Richard was rejoiced with the change in him, and reckoned
of what he might learn from Arthur in the long days
before them; while he in turn would tell him many
things he would now be prepared to hear. The soul
that had seemed rapidly sinking into the joyless dark,
was now burning clear as a torch of heaven.
RICHARD AND HIS FAMILY.
As the dinner-hour drew nigh, Richard went to the
drawing-room, scrupulously dressed. Lady Ann
gave him the coldest of polite recognitions; Theodora
was full of a gladness hard to keep within the bounds
which fear of her mother counselled; Victoria was scornful,
and as impudent as she dared be in the presence of
her father; Miss Malliver was utterly wooden, and
behaved as if she had never seen him before; Arthur
was polite and superior. Things went pretty well,
however. Percy, happily, was at Woolwich, pretending
to study engineering: of him Richard had learned
too much at Oxford.
Theodora and Richard were at once drawn to each other—he
prejudiced in her favour by Barbara, she proud of
her new, handsome brother. She was a plain, good-natured,
good-tempered girl—with red hair, which
only her father and mother disliked, and a modest,
freckled face, whose smile was genuine and faith-inspiring.
Her mother counted her stupid, accepting the judgment
of the varnished governess, who saw wonder or beauty
or value in nothing her eyes or hands could not reach.
Theodora was indeed one of those who, for lack of
true teaching, or from the deliberateness of nature,
continue children longer than most, but she was not
therefore stupid. The aloe takes seven years
to blossom, but when it does, its flower may be thirty
feet long. Where there is love, there is intellect:
at what period it may show itself, matters little.
Richard felt he had in her another sister—one
for whom he might do something. He talked freely,
as became him at his father’s table, and the
conversation did not quite flag. If lady Ann
said next to nothing, she said nearly as much as usual,
and was perfectly civil; Arthur was sullen but not
rude; Theodora’s joy made her talk as she had
never talked before. A morn of romance had dawned
upon her commonplace life. Vixen gave herself
to her dinner, and but the shadow of a grimace now
and then reminded Richard of the old monkey-phiz.
Having the heart of a poet, the brain of a scientist,
and the hands of a workman—hands, that
is, made for making, Richard talked so vitally that
in most families not one but all would have been interested;
and indeed Arthur too would have enjoyed listening,
but that he was otherwise occupied. That he had
to look unconcerned at his own deposition, while regarding
as an intruder the man whose place he had so long in
a sense usurped, was not his sorest trial: regarding
as a prig the man who talked about things worth talking
about, he could not help feeling himself a poor creature,
an empty sack, beside the son of the low-born woman.
But indeed Richard, brought face to face with life,
and taught to meet necessity with labour, had had
immeasurable advantages over Arthur.
