Chapter XIII

Lord Ashden’s Plan

That was the first of many happy days which Philip was to spend at Ashden. Lord Ashden would drive over to Lowdown two or three times a week and carry him off for the day, appearing to find real pleasure in the boy’s society; and Aunt Delia was overjoyed to notice that the sad fits of despondency to which he had been subject since the death of his young wife seemed to have grown less frequent since he had made a companion of Philip. The boy seemed to fit perfectly into his moods, and very soon learned to understand when his companion wished to be diverted, or when he cared only to sit quietly in the boat, or under a tree, with a book, which at such times Philip noticed he only pretended to be reading, while his thoughts were far away.

The boy knew then that he was thinking of her, and his loving heart longed to comfort his friend. And, indeed, his affection and sympathy did comfort Lord Ashden, love being a wonderful balsam for wounded hearts. Sometimes the sad and lonely man would talk to Philip of his young wife, of her radiant beauty, which was but the outward expression of her singularly sweet and noble nature, of her winning grace of manner and the thousand varying moods which made her society a continual delight to her husband; and then one day he spoke to Philip of that awful day when he had raised her in his arms from the roadside, so white and still, and when he had prayed that he might die too. It is a tragic sight to see a strong man weep as Lord Ashden did that afternoon, and Philip held him close in his loving arms, as his mother had been used to do with him when he was struggling with some childish grief.

From that day the two friends seemed to be drawn more closely together; Lord Ashden talked often to Philip of his friendship with the latter’s father, and Philip told him some things his mother had told him of the years after his marriage, when he had withdrawn so completely from his old associates and friends.

“Dear old Phil!” Lord Ashden would exclaim. “I shall never forgive myself for not having insisted upon seeing him; and yet it would doubtless have caused him real humiliation and pain to have been sought out by his old friends, in such altered conditions. Well, at least I can try to make up for it all by doing what I can for little Philip, eh, my lad? And now,” he would say, jumping up suddenly, “let us go indoors for a little music. What shall it be this afternoon, your favorite Mendelssohn or some more Schubert?”

This was the way in which, after a morning spent out-of-doors, their afternoons were pretty sure to be passed. Lord Ashden had had a fine musical education, and he possessed the keen appreciation of genius which is itself a kind of genius; he soon discovered that Philip possessed a most unusual aptitude for the violin, and he set himself to the task of teaching him to play, at first for the diversion which it afforded himself, and then for the real delight which he felt in the boy’s progress.

One afternoon, late in the summer, when he had been accompanying his pupil on the piano through a very difficult concerto, he stopped suddenly and, wheeling about on the piano-stool, laid his hands on Philip’s shoulders.

“See here, my boy,” he said, “_I_ can’t teach you any more; an interpretation like that is not learned, but gained by direct intuition; you have lots of work to do yet, of course, and your bowing is not perfect by any means; but--well, you just keep on practising while I think out a scheme of my own.”

A few days after this Lord Ashden rode over to Lowdown and requested an interview with the rector and Aunt Delia in the former’s study.

“No one under thirteen years of age admitted,” he said, laughing as the children gathered around him in the hall as usual. The three friends were closeted for more than an hour, and when they came out Aunt Delia’s eyes were red as though she had been weeping, yet she looked very happy too; and at supper she exchanged meaning glances with her husband when the children inquired why Lord Ashden had not remained with them as usual.

When bedtime came Philip was told to remain in the library after the other children had gone upstairs, and then the secret of the afternoon’s conference was explained. Lord Ashden had ridden over from Ashden to ask permission to take Philip abroad for a musical education such as he believed could be secured only on the Continent.

“Of course,” he had said, “I know it is asking a great deal, for Philip has grown very dear to you both; but to me, bereft as I have been of every one I once loved, this dear child has become almost indispensable. For the first time since my poor wife died I begin to feel that the future holds something in it for which to strive, and to which I can look forward without despair. Only give me Philip, dear friends, and I promise it shall be for the boy’s best good; for I love him already as my own son, as I loved his father in the old days.”

“We would be selfish indeed,” said Aunt Delia, with streaming eyes, “were we to refuse such a generous offer, but Philip himself must decide; although of course I know what his answer will be.”

The good rector too, although he could not trust himself to think of how silent and lonely the old house would be without his little nephew, was yet rejoiced that the boy should have such a rare opportunity of cultivating his musical ability.

“I have always said that his playing was wonderful,” he exclaimed proudly; “and I believe our boy will some day make a name for himself and for us all.”

When the purport of this interview was explained to Philip he seemed dazed by the prospect of such unlooked-for good fortune, and for a moment he said nothing, standing quite still with clasped hands, and his expressive face quivering with delight; but suddenly he discovered Aunt Delia furtively wiping her spectacles, and the self-reproachful tears sprang at once to his eyes.

