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Title: The Pillars of the House, V1
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6331]
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[This file was first posted on November 27, 2002]
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This etext of The Pillars of the House was prepared by Sandra Laythorpe,
menorot@menorot.com. A web page for Charlotte M Yonge will be found
at http://www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm
THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE
OR
UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
VOL. I
ILLUSTRATED BY HERBERT GANDY
CONTENTS TO VOL. I.
CHAP.
I. THE BIRTH-DAY GIFT
II. THE PICNIC
III. FORTUNATUS' PURSE
IV. TWILIGHT AND DAWN
V. WORKING FOR BREAD
VI. THE CACIQUE
VII. THE CHESS-PLAYER'S BATTLE
VIII. THE HOME
IX. THE THIRTEEN
X. THE FAMILY COBWEB ON THE MOVE
XI. THE CHORAL FESTIVAL
XII. GIANT DESPAIR'S CASTLE
XIII. PEGASUS IN HARNESS
XIV. WHAT IT MAY LEAD TO
XV. WHAT IT LED TO
XVI. THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT
XVII. MIDSUMMER SUN
XVIII. BY THE RIVER
XIX. THE HOUSE WITHOUT PILLARS
XX. VALE LESTON
XXI. A KETTLE OF FISH
XXII. THE REAL THING AND NO MISTAKE
XXIII. SMOKE-JACK ALLEY
THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE
OR
UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE
CHAPTER I
THE BIRTHDAY GIFT
'O I've got a plum-cake, and a feast let us make,
Come, school-fellows, come at my call;
I assure you 'tis nice, and we'll all have a slice,
Here's more than enough for us all.'
JANE TAYLOR.
'It is come! Felix, it is come!'
So cried, shouted, shrieked a chorus, as a street door was torn open
to admit four boys, with their leathern straps of books over their
shoulders. They set up a responsive yell of 'Jolly! Jolly!' which
being caught up and re-echoed by at least five voices within, caused
a considerable volume of sound in the narrow entry and narrower
staircase, up which might be seen a sort of pyramid of children.
'Where is it?' asked the tallest of the four arrivals, as he soberly
hung up his hat.
'Mamma has got it in the drawing-room, and Papa has been in ever
since dinner,' was the universal cry from two fine-complexioned,
handsome girls, from a much smaller girl and boy, and from a creature
rolling on the stairs, whose sex and speech seemed as yet uncertain.
'And where's Cherry?' was the further question; 'is she there too?'
'Yes, but--' as he laid his hand on the door-- 'don't open the letter
there. Get Cherry, and we'll settle what to do with it.'
'O Felix, I've a stunning notion!'
'Felix, promise to do what I want!'
'Felix, do pray buy me some Turkish delight!'
'Felix, I do want the big spotty horse.'
Such shouts and insinuations, all deserving the epithet of the first,
pursued Felix as he entered a room, small, and with all the contents
faded and worn, but with an air of having been once tasteful, and
still made the best of. Contents we say advisedly, meaning not merely
the furniture but the inmates, namely, the pale wan fragile mother,
working, but with the baby on her knee, and looking as if care and
toil had brought her to skin and bone, though still with sweet eyes
and a lovely smile; the father, tall and picturesque, with straight
handsome features, but with a hectic colour, wasted cheek, and
lustrous eye, that were sad earnests of the future. He was still
under forty, his wife some years less; and elder than either in its
expression of wasted suffering was the countenance of the little girl
of thirteen years old who lay on the sofa, with pencil, paper, and
book, her face with her mother's features exaggerated into a look at
once keen and patient, all three forming a sad contrast to the solid
exuberant health on the other side the door.
Truly the boy who entered was a picture of sturdy English vigour,
stout-limbed, rosy-faced, clear eyed, open, and straight-forward
looking, perhaps a little clumsy with the clumsiness of sixteen,
especially when conscience required tearing spirits to be subdued to
the endurance of the feeble. It was, however, a bright congratulating
look that met him from the trio. The little girl started up, 'Your
sovereign's come, Felix!'
The father showed his transparent-looking white teeth in a merry
laugh. 'Here are the galleons, you boy named in a lucky hour! How
many times have you spent them in fancy?'
The mother held up the letter, addressed to Master Felix Chester
Underwood, No. 8 St. Oswald's Buildings, Bexley, and smiled as she
said, 'Is it all right, my boy?'
'They want me to open it outside, Mamma!--Come, Whiteheart, we want
you at the council.'
And putting his arm round his little sister Geraldine's waist, while
she took up her small crutch, Felix disappeared with her, the mother
looking wistfully after them, the father giving something between a
laugh and a sigh.
'Then you decide against speaking to him,' said Mrs. Underwood.
'Poor children, yes. A little happiness will do them a great deal
more good than the pound would do to us. The drops that will fill
their little cup will but be lost in our sea.'
'Yes, I like what comes from Vale Leston to be still a festive
matter,' said Mrs. Underwood; 'and at least we are sure the dear boy
will never spend it selfishly. It only struck me whether he would not
enjoy finding himself able to throw something into the common stock.'
'He would, honest lad,' said Mr. Underwood; 'but, Mamma, you are very
hard-hearted towards the rabble. Even if this one pound would provide
all the shoes and port wine that are pressing on the maternal mind,
the stimulus of a day's treat would be much more wholesome.'
'But not for you,' said his wife.
'Yes for me. If the boy includes us old folks in his festivity, it
will be as good as a week's port wine. You doubt, my sweet Enid. Has
not our long honeymoon at Vale Leston helped us all this time?' Her
name was Mary, but having once declared her to be a woman made of the
same stuff as Enid, he had made it his pet title for her.
Mrs. Underwood's thoughts went far away into the long ago of Vale
Leston. She could hardly believe that nine years only had passed
since that seven-years' honeymoon. She was a woman of the fewest
possible words, and her husband generally answered her face instead
of her voice.
Vale Leston had promised to be an ample provision when Edward
Underwood had resigned his fellowship to marry the Rector's niece and
adopted daughter, his own distant cousin, with the assurance of being
presented to the living hereafter, and acting in the meantime as
curate. It was a family living, always held conjointly with a
tolerably good estate, enough to qualify the owner for the dangerous
position of 'squarson,' as no doubt many a clerical Underwood had
been ever since their branch had grown out from the stem of the elder
line, which had now disappeared. These comfortable quarters had
seemed a matter of certainty, until the uncle died suddenly and with
a flaw in his will, so that the undesirable nephew and heir-at-law
whom he had desired to exclude, a rich dissipated man, son to a
brother older than the father of the favourite niece, had stepped in,
and differing in toto from Edward Underwood, had made his own son
take orders for the sake of the living, and it had been the effort of
the young wife ever since not to disobey her husband by showing that
it had been to her the being driven out of paradise.
ASSISTANT CURACY.--A Priest of Catholic opinions is needed at a town
parish. Resident Rector and three Curates. Daily Prayers. Choral
Service on Sundays and Holy-days. Weekly Communion.--Apply to
P. C. B., St. Oswald's Rectory, Bexley.
Every one knows the sort of advertisement which had brought Mr.
Underwood to Bexley, as a place which would accord with the doctrines
and practices dear to him. Indeed, apart from the advertisement,
Bexley had a fame. A great rubrical war had there been fought out by
the Rector of St. Oswald's, and when he had become a colonial Bishop,
his successor was reported to have carried on his work; and the
beauty of the restored church, and the exquisite services, were so
generally talked of, that Mr. Underwood thought himself fortunate in
obtaining the appointment. Mr. Bevan too, the Rector, was an
exceedingly courteous, kindly-mannered man, talking in a soft low
voice in the most affectionate and considerate manner, and with good
taste and judgment that exceedingly struck and pleased the new
curate. It was the more surprise to him to find the congregations
thin, and a general languor and indifference about the people who
attended the church. There was also a good deal of opposition in the
parish, some old sullen seceders who went to a neighbouring
proprietary chapel, many more of erratic tastes haunted the places of
worship of the numerous sects, who swarmed in the town, and many more
were living in a state of town heathenism.
It was not long before the perception of the cause began to grow upon
Mr. Underwood. The machinery was perfect, but the spring was failing;
the salt was there, but where was the savour? The discourses he heard
from his rector were in one point of view faultless, but the old
Scottish word 'fushionless' would rise into his thoughts whenever
they ended, and something of effect and point was sure to fail; they
were bodies without souls, and might well satisfy a certain excellent
solicitor, who always praised them as 'just the right medium, sober,
moderate, and unexciting.'
In the first pleasure of a strong, active, and enterprising man, at
finding his plans unopposed by authority, Mr. Underwood had been
delighted with his rectory ready consent to whatever he undertook,
and was the last person to perceive that Mr. Bevan, though objecting
to nothing, let all the rough and tough work lapse upon his curates,
and took nothing but the graceful representative part. Even then, Mr.
Underwood had something to say in his defence; Mr. Bevan was
valetudinarian in his habits, and besides--he was in the midst of a
courtship--after his marriage he would give his mind to his parish.
For Mr. Bevan, hitherto a confirmed and rather precise and luxurious
bachelor, to the general surprise, married a certain Lady Price, the
young widow of an old admiral, and with her began a new regime.
My Lady, as every one called her, since she retained her title and
name, was by no means desirous of altering the ornamental
arrangements in church, which she regarded with pride; but she was
doubly anxious to guard her husband's health, and she also had the
sharpest eye to the main chance. Hitherto, whatever had been the
disappointments and shortcomings at the Rectory, there had been free-
handed expenditure, and no stint either in charity or the expenses
connected with the service; but Lady Price had no notion of taking on
her uncalled-for outlay. The parish must do its part, and it was
called on to do so in modes that did not add to the Rector's
popularity. Moreover, the arrangements were on the principle of
getting as much as possible out of everybody, and no official failed
to feel the pinch. The Rector was as bland, gentle, and obliging as
ever; but he seldom transacted any affairs that he could help; and in
the six years that had elapsed since the marriage, every person
connected with the church had changed, except Mr. Underwood.
Yet perhaps as senior curate, he had felt the alteration most
heavily. He had to be, or to refuse to be, my Lady's instrument in
her various appeals; he came in for her indignation at wastefulness,
and at the unauthorised demands on the Rector; he had to feel what it
was to have no longer unlimited resources of broth and wine to fall
back upon at the Rectory; he had to supply the shortcomings of the
new staff brought in on lower terms--and all this, moreover, when his
own health and vigour were beginning to fail.
Lady Price did not like him or his family. They were poor, and she
distrusted the poor; and what was worse, she knew they were better
born and better bred than herself, and had higher aims. Gentle Mrs.
Underwood, absorbed in household cares, no more thought of rivalry
with her than with the Queen; but the soft movement, the low voice,
the quiet sweep of the worn garments, were a constant vexation to my
Lady, who having once pronounced the curate's wife affected, held to
her opinion. With Mr. Underwood she had had a fight or two, and had
not conquered, and now they were on terms of perfect respect and
civility on his side, and of distance and politeness on hers. She
might talk of him half contemptuously, but she never durst show
herself otherwise than civil, though she was always longing to bring
in some more deferential person in his place, and, whenever illness
interfered with his duties, she spoke largely to her friends of the
impropriety of a man's undertaking what he could not perform.
One of her reductions had been the economising the third curate,
while making the second be always a neophyte, who received his title
for Orders, and remained his two years upon a small stipend.
The change last Easter, which had substituted a deacon for a priest,
had fallen heavily on Mr. Underwood, and would have been heavier
still, but that the new comer, Charles Audley, had attached himself
warmly to him. The young man was the son of a family of rank and
connection, and Lady Price's vanity was flattered by obtaining his
assistance; but her vexation was proportionably excited by his
preference for the Underwood household, where, in truth--with all its
poverty--he found the only atmosphere thoroughly congenial to him in
all the parish of St. Oswald's.
Speedily comprehending the state of things, he put his vigorous young
shoulder to the wheel, and, full of affectionate love and admiration
for Mr. Underwood, spared himself nothing in the hope of saving him
fatigue or exertion, quietly gave up his own holidays, was always at
his post, and had hitherto so far lightened Mr. Underwood's toil,
that he was undoubtedly getting through this summer better than the
last, for his bodily frame had long been affected by the increased
amount of toil in an ungenial atmosphere, and every access of cold
weather had told on him in throat and chest attacks, which, with
characteristic buoyancy, he would not believe serious. He never
deemed himself aught but 'better,' and the invalid habits that crept
on him by stealth, always seemed to his brave spirit consequent on a
day's extra fatigue, or the last attention to a departing cough.
Alas! when every day's fatigue was extra, the cough always
depart_ing_, never depart_ed_.
Yet, though it had become a standing order in the house, that for an
hour after papa came in from his rounds, no one of the children
should be in the drawing-room, except poor little lame Geraldine, who
was permanently established there; and that afterwards, even on
strong compulsion, they should only come in one by one, as quietly as
possible, he never ceased to apologise to them for their banishment
when he felt it needful, and when he was at ease, would renew the
merriment that sometimes cost him dear.
The children had, for the most part, inherited that precious heirloom
of contentment and elasticity, and were as happy in nooks and corners
in bedroom, nursery, staircase or kitchen, as they could have been in
extensive play-rooms and gardens.
See them in full council upon the expenditure of the annual gift that
an old admiral at Vale Leston, who was godfather to Felix, was wont
to send the boy on his birthday--that third of July, which had seemed
so bright, when birthdays had begun in the family, that no name save
Felix could adequately express his parent's feelings.
