by G. A. Henty
" I don't know much about those matters, but I do know that it takes about five years' grinding, and what is calledwalking the hospitals', that is, going round the wards with the surgeons, before one is licensed to kill. I think, but I am not sure, that three years at the bar would admit you to practice, and usually another seven or eight years are spent before you earn a penny. As for the Church, you have to go through the university or one of the places we call training colleges; and when at last you are ordained you may reckon, unless you have great family interest, on remaining a curate, with perhaps one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for eighteen or twenty years."
" And no amount of energy will enable a man of, say, four-and-twenty, without a profession, to obtain a post on which he could live with some degree of comfort?"
" I don't think energy would have anything to do with it. You cannot drop into a merchant's office and say 'I want a
snug berth out in China', orI should like an agency in Mesopotamia'. If you have luck, anything is possible; if you haven't luck, you ought to fall back on my three alternatives—emigrate, enlist, or hang yourself. Of course you can sponge on your friends for a year or two if you are mean enough to do so, but there is an end to that sort of thing in time. May I ask why you put the question, Hilliard? You have really a splendid opening here; you are surely not going to be foolish enough to chuck it, with the idea of returning to England and taking anything that may turn up?"
"No, I am not so foolish as that. I have had, as you say, luck—extraordinary luck, and I have quite made up my mind to stay in the service. No, I am really asking you because I know so little of England that I wondered how men who had a fair education but no family interest did get on."
" They very rarely do get on," the other said. " Of course if they are inventive geniuses they may discover something— an engine, for example, that will do twice the work with half the consumption of fuel that any other engine will do; or, if chemically inclined, they may discover something that will revolutionize dyeing, for example: but not one man in a thousand is a genius, and as a rule the man you are speaking of, the ordinary public-school and varsity man, if he has no interest and is not bent upon entering the army, even as a private, emigrates if he hasn't sufficient income to live upon at home."
"Thank you! I had no idea it was so difficult to make a living in England, or to obtain employment, for a well-educated man of two- or three-and-twenty."
" My dear Hilliard, that is the problem that is exercising the minds of the whole of the middle class of England with sons growing up. Of course men of business can take their sons into their own offices and train them to their own profession; but after all, if a man has four or five sons he cannot take them all into his office with a view to partnership. He may take one, but the others have to make their own way somehow."
They chatted now upon the war, the dates upon which the various regiments would go down, and the chance of the Khalifa collecting another army and trying conclusions with the invaders again. At last Gregory got up and went back to his hut. He could now understand why his father, having quarrelled with his family, might have found himself obliged to take the first post that was offered, however humble, in order to obtain the advantage of a warm climate for his wife.
" He must have felt it awfully," he mused. " If he had been the sort of man I had always thought him, he could have settled down to the life. But now I know him better I can understand that it must have been terrible for him, and he would be glad to exchange it for the interpretership, where he would have some chance of distinguishing himself, or at any rate of taking part in exciting events. I will open that packet, but from what my mother said I do not think it will be of any interest to me now. I fancy, by what she said, that it contained simply my father's instructions as to what she was to do in the event of his death during the campaign. I don't see what else it can be."
He drew the curtains he had rigged up at the doorway and window to keep out insects, lighted his lantern, and then, sitting down on the ground by his bed, opened the packet his mother had given him. The outer cover was in her handwriting.
My dearest boy,
I have, as I told you, kept the enclosed packet, which is not to be opened until I have certain news of your father's death. This news I trust you will some day obtain. As you see, the enclosed packet is directed to me. I do not think that you will find in it anything of importance to yourself. It probably contains only directions and advice for my guidance in case I should determine to return to England. I have been the less anxious to open it because I have been convinced that it is so; for of course I know the circumstances
of his family, and there could be nothing new that he could write to me on that score.
I have told you that he quarrelled with his father because he chose to marry me. As you have heard from me, I ivas the daughter of a clergyman, and at his death took a post as governess. Your father fell in love with me. He was the son of the Hon. James Hartley, who was brother to the Earl of Langdale. Your father had an elder h'other. Mr. Hartley was a man of the type now happily less common than it was twenty years ago. He had but a younger brother's poi'tion and a small estate that had belonged to his mother, but he was as proud as if he had been a peer of the realm and oivner of a county. I do not know exactly what the law of England is — whether at the death of his brother your grandfather woidd have inherited the title or not.
I never talked on this subject with your father, who very seldom alluded to matters at home. He had also two sisters. As he was clever and had already gained some reputation by his explorations in Egypt, and toas, moreover, an exceptionally handsome man — at least I thought so — your grandfather made up his mind that he would make a very good marriage. When he learned of your father's affection for me he ivas absolutely furious, told his son that he never wished to see him again, arid spoke of me in a manner that Gh-egory resented, and as a result they quarrelled.
Your father left the house never to enter it again. I would have released him from his promise, but he would not hear of it, and we were married. He had written for magazines and newspapers on Egyptian subjects, and thought that he coidd make a living for us both with his pen; but unhappily he found that great numbers of men were trying to do the same, and that although his papers on Egyptian discoveries had always been accepted, it was quite another thing when he came to write on general subjects.
