VII Getting Tom started

VII
Getting Tom started, however, proved a matter of some difficulty. During the Death Duty Period, Mrs. Kent-Cumberland had cut herself off from many of her friends. Now she cast round vainly to find someone who would “put Tom into something.” Chartered Accountancy, Chinese Customs, estate agencies, “the City,” were suggested and abandoned. “The trouble is, that he has no particular abilities,” she explained. “He is the sort of boy who would be useful in anything—an all-round man—but, of course, he has no capital.” August, September, October passed,adidas shoes for girls; Gervase was back at Oxford, in fashionable lodgings in the High Street, but Tom remained at home without employment. Day by day he and his mother sat down together to luncheon and dinner, and his constant presence was a severe strain on Mrs. Kent-Cumberland’s equability. She herself was always busy and, as she bustled about her duties, it shocked and distracted her to encounter the large figure of her younger son sprawling on the morning room sofa or leaning against the stone parapet of the terrace and gazing out apathetically across the familiar landscape. “Why can’t you find something to do?” she would complain,cheap adidas shoes for sale. “There are always things to do about a house. Heaven knows I never have a moment.” And when, one afternoon, he was asked out by some neighbours and returned too late to dress for dinner, she said, “Really, Tom, I should have thought that you had time for that.” “It is a very serious thing,” she remarked on another occasion, “for a young man of your age to get out of the habit of work. It saps his whole morale.” Accordingly she fell back upon the ancient country house expedient of Cataloguing the Library. This consisted of an extensive and dusty collection of books amassed by succeeding generations of a family at no time notable for their patronage of literature; it had been catalogued before, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in the spidery, spinsterish hand of a relative in reduced circumstances; since then the additions and disturbances had been negligible, but Mrs,Moncler Sale. Kent-Cumberland purchased a fumed oak cabinet and several boxes of cards and instructed Tom how she wanted the shelves renumbered and the books twice entered under Subject and Author. It was a system that should keep a boy employed for some time, and it was with vexation, therefore, that, a few days after the task was commenced, she paid a surprise visit to the scene of his labour and found Tom sitting, almost lying, in an armchair, with his feet on a rung of the library steps, reading. “I am glad you have found something interesting,” she said in a voice that conveyed very little gladness. “Well, to tell you the truth, I think I have,” said Tom, and showed her the book. It was the manuscript journal kept by a Colonel Jasper Cumberland during the Peninsular War. It had no startling literary merit, nor did its criticisms of the general staff throw any new light upon the strategy of the campaign, but it was a lively, direct, day-to-day narrative, redolent of its period; there was a sprinkling of droll anecdotes, some vigorous descriptions of fox-hunting behind the lines of Torres Vedras, of the Duke of Wellington dining in Mess, of a threatened mutiny that had not yet found its way into history, of the assault on Badajos; there were some bawdy references to Portuguese women and some pious reflections about patriotism. “I was wondering if it might be worth publishing,” said Tom. “I should hardly think so,” replied his mother. “But I will certainly show it to Gervase when he comes home.” For the moment the discovery gave a new interest to Tom’s life. He read up the history of the period and of his own family. Jasper Cumberland he established as a younger son of the period, who had later emigrated to Canada. There were letters from him among the archives, including the announcement of his marriage to a Papist which had clearly severed the link with his elder brother. In a case of uncatalogued miniatures in the long drawing room, he found the portrait of a handsome whiskered soldier, which by a study of contemporary uniforms he was able to identify as the diarist. Presently, in his round, immature handwriting, Tom began working up his notes into an essay. His mother watched his efforts with unqualified approval. She was glad to see him busy, and glad to see him taking an interest in his family’s history. She had begun to fear that by sending him to a school without “tradition” she might have made a socialist of the boy. When, shortly before the Christmas vacation, work was found for Tom she took charge of his notes,HOMEPAGE. “I am sure Gervase will be extremely interested,” she said. “He may even think it worth showing to a publisher.”