Mr. and Mrs. Underwood had fancies as to nomenclature; and that
staircaseful of children rejoiced in eccentric appellations. To begin
at the bottom--here sat on a hassock, her back against the wall, her
sharp old fairy's face uplifted, little Geraldine, otherwise Cherry,
a title that had suited her round rosiness well, till after the first
winter at Bexley, when the miseries of a diseased ancle-joint had set
in, and paled her into the tender aliases of White-heart, or Sweet-
heart. She was, as might be plainly seen in her grey eyes, a clever
child; and teaching her was a great delight to her father, and often
interested him when he was unequal to anything else. Her dark
eyebrows frowned with anxiety as she lifted up her little pointed
chin to watch sturdy frank-faced Felix, who with elaborate slowness
dealt with the envelope, tasting slowly of the excitement it created,
and edging away from the baluster, on which, causing it to contribute
frightful creaks to the general Babel, were perched numbers 4, 6, 7,
and 8, to wit, Edgar, Clement, Fulbert, and Lancelot, all three
handsome, blue-eyed, fair-faced lads. Indeed Edgar was remarkable,
even among this decidedly fine-looking family. He had a peculiarly
delicate contour of feature and complexion, though perfectly healthy;
and there was something of the same expression, half keen, half
dreamy, as in Geraldine, his junior by one year; while the grace of
all the attitudes of his slender lissome figure showed to advantage
beside Felix's more sturdy form, and deliberate or downright
movements; while Clement was paler, slighter, and with rather
infantine features, and shining wavy brown hair, that nothing ever
seemed to ruffle, looked so much as if he ought to have been a girl,
that Tina, short for Clementina, was his school name. Fulbert, stout,
square, fat-cheeked, and permanently rough and dusty, looked as if he
hardly belonged to the rest.
The four eldest were day-scholars at the city grammar-school; but
Lancelot, a bright-faced little fellow in knickerbockers, was a pupil
of whoever would or could teach him at home, as was the little girl
who was clinging to his leg, and whose name of Robina seemed to have
moulded her into some curious likeness to a robin-redbreast, with her
brown soft hair, rosy cheeks, bright merry eyes, plump form, and
quick loving audacity. Above her sat a girl of fifteen, with the
family features in their prettiest development--the chiseled straight
profile, the clear white roseately tinted skin, the large well-opened
azure eyes, the profuse glossy hair, the long, slender, graceful
limbs, and that pretty head leant against the knees of her own very
counterpart; for these were Wilmet and Alda, the twin girls who had
succeeded Felix, and whose beauty had been the marvel of Vale Leston,
their shabby dress the scorn of the day school at Bexley. And forming
the apex of the pyramid, perched astride on the very shoulders of
much-enduring Wilmet, was three years old Angela--Baby Bernard being
quiescent in a cradle near mamma. N.B.--Mrs. Underwood, though her
girls had such masculine names, had made so strong a protest against
their being called by boyish abbreviations, that only in one case had
nature been too strong for her, and Robina had turned into Bobbie.
Wilmet's second name being Ursula, she was apt to be known as 'W.'W.
'Make haste, Felix, you intolerable boy! don't be so slow!'
cried Alda.
'Is there a letter?' inquired Wilmet.
Yes, more's the pity!' said Felix. 'Now I shall have to answer it.'
'I'll do that, if you'll give me what's inside,' said Edgar.
'Is it there?' exclaimed Cherry, in a tone of doubt, that sent an
electric thrill of dismay through the audience; Lance nearly toppling
over, to the horror of the adjacent sisters, and the grave rebuke of
Clement.
'If it should be a sell!' gasped Fulbert.
'Suppose it were,' said Felix gravely.
'Then, said Edgar, 'you can disown the old rogue Chester.'
'What stuff!' interposed Clement.
'I'd cut him out of my will on the spot,' persisted Edgar.
'But it is all right,' said Cherry, looking with quiet certainty into
her brother's face; and he nodded and coloured at the same time.
'But it is not a pretty one,' said little Robina. 'Last year it was
green, and before that red; and this is nasty stupid black and white,
and all thin crackling paper.'
Felix laughed, and held up the document.
'What!' cried Fulbert. 'Five! Why, 'tisn't only five shillings! the
horrid old cheat!'
'It's a five-pound note!' screamed Cherry. 'I saw one when Papa went
to the bank! O Felix, Felix!'
A five-pound note! It seemed to take away the breath of those who
knew what it meant, and then an exulting shout broke forth.
'Well,' said Edgar solemnly, 'old Chester is a brick! Three cheers
for him!'
Which cheers having been perpetrated with due vociferation, the cry
began, 'O Felix, what will you do with it?'
'Buy a pony!' cried Fulbert.
'A rocking-horse,' chirped Robina.
'Punch every week,' shouted Lance.
'A knife apiece,' said Fulbert.
'How can you all be so selfish?' pronounced Clement. 'Now a harmonium
would be good to us all.'
'Then get some cotton, for our ears into the bargain, if Tina is to
play on it,' said Edgar.
'I shall take the note to mother,' said the owner.
'Oh!' screamed all but Wilmet and Cherry, 'that's as bad as not
having it at all!'
Maybe Felix thought so, for it was with a certain gravity and
solemnity of demeanour that he entered the drawing-room, causing his
father to exclaim, 'How now? No slip between cup and lip? Not
infelix, Felix?'
'No, papa, but it's this and I thought I ought to bring it.'
The dew at once was in the mother's eyes, as she sprang up and kissed
the boy's brow, saying, 'Felix, dear, don't show it to me. You were
meant to be happy with it. Go and be so.'
'Stay,' said Mr. Underwood, Felix will really enjoy helping us to
this extent more than any private expenditure. Is it not so, my boy?
Well then, I propose that the sovereign of old prescriptive right
should go to his menus plaisirs, and the rest to something needful;
but he shall say to what. Said I well, old fellow?'
'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Felix ardently.
'Thank me for permission to do as you will with your own?' smiled Mr.
Underwood.
'You will choose, then, Felix?' said his mother wistfully, her
desires divided between port wine for papa and pale ale for
Geraldine.
'Yes, mamma,' was the prompt answer. 'Then, please, let Wilmet and
Alda be rigged out fresh for Sundays.'
'Wilmet and Alda!' exclaimed Mamma.
'Yes, I should like that better than anything, please,' said the boy.
'All our fellows say they would be the prettiest girls in all Bexley,
if they were properly dressed; and those horrid girls at Miss
Pearson's lead them a life about those old black hats.'
'Poor dears! I have found Alda crying when she was dressing for
church,' mused Mrs. Underwood; 'and though I have scolded her, I
could have cried too, to think how unlike their girlhood is to mine.'
'And if you went to fetch them home from school, you would know how
bad it is, Mamma,' said Felix. 'Wilmet does not mind it, but Alda
cries, and the sneaking girls do it the more; and they are girls; so
one can't lick them; and they have not all got brothers.'
'To be licked instead!' said Mr. Underwood, unable to help being
amused.
'Well, yes, Papa; and so you see it would be no end of a comfort to
make them look like the rest.'
'By all means, Felix. The ladies can tell how far your benefaction
will go; but as far as it can accomplish, the twins shall be
resplendent. Now then, back to your anxious clients. Only tell me
first how my kind old friend the Admiral is.'
'Here's his letter, Father; I quite forgot to read it.'
'Some day, I hope, you will know him enough to care for him
personally. Now you may be off.--Nay, Enid, love, your daughters
could not have lived much longer without clothes to their backs.'
'Oh, yes, it must have been done,' sighed the poor mother; 'but I
fancied Felix would have thought of you first.'
'He thought of troubles much more felt than any of mine. Poor
children! the hard apprenticeship will serve them all their lives.'
Meantime Felix returned with the words, 'Hurrah! we are to have the
sovereign just as usual; and all the rest is to go to turn out Wilmet
and Alda like respectable young females.--Hollo, now!'
For Alda had precipitated herself downstairs, to throttle him with
her embraces; while Cherry cried out, 'That's right! Oh, do get those
dear white hats you told me about;' but the public, even there a
many-headed monster thing, was less content.
'What, all in girls' trumpery?' 'That's the stupidest sell I ever
heard of!' 'Oh, I did so want a pony!' were the cries of the boys.
Even Robina was so far infected as to cry, 'I wanted a ride.'
And Wilmet reproachfully exclaimed, 'O Felix, you should have got
something for Papa. Don't you know, Mr. Rugg said he ought to have a
respirator. It is a great shame.'
'I don't think he would have let me, Wilmet,' said Felix, looking up;
'and I never thought of it. Besides, I can't have those girls making
asses of themselves at you.'
'Oh no, don't listen to Wilmet!' cried Alda. 'You are the very best
brother in all the world! Now we shall be fit to be seen at the break
up. I don't think I could have played my piece if I knew every one
was looking at my horrid old alpaca.'
'And there'll be hats for Cherry and Bobbie too!' entreated Wilmet.
'Oh, don't put it into their heads!' gasped Alda.
'No, I'll have you two fit to be seen first, said Felix.
'Well, it's a horrid shame,' grumbled Fulbert; 'we have always all
gone shares in Felix's Birthday tip.'
'So you do now,' said Felix; 'there's the pound all the same as
usual.'
That pound was always being spent in imagination; and the voices
broke out again.
'Oh, then Papa can have the respirator!'
'Felix, the rocking-horse!'
'Felix, do get us three little cannon to make a jolly row every
birthday!'
'Felix, do you know that Charlie Froggatt says he would sell that big
Newfoundland for a pound? and that would be among us all.'
'Nonsense, Fulbert! a big dog is always eating; but there is a
concertina at Lake's.'
'Tina--tina--concertina! But, I say, Fee, there's Whiteheart been
wishing her heart out all the time for a real good paint-box.'
'Oh, never mind that, Ed; no one would care for one but you and me,
and the little ones would spoil all the paints.'
'Yes, resumed Wilmet, from her throne,--'it would be the worry of
one's life to keep the little ones off them; and baby would be
poisoned to a dead certainty. Now the respirator--'
'Now the concertina--'
'Now Punch--'
'Now the dog--'
'Now the rocking-horse--'
'Now the cannon--'
'I'll tell you what,' said Felix, 'I've settled how it is to be.
We'll get John Harper's van, and all go out to the Castle, with a
jolly cold dinner--yes, you, Cherry, and all; Ed and I will carry
you--and dine on the grass, and--'
A chorus of shouts interrupted him, all ecstatic, and rendered more
emphatic by the stamping of feet.
'And Angela will go!' added. Wilmet.
'And Papa,' entreated Cherry.
'And Mamma too, if she will,' said Felix.
'And Mr. Audley,' pronounced Robina, echoed by Clement and Angela.
'Mr. Audley must go!'
'Mr. Audley!' grunted Felix. 'I want nobody but ourselves.'
'Yes, and if he went we could not stay jolly late. My Lady would make
no end of a row if both curates cut the evening prayers.'
'For shame, Edgar!' cried the three elder girls.
While Wilmet added, 'We could not stay late, because of Papa and the
little ones. But I don't want Mr. Audley, either.'
'No, no! Papa and he will talk to each other, and be of no use,' said
Geraldine. 'Oh, how delicious! Will the wild-roses be out? When shall
it be, Felix?'
'Well, the first fine day after school breaks up, I should say.'
'Hurrah! hurrah!'
And there was another dance, in the midst of which Mr. Underwood
opened the door, to ask what honourable member was receiving such
deafening cheers.
'Here! here he is, Papa!' cried Alda. 'He is going to take us all out
to a picnic in the Castle woods; and won't you come, Papa?'
'O Papa, you will come!' said Felix. And the whole staircase bawled
in accordance.
'Come! to be sure I will!' said his father; 'and only too glad to be
asked! I trust we shall prove to have found the way to get the
maximum of pleasure out of Admiral Chester's gift.'
'If Mamma will go,' said Felix. 'I wonder what the van will cost, and
what will be left for the dinner.'
'Oh, let us two cook the whole dinner,' entreated the twins.
'Wait now,' said Felix. 'I didn't know it was so late, Father.' And
he carefully helped his father on with his coat; and as a church bell
made itself heard, set forth with him.
When the service was musical, Felix and his two next brothers both
formed part of the choir; and though this was not the case on this
evening, Felix knew that his mother was easier when he or Wilmet
could watch over Papa's wraps.
And Mamma herself, with one at least of the twins, was busy enough in
giving the lesser ones their supper, and disposing of them in bed, so
that the discreet alone might remain to the later tea-drinking.
And 'Sibby' must be made a sharer of the good news in her lower
region, though she was sure to disbelieve in Alda and Wilmet's
amateur cookery.
Sibby was Wilmet's foster-mother. Poor thing! Mr. Underwood had found
her in dire need in the workhouse, a child herself of seventeen with
a new-born babe, fresh from the discovery that the soldier-husband,
as she thought, and who had at least gone before the praste with
her,' and brought her from her Kilkenny home, was previously husband
to another woman. She was tenderly cared for by Mr. Underwood's
mother, who was then alive, and keeping house for the whole party at
the Rectory; and having come into the Vale Leston nursery, she never
left it. Her own child died in teething, and she clung so
passionately to her nursling, that Mrs. Underwood had no heart to
separate them, Roman Catholic though she was, and difficult to
dispose of. She was not the usual talking merry Irishwoman; if ever
she had been such, her heart was broken; and she was always meek,
quiet, subdued, and attentive; forgetful sometimes, but tender and
trustworthy to the last degree with the children.
