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                          SONS AND DAUGHTERS




                          SONS AND DAUGHTERS

                               _A NOVEL_

                                  BY

                             MRS OLIPHANT

                            SECOND EDITION

                      WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
                         EDINBURGH AND LONDON
                               MDCCCXCI




                          SONS AND DAUGHTERS.




CHAPTER I.


“Then you will not take the share in the business which I have offered
you?”

“No, I think not, sir. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way in which it
is worked. It would be entirely out of accordance with all my training.”

“So much the worse for your training--and for you,” said Mr Burton,
hastily.

“Well, sir, perhaps so. I feel it’s ungenerous to say that the training
was your own choice, not mine. I think it, of course, the best training
in the world.”

“So it is--so it was when I selected it for you. There’s no harm in the
training. Few boys come out of it with your ridiculous prejudices
against their bread and butter. It’s not the training, it’s you--that
are a fool, Gervase.”

“Perhaps so, sir,” said the young man with great gravity. “I can offer
no opinion on that subject.”

The father and son were seated together in a well-furnished library in a
large house in Harley Street--not fashionable, but extremely
comfortable, spacious, expensive, and dignified. It was a library in the
truest sense of the word, and not merely the “gentleman’s room” in which
the male portion of a family takes refuge. There was an excellent
collection of books on the shelves that lined the walls, a few good
pictures, a bust or two placed high on the tops of the bookcases. It
bore signs, besides, of constant occupation, and of being, in short, the
room in which its present occupants lived--which was the fact. They were
all their family. Mrs Burton had died years before, and her husband had
after her death lived only for his boy and--his business. The latter
devotion kept everything that was sentimental out of the former. He was
very kind and indulgent to Gervase, and gave him the ideal English
education--the education of an English gentleman: five or six years at
Eton, three or four at Oxford. He intended to do, and did, his son
“every justice.” Expense had never been spared in any way. Though he
did not himself care for shooting, he had taken a moor in the Highlands
for several successive seasons, in order that his boy should be familiar
with that habit of the higher classes. Though he hated travelling, he
had gone abroad for the same purpose. Gervase had never been stinted in
anything: he had a good allowance, rooms handsomely furnished, horses at
his disposal, everything that heart could desire. And he on his part had
done all that could be desired or expected from a young man. If he had
not electrified his tutors and masters, he had not disappointed them. He
had done very well all round. His father had no reason to be otherwise
than proud of his son. Both at school and college he had done well; he
had got into no scrapes. He had even acquired a little distinction; not
much, not enough to spoil him either for business or society--yet
something, enough to enable people to say, “He did very well at Oxford.”
And he had made some good friends, which perhaps was what his father
prized most. One or two scions of noble houses came to Harley Street to
see him; he had invitations from a few fine people for their country
houses, and ladies of note who had a number of daughters were disposed
to smile upon the merchant’s son. All these things pleased Mr Burton
much, and he had been quite willing to assent to his son’s wish that he
should end and complete his experiences by a visit to America, before
beginning the work which had always been his final destination. He had
now just returned from that expedition, and it had been intended that he
should step at once into his place in the business--that business which
was as good as, nay, much better than, an estate. Up to this time the
young man had made no objection to the plan, which he was perfectly
acquainted with. So far as his father knew, he was as well disposed
towards that plan as Mr Burton himself, and looked forward to it with as
much satisfaction. It may therefore be supposed that it was with no
small consternation, with displeasure, disappointment, and indignation,
one greater than the other, that the father had sat and listened to the
sudden and astounding protest of the son. Not go into the business! It
was to Mr Burton as if a man had refused to go to heaven; indeed it was
less reasonable by far: for though going to heaven is supposed to be the
height of everybody’s desire, even the most pious of clergymen has been
known to say “God forbid!” when he has been warned that he stands on the
brink of another world. One would wish generally to postpone that
highest of consummations; but to refuse to go into the business was a
thing incredible. Mr Burton had raged and stormed, but afterwards he had
been brought into partial calm through the evident impossibility of
treating his son in any other way. To scold Gervase was practically
impossible. To treat him like a child or a fool was a thing that could
not be done. His own composure naturally affected all who had to do
with him, and his father among the rest. That passionate speaking or
abuse, or violence of any kind, should fall dumb before his easy and
immovable quiet, was inevitable. He had waited till the outburst was
over, and then he had gone on.

