Chapter 15

“Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college.”

“Oh no!  Surely you do not think it necessary?” said Helen, visibly shrinking.

She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library.  Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and being rather “put down”—­a position rarely agreeable to the self-esteem of eighteen—­he had flushed up angrily, made no reply, but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace.  There, pacing to and fro along the countess’s garden, they saw the boy, or rather young man, for he looked like one now.  He moved with a rapid step, the wind tossing his fair curls—­Helen’s curls over again—­ and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did not often lose, especially in the earl’s presence.

Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the little child’s mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant.  If there was one person in the world who had power to guide and control this high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth.  And as the latter moved his chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen’s boy very dearly.

“He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man of yours.  Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college.”

“For his education?” I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that.”

“Not altogether.  But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable for him to go from home for a while.”

“Why?  Because his mother spoils him?”

The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer.  In truth, the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her “spoiling”—­love rarely injures —­as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the other side—­in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little follies and faults—­the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, which sometimes happened between the mother and the son.

This was almost inevitable, with Helen’s peculiar character.  As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face—­still fair; a clear, healthy red and white, though she was over forty—­you might trace some harsh lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in middle age have grown into what is termed a “hard” woman; capable of passionate affection, but of equally passionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon the beings most precious to her on earth.

“I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers,” said Lord Cairnforth; “but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time.  How else are they to know the world?”