She had held fast to the family in their reverses, and no more
thought of not sharing their lot than one of their children. Indeed,
it would not have been much more possible to send her out to shift
for herself in England; and her own people seemed to have vanished in
the famine, for her letters, with her savings, came back from the
dead-letter office. She put her shoulder to the burthen, and, with
one small scrub under her, got through an amazing amount of work: and
though her great deep liquid brown eyes looked as pathetic as ever,
she certainly was in far better spirits than when she sat in the
nursery. To be sure, she was a much better nurse than she was a cook;
but as both could not be had, Mrs. Underwood was content and thankful
to have a servant so entirely one with themselves in interests and
affections; and who had the further perfection of never wanting any
society but the children's; shrinking from English gossips, and never
showing a weakness, save for Irish tramps. Moreover, she was a
prodigious knitter; and it was her boast that not one of the six
young gentlemen had yet worn stocking or sock, but what came from her
needles, and had been re-footed by her to the last extremity of wear.
Meantime, Felix and Clement walked with their father to the church.
There it was, that handsome church; the evening sun in slanting beams
coming through the gorgeous west window to the illuminated walls, and
the rich inlaid marble and alabaster of the chancel mellowed by the
pure evening light. The east window, done before glass-painting had
improved, was tame and ill-executed, and there was, even
aesthetically, a strange unsatisfactory feeling in looking at the
heavy, though handsome, incrustations and arcades of dark marble that
formed the reredos. It was all very correct; but it wanted life.
Mr. Bevan was not there, he had gone out to dinner, and the
congregation consisted of some young ladies, old men, and three
little children. Mr. Audley read all, save the Absolution and the
Lessons; and the responses sounded low and feeble in the great
church, though there was one voice among them glad and hearty in
dedicating and entrusting the new year of his life with its unknown
burthen.
Felix had heard sayings and seen looks which, boldly as his sanguine
spirit resisted them, would hang in a heavy boding cloud over his
mind, and were already casting a grave shadow there.
And if the thought of his fivefold gift swelled the fervour of his
'Amen' to the General Thanksgiving, there was another deep heartfelt
Amen, which breathed forth earnest gratitude for the possession of
such a first-born son.
'That is a very good boy,' the father could not help saying to Mr.
Audley, as, on quitting the churchyard, Felix exclaiming, 'Papa, may
I just get it changed and ask about the van?' darted across the
street, with Clement, into a large grocer's shop nearly opposite,
where a brisk evening traffic was going on in the long daylight of
hot July; and he could not but tell of the birthday-gift, and how it
was to be spent. 'Res angusta domi,' he said, with a smile, 'is a
thing to be thankful for, when it has such effects upon a lad.'
'You must add a small taste of example to the prescription,' said Mr.
Audley. 'Is this all the birthday present Felix has had?'
'Well, I believe Cherry gave him one of her original designs; but
birthdays are too numerous for us to stand presents.'
The other curate half-sighed. He was a great contrast--a much smaller
man than his senior, slight, slim, and pale, but with no look of ill-
health about him, brown eyed and haired, and with the indefinable
look about all his appointments and dress, that showed he had lived
in unconscious luxury and refinement all his days. His thoughts went
back to a home, where the only perplexity was how to deal with an
absolute glut of presents, and to his own actual doubts what to send
that youngest sister, who would feel slighted if Charlie sent
nothing, but really could not want anything; a book she would not
read, a jewel could seldom get a turn of being worn, a trinket would
only be fresh lumber for her room. Then he revolved the possibilities
of making Felix a present, without silencing his father's
confidences, and felt that it could not be done in any direct manner
at present; nay, that it could hardly add to the radiant happiness of
the boy, who rushed across the road, almost under the nose of the
railway-omnibus horses, and exclaimed--
'He will let us have it for nothing, Father! He says it would be
hiring it out, and he can't do that: but he would esteem it a great
favour if we would go in it, and not pay anything, except just a
shilling to Harris for a pint of beer. Won't it be jolly, Father?'
'Spicy would be more appropriate,' said Mr. Underwood, laughing, as
the vehicle in question drew up at the shop door, with Mr. Harper's
name and all his groceries inscribed in gold letters upon the awning.
'I'm so glad I thought of Harper's,' continued Felix. 'I asked him
instead of Buff, because I knew Mamma would want it to be covered.
Now there's lots of room; and we boys will walk up all the hills.'
'I hope there is room for me, Felix,' suggested Mr. Audley.
'Or,' suggested Mr. Underwood, 'you might, like John Gilpin, "ride on
horseback after we."'
'Felix looks non-content,' said Mr. Audley. 'I am afraid I was not in
his programme. Speak out--let us have it.'
'Why,' said Felix, looking down, 'our little ones all wanted to have
you; but then we thought we should all be obliged to come home too
soon, unless you took the service for Papa.'
'He certainly ought not to go to church after it,' said Mr. Audley;
'but I can settle that by riding home in good time. What's the day?'
'The day after the girls' break-up, if you please,' said Felix, still
not perfectly happy, but unable to help himself; and manifesting
quite enough reluctance to make his father ask, as soon as they had
parted, what made him so ungracious.
'Only, Papa,' said Felix frankly, 'that we know that you and he will
get into some Church talk, and then you'll be of no use; and we
wanted to have it all to ourselves.'
'Take care, Felix,' said Mr. Underwood; 'large families are apt to
get into a state of savage exclusiveness.'
Felix had to bear the drawback, and the groans it caused from Wilmet,
Edgar, and Fulbert: the rest decidedly rejoiced. And Mr. Underwood
privately confided the objection to his friend, observing merrily
that they would bind themselves by a promise not to talk shop
throughout the expedition.
It was a brilliantly, happy week. Pretty hats, bound with dark blue
velvet, and fresh black silk jackets, were squeezed out of the four
pounds, with the help of a few shillings out of the intended hire of
the van, and were the glory of the whole family, both of those who
were to wear them and those who were not.
On Saturday evening, just as the four elder young people were about
to sally forth to do the marketing for their picnic, a great hamper
made its appearance in the passage, addressed to F. C. Underwood,
Esq., and with nothing to pay. Only there was a note fastened to the
side, saying, 'Dear Felix, pray let the spicy van find room for my
contribution to your picnic. I told my mother to send me what was
proper from home.--C. S. A.'
Mrs. Underwood was dragged out to superintend the unpacking, which
she greatly advised should be merely a surface investigation. That
was quite enough, however, to assure her that for Felix to lay in any
provision, except the tea and the bread she had already promised,
would be entirely superfluous. The girls were disappointed of their
cookery; but derived consolation from the long walk with the
brothers, in which a cake of good carmine and a lump of gamboge were
purchased for Cherry, and two penny dolls for Robina and Angela. What
would become of the rest of the pound?
On Sunday, the offertory was, as usual on ordinary occasions, rather
scanty; but there was one half-sovereign; and Mr. Underwood was
convinced that it had come from under the one white surplice that had
still remained on the choir boys' bench.
He stayed in the vestry after the others to count and take care of
the offerings, and as he took up the gold, he could not but look at
his son, who was waiting for him, and who flushed all over as he met
his eye. 'Yes, Papa, I wanted to tell you--I did grudge it at first,'
he said hoarsely. 'I knew it was the tithe; but it seemed so much
away from them all. I settled that two shillings was the tenth of my
own share, and I would give that to-day; and then came Mr. Harper's
kindness about the van; and next, when I was thinking how I could
save the tenth part without stinting everybody, came all Mr. Audley's
hamper. It is very strange and happy, Papa, and I have still
something left.'
'I believe,' said Mr. Underwood, 'that you will find the considering
the tithe as not your own, is the safest way of keeping poverty from
grinding you, or wealth from spoiling you.'
And very affectionately he leant on his son's shoulder all the way
home; while Mr. Audley was at luncheon at the Rectory with my Lady,
and her twelve years old daughter.
'Mamma,' said Miss Price, 'did you see the Underwoods in new hats?'
'Of course I did, my dear. They were quite conspicuous enough; but
when people make a great deal of their poverty, they always do break
out in the most unexpected ways.'
'They are pretty girls' said the Rector, rather dreamily, 'and I
suppose they must have new clothes sometimes.'
'You will always find,' proceeded Lady Price without regard, 'that
people of that sort have a wonderful eye to the becoming--nothing
economical for them! I am sorry for Mr. Underwood, his wife is
bringing up a set of fine ladies, who will trust to their pretty
looks, and be quite above doing anything for themselves.'
'Do you think Wilmet and Alda Underwood so very pretty, Mr. Audley?'
inquired Miss Price, turning her precocious eyes upon him.
'Remarkably so,' Mr. Audley replied, with a courteous setting-down
tone that was the only thing that ever approached to subduing Miss
Price, and which set her pouting without an answer.
'It is a great misfortune to girls in that station of life to have
that painted-doll sort of beauty,' added my Lady; 'and what was it I
heard about a picnic party?'
'No party, my dear,' replied the Rector, 'only a little fresh air for
the family--a day in Centry Park. Felix spends his birthday present
from his godfather in taking them.'
Ah! I always was sure they had rich friends, though they keep it so
close. Never let me hear of their poverty after this.'
Answers only rendered it worse, so my Lady had it her own way, and
not being known to the public in St. Oswald's Buildings, did not
trouble them much. Yet there was a certain deference to public
opinion there, when Alda was heard pouting, 'Felix, why did you go to
that horrid Harper? Just fancy Miss Price seeing us!'
'Who cares for a stuck-up thing like Miss Price!' growled Felix.
'I don't care for her,' said Edgar; 'but it is just as well to have
some notion of things, and Felix hasn't a grain. Why, all the fellows
will be asking which of us is pepper, and which Souchong! I wouldn't
have Froggatt or Bruce see me in it at no price.'
'Very well, stay at home, then,' said Felix.
'You could have had the waggonet from the Fortinbras Arms,' said
Alda.
'Ay--for all my money, and not for love.'
'For shame, Alda,' said her twin sister; 'how can you be so
ridiculous!'
'You know yourself, Wilmet, it is quite true; if any of the girls see
us, we shall be labelled "The Groceries."'
'Get inside far enough, and they will not see you.'
'Ay, but there'll be that disgusting little Bobbie and Lance sitting
in the front, making no end of row,' said Edgar; 'and the whole place
will know that Mr. Underwood and his family are going out for a spree
in old Harper's van! Pah! I shall walk.'
'So shall I,' said Alda, 'at least till we are out of the town; but
that won't do any good if those children will make themselves so
horridly conspicuous. Could not we have the thing to meet us
somewhere out of town, Felix?'
'And how would you get Cherry there, or Mamma! Or Baby!--No, no, if
you are too genteel for the van, you may walk.'
CHAPTER II
THE PICNIC
'There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin, wrought with horse and hound;
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half-cut down, a pasty costly made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied; last, with these
A flask of cider from his father's vats,
Prime which I knew;--and so we sat and ate.'
TENNYSON.
No. 8 St. Oswald's Buildings was a roomy house, which owed its
cheapness to its situation, this being neither in the genteel nor the
busy part of Bexley. It was tall and red, and possessed a good many
rooms, and it looked out into a narrow street, the opposite side of
which consisted of the long wall of a brewery, which was joined
farther on to that of the stable-yard of the Fortinbras Arms, the
principal hotel, which had been much frequented in old posting days,
and therefore had offices on a large scale. Only their side, however,
was presented to St. Oswald's Buildings, the front, with its arched
'porte cochere,' being in the High Street, as it was still called,
though it was a good deal outshone by the newer part of the town.
The next-door neighbours of No. 8 were on the one hand a carpenter's
yard, the view of which was charming to the children, and the noises
not too obnoxious to their parents, and on the other the rectory
garden, which separated them from the churchyard, now of course
disused. It had no entrance towards their lane, and to reach the
church, it was necessary to turn the corner of the wall, and go in
through the south porch, which opened close upon the High Street.
In this old street lay the two buildings that chiefly concerned the
young Underwoods, i.e. the two schools. That for boys was an old
foundation, which had fallen into decay, and had been reformed and
revivified in nineteenth-century fashion, to suit the requirements of
the town. The place, though in the south of England, had become noted
as a pottery, owing partly to the possession of large fields of a
peculiar clay, which was so bad for vegetable growth as to proclaim
its destiny to become pots and pans, partly to its convenient
neighbourhood to the rising seaport of Dearport, which was only an
hour from it by railway. The old St. Oswald's school had been moulded
under the influence of newcomers, who had upset the rules of the
founder, and arranged the terms on the broadest principles of
liberality, bringing, instead of the drowsy old clerical master, a
very brisk and lively young layman, who had a knack of conveying
instruction of multifarious kinds such as had never occurred to his
predecessor.
Mr. Underwood had a certain liking for the man, and when tolerably
well, enjoyed the breaking a lance with him over his many crude
heterodoxies; but he did not love the school, and as long as he was
able had taught his boys himself, and likewise taken a few day-pupils
of the upper ranks, who were preparing for public schools. But when
his failure of health rendered this impracticable, the positive evil
of idleness was, he felt greater than any possible ones that might
arise from either the teaching or the associations of the town
school, and he trusted to home influence to counteract any such
dangers. Or perhaps more truly he dreaded lest his own reluctance
might partly come from prejudice in favour of gentlemen and public
schools: and that where a course seemed of absolute necessity,
Providence became a guard in its seeming perils. Indeed, that which
he disapproved in Mr. Ryder's school was more of omission than
commission. It was that secularity was the system, rather than the
substance of that secularity.