“And what else then, if not in my office, do you mean to do?” Mr Burton
now said.

“I suppose, sir,” said Gervase, “I am right in believing, as everybody
does, that you are a rich man?”

“Well; and what then?” said the merchant, with a wave of his hand.

“And I am your only child.”

“Of that, at least, there can be no doubt. But I repeat, what then?”

“I may be wrong,” said Gervase, ingenuously, “but at least everybody
says--that every means of making an income is pursued by crowds of
people, more than can ever hope to make an income by it. I may not state
the facts so clearly as I wish.”

“There are more men wanting work than there is work to give them. I
suppose that’s what you mean.”

“Far better said than I could say it. In that case, my dear father,”
said Gervase, with a look of imperturbable reason and candour, “why
should I, who have no need to work and no desire for it, help to crowd
the already overcrowded field?”

Mr Burton gave a start like an excited horse, and evidently had to make
an effort to restrain the corresponding burst of utterance. But the
conviction that these impatient outbursts did more harm than good
restrained him. He said with simulated calm--

“I am not aware that there is any crowd--at my gates, to force an
entrance into _my_ business--to the place which I have naturally
reserved for my son.”

“My dear father,” Gervase repeated, with an almost caressing frankness
and appeal to his superior judgment, “there are hundreds who could do it
much better than your son. There is Wickham’s son----”

“Try not to drive me beyond the bounds of patience,” cried the merchant,
with suppressed excitement. “Wickham’s son--my old clerk----”

“Who has served you most faithfully for years. And Charlie Wickham is
worth twenty of me--in all that concerns business----”

“That’s not saying very much,” cried Mr Burton, with a snort of rage.

“I am sorry you should say that, sir--for, of course, it shows that you
thought I would be a mere cipher in the business; whereas I am sure
Charlie----”

“Look here, Gervase,” cried his father. “Let’s understand each other.
You are free to come in and prepare yourself to take my place, which
would be the course of nature; but if you don’t think fit to do this, I
have no desire for your advice. I don’t believe in your advice. Keep
your suggestions to yourself. As for your Wickhams---- If I bring in
anybody in your place, I’ll bring in new blood. I’ll bring in more
money. I’ll----” He felt himself getting hot and excited--and the calm
and slightly wondering countenance of his son, although seen through a
mist of irritation, and apt to send any man dancing with fury, yet held
him in as with a bridle, so strong was the superiority of the calm to
the excitement. “Try not to drive me beyond the bounds of patience,” he
said.

“Well, sir?” replied Gervase, spreading out his hands and slightly
elevating his shoulders. The gesture was French, which irritated Mr
Burton more and more: but he said nothing further; and it was not till
he had taken up the ‘St James’s Gazette’ which lay on the table, and
read through two of those soothing articles on nothing particular with
which that journal abounds, and which the merchant in his anger read
from beginning to end without the slightest idea what they were about,
that he allowed himself to speak again. He was then preternaturally
tranquil, with a quietude like that of an anchorite in his voice.

“I suppose,” he said, “that you have taken everything into account in
making this decision--Miss Thursley, for instance--and given up all idea
of marriage, or anything of that kind?”

Gervase’s quiet looks became slightly disturbed. He looked up with a
certain eagerness. “Given up?----” he said.

“Of course,” said Mr Burton, delighted to have got the mastery, “you
can’t marry--a girl accustomed to every luxury--on your boy’s allowance.
Five hundred a-year is not much--it might do for her pin-money, with a
little perhaps to the good for your button-holes. But what you would
live upon, in the more serious sense of the words, I don’t know.”

The young man’s