! I wish I could tell you all; but I can't. How Brotherton would laugh at me now! I can't be made quite like other people, Charley! You would never have been such a fool." "You are more delicately made than most people, Charley touched to finer issues,' as Shakspere says." "Who told you that? "I think a great deal about you. is all you have left me." "I've been a brute, Wilfrid. But you'll forgive me, I know." "With all my heart, if you'll only put it in my power to serve you. Come, trust me, Charley, and tell me all about it. shall not betray you." "I'm not afraid of that," he answered, and sunk into silence once more. I I look to myself presumptuous and priggish in the memory. But I did mean truly by him. I began to question him, and by slow degrees, in broken hints, and in jets of reply, drew from him the facts. When at length he saw that I understood, he burst into tears, hid his face in his hands, and rocked himself to and fro.. "I suppose I must marry the girl,” said poor Charley, with a groan. Happily I saw at once that there might be two sides to the question, and that it was desirable to know more ere I ventured a definite reply. I had grown up, thanks to many things, with a most real although vague adoration of women; but I was not so ignorant as to be unable to fancy it possible that Charley had been the victim. Therefore, after having managed to comfort him a little, and taken him home to his rooms, I set about endeavouring to get further information. we read "Comus' together. How his face would glow at the impassioned praises of virtue! and how the glow would die into a gray sadness at the recollection of the near past! I could read his face like a book. At length the time arrived when we had to part, he to study for the bar, I to remain at Oxford another year, still looking forward to a literary life. ton. With what stammering confusion I succeeded at last in making him understand the nature of the information I wanted, I will not attempt to describe nor only the roar of laughter which at length burst bellowing-not from himself only, but from three or four companions as well, to whom he turned and communicated the joke. The fire of jests and proposals, and interpretations of motive which I had then to endure, seems yet When I commenced writing my story, to scorch my very brain at the mere I fancied myself so far removed from it, recollection. From their manner and that I could regard it as the story of speech, I was almost convinced that they another, capable of being viewed on all had laid a trap for Charley, whom they sides, and conjectured and speculated regarded as a simpleton, to enjoy his con- upon. And so I found it so long the resequent confusion. With what I managed gions of childhood and youth detained to find out elsewhere, I was at length me. But as I approach the middle scenes, satisfied, and happily succeed in convinc- I begin to fear the revival of the old toring Charley, that he had been the butt of his companions, and that he was far the more injured person in any possible aspect of the affair. I shall never forget the look or the sigh of relief which proved that at last his mind had opened to the facts of the case. "Wilfred," he said, "you have saved me. We shall never be parted more. See if I am ever false to you again!" And yet it never was as it had been. I am sure of that now. ture; that from the dispassionate reviewer, I may become once again the suffering actor. Long ago I read a strange story of a man condemned at periods unforeseen to act again and yet again in absolute verisimilitude each of the scenes of his former life: I have a feeling as if I too might glide from the present into the past without a sign to warn me of the coming transition. One word more ere I pass to the middle events, those for the sake of which the beginning is and the end shall be reHenceforth, however, he entirely avoided corded. It is this that I am under endhis former companions. Our old friend- less obligation to Charley for opening my ship was renewed. Our old talks arose eyes at this time to my overweening estiagain. And now that he was not alone mate of myself. Not that he spokein them, the perplexities under which he Charley could never have reproved even had broken down when left to encounter a child. But I could tell almost any sudthem by himself were not so overwhelm- den feeling that passed through him. His ing as to render him helpless. We read face betrayed it. What he felt about me a good deal together, and Charley helped I saw at once. From the signs of his me much in the finer affairs of the classics, for his perceptions were as delicate as his feelings. He would brood over a Horatian phrase as Keats would brood over a sweet pea or a violet; the very tone in which he would repeat it would waft me from it an aroma unperceived before. When it was his turn to come to my rooms, I would watch for his arrival almost as a lover for his mistress. mind, I often recognized the character of what was in my own; and thus seeing myself through him, I gathered reason to be ashamed; while the refinement of his criticism, the quickness of his perception, and the novelty and force of his remarks, convinced me that I could not for a moment compare with him in mental gifts. The upper hand of influence I had over him I attribute to the greater freedom For two years more our friendship of my training, and the enlarged ideas grew; in which time Charley had re- which had led my uncle to avoid enthralcovered habits of diligence. I presume ling me to his notions. He believed the he said nothing at home of the renewal truth could afford to wait until I was caof his intimacy with me: I shrunk from pable of seeing it for myself; and that questioning him. As if he had been an the best embodiments of truth are but angel who had hurt his wing and was compelled to sojourn with me for a time, I feared to bring the least shadow over his face, and indeed fell into a restless observance of his moods. I remember bonds and fetters to him who cannot accept them as such. When I could not agree with him, he would say with one of his fine smiles, "We'll drop it, then, Willie. I don't believe you have caught |