So Felix and Edgar went to school, and were in due time followed by
Clement and Fulbert; and their bright wits, and the educated
atmosphere of their home, made their career brilliant and successful.
Mr. Ryder was greatly pleased to have got the sons of a man whom he
could not but admire and respect, and was anxious that the boys
should be the means of conquering the antiquated prejudices in favour
of exclusiveness at school.
Felix and Edgar were neck and neck, carrying off all the prizes of
the highest form but one--Felix, those that depended on industry and
accuracy; Edgar, those that could be gained by readiness and
dexterity. Both were to be promoted to the upper form; and Mr. Ryder
called upon their father in great enjoyment of their triumph, and
likewise to communicate his confident certainty that they would do
him and Bexley credit by obtaining the most notable scholarships of
the University. Mr. Underwood was not a little delighted, grateful
for the cordial sympathy, and he fully agreed that his own lads had
benefited by the clear vigorous teaching they had received; but
though he smiled and allowed that they had taken no harm, he said
good-humouredly that 'Of course, he must consider that as the proof
of his own powers of counteraction.'
'Exactly so,' said the schoolmaster. 'All we wish is, that each home
should exercise its powers of counteraction. We do the teaching, you
form the opinions.'
'Oh! are we parents still to be allowed to form the opinions?'
'If you _will_. Your house is your castle, and the dungeons there may
be what you will.'
'Well, I cannot have a quarrel with you to-day, Ryder! As long as I
can show up my boys as tokens of God's blessing on their home, you
are welcome to them as instances of wits well sharpened by thorough
good instruction.'
Mrs. Underwood had likewise had a congratulatory visit that was very
gratifying. The girls' school, a big old red house, standing back
from the road at the quietest end of the town, was kept by two
daughters of a former clergyman, well educated and conscientious
women, whom she esteemed highly, and who gave a real good grounding
to all who came under their hands, going on the opposite principle to
Mr. Ryder's and trying to supply that which the homes lacked.
And they did often succeed in supplying it, though their scholars
came from a class where there was much to subdue, and just at present
their difficulties had been much increased by their having been
honoured by the education of Miss Price. Seven governesses in
succession had proved incapable of bearing with Lady Price; and the
young lady had in consequence been sent to Miss Pearson's, not
without an endeavour on her mother's part to obtain an abatement in
terms in honour of the eclat of her rank.
There her airs proved so infectious, that, as Miss Pearson said, the
only assistance she had in lessening their evil influence was the
perfect lady-likeness of the Underwood twins, and the warm affection
that Wilmet inspired. Alda headed a sort of counter party against
Caroline Price, which went on the principle of requiting scorn with
scorn, but Wilmet's motherly nature made her the centre of attraction
to all the weak and young, and her uprightness bore many besides
herself through the temptation to little arts. Both sisters had
prizes, Alda's the first and best, and Miss Pearson further offered
to let Wilmet pay for her own studies and those of a sister, by
becoming teacher to the youngest class, and supervisor during the
mid-day recreation, herself and her sister dining at school.
It was a handsome offer for such a young beginner, and the mother's
eyes filled with tears of pleasure; and yet there was a but--
'Not come home to dinner!' cried the children. 'Can't it be Alda
instead of Wilmet? We do always want Wilmet so, and Alda would do
just as well at school.'
Alda too was surprised; for was not she more regular and more forward
than her twin sister, who was always the one to be kept at home when
any little emergency made Mamma want the aid of an elder daughter?
And the mother would almost have asked that Alda might be the chosen
governess pupil, if Mr. Underwood had not said, 'No, my dear, Miss
Pearson must have her own choice. It is a great kindness, and must be
accepted as such. I suppose Robina must be the new scholar. My little
pupil will not leave me.'
Geraldine only heard of the alternative, to say, 'I'll be nobody's
pupil but yours, Papa.'
While Robina was proportionably exalted by her preferment, and took
to teasing every one in the house to hear her spelling and her
tables, that she might not fulfil Edgar's prediction by going down to
the bottom of the baby-class; and up and down the stairs she ran,
chanting in a sing-song measure--
'Twenty pence are one and eightpence,
Thirty pence are two and sixpence,'
and so on, till her father said, smiling, 'Compensations again,
Mother: the less you teach them the more they are willing to learn.
The mother shook her head, and said the theory was more comfortable
than safe, and that she did not find Lancelot an instance of it.
But there was a general sense of having earned the holiday, when the
grocery van came to the door, on a morning of glorious sunshine.
Edgar and Alda, true to their promise, had walked on so far ahead as
to avoid being seen in the town in connection with it; and Fulbert
had started with them to exhale his impatience, but then had turned
back half-way, that he might not lose the delicious spectacle of the
packing of the vehicle. A grand pack it was: first, the precious
hamper; then a long sofa cushion, laid along the bottom; then
Geraldine lifted in by Sibby and Felix, and folded up with shawls,
and propped with cushions by Mamma, whose imagination foresaw more
shaking than did the more youthful anticipation; then Mamma herself,
not with 'little baby,' but with Angela on her lap, and Angela's feet
in all manner of unexpected places; then a roll of umbrellas and
wraps; then Wilmet, Fulbert, Lance, and Robina--nowhere in
particular, and lastly Papa, making room for Clement between himself
and the good-humoured lad of a driver, who had not long ago been a
member of the choir, while Felix, whom nothing could tire on that
day, dived rapidly down a complication of alleys, declaring he should
be up with the walkers long before they were overtaken by the van.
Next appeared Mr. Audley, with his pretty chestnut horse, offering in
the plenitude of his good-nature to give Lance a ride, whereupon
vociferous '_me toos_' resounded from within the curtains; and the
matter was compounded on ride and tie principles, in which the
Underwood juniors got all the ride, and Mr. Audley all the _tie_--if
that consisted in walking and holding the bridle.
By the time the very long and dull suburbs of Bexley were passed,
with their interminable villas and rows of little ten-pound houses--
the children's daily country walk, poor things! the two elder boys
and their sister were overtaken, the latter now very glad to
condescend to the van.
'Oh, how nice to get beyond our tiresome old tether!' she said,
arranging herself a peep-hole between the curtains. 'I am so sick of
all those dusty black beeches, and formal evergreens. How can you
stare at them so, Cherry?'
But Geraldine was in a quiet trance of delight; she had never spoken
a word since she had first found a chink in the awning, but had
watched with avid eyes the moving panorama of houses, gardens, trees,
flowers, carriages, horses, passengers, nursemaids, perambulators,
and children. It was all a perfect feast to the long-imprisoned eyes,
and the more charming from the dreamy silence in which she gazed.
When Felix came up to the slit through which the bright eyes gleamed,
and asked whether she were comfortable and liked it, her answer was a
long-drawn gasp from the wells of infinite satisfaction, such as set
him calculating how many drives in a bathchair the remnant of his
birthday gift would yet produce.
But there were greater delights, corn-fields touched with amber,
woods sloping up hills, deep lanes edged with luxuriant ferns,
greenery that drove the young folk half mad with delight, and made
them scream to be let out and gather--gather to their hearts'
content. Only Mamma recommended not tiring themselves, but trusting
that Centry Park would afford even superior flowers to those they
passed.
They reached the lodge gate at last. They were known, for the Castle
had been long untenanted, and they, like other inhabitants of Bexley,
had from time to time enjoyed themselves in the Park, but to-day
there was a shadow of demur. The gentleman who was going to buy the
place was looking over it--but surely--
Horror began to spread over the inmates of the van.
'But did you come by appointment, sir?' added the gatekeeper's wife,
coming out; 'the gentleman's name is Mr. Underwood.'
Mr. Underwood was obliged to disclaim any appointment; but he looked
round at the children's blank faces, and saw lips quivering, and eyes
gazing wistfully into the paradise of green shade, and added, 'If the
gentleman has not actually bought it, he could not object. We do not
wish to go near the house.'
'Maybe Mr. Audley, who was standing near the gate, added another more
substantial argument, for 'Oh, certainly, sir,' at once followed; and
the van was allowed to turn down a gravelled road, which skirted an
extensive plantation.
Every one now left it, except Mrs. Underwood, Cherry, and Angela; and
the children began to rush and roll in wild delight on the grassy
slope, and to fill their hands with the heather and ling, shrieking
with delight. Wilmet had enough to do to watch over Angela in her
toddling, tumbling felicity; while Felix, weighted with Robina on his
back, Edgar, Fulbert, Clement, and Lance, ran in and out among the
turf; and Alda, demurely walking by her papa, opined that it was
'very odd that the gentleman's name should be Underwood.'
'Less odd than if it was Upperwood,' said her father, as if to throw
aside the subject; and then, after a few moments' thought, and an odd
little smile, as if at some thought within himself, he began to hand
in flowers to Cherry, and to play with little Angela. Mr. Audley had
gone to put up his horse at the village inn, and did not join the
party again till they had reached what the children called Picnic
Hollow--a spot where a bank suddenly rose above a bright dimpling
stream with a bed of rock, the wood opening an exquisite vista under
its beech trees beyond, and a keeper's lodge standing conveniently
for the boiling of kettles.
Here the van was disposed of, the horses taken out and provided with
food, Cherry carried to a mossy throne under a glorious beech tree,
and the hampers unpacked by Mamma and Wilmet, among much capering and
dancing of the rest of the family and numerous rejected volunteers of
assistance. Felix and Alda were allowed to spread the table-cloth and
place the dishes, but Edgar was only entreated to keep the rest out
of the way.
Meanwhile, Geraldine sat under the silvery bole of her beech tree,
looking up through its delicate light green leaves to the blue sky,
not even wanting to speak, lest anything should break that perfection
of enjoyment. Her father watched the little pale absorbed
countenance, and as Mr. Audley came up, touched him to direct his
attention to the child's expression; but the outcry of welcome with
which the rest greeted the newcomer was too much for even Cherry's
trance, and she was a merry child at once, hungry with unwonted
appetite, and so relishing her share of the magnificent standing-pie,
that Mrs. Underwood reproved herself for thinking what the poor child
would be if she had such fare and such air daily, instead of ill-
dressed mutton in the oppressive smoke-laden atmosphere.
And meantime, Lance was crowing like a cock, and the other boys were
laughing at Robina for her utter ignorance of the white-fleshed biped
she was eating.
'No, Clem, chickens have got feathers and wings, and their long necks
hang down! This can't be one of them.'
'Perhaps it is a robin-redbreast,' said Felix.
'No, nobody kills robin-redbreasts, because they covered the poor
little children with leaves.'
'Will you cover me with leaves, if I am lost, Bobbie?' said Mr.
Audley; but as soon as she found that his attention was gained, she
returned to the charge.
'Please, did it come from your own home? and what is it, really?'
'Why, Bobbie, I am hardly prepared to say whether it is a Hamburg or
a Houdan, or a more unambitious Dorking. Cannot you eat in comfort
without being certified?'
'The species will be enough for her without the varieties,' said her
father. 'You have given us a new experience, you see, Audley, and we
may make a curious study of contrasts--not of Audley and myself
Mother dear, but of the two Underwoods who seem to be in this place
together to-day.'
'Who is it?' was of course the cry, and the inquiry was in Mrs.
Underwood's eyes, though it did not pass her quiet lips. It was to
her that he answered, 'Yes, my dear--Tom; I have little doubt that it
is he. He was a very rich man when last I heard of him.'
'Is that the man at Vale Leston?' whispered Alda to Felix.
'Oh, I hope he is not coming here to insult us.'
'Bosh!' said Felix; 'that man's name is Fulbert. Listen, if you want
to hear.'
'Twenty years ago,' continued Mr. Underwood, 'I thought myself a
prodigiously fine fellow--with my arms full of prizes at Harrow, and
my Trinity scholarship--and could just, in the plenitude of my
presumption, extend a little conceited patronage to that unlucky
dunce, Tom Underwood, the lag of every form, and thankful for a high
stool at old Kedge's. And now my children view a cold fowl as an
unprecedented monster, while his might, I imagine, revel in 'pates
de foie gras.'
'O Papa, but we like you so much better as you are!' cried Geraldine.
'Eh, Cherry!' said Mr. Underwood, 'what say you? Shouldn't you like
me better if I were buying that king beech tree, and all the rest of
it?'
Cherry edged nearer, mastered his hand, and looked up in his face
with a whole soul of negation in her wistful eyes. 'No, no, no--just
as you are,' she whispered.
Some mood of curiosity had come over him, and he turned an
interrogative look elsewhere.
Alda spoke. 'Of course, it would be horrid not to be a clergyman; but
it is a great shame.'
'No,' said Wilmet, 'it can't be a shame for this cousin Tom to have
earned a fortune fairly--if he has; but'--and she pressed her hands
tightly together as she looked at the thin worn faces of her parents-
--'one can't help wishing. Why do things always go hard and wrong?'
and the tears dimmed her bright eyes.
'Because--they _don't_,' said her father, with a half-serious
quaintness that vexed her, and forced her to turn away to let
the tear drop.
Clement said, in his calm voice, 'How can you be all so repining and
foolish!'
And Mr. Underwood, almost in lazy mischief, pursued his experiment.
'Eh, Felix, you are the party most concerned--what say you?'