We had a hard time of it, but we were very happy nevertheless.
Then came the time when my health began to give way. I had a ( M 917 x
terrible cough, and the doctor said that I must have a change to a warmer climate. We were very poor then — so poor that we had only a few shillings left, and lived in one room. Your father saw an advertisement for a man to go out to the branch of a London firm at Alexandria. Without saying a word to me he went and obtained it, thanks to his knowledge of Arabic. He was getting on well in the firm when the bombardment of Alexandria took place. The offices and stores of his employers were burned, and as it would take many months before they could be rebuilt the employees were ordered home, but any who chose to stay were permitted to do so, and received three months' pay. Your father saw that there would be many chances when the country settled down, and so took a post under a contractor of meat for the army. We moved to Cairo. Shortly after our arrival there he was, as he thought, fortunate in obtaining the appointment of an interpreter with Hicks Pasha. I did not try to dissuade him. Everyone supposed that the Egyptian troops would easily defeat the Dervishes. There was some danger, of course; but it seemed to me r as it did to him, that this opening would lead to better things, and that when the rebellion was put down he would be able to obtain some good civil appointment in the Soudan.
It was not the thought of his pay as interpreter thai iveighed in the slightest with either of us. I was anxious above all things that he shoidd be restored to a position where he could associate with gentlemen as one of themselves, and could again take his real name.
Your father had an honourable pride in his name, which was an old one, and when he took the post at Alexandria, which was little above that of an ordinary office messenger, he did not care that he should be recognized or that one of his name shoidd be known to be
occupying such a station. He did not change his name, he simply dropped the surname. His full name was Gregory Hilliard Hartley. He had always intended, when he had made a position for himself, to recur to it, and of course it will be open to you to do so also; but I know that it would have been his wish that you, like him, shoidd not do so unless you had made such a position for yourself that you ivould be a credit to it.
On starting, your father left me to decide whether I should go home. I imagine that the packet merely contains his views on that subject. He knew what mine were. I would rather have begged my bread than have gone back to ask for alms of the man who treated his son so cruelly. It is probable that by this time the old man is dead; but I should object as much to have to appeal to my husband's brother, a character I disliked. Although he knew that his father's means were small, he was extravagant to the last degree, and the old man was weak enough to keep himself in perpetual difficulties to satisfy his son. Your father looked for no pecuniary assistance from his brother, but the latter might at least have come to see him or written kindly to him when he was in London. As your father was writing in his own name for magazines, his address could be easily found out by anyone who wanted to know it.
He never sent one single word to him, and I should object quite as much to appeal to him as to the old man. As to the sisters, who were younger than my husband, they were nice girls; but even if your grandfather is dead, and has, as no doubt would be the case, left what he had between them, it certainly would not amount to much. Your father has told me that the old man had mortgaged the estate up to the hilt to pay his brother's debts, and that when it came to be sold, as it pvbably would be at his death, there would be very little left for the girls. Therefore, certainly I could not go and ask them to support us. My hope is, my dear boy, that you may be able to make your way here in the same manner as your father was doing when he fell, and that some day you may attain to an honourable position, in
which you will be able, if you visit England, to call upon your aunts, not as one who has anything to ask of them, but as a relative of whom they need not feel in any way ashamed. I feel that my end is very near, Gregory. I hope to say all that I have to say to you before it comes, but I may not have an oppmiunity, and in that case some time may elapse before you read this, and it will come to you as a, voice from the grave. I am not in any way wishing to bind you to any course of action, but only to explain fully your position to you and to tell you my thoughts. God bless you, my dear boy, prosper and keep you! I know enough of you to be sure that, whatever your course may be, you will bear yourself as a true gentleman, worthy of your father and of the name you bear.
Your loving Mother.
Gregory sat for some time before opening the other enclosure. It contained an open envelope, on which was written " To my Wife ", and three others, also unfastened, addressed respectively, "The Hon. James Hartley, King's Lawn, Tavistock, Devon"; the second, "G. Hilliard Hartley, Esq., The Albany, Piccadilly, London"; the third, "Miss Hartley", the address being the same as that of her father. He first opened the one to his mother.
My dearest Wife,
I hope that you will never read these lines, but that I shall return to you safe and sound —I am writing this in case it should be otherwise — and that you will never have occasion to read these instructions, or rather I should say this advice, for it is no more than that. We did talk the matter over, but you were so wholly averse from any idea of ever appealing to my father or family, however sore the straits to which you might be reduced, that I could not urge the matter upon you; and yet, although I sympathize most thoroughly with your feelings, I think that in case of dire necessity you should &o so, and at least afford my father the opportunity of making
up for his treatment of myself The small sum that I left in your hands must soon be exhausted. If I am killed you will perhaps obtain a small pension, but this assuredly would not be sufficient to maintain you and the boy in comfort. I know that you said at the time that possibly you could add to it by teaching. Should this be so you may be able to remain in Egypt, and when the boy grows up he will obtain employment of some sort here.
