“Oh, it’s easy enough to promise, mother,” I said, sitting down to my supper, “but it’s not so easy to keep my word.”
“Yes, and it would be, if I had anything else to occupy me. You see, I’m weary of wasting my days in Chelton. You’d have me a scholar; and that I’ll never be. Mr. Vining would tell you so, for I’m sure he tells me as much every day of the week. And what should Tony and I be doing except getting into mischief?”
“I’ve asked you, John,” she said, simply, “to wait just a little longer. I couldn’t have you go to London. Remembering your father! You’re safe here. I wish you could be happy.”
“But here I am turned seventeen. I’ve not the head for book-learning. And what’s the purpose of it all? Do you want me to be a schoolmaster or a clergyman?”
“No,” she said quickly, “to be a gentleman. This Mr. Bradbury—did he say anything else to you? Anything about your father?”
She nodded, but said no more; sitting silent and abstracted until I had eaten my supper; rising then to clear away the meal, whilst I, taking down my Latin grammar, set myself to conning my lesson for the morrow, apprehending that Mr. Vining’s cane would make amends for the punishment of which Mr. Bradbury’s intervention had disappointed Tim Kerrick. But if my eyes were fixed on the page, my thoughts were straying back to Mr. Bradbury, from his appearance out of his wrecked coach to the moment when I had left him standing chuckling beside Squire Chelton. My mother, coming back quietly, sat down with her sewing; so we remained till the hands of the clock pointed to the hour of eleven. And even as I shut my Latin grammar to prepare for bed, and my mother rose to set away her sewing, a tapping sounded on the door.
My mother started; whispered to me, “Who should come so late?”—and, going to the door, demanded, “Who is there?”
A low voice answered, “Mr. Bradbury, seeking Mrs. Mary Howe.”
I heard my mother gasp, and saw her throw her hands up; controlling herself then she unbarred the door, and curtsied, as Mr. Bradbury, wrapped in his black cloak, entered the room.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Howe,” he said, with his stiff bow. “I’d not have come so late, but that I desired my business with you and your son to be kept secret, and that it brooked of no delay.”