'Most concerned?' Felix looked up surprised, then recollected
himself. 'I don't care,' he said, with an appearance of gruff
sullenness; but his father could not content himself without
continuing in a semi-teazing tone, 'Don't care--eh? 'Why this Centry
Underwood once belonged to our family--that's the reason Tom is after
it. If I had not scouted old Kedge, you would be prancing about here,
a Harrovian, counting the partridges.'
'Don't!' broke in Felix, with a growl.
'Never fear, Fee'' cried Edgar, with his hand on his brother's
shoulder; if one man got on in life, another may. If one only was
grown up and had the start----' and his blue eyes sparkled.
'I did not know Care's clutch had been so tight,' sighed Mr.
Underwood, half to himself, half to his wife. It is not safe, my
gentle Enid, to try such experiments. Eh!' rousing himself, what's
that? Have the mob there a right to any sentiments?'
'Only,' cried Clement, shouting with laughter, Lance thought you were
wanted to hold a high stool for Jack Ketch.'
'For a green goose!' shouted Lance, indignantly.
'Oh! cried Robina, in the tone of one who had made a scientific
discovery, 'did the goose have a high stool to lay the golden eggs?'
'A most pertinent question, Bobbie, and much more reasonable than
mine,' said Mr Underwood; while his colleague gravely answered, 'Yes,
Bobbie, golden eggs are almost always laid by geese on high stools.'
'I've got a picture of one! It has got a long neck and long legs,
quoth Bobbie.
'It is only a flamingo, you little goose yourself,' cried Clement.
'Here is the golden egg of the present,' said Mr. Underwood,
replenishing the boy's plate with that delicious pie. 'What's that
beverage, Wilmet? Any horrible brew of your own?'
'No, it is out of Mr. Audley's hamper.'
'The universal hamper. It is like the fairy gifts that produced
unlimited eatables. I dreaded cowslip wine or periwinkle broth.'
'No, no, Papa,' sighed Alda, 'we only once made cowslip tea at Vale
Leston.'
'Vale Leston is prohibited for the day.--Master Felix Chester
Underwood, your good health; and the same to the new Underwood of
Centry Underwood.'
'Shall we see him, Papa?' asked Alda.
'If either party desires the gratification, no doubt it will come
about.'
'Shall not you call on him, Papa?'
'Certainly not before he comes. Mother, some of the wonderful bottle-
--ay, you covetous miser of a woman, or I'll make a libation of it
all. Audley, it must have wrung your father's butler's heart to have
thrown away this port on a picnic. What did you tell him to delude
him?'
'Only what was true--that I was to meet a gentleman who was a judge
of the article.'
'For shame!' he answered, laughing. 'What right had you to know that
I knew the taste of Cape from Roriz?'
But his evident enjoyment of the 'good creature' was no small
pleasure to the provider, though it was almost choking to meet the
glistening glance of Mrs. Underwood's grateful eyes, knowing, as she
did, that there were three more such bottles in the straw at the
bottom of the hamper. And when baby Angela had clasped her fat hands,
and, as 'youngest at the board,' 'inclined the head and pronounced
the solemn word,' her father added, 'Gratias Deo, and Grazie a
lei. We must renew our childhood's training, dear Mary--make our bow
and curtesy, and say "Thank you for our good dinner."'
'Thank Felix for our pleasant day,' said Mr. Audley. 'Come, boys,
have a swing! there's a branch too good not to be used; and Ful has
already hung himself up like a two-toed sloth.'
Then began the real festivity--the swinging, the flower and fern
hunting, the drawing, the racing and shouting, the merry calls and
exchange of gay foolish talk and raillery.
Mr. Underwood lay back on a slope of moss, with a plaid beneath him,
and a cushion under his head, and said that the Elysian fields must
have been a prevision of this beech-wood. Mrs. Underwood, with Felix
and Wilmet, tied up the plates, knives, and forks, and then the
mother, taking Angela with her, went to negotiate kettle-boiling at
the cottage. Geraldine would fain have sketched, but the glory and
the beauty, and the very lassitude of delight and novelty, made her
eyes swim with a delicious mist; and Edgar, who had begun when she
did, threw down his pencil as soon as he saw Felix at liberty, and
the two boys rushed away into the wood for a good tearing scramble
and climb, like creatures intoxicated with the freedom of the
greenwood.
After a time they came back, dropping armfuls of loose-strife,
meadow-sweet, blue vetch, and honey-suckle over delighted Cherry; and
falling down by her side, coats off, all gasp and laughter, and
breathless narrative of exploits and adventures, which somehow died
away into the sleepiness due to their previous five-mile walk. Felix
went quite off, lying flat on his back, with his head on Cherry's
little spreading lilac cotton frock, and his mouth wide open, much
tempting Edgar to pop in a pebble; and this being prevented by tender
Cherry in vehement dumb show, Edgar consoled himself by a decidedly
uncomplimentary caricature of him as Giant Blunderbore (a name
derived from Fee, Fa, Fum) gaping for hasty pudding.
'That's a horrid shame!' remonstrated Geraldine. 'Dear old Fee, when
the whole treat is owing to him!'
'It is a tidy little lark for a Blunderbore to have thought of,' said
Edgar. 'Tis a good sort of giant after all, poor fellow!'
'Poor!' said Cherry indignantly. 'Oh, you mean what Papa said--that
he is the greatest loser of us all. I wonder what made him talk in
that way? He never did before.'
'I am sorry for _him_,' said Edgar, indicating his brother. 'He is
famous stuff for a landlord and member of parliament--plenty of wits
and brains--only he wants to be put on a shelf to be got at. Wherever
he is, he'll go on there! Now, a start is all I want! Give me my one
step--and then--O Gerald, some day I'll lift you all up!'
'What's that?' said Felix, waking as the enthusiastic voice was
raised. 'Edgar lifting us all! What a bounce we should an come down
with!'
We were talking of what Papa said at dinner,' explained Cherry. 'What
did you think about it, Fee?'
'I didn't think at all, I wished he hadn't,' said Felix, stretching
himself.
'Why not?' said Cherry, a little ruffled at even Felix wishing Papa
had not.
'There's no use having things put into one's head.'
'O Felix, you don't want to change?' cried Cherry.
'No,' he said; but it was a 'no' in a tone she did not understand.
The change he saw that hardship was working was that from which he
recoiled.
'That's like you, Blunderbore,' said Edgar. 'Now, the very reason I
am glad not to be born a great swell, but only a poor gentleman, is
that so much is open to one; and if one does anything great, it is
all the greater and more credit.'
'Yes,' said Felix, sitting up; 'when you have once got a scholarship,
there will be the whole world before you.'
'Papa got a scholarship,' said Cherry.
'Oh yes!' said Edgar; 'but every one knows what happens to a man that
takes Orders and marries young; and he had the most extraordinary
ill-luck besides! Now, as Ryder says, any man with brains can shine.
And I am only doubting whether to take to scholarship or art! I love
art more than anything, and it is the speediest.'
The conversation was broken, for just then Wilmet was seen peering
about with an anxious, careful eye.
'What is it, my deputy Partlet?' asked her father. 'Which of your
brood are you looking for!'
'I can't see Robina,' said Wilmet anxiously. 'She was swinging just
now, but neither she nor Lance is with the big boys.
'Flown up higher,' said Mr. Underwood, pretending to spy among the
branches. 'Flapsy, come down! Bobbie, where are you!'
A voice answered him; and in another moment Robina and Lance stood
in the glade, and with them a girl newly come to her teens, whom they
pulled forward, crying, 'She says she's our cousin!'
'Indeed,' said Mr. Underwood: 'I am sure you are very much obliged to
her.'
'I am Mary Alda Underwood,' said the girl abruptly; 'and I'm sure
there must be a very naughty boy here. He had put these poor little
things up a tree, and run away.'
'No, no! He only put us up because Tina bothered about it!' screamed
Lance and Robina at once; 'he wasn't naughty. We were being monkeys.'
'Black spider-monkeys,' added Robina.
'And I swung about like a real one, Father,' said Lance, 'and was
trying to get Bobbie down, only she grew afraid.'
'It was ten feet from the ground,' said Mary Alda, impressively, 'and
they had lost their way; but they told me who they were. I'm come
down with my father to see the place.'
Mr. Underwood heartily shook hands with her, thanked her, and asked
where her father was.
'Gone out with the man to see a farm two miles off,' she said. 'He
told me I might stay in the house, or roam where I liked, and I saw
you all looking so happy; I've been watching you this long time.'
'Indeed!' said Mr. Underwood, 'till you captured two of us! Well, we
are obliged for the introduction, especially if you are to be our
neighbour.'
'And my cousins will be friends with me,' continued Mary Alda. 'I'm
all alone, you know.'
'No, I did not know,' said Mr. Underwood. 'Are you the only child?'
'Yes,' she said, looking wistfully at the groups around her; 'and it
is very horrid--oh dear! who is that pretty one? No, there's another
of them!'
Mr. Underwood laughed heartily. 'I suppose you mean Wilmet and Alda,'
he said. 'Come, girls, and see your new cousin--Mary, did you say!--
Your name backward, Alda Mary.'
'Mary,' she repeated. 'Papa calls me Mary, but Mamma wants it to be
Marilda all in one word, because she says it is more distinguished;
but I like a sensible name like other people.'
Mr. Underwood was much amused. He felt he had found a character in
his newly-discovered cousin. She was Underwood all over in his eyes,
used to the characteristic family features, although entirely devoid
of that delicacy and refinement of form and complexion that was so
remarkable in himself and in most of his children, who were all,
except poor little Cherry, a good deal alike, and most of them
handsome. There was a sort of clumsiness in the shape of every
outline, and a coarseness in the colouring, that made her like a bad
drawing of one of his own girls; the eyes were larger, the red of the
cheeks was redder, the lips were thicker, the teeth were irregular;
the figure, instead of being what the French call elance, was
short, high-shouldered, and thick-set, and the head looked too large.
She was over-dressed, too, with a smart hat and spangled feather, a
womanly silk mantle and much-trimmed skirt, from which a heavy
quilling had detached itself, and was trailing on the ground; her
hands were ungloved, and showed red stumpy fingers, but her face had
a bright open honest heartiness of expression, and a sort of resolute
straightforwardness, that attracted and pleased him; and, moreover,
there was something in the family likeness, grotesque as it was, that
could not but arouse a fellow-feeling in his warm and open heart,
which neither neglect nor misfortune had ever chilled.
'I think I should have known you,' he said, smiling. 'Here! let me
introduce you; here is our little lame white-hearted Cherry, and the
twins, as like as two peas. Wilmet, Alda--here!'
'Shall I mend your frock!' was Wilmet's first greeting, as she put
her hand in her pocket, and produced a little housewife.
'Oh, thank you! You've got a needle and thread! What fun!'
'The little ones are very apt to tear themselves, so I like to have
it ready.'
'How delicious! And you mend for them? I wish I had any one to mend
for. Please show me, and let me do it. I tried to tear the nasty
thing off, but it would not come. I wish Mamma would let me wear
sensible print like yours.'
'Are you laughing at us?' said Wilmet rather bluntly.
'No, indeed, not a bit,' said Marilda, or Mary Alda, eagerly. 'If you
only knew how tiresome it all is.'
'What is?'
'Why, being fine--having a governess, and talking French, and
learning to dance, and coming down into the drawing-room. Then
Grandmamma Kedge tells me how she used to run about in pattens, and
feed the chickens, and scrub the floor, and I do so wish I was her.
Can you scrub, and do those nice things?'
'Not a floor,' said Wilmet; 'and we live in the town.'
'So have we done till now; but Papa is going to get this place,
because he says it is family property; and I hope he will, for they
will never be able to screw me up here as they do at home. I say,
which is Fulbert! Won't your father punish him?'
'Oh, no! You should not have told, Marilda. We never tell Papa of
little tricks of the boys.'
But the little darling might have broken her neck.'
'Oh! life in a large family is made up of _might haves_,' said Alda.
'Why, I do declare there's a smaller still! What a little duck!' and
she pounced upon Angela.
'We have a smaller than that, said Wilmet--'Bernard, only we left him
at home.'
'Tell me all your names!' cried Marilda, delighted.
She was perfectly happy, and chattered on in great delight in her
downright voice, as much at ease as if she had known them all her
life. She shared their tea, and wanted Mr. Underwood to come and see
her father at the house; but as she could not promise his early
return, and it was necessary to get the van under weigh before five,
this could not be.
However, she would not leave them till they were all packed into the
van, and then only parted with repeated kisses and auguries of many
future meetings; so that the children looked down a vista of
unlimited enjoyment of Gentry Park. Edgar, little gentleman as he
was, saw her as far back on the way as he could venture.
CHAPTER III
FORTUNATUS' PURSE
'Out, base mechanical churl!'--SHAKESPEARE.
Weeks went on, and nothing more was heard of 'Marilda' except the
wishes and wonderings of the children. Alda decided that she was one
of the heartless fine ladies one heard of in books--and no wonder,
when her father was in trade, and she looked so vulgar; while Wilmet
contended against her finery, and Cherry transferred the
heartlessness to her cruel father and mother, and Robina never ceased
to watch for her from the window, even when Felix and Edgar for very
weariness had prohibited the subject from being ever mentioned, and
further checked it by declaring that Marilda looked like a cow.
There was plenty besides to think of; and the late summer and early
autumn rolled cheerily away. The wonderful remnant of Felix's
birthday gift was partly applied to the hire of a chair for Geraldine
upon every favourable evening; and as the boys themselves were always
ready to act as horses, they obtained it on moderate terms, which
made the sum hold out in a marvellous manner. And not only were these
drives delight unimaginable to the little maid, but the frequent
breaths of pure air seemed to give her vigour; she ate more, smiled
more, and moved with less pain and difficulty, so that the thought of
a partial recovery began to seem far less impossible.