But should you be unsuccessful in this direction, I do not see what you could do. Were you to go to England with the child, what chance would you liave of obtaining employment there without friends or references? I am frightened at the prospect. I know that were you alone you would do anything rather than apply to my people, but you have the child to think of, and, painful as it would be to you, it yet seems to me the best thing that could be done. At any rate I enclose you three letters to my brother, father, and sisters. I have no legal claim on any of them, but I certainly have a moral claim on my brother. It is he who has impoverished the estate, so that even had I not quarrelled with my father there could never, after provision had been made for my sisters, have been anything to come to me.
I do not ask you to humiliate yourself by delivering these letters personally. I would advise you to post them from Cairo, enclosing in each a note saying how I fell, and that you are fulfilling my instructions by sending the letter I wrote before leaving you. It may be that you will receive no reply. In that case, whatever happens to you and the child, you will have nothing to reproach yourself for. Possibly my father may have succeeded to the title, and if for no other reason, he may then be willing to grant you an allowance on condition that you do not return to England, as he would know that it would be nothing short of a scandal that the wife of one of his sons was trying to earn her bread in this country. Above all, dear, I ask you not to destroy these letters. You may at first scorn the idea of appealing for help, but the time might come, as it came to us in London, when you feel that fate is too strong for you, and that you can struggle no longer. Then you might regret, for the sake of the child, that you had not sent these letters.
It is a terrible responsibility that I am leaving you. I well know that you will do all, dear, that it is possible for you to do to avoid the necessity for sending these letters. That I quite approve, if you can struggle on. God strengthen you to do it! It is only if you fail that I say send them. My father may by this time regret that he drove me from home; he may be really anxious to find me, and at least it is right that he should have the opportunity of making what amends he can. From my sisters I knoiv that you can have little but sympathy, but that I feel sure they will give you, and even sympathy is a great deal to one who has no friends. I feel it sorely that I should have naught to leave you but my name and this counsel. Earnestly I hope and pray that it may never be needed.
Yours till death,
GREGORY HILLIARD HARTLEY.
Gregory then opened the letter to his grandfather.
Dear Father,
You will not receive this letter till after my death. I leave it behind me while I go up with General Hicks to the Soudan. It will not be sent to you unless I die there. I hope that long ere this you may have felt, as I have done, that we were both someiuhat in the wrong in the quarrel that separated us. You, I think, were hard; I, no doubt, was hasty. You, I think, assumed more than was your right in demanding that I shoidd break a promise that I had given to a lady against ivhom nothing coidd be said save that she was undowered. Had I, like Geoffrey, been drawing large sums of money from you, you would necessarily have felt yourself in a position to have a very strong voice in so important a matter. But the very moderate allowance I received while at the university was never increased. I do not think it is too much to say that for every penny I have got from you Geoffrey has received a guinea.
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br /> However, that is past and gone. I have been fighting my own battle, and was on my way to obtaining a good position. Until I did so I dropped our surname. I did not wish that it should be known that one of our family was working in an almost menial position in Egypt. I have now obtained the post of interpreter on the staff of General Hicks, and if he is successful in crushing the rebellion I shall be certain of good permanent employment, when I can resume my name. The fact that you receive this letter will be a proof that I have fallen in battle, or by disease. I now, as a dying prayer, beg you to receive my wife and boy, or if that cannot be, to grant her some small annuity to assist her in her struggle ivith the world.
Except for her sake I do not regret my marriage. She has borne the hardships through which we have passed nobly and without a murmur. She has been the best of wives to me, and has proved herself a noble woman in every respect. I leave the matter in your hands, Father, feeling assured that from your sense of justice alone, if not for the affection you once bore me, you will befriend my wife. As I know that the Earl ivas in feeble health when I left England, you may by this time have come into the title, in which case you will be able, without in any way inconveniencing yourself, to settle an annuity upon my wife sufficient to keep her in comfort. I can promise, in her name, that in that case you will never be troubled in any way by her, and she will probably take up her residence permanently in Egypt, as she is not strong and the warm climate is essential to her.
The letter to his brother was shorter:—
My dear Geoffrey,
I am going up with General Hicks to the Soudan. If you receive this letter, it will be because I have died there. I leave behind one my wife and a boy. I know that at present you are scarcely likely to be able to do much for them pecuniarily, but as you will some day — possibly not a very distant one — inherit the title and estate, you will then be able to do so without hurting yourself. We have never seen much of each other. You left school before I began it, and you left Oxford two years before I went up to Cambridge. You have never been at home much since, and I was two years in Egypt, and Imve now been about the same time here. I charge my wife to send you this, and I trust that for my sake you will help her. She does not think of returning to England. Life is not expensive in this country; even an allowance of a hundred a year would enable her to remain here. If you can afford double that, do so for my sake; but at any rate I feel that I can rely upon you to do at least that much when you come into the title. Had I lived I should never have troubled anyone at home, but as I shall be no longer able to earn a living for her and the boy, I trust that you will not think it out of the way for me to ask for what ivould have been a very small younger brother's allowance had I remained at home.