“Oh, Aunt Delia! Uncle Seldon! forgive me!” he cried. “How could I be so selfish as to think of leaving my dearest and best friends? Nothing I can do could ever repay you for your kindness, and certainly I will never, never leave you.”

“My darling boy!” said Aunt Delia, drawing him down beside her on the sofa, while the good old clergyman blew his nose very hard and looked out of the window, “such sentiments do you credit, and are worthy of our dear, dead Philip’s son; but your uncle and I could not think of accepting such a sacrifice. One disappointed career in a family is quite enough, dear boy, and if your father had to give up his art, you at least shall have as good a chance with your music as we can give you.”

“Yes, yes,” added the rector hastily, “don’t think of us, Philip lad; we shall get on fairly well, I fancy; and then, you know, in after years your aunt and I will share in your triumphs. How proud we shall be of our nephew, the great violinist, Signor Philip Norton! Sounds well, doesn’t it? There won’t be a prouder woman in England than your Aunt Delia then, and as for your old uncle, the rectory will be hardly large enough to contain him, if he is still alive.”

And so, almost in spite of his hesitation, Philip found himself gently pushed forward into a career which seemed to be too beautiful to be real; indeed, he half expected to awake some morning and find that the whole plan had been only a lovely dream.

But the preparations for his journey went steadily on, and each morning Philip would look at the calendar and say:

“In a month we start”--“in a week”--and then--“to-morrow.”

He did not go to Ashden very much during those last days, for he wanted to spend every moment with the dear friends at the rectory; nor did he see much of Lord Ashden, who had many preparations to make for what might be a long absence, and who, moreover, with great delicacy, forbore to intrude upon these last days, which he knew were sad ones for the dear old clergyman and his wife.

The bustle and stir incident upon the preparation for such a long journey were an immense relief to Aunt Delia, and she gave herself not a moment to think of what the house would be like when her darling boy should have gone. She had Philip’s boxes all packed and strapped a full week before he was to start, and then she thought of so many things which she had forgotten to put in that she unpacked them all again; and she repeated this operation several times before she was quite satisfied. For some unaccountable reason, as the travellers were going directly south, the dear old lady was convinced that Philip would need the most extraordinary amount of extra clothing, and she smuggled into his boxes enough flannel and woollen garments to have equipped an expedition to the polar regions. She was also convinced that both Philip and Lord Ashden would need at least a couple of knitted mufflers apiece, and after a busy day spent in running up and down stairs and packing and unpacking boxes, she would sit up half the night knitting away, as though her life depended upon it, on these same mufflers, while her loving thoughts and hopes for Philip’s future travelled faster even than the flying needles.

But there was another member of the household who was even more excited over the preparations for departure than Aunt Delia herself. This was Dash, who from the first moment that the journey was suggested seemed to understand that some momentous change was near at hand. When Philip’s boxes were brought down from the garret, he went sniffing anxiously about them, and when Aunt Delia laid one of the boy’s familiar garments in one of them, the little dog sat down beside it, and throwing back his head began to howl so piteously that Philip, who was practising in the next room, came running in to see if he were ill or in pain. After that Dash seemed fully to comprehend that his master was going on a journey, and from having always followed him about very faithfully he became his veritable shadow. If Philip but crossed the room Dash was at his heels, and at night he deliberately forsook the box in a corner of the school-room, in which he had formerly slept very contentedly, and would curl himself up on the foot of Philip’s bed, from which neither threats nor entreaties could drive him away. Philip, indeed, begged that he might be allowed to remain, for it had been decided that Dash must be left at Lowdown, and his little master’s heart felt strangely sad and heavy at the thought of parting from his faithful friend.

One night Aunt Delia, coming softly into his room with a light, to be sure that her boy was warmly covered, was surprised to hear a sound of suppressed sobbing issuing from beneath the bed-clothes.

“Why, Philip,” she said, coming nearer, “what is it?”

“Oh, Aunt Delia, I do feel so sad at the thought of leaving Dash, and he seems to understand; I believe he really thinks that I am very mean and heartless to go away and leave him behind.”

Dash himself, who was lying quietly in Philip’s arms, now and then licking the boy’s hand, looked up so reproachfully at Aunt Delia as she leaned over the bed that her kind heart was really touched.

“Good doggie,” she said kindly, patting his shaggy head, “don’t you suppose _I_ mind being left behind too? And don’t you think that I shall miss our Philip when he is gone? You and I must learn to be good friends, and then we can comfort each other, you know.”

And Dash, who really seemed to understand everything that was said to him, showed his appreciation of Mrs. Seldon’s sympathy by leaving Philip to come and poke his little black nose affectionately into her face, and when she gave a little scream of surprise and began to wipe her cheek where the wet nose had touched it, Philip was so much amused that he laughed merrily; and when Aunt Delia came into the room again half an hour later, he was sound asleep, with Dash curled up in a little yellow ball beside him.