The children trooping about her, she used to be drawn to the nearest
bit of greensward, tree, or copse, and there would occupy herself
with the attempt to sketch, often in company with Edgar; and with a
few hints from her father, would be busied for days after with the
finishing them, or sometimes the idealising them, and filling them
with the personages she had read of in books of history or fiction.
She was a sensitive little body, who found it hard not to be fretful,
when told that it was very ill-natured to object to having her paints
daubed over her drawings by Lance, Robina, and Angel--an accusation
often brought against her by rough, kindly Sibby, and sometimes even
by Wilmet in an extremity: while Mamma's subdued entreaty, that she
would do something to please the little ones, if it could be without
mischief to herself, always humiliated her more than anything else,
and made her ready to leave all to their mercy, save for deference to
Edgar, and gratitude to Felix. Robina would look on soberly enough in
admiration; but Lance's notions of art were comic, and Fulbert's were
arbitrary, and both were imperiously carried out with due contempt
for the inferior sex, and were sure to infect both the little
sisters.
Then, of course, so many holiday boys were hard to keep in order.
Clement had a strong propensity in that direction; he was a grave,
quiet boy, without much sense of the absurd, and was generally the
victim of Edgar's wit; but, on the other hand, he was much in the
habit of objecting to anything Edgar or Fulbert proposed, and thereby
giving forbidden or doubtful amusements double zest. He was never
_in_ mischief, and yet he was never an element of peace.
All this, however, was mitigated when the holidays ended, and Lance
was allowed to follow his brothers to school, while Bobbie
importantly trotted in the wake of her sisters. Mamma and Cherry felt
it no small comfort to have no one at home who did not sleep away two
or three of the morning hours; and the lessons that the little girl
delighted to prepare for her father went on in peace--the arithmetic,
the French, the Latin, and even the verses of Greek Testament, that
he always said rested him.
And he was 'quite well,' he said himself; and though his wife never
confirmed this reply, he was everywhere as usual--in church, in
schools of all kinds, in parish meetings, by sick-beds, or in
cottages, as bright and as popular as ever, perhaps the more so that
he was more transparently thin, and every stranger started at the
sound of his cough, though the Bexley people had grown weary of
repeating the same augury for four or five years, and began, like 'my
Lady,' to call it 'constitutional.'
So came the autumn Ember Week; and Mr. Audley had to go to receive
Priests' Orders, and afterwards to spend the next fortnight with his
parents, who complained that they had not seen him once since he had
settled at Bexley. The last week was the break-up of summer weather,
and Mr. Bevan caught cold, and was rheumatic, there were two funerals
on wet and windy days, and when Mr. Audley, on Lady Price's
entreating summons, wrenched himself from a murmuring home, and,
starting by an early train, arrived half through the St. Michael's
Day Service, it was to see Mr. Underwood looking indeed like some
ethereal ascetic saint, with his bright eyes and wasted features, and
to hear him preach in extempore--as was his custom--a sermon on the
blessedness of angel helps, which in its intense fervour, almost
rapture, was to many as if it came from a white-winged angel himself.
Mr. Audley glided into his own place, and met Felix's look of relief.
The sermon was finished, and the blessing given; but before he could
descend the steps, the cough had come on, and with it severe
haemorrhage. They had to send one startled boy for Mrs. Underwood,
and another for the doctor, and it was an hour before he could be
taken home in a chair. No one ever forgot that sermon, for it was the
last he ever preached. He was very ill indeed for several days, but
still hopeful and cheerful; and as the weather mended, and the calm
brightness of October set in, he rallied, and came downstairs again,
not looking many degrees more wan and hectic than before, with a mind
as alert as usual, and his kind heart much gratified by the many
attentions of his parishioners during his illness.
During the worst, Mrs. Underwood had been obliged to keep one of the
elder girls at home--Wilmet at first, both by her own desire and that
of Alda; but it was soon made a special matter of entreaty by Miss
Pearson, that the substitution might not take place; the little class
was always naughty under Alda, and something the same effect seemed
to be produced on Angela and Bernard. They made so much less
disturbance when entrusted to Cherry, that the mother often sent Alda
to sit by papa, even though she knew he liked nothing so well as to
have his little pupil's soft voice repeating to him the Latin hymns
she loved to learn on purpose. Alda read or sang to him very
prettily, and they were very happy together; but then Wilmet could do
that as well, and also mind the babies, or do invalid cookery, and
supplement Sibby's defects, and set the mother free for the one
occupation she cared for most--the constant watching of that wasted
countenance.
But all was better. He had been able to collect his children for
their evening's Bible lesson and Sunday Catechism, and to resume the
preparation of Edgar and Geraldine for their Confirmation, though it
was at least a year distant, and even had spoken of sending for
others of his catechumens. Wilmet and Alda were both at school, the
two babies out with Sibby, Mamma at work, Papa dreaming over a
Comment on the Epistle to the Philippians, which was very near his
heart, and he always called his holiday work, and Geraldine reading
on her little couch when there was a sharp ring at the bell, and
after an interval, the girl who daily came in to help, announced
'Lady Price.'
Even my Lady had been startled and softened by the reality of Mr.
Underwood's illness, and remorseful for having coddled her husband at
his expense; she had sent many enquiries, some dainties, and a good
many recipes; and she had made no objection to Mr. Bevan's frequent
and affectionate visits, nor even to his making it obvious that
however little his senior curate might do that winter, he would not
accept his resignation for the present.
It was enough to make Mr. Underwood feel absolutely warm and grateful
to his old tormentor, as he rose, not without some effort, held out
his hand to her, and cheerily answered her inquiries for his cough.
She even discussed the berries in the hedges, and the prospects of a
mild winter, in a friendly, hesitating tone; and actually commended
Mr. Underwood's last pupil-teacher, before she began--'I am afraid I
am come upon a disagreeable business.'
Mr. Underwood expected to hear of his own inefficiency; or perhaps
that Mr. Audley had adopted some habit my Lady disapproved, or that
the schoolmaster was misbehaving, or that some Christmas dole was to
be curtailed, and that he would have to announce it because Mr. Bevan
would not. He was not prepared to hear, 'Are you aware that--in
short--perhaps you can explain it, but has not your son Felix been
spending a good deal of money--for him, I mean--lately?'
'Felix had a present from his godfather,' said Mr. Underwood, not at
all moved, so secure was he that this must be an exaggeration.
'Last summer, I heard of that. It was laid out on a picnic,' said
Lady Price, severely.
'It was intended to be so spent,' said the curate; 'but people were
so good-natured, that very little actually went that way, and the
remainder was left in his own hands.'
'Yes, Mr. Underwood, but I am afraid that remainder has been made to
cover a good deal of which you do not know!'
Mrs. Underwood flushed, and would have started forward. Her husband
looked at her with a reassuring smile. My Lady, evidently angered at
their blindness, went on, 'It is a painful duty, Mr. Underwood,
especially in your present state; but I think it due to you, as the
father of a family, to state what I have learned.'
'Thank you. What is it?'
'Have you reckoned the number of times the chair has been hired?' and
as he shook his head, 'That alone would amount to more than a pound.
Besides which, your daughters have been provided with books and
music--fruit has been bought--all amiable ways of spending money, no
doubt; but the question is, how was it procured?'
'Indeed,' said Mr. Underwood, still pausing.
'And,' added the lady, 'the means can, I am afraid, be hardly
doubted, though possibly the boy may have done it in ignorance.
Indeed, one of his sisters allowed as much.'
'What did she allow, Lady Price?'
'That--that it was won at play, Mr. Underwood. You know Mr. Froggatt
gives his boy an absurd amount of pocket-money, and when she was
taxed with this, your daughter--Alda is her name, I believe--allowed
that--'
'Papa, Papa!' breathlessly broke out Cherry, who had been forgotten
on her little sofa all this time, but now dashed forward, stumping
impetuously with her crutch--'Papa, it's all Alda, how can she be so
horrid?'
'What is it, my dear?' said Mr. Underwood. 'You can explain it, I
see. Tell Lady Price what you mean, Geraldine,' he added gravely, to
compose the child, who was sobbing with excitement and indignation.
'O Lady Price!' she cried, facing about with her hair over her face,
'he earned it--he earned every bit of it! How could any one think he
did not?'
'Earned it? What does that mean, little girl!' said Lady Price, still
severely. 'If he did the boy's exercises for him--
'No, no, no,' interrupted Geraldine, 'it was old Mr. Froggatt. He
asked Felix to look over the papers he had to print for the boys'
work at the Grammar School, because it is all Latin and Greek, and
Charles Froggatt is so careless and inaccurate, that he can't be
trusted.'
The faces of the father and mother had entirely cleared; but Lady
Price coughed drily, saying, 'And you did not know of this
arrangement?'
Geraldine's eyes began to twinkle with tears. 'I don't know what
Felix will say to me for telling now,' she said.
'It must have come to light some time, though concealment is always a
proof of shame,' began Lady Price in a consoling tone that filled the
little lame girl with a fresh passion, drawing up her head.
'Shame! Nobody's ashamed! Only Mamma and Felix and Wilmet never will
bear that Papa should know how terribly we do want things sometimes.'
And Geraldine, overpowered by her own unguarded words, ran into her
mother's arms, and hid her face on her shoulder.
'Thank you, Lady Price,' said Mr. Underwood gravely. 'I am glad my
little girl has been able to satisfy you that Felix has honestly
earned whatever he may have spent.'
'If you are satisfied,' returned the lady, 'it is not my affair; but
I must say I should like to know of such transactions among my
children.'
'Sometimes one is glad to have a boy to be perfectly trusted,' said
Mr. Underwood.
'But you will speak to him!'
'Certainly I shall.'
Lady Price felt that she must go, and rose up with an endeavour to
retract. 'Well, it is a relief to Mr. Bevan and me to find your son
not consciously in fault, for it would have been a most serious
thing. And in such a matter as this, of course you can do as _you_
please.'
To this Mr. Underwood made no reply, as none was necessary, but only
saw her out to the door in that extremely polite manner that always
made her feel smallest, and then he dropped into his chair again,
with a curl of the lip, and the murmur, 'not consciously!'
'O Papa, Papa!' cried Cherry.
'Dear Felix!' said the mother, with tears in her eyes; 'but what can
Alda have been saying?'
Cherry was about to speak again, but her father gently put her aside.
A little quietness now, if you please, my dear; and send Felix to me
when he comes in. Let me have him alone, but don't say anything to
him.'
There was no need to send Felix to his father, for he came in of his
own accord, radiant, with a paper containing a report of a public
meeting on Church matters that his father had been wishing to see.
'Thanks, my boy,' said Mr. Underwood; 'where does this come from?'
'From Froggatt's father. It was only fourpence.'
'But, Felix, repeated fourpences must exhaust even that Fortunatus'
purse of Admiral Chester's.'
Felix coloured. 'Yes, Papa, I wanted to tell you; but I waited till
you were better.'
'You will hardly find a better time than the present,' said Mr
Underwood.
'It is only this,' said Felix, with a little hesitation. 'You know
there's a good deal of printing to be done for the school sometimes--
the questions in Latin and Greek and Algebra, and even when Mr. Ryder
does have the proofs, it wants some one who really understands to see
that the corrections are properly done. Old Smith used to do it, by
real force of Chinese accuracy, but he has been ill for some time,
and Mr. Froggatt can't see to do it himself, and Charlie won't, and
can't be trusted either. So one day, when I was reading in the shop,
Mr. Froggatt asked me to see if a thing was right; and it went on: he
asked me after a time to take anything I liked, and I did get some
school books we all wanted; but after that, just when you were ill, I
could not help telling him I had rather have the money. O Father!'
cried the boy, struck by a certain look of distress, 'did I do
wrong?'
'Not in the least, my boy. Go on; what does he give you?'
'Exactly at the rate he gave Smith for doing the same work,' said
Felix: 'it always was an extra for being so troublesome. It was seven
shillings last week--generally it comes to three or four and
sixpence.'
'And when do you do it?'
'I run in after I come out of school for half an hour. Last Saturday
I corrected a sheet of the Pursuivant, because Mr. Froggatt had to
go out, and that made it more. And, Father, Mr. Froggatt says that
poor old Smith will never be fit for work again.'
'Then I suppose these welcome earnings of yours will end when he has
a successor?'
Felix came nearer. 'Papa,' he said, 'Mr. Froggatt told me that if
Charlie would only have taken to the work, he would have done without
another man in Smith's place, and got him gradually into editing the
paper too. He said he wished I was not a gentleman's son, for if I
had not been so I should have suited him exactly, and should be worth
a guinea a week even now. And, Father, do not you really think I had
better take it?'
'You, Felix!' Mr. Underwood was exceedingly startled for the moment.
'You see,' said Felix rather grimly, leaning his head on the
mantelshelf, and looking into the fire, 'any other way I can only be
an expense for years upon years, even if I did get a scholarship.'
His face was crimson, and his teeth set. Mr. Underwood lay back in
his chair for some seconds; then said in a low voice, 'I see you know
all about it, Felix; and that I am going to leave you as heavy a
burthen as ever lad took on willing shoulders.'
Felix knew well enough, but his father had never uttered a word of
despondency to him before, and he could only go on gazing steadfastly
into the fire with an inarticulate moan.
