MY timidity and my obscurity occasioned me to live a secluded life at college, and to be little known. No relative ever came to visit me, for I had no relative. No intimate friends broke in upon my studies, for I made no intimate friends. I supported myself on my scholarship, and read much. My college time was otherwise not so very different from my time at Hoghton Towers.
Knowing myself to be unfit for the noisier stir of social existence, but believing myself qualified to do my duty in a moderate, though earnest way, if I could obtain some small preferment in the Church, I applied my mind to the clerical profession. In due sequence I took orders, was ordained, and began to look about me for employment. I must observe that I had taken a good degree, that I had succeeded in winning a good fellowship, and that my means were ample for my retired way of life. By this time I had read with several young men; and the occupation increased my income, while it was highly interesting to me. I once accidentally overheard our greatest don say, to my boundless joy, ‘That he heard it reported of Silverman that his gift of quiet explanation, his patience, his amiable temper, and his conscientiousness made him the best of coaches.’ May my ‘gift of quiet explanation’ come more seasonably and powerfully to my aid in this present explanation than I think it will!
It may be in a certain degree owing to the situation of my college- rooms (in a corner where the daylight was sobered), but it is in a much larger degree referable to the state of my own mind, that I seem to myself, on looking back to this time of my life, to have been always in the peaceful shade. I can see others in the sunlight; I can see our boats’ crews and our athletic young men on the glistening water, or speckled with the moving lights of sunlit leaves; but I myself am always in the shadow looking on. Not unsympathetically, — God forbid! — but looking on alone, much as I looked at Sylvia from the shadows of the ruined house, or looked at the red gleam shining through the farmer’s windows, and listened to the fall of dancing feet, when all the ruin was dark that night in the quadrangle.
I now come to the reason of my quoting that laudation of myself above given. Without such reason, to repeat it would have been mere boastfulness.
Among those who had read with me was Mr. Fareway, second son of Lady Fareway, widow of Sir Gaston Fareway, baronet. This young gentleman’s abilities were much above the average; but he came of a rich family, and was idle and luxurious. He presented himself to me too late, and afterwards came to me too irregularly, to admit of my being of much service to him. In the end, I considered it my duty to dissuade him from going up for an examination which he could never pass; and he left college without a degree. After his departure, Lady Fareway wrote to me, representing the justice of my returning half my fee, as I had been of so little use to her son. Within my knowledge a similar demand had not been made in any other case; and I most freely admit that the justice of it had not occurred to me until it was pointed out. But I at once perceived it, yielded to it, and returned the money —
Mr. Fareway had been gone two years or more, and I had forgotten him, when he one day walked into my rooms as I was sitting at my books.
Said he, after the usual salutations had passed, ‘Mr. Silverman, my mother is in town here, at the hotel, and wishes me to present you to her.’
I was not comfortable with strangers, and I dare say I betrayed that I was a little nervous or unwilling. ‘For,’ said he, without my having spoken, ‘I think the interview may tend to the advancement of your prospects.’
It put me to the blush to think that I should be tempted by a worldly reason, and I rose immediately.
Said Mr. Fareway, as we went along, ‘Are you a good hand at business?’
‘I think not,’ said I.
Said Mr. Fareway then, ‘My mother is.’
‘Truly?’ said I.
‘Yes: my mother is what is usually called a managing woman. Doesn’t make a bad thing, for instance, even out of the spendthrift habits of my eldest brother abroad. In short, a managing woman. This is in confidence.’
He had never spoken to me in confidence, and I was surprised by his doing so. I said I should respect his confidence, of course, and said no more on the delicate subject. We had but a little way to walk, and I was soon in his mother’s company. He presented me, shook hands with me, and left us two (as he said) to business.
I saw in my Lady Fareway a handsome, well-preserved lady of somewhat large stature, with a steady glare in her great round dark eyes that embarrassed me.
Said my lady, ‘I have heard from my son, Mr. Silverman, that you would be glad of some preferment in the church.’ I gave my lady to understand that was so.
‘I don’t know whether you are aware,’ my lady proceeded, ‘that we have a presentation to a living? I say WE have; but, in point of fact, I have.’
I gave my lady to understand that I had not been aware of this.
Said my lady, ‘So it is: indeed I have two presentations, — one to two hundred a year, one to six. Both livings are in our county, — North Devonshire, — as you probably know. The first is vacant. Would you like it?’
What with my lady’s eyes, and what with the suddenness of this proposed gift, I was much confused.
‘I am sorry it is not the larger presentation,’ said my lady, rather coldly; ‘though I will not, Mr. Silverman, pay you the bad compliment of supposing that YOU are, because that would be mercenary, — and mercenary I am persuaded you are not.’
Said I, with my utmost earnestness, ‘Thank you, Lady Fareway, thank you, thank you! I should be deeply hurt if I thought I bore the character.’
‘Naturally,’ said my lady. ‘Always detestable, but particularly in a clergyman. You have not said whether you will like the living?’
With apologies for my remissness or indistinctness, I assured my lady that I accepted it most readily and gratefully. I added that I hoped she would not estimate my appreciation of the generosity of her choice by my flow of words; for I was not a ready man in that respect when taken by surprise or touched at heart.
‘The affair is concluded,’ said my lady; ‘concluded. You will find the duties very light, Mr. Silverman. Charming house; charming little garden, orchard, and all that. You will be able to take pupils. By the bye! No: I will return to the word afterwards. What was I going to mention, when it put me out?’
My lady stared at me, as if I knew. And I didn’t know. And that perplexed me afresh.
Said my lady, after some consideration, ‘O, of course, how very dull of me! The last incumbent, — least mercenary man I ever saw, — in consideration of the duties being so light and the house so delicious, couldn’t rest, he said, unless I permitted him to help me with my correspondence, accounts, and various little things of that kind; nothing in themselves, but which it worries a lady to cope with. Would Mr. Silverman also like to —? Or shall I—?’
I hastened to say that my poor help would be always at her ladyship’s service.
‘I am absolutely blessed,’ said my lady, casting up her eyes (and so taking them off me for one moment), ‘in having to do with gentlemen who cannot endure an approach to the idea of being mercenary!’ She shivered at the word. ‘And now as to the pupil.’
‘The —?’ I was quite at a loss.
‘Mr. Silverman, you have no idea what she is. She is,’ said my lady, laying her touch upon my coat-sleeve, ‘I do verily believe, the most extraordinary girl in this world. Already knows more Greek and Latin than Lady Jane Grey. And taught herself! Has not yet, remember, derived a moment’s advantage from Mr. Silverman’s classical acquirements. To say nothing of mathematics, which she is bent upon becoming versed in, and in which (as I hear from my son and others) Mr. Silverman’s reputation is so deservedly high!’
Under my lady’s eyes I must have lost the clue, I felt persuaded; and yet I did not know where I could have dropped it.
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‘Adelina,’ said my lady, ‘is my only daughter. If I did not feel quite convinced that I am not blinded by a mother’s partiality; unless I was absolutely sure that when you know her, Mr. Silverman, you will esteem it a high and unusual privilege to direct her studies, — I should introduce a mercenary element into this conversation, and ask you on what terms — ’
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