Mr. Underwood opened the first leaf of a volume of St. Augustine,
beside him, a relic of former days, the family shield and motto
within--namely, a cross potent, or crutch-shaped, and the old English
motto, 'UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE.'
'Under wood, under rood,' he repeated. 'It was once but sing-song to
me. Now what a sermon! The load is the Cross. Bear thy cross, and thy
cross will bear thee, like little Geraldine's cross potent--Rod and
Rood, Cross and Crutch--all the same etymologically and veritably.'
'Don't call them a burthen, pray!' said Felix, with a sense both of
deprecation and of being unable to turn to the point.
'My boy, I am afraid I was thinking more of myself than of you. I am
an ungrateful fool; and when a crutch is offered to me, I take hold
of it as a log instead of a rood. I did not know how much pride there
was left in me till I found what a bitter pill this is!'
Felix was more crimson than ever. 'Ought I not--' he began.
'The _ought_ is not on your side, Felix. It is not all folly, I hope;
but I had thought you would have been a better parson than your
father.'
There were tears in the boy's eyes now. 'There are the others; I may
be able to help them.'
'And,' added Mr. Underwood, 'I know that to be a really poor priest,
there should be no one dependent on one, or it becomes "Put me into
one of the priest's offices, that I may eat a piece of bread." It is
lowering! Yes, you are right. Even suppose you could be educated, by
the time you were ordained, you would still have half these poor
children on your hands, and it would only be my own story over again,
and beginning younger. You are right, Felix, but I never saw the
possibility so fully before. I am glad some inward doubt held me back
from the impulse to dedicate my first-born.'
'It shall be one of the others instead,' said Felix in his throat.
Mr. Underwood smiled a little, and put his finger on the verse in his
beloved Epistle--'Look not every man on his own things but every man
also on the things of others.'
'You really wish this. Do you consider what it involves?' he said.
'I think I do,' said Felix in a stifled voice.
'This is not as if it were a great publisher,' continued Mr.
Underwood, 'with whom there would be no loss of position or real
society; but a little bookseller in a country town is a mere
tradesman, and though a man like Audley may take you up from time to
time, it will never be on an absolute equality; and it will be more
and more forgotten who you were. You will have to live in yourself
and your home, depending on no one else.'
'I can stand that,' said Felix, smiling. 'Father, indeed I thought of
all that. Of course I don't like it, but I don't see how it is to be
helped.'
'Sit down, Felix: let us go over it again. I suppose you don't know
what our subsistence is at present.'
'I know you have 250 pounds a year from Mr. Bevan.'
'Yes, I had 200 pounds at first, and he added the 50 pounds when the
third curate was given up. That goes with me, of course, if not
before. On the other hand, my poor good uncle, the wisest thing he
ever did, made me insure my life for 5000, pounds so there will be 150
pounds a year to depend on, besides what we had of our own, only 2350
pounds left of it now. I have had to break into it for the doctor's
bills, but at least there are no debts. Thank God, we have been saved
from debt! I think,' he continued, 'that probably it will have to be
brought down to twenty-two hundred before you have done with me. On
the whole, then, there will be about 180 pounds a year for you all to
live upon. Are you understanding, Felix?'
For the boy's anxious look had gone out of his face, and given place
to a stunned expression which was only dispelled with a sudden start
by his father's inquiry. 'Yes, yes,' he said recalling himself.
'I have left it all absolutely to your mother,' said Mr. Underwood.
'She will depend more and more on you, Felix; and I have made up my
mind to expect that no help will come to you but from yourselves.
Except that I hope some of you may be educated by clergy orphan
schools, but you are too old for that now. Felix, I believe it may be
right, but it is very sore to break off your education.'
'I shall try to keep it up,' said Felix, 'in case anything should
ever turn up'
'A guinea a week!' said Mr. Underwood, thoughtfully. 'It would make
you all not much worse off than you are now, when I am out of the
way. And yet--' A violent cough came on. 'We must wait, Felix,' he
said, when he had recovered himself. 'I must have time to think; I
will speak to you to-morrow.'
Felix left him, very grave and subdued. He buried himself in his
tasks for the next day, hardly looked up or smiled at little
Bernard's most earnest attempts at a game of play, and had not a word
for even Cherry, only when Wilmet begged anxiously to know if he
thought Papa worse, he answered that he believed not particularly so.
Alda was sent to carry some tea to her father that evening. As she
set it down on the table before him, he said gently, 'My dear, I want
to know what has been passing among you and your school-fellows about
Felix.'
'Oh, nothing, Papa,' said Alda rather hastily. 'Some nonsense or
other is always going on.'
'Very true, no doubt; nor do I wish to be informed of general
nonsense, but of that which concerns you. What have you been saying
or hearing said about Felix?'
'Oh, it's nonsense, Papa. Some of the girls will say anything
disagreeable.'
'You need not have any scruples on Felix's account, Alda; I know
exactly what he has done.' I want you to tell me what is being said--
or you have allowed to be said--about it.'
'That horrible Miss Price!' was all the answer be got.
He sat upright--laid on Alda's wrist a long bony burning hand, whose
clasp she did not forget for weeks, and forcing her to look at him,
said, 'Did you allow it to be believed that your brother Felix was a
gambler?'
'Papa! I never said so!' cried Alda, beginning to sob.
'Command yourself, Alda; I am not fit for a scene, and I may not be
able to speak to you many times again.'
These words--far more new and startling to Alda than to her brother--
appalled her into quietness.
'What did you say, Alda? or was it the deceit of silence?'
She hung her head, but spoke at last.
'I only said boys had ways and means! They did tease and plague so. I
do believe Carry Price counts every grape that goes into this house--
and they would know how I got my new music--and little Robina would
tell--and then came something about Mr. Froggatt; and if they knew--'
'If they knew what?'
'Papa, you have no idea how nasty some of them are.'
'My poor child, I am afraid I have some idea by seeing how nasty they
are making you! Gambling more creditable than honest labour!'
Alda had it on the tip of her tongue to say winning things was not
gambling, but she knew that argument would be choked down; and she
also knew that though she had spoken truth as to her words, she had
allowed remarks to pass without protest on the luck and licence that
the model boy allowed himself, and she was bitterly displeased with
the treachery of Miss Price.
'These old rags of folly don't look pretty on other folk,' he sighed
pleasantly. 'Alda, listen to me. What I have heard today gives me
more fears for you than for any one of my children. Did you ever
hear that false shame leads to true shame? Never shuffle again!
Remember, nothing is mean that is not sin, and an acted falsehood
like this is sin and shame both--while your brother's deed is an
honour.
Alda was obliged to go away murmuring within herself, 'That's all
true: it is very good of Felix, and I should not have equivocated, I
know; but those stupid girls, how is one to live with them?'
Felix was not quite dressed the next morning when his mother came to
the door of the attic that he shared with Edgar and Fulbert.
'He wants to speak to you before church, Felix. It has been a very
bad night, and the sooner this is settled the better.'
'O Mother, I am very sorry--'
'It can't be helped, my dear boy. I think it will really be a great
relief to him.'
'And you, Mother, do you mind?'
'Dear Felix, all minding, except to have you all well, and fed and
clothed, was worn out of me years ago. I can't feel anything in it
but that it will keep you by me, my dear good helpful boy.'
Felix's heart leapt up, as it had not done for many a long day; but
it soon sank again. The children had never been admitted to their
father's room in the early morning, and Felix thought he must be
suddenly worse when he saw him in bed propped by pillows, pale and
wearied; but the usual bright smile made him like himself.
'All right, old fellow,' he said brightly. 'Don't come up to me. I'm
incog. till I'm up and dressed. Are you in the same mind?'
'Yes, Father.'
'Then ask Mr. Froggatt to do me the favour of coming to speak to me
any time after eleven o'clock that may suit him. I must understand
what he offers you. The nonsense is conquered, Felix; more shame for
me that it has followed me so far: but the sense remains. I must try
to be sure that this sacrifice of yours is a right one to be
accepted. Any way, my boy, I thank and bless you for it, and God will
bless such a beginning. There's the bell, be off,' he concluded.
And, Papa,' blurted out Felix suddenly, 'would you _please_ be
photographed. I have the money for it. _Pray--_'
Mr. Underwood smiled. 'Very well, Felix; that is, if I am ever
capable of getting up all the stairs to Coleman's sky-parlour.
'Oh, thank you!' and Felix ran away.
Mr. Froggatt came in due time. He was an elderly portly man, well
shaven and smooth-faced, intensely respectable, having been brought
up to inherit an old hereditary business as bookseller, stationer,
and publisher of a weekly local paper, long before Bexley had broken
out into its present burning fever of furnaces. He was a very good
religious man, as Mr. Underwood well knew, having been his great
comforter through several family troubles, which had left him and his
wife alone with one surviving and woefully spoilt son, who hated the
trade, and had set his heart upon being a farmer--chiefly with a view
to hunting. Mr. Froggatt was conscious of having been too indulgent,
but the mother and son were against him; and the superior tone of
education that the son had received at the reformed grammar school
had only set him above the business, instead of, as had been
intended, rendering him more useful in it.
Good Mr. Froggatt, an old-fashioned tradesman, with a profound
feeling for a real gentleman, was a good deal shocked at receiving
Mr. Underwood's message. He kept a reading-room, and was on terms of
a certain intimacy with its frequenters, such as had quite warranted
his first requests for Felix's good-natured help, and it had been
really as a sort of jesting compliment that he had told the young
gentleman that he wished he would take Smith's place, little
expecting to see how earnestly the words were caught up, how the boy
asked whether he really meant it, and when, on further consideration,
he allowed that it might be possible, begging him to wait till his
father could be spoken to.
Poor as he was, Mr. Underwood had never lost general respect.
Something there was in his fine presence and gentlemanly demeanour,
and still more in his showing no false shame, making no pretensions,
and never having a debt. Doctors' bills had pressed him heavily, but
he had sacrificed part of his small capital rather than not pay his
way; and thus no one guessed at the straits of the household. Mr.
Froggatt had never supposed he would entertain for a moment the idea
of letting his eldest son, a fine clever and studious lad, undertake
a little country business, and yet the old bookseller had come to
wish it very much on his own account. As he explained to Mr.
Underwood, he loved his old business, and knew that with more
education he should have been able to make more of it. His elder son
had died just as intelligence and energy were opening up plans that
would have made both the shop and the newspaper valuable and
beneficial; while Charles's desertion left them decline with his
father's declining years, and in danger of being supplanted by some
brisk new light. Felix Underwood was indeed very young, but he had
already proved his power of usefulness, and a very few years would
make him capable of being a right hand to the old man, and he might
in time make a position for himself. Mr. Froggatt would otherwise ere
long be forced by his own infirmity, to dispose of the business at a
disadvantage, and this would, he confessed, go to his heart. Mr.
Underwood felt greatly reconciled to the project. There was real
usefulness in the work, great means of influencing men for good, and
though there would be much of mechanical employment, for which it was
a pity to give up the boy's education, yet it was a stepping stone to
something better, and it gave present and increasing means of
maintenance. There was less temptation in this way of life than in
almost any that could be devised, and it would give Mrs. Underwood
the comfort of a home with him. The great difficulty for the future
was, that Felix was never likely to have capital enough to purchase,
or become partner in the business; but Mr. Froggatt explained that if
he gained experience in the editing of the Pursuivant, he would be
always able to obtain profitable employment, and that it was possible
that he might eventually take the business, and pay an annual sum out
of the profits to the Froggatt family, unless, indeed, something
should turn up which would keep him in his natural station. Such was
the hope lurking in the father's heart, even while he thankfully
closed with the offer; and Felix was put in the way of studying book-
keeping till the New Year, when he was to enter upon his duties and
his salary.
Mr. Audley was greatly troubled. It was with incredulous vivacity
that he inquired of Mr. Underwood if it were indeed true that Felix
had accepted such prospects.
'Quite true.' said Mr. Underwood. 'You need not argue it with me,
Audley; my own mind has said all you could say seven times over.'
'I should not venture on interference; but could you not let me try
to do--something?'
'And welcome, my dear fellow: there are so many to be done for, that
it is well one can do for himself.'
'But Felix--Felix out of them all!'
'As the voice I want to silence has said a thousand times! No; Felix
seems capable of this, and it is not right to withhold him, and throw
his education upon the kind friends who might be helping the other
boys--boys whom I could not trust to fend for themselves and others,
as I can that dear lad.'
'What he might be--'
'Who knows whether he may not be a greater blessing in this work than
in that which we should have chosen for him? He may be a leaven for
good--among the men we have never been able to reach! My dear Audley,
don't be a greater ass about it than I was at first!'
For the young curate really could not speak at first for a rush of
emotion.
'It is not only for Felix's sake,' said he, smiling at last, 'but the
way you take it.'
'And now, I am going to ask you to do something for me,' added Mr.
Underwood. 'I have left this magnificent estate of mine entirely to
my wife, appointing her sole guardian to my children. But I have
begun to think how much has been taken out of her by that shock of
leaving Vale Leston, and by that wonderful resolute patience that--
that I shall never be able to thank her for. I scarcely dare to let
her know that I see it. And when I look on to the winter that is
before her,' he added, much less calmly, 'I think she may not be long
after me. I must add a guardian. Once we had many good friends. We
have them still, I hope, but I cannot lay this on them. Our cousin
Tom Underwood does not seem disposed to notice us, and his care might
not be of the right kind. Our only other relation is Fulbert
Underwood.'
'Who drove you from Vale Leston?'
'Who did what he had every right to do with his own,' said Mr.
Underwood. 'But he is not the style of man to be asked, even if I
could saddle him with the charge. Probably twelve children to bring
up on seven thousand pounds--a problem never put before us at
Cambridge.'
'Do you honour me by--' asked the younger man, much agitated.
'Not by asking you to solve that problem! But let me add your name.
What I want is a guardian, who will not violently break up the home
and disperse the children. I believe Felix will be a competent young
head if he is allowed, and I want you to be an elder brother to him,
and let him act.'
'You cannot give me greater comfort.'
'Only, Audley, this must be on one condition. Never let this
guardianship interfere with any higher work that you may be called
to. If I thought it would bind you down to Bexley, or even to
England, I should refrain from this request as a temptation. Mind,
you are only asked to act in case the children should lose their
mother, and then only to enable Felix to be what I believe he can and
will be. Or, as it may be right to add, if he should fail them, you
will know what to do.'
'I do not think he will.'
'Nor I. But there are ways of failing besides the worst. However, I
do not greatly fear this illness of mine taking root in them. It has
not been in the family before; and I am nearly sure that I know when
I took the infection, four or five years ago, from a poor man in
Smoke-jack Alley, who would let no one lift him but me. They are
healthy young things, all but dear little Cherry, and I hope they
have spirits to keep care from making them otherwise. You will say a
kind word to my little Cherry sometimes, Audley. Poor little woman, I
am afraid it may fall sorely on her, she is of rather too highly
strung a composition, and perhaps I have not acted so much for her
good as my own pleasure, in the companionship we have had together.'
So the will was altered, though without the knowledge of anyone but
Mrs. Underwood and the witnesses; and Mr. Audley felt himself bound
to remonstrate no further against Felix's fate, however much he might
deplore it.
Nobody was so unhappy about it as Edgar. The boy was incredulous at
first, then hotly indignant. Then he got a burnt stick, and after
shutting himself up in his attic for an hour, was found lying on the
floor, before an awful outline on the whitewash.
'What is it, old fellow?' asked Felix. 'What a horrid mess!'
'I see, said Lance. 'It is Friday grinning at the savages.'
'Or a scarecrow on the back of a ditch,' said Felix. 'Come, Ed, tell
us what it is meant for.'
Edgar was impenetrable; but having watched the others out of the
house, he dragged Geraldine up to see--something--
'Oh!' she cried. 'You've done it!'
'To be sure! You know it?'
'It is Achilles on the rampart, shouting at the Trojans! O Edgar--how
brave he looks--how his hair flies! Some day you will get him in his
god-like beauty!'
'Do you think he has not got any of it, Cherry?' said Edgar, gazing
wistfully. 'I did see it all, but it didn't come out--and now--'
'I see what you mean,' said Cherry, screwing up her eyes; 'it is in
him to be glorious--a kind of lightning look.'
'Yes, yes; that's what I meant. All majesty and wrath, but no strain.
O Cherry--to have such things in my head, and not get them out! Don't
you know what it is?' as he rolled and flung himself about.
'Oh, yes!' said Cherry from her heart. 'Oh! I should so like to do
one touch to his face, but he's so big! You did him on a chair, and I
could not stand on one.'
'I'll lift you up. I'll hold you,' cried Edgar.
The passion for drawing must have been very strong in the two
children; for Geraldine was most perilously, and not without pain,
raised to a chair, where, with Edgar's arms round her waist, she
actually worked for ten minutes at Achilles' face, but his arm she
declined. 'It is not right, Eddy! look--that muscle in his elbow can
never be so!'
'I can't see the back of mine, but you can,' said Edgar, lifting her
down, and proceeding to take off his coat and roll up his shirt-
sleeve.
'That's the way. Oh! but it is not such an angle as that.'
'Achilles' muscles must have stood out more than mine, you know. I'll
get a look at Blunderbore's. O Cherry, if I were but older--I know I
could--I'd save Felix from this horrible thing! I feel to want to
roar at old Froggy, like this fellow at the Trojans.'
'Perhaps some day you will save him.'
'Yes; but then he will have done it. Just fancy, Gerald, if that
picture was as it ought to be--as you and I see it!'
'It would be as grand as the world ever saw,' said the little girl,
gazing through her eye-lashes at the dim strokes in the twilight. O
Edgar, many a great man has begun in a garret!'
'If it would not be so long hence! Oh! must you go down!'
'I heard some one calling. You will be a great artist, I know,
Edgar!'
It was pleasanter than the other criticism, at bed-time.
'Hollo! Man Friday does not look quite so frightful!' said Felix.
'I'm sure I won't have him over my bed,' said Fulbert, proceeding to
rub him out; and though, for the moment, Achilles was saved by
violent measures of Edgar's, yet before the end of the next day,
Fulbert and Lance had made him black from head to foot, all but the
whites of his eyes and his teeth; Robina and Angela had peeped in,
and emulated the terror of the Trojans, or the savages; and Sibby had
fallen on the young gentleman for being 'so bold' as to draw a
frightful phooka upon their walls just to frighten the darlints.
Indeed, it was long before Angela could be got past the door at night
without shuddering, although Achilles had been obliterated by every
possible method that Felix, Clement, or Sibby could devise, and some
silent tears of Cherry had bewailed the conclusion of this effort of
high art, the outline of which, in more moderate proportions, was
cherished in that portfolio of hers.
Another work of art--the photograph--was safely accomplished. The
photographer caught at the idea, declaring that he had been so often
asked for Mr. Underwood's carte, that he had often thought of begging
to take it gratis. And he not only insisted on so doing, but he came
down from his studio, and took Mr. Underwood in his own chair, under
his own window--producing a likeness which, at first sight, shocked
every one by its faithful record of the ravages of disease,
unlightened by the fair colouring and lustrous beaming eyes, but
which, by-and-by, grew upon the gazer, as full of a certain majesty
of unearthly beauty of countenance.
The autumn was mild, and Mr. Underwood rallied in some measure, so as
sometimes even to get to church at mid-day services on warm days.
It was on St. Andrew's Day that he was slowly walking home, leaning
on Felix's arm, with the two elder girls close behind him, when Alda
suddenly touched Wilmet's arm, exclaiming, 'There's Marilda
Underwood!'
There indeed was the apparition of Centry Park, riding a pretty pony,
beside a large and heavily-bearded personage. The recognition was
instantaneous; Marilda was speaking to her companion, and at the same
moment he drew up, and exclaiming, 'Edward! bless me!' was off his
horse in a moment, and was wringing those unsubstantial fingers in a
crushing grasp. There was not much to be seen of Mr. Underwood, for
he was muffled up in a scarf to the very eyes, but they looked out of
their hollow caves, clear, blue, and bright, and smiling as ever, and
something like an answer came out of the middle of the folds.
'These yours? How d'ye do'--How d'ye do'--Mary, you don't get off
till we come to the door!--Yes, I'll come in with you! Bless me!
bless me! Mary has been at me ever so many times about you, but we've
been had abroad for masters and trash, and I left it till we were
settled here.'
It was not many steps to the door, and there Wilmet flew on prepare
her mother and the room, while Alda stood by as her cousin was
assisted from her horse by the groom, and the newcomer followed in
silence, while Felix helped his father up the steps, and unwound his
wraps, after which he turned round, and with his own sunny look held
out his hand, saying, 'How are you, Tom? I'm glad to see you--How
d'ye do, Mary Alda? we are old friends.--Call your mother, one of
you.'
The mother was at hand, and they entered the drawing-room, where, as
the clergyman sank back into his arm-chair, the merchant gazed with
increasing consternation at his wasted figure and features.
'How long has this been going on?' he asked, pointing to him and
turning to Mrs. Underwood, but as usual her husband answered for her.
'How long have I been on the sick list? Only since the end of
September, and I am better now than a month ago.'
'Better! Have you had advice?'
'Enough to know how useless it is.'
'Some trumpery Union doctor. I'll have Williams down before you are a
day older.'
'Stay, Tom. Thank you, most warmly, but you see yourself the best
advice in the world could tell us no more than we know already. Are
you really master of old Centry Underwood? I congratulate you.'
'Ay. I'm glad the place should come back to the old name. Mrs.
Underwood and myself both felt it a kind of duty, otherwise it went
against the grain with her, and I'm afraid she'll never take to the
place. 'Twas that kept us abroad so long, though not from want of
wishes from Mary and myself. The girl fell in love with yours at
first sight.'
'To be sure I did,' said the young lady. 'Do let me see the little
ones, and your baby.'
'Take your cousin to see them in the dining-room, Alda,' said the
mother; the order that Alda had been apprehending, for the dining-
room was by many degrees more shabby than the drawing-room; however,
she could only obey, explaining by the way that little Bernard, being
nearly two years old, was hardly regarded as a baby now.
Wilmet was in effect making him and Angela presentable as to the
hands, face, hair, and pinafore, and appeared carrying the one and
leading the other, who never having closely inspected any one in a
riding-habit before, hung back, whispering to know whether 'that man
was a woman.'
Marilda was in raptures, loving nothing so well as small children,
and very seldom enjoying such an opportunity as the present; and the
two babies had almost the whole of the conversation adapted to them,
till Alda made an effort.
'So you have been on the Continent?'
'Oh yes; it was such a horrid bore. Mamma would go. She said I must
have French masters, and more polish, but I don't like French polish.
I hope I'm just as English as I was before.'
'That is undeniable' said Felix, laughing.
'Didn't you care for it? Oh! I should like it so much!' cried Alda.
'Like it? What, to hear French people chattering and gabbling all
round one, and be always scolded for not being like them! There was a
poor dog at the hotel that had been left behind by some English
people, and could not bear the French voices, always snarled at them.
I was just like him, and I got Papa to buy him and bring him home,
and I always call him John Bull.'
'But wasn't it nice seeing places, and churches, and pictures?' asked
Geraldine.
'That was the most disgusting of all, to be bothered with staring at
the stupid things. Mamma with her Murray standing still at them all,
and making me read it out just like a lesson, and write it after,
which was worse! And then the great bare shiny rooms with nothing to
do. The only thing I liked was looking at a jolly little old woman
that sold hot chestnuts out in the street below. Such dear little
children in round caps came to her! Just like that,'--endeavouring to
convert her pocket-handkerchief into the like head-gear for Robina.
'I have always so wanted to come here,' she continued, 'only I am
afraid Mamma won't like the place. She says it's dull, and there's no
good society. Is there?'
'I am sure we don't know,' said Wilmet.
'Lots of people are coming to stay with us for Christmas,' added
Marilda, and you must all of you come and have all the fun with us.'
'Oh, thank you! how charming!' cried Alda. 'If Papa will but be well
enough; he is so much better now.'
'He must come for change of air,' said Marilda. 'You can't think how
pleased my father was to hear I had met you. He talked all the way
home of how clever your father was, and how wickedly Cousin Fulbert
at Vale Leston had served him, and he promised me when I came here I
should have you with me very often. I would have written to tell you,
only I do so hate writing. This is much better.'
Marilda seemed to have perfectly established herself among them
before the summons came to her; and as the children herded to the
door, her father turned round and looked at the boys inquiringly.
'There,' said Mr. Underwood, 'this is Felix, and this is Edgar,
sixteen and fourteen.'
Bless me, what a number, and as much alike as a flock of sheep,'
again exclaimed the cousin. 'One or two more or less would not make
much odds--eh, Edward?--Mary, what kissing all round?--D'ye know them
all?--I'll look in to-morrow or next day, and you'll give me your
answer, Edward.'
They were off, and at Mr. Underwood's sign Felix followed him into
the sitting-room, to the great excitement of the exterior population,
who unanimously accepted Alda's view, that one of them was going to
be adopted. Their notion was not so much out as such speculations
generally are, for Mr. Underwood was no sooner alone with Felix and
his mother, than he said, 'You are in request, Felix; here's another
offer for one of you--the very thing I once missed. What say you to a
clerkship at Kedge Brothers?'
'For one of us, did you say, Father?'
'Yes; the answer I am to give to-morrow is as to which. You have the
first choice.'
'Do you wish me to take it, Father?'
'I wish you to think. Perhaps this is the last time I shall have any
decision to make for you, and I had rather you should make your own
choice; nor, indeed, am I sure of my own wishes.'
'Then,' said Felix decidedly, 'I am sure I had better not. Edgar
would not, and must not, go to my work, there would be nothing coming
in for ever so long, and it would be a shame to throw old Froggy
over.'
'I rather expected this, Felix. I told Tom you were in a manner
provided for, but when he found you had a turn for business, he was
the more anxious to get you.'
'I've got no turn that I know of,' said Felix rather gloomily; 'but
we can't all of us set up for gentlemen, and Edgar is the one of us
all that ought to have the very best! Such a fellow as he is! He is
sure of the prize this time, you know! I only don't think this good
enough for him! He ought to go to the University. And maybe when Mr.
Underwood sees--'
'Not impossible,' said the sanguine father, smiling; 'and, at any
rate, to get put in the way of prosperity early may make his talents
available. It is odd that his first name should be Thomas. Besides, I
do not think your mother could get on without you. And, Felix,' he
lowered his voice,' I believe that this is providential. Not only as
securing his maintenance, but as taking him from Ryder. Some things
have turned up lately when he has been reading with me, that have
dismayed me. Do you know what I mean?'
'A little,' said Felix gravely.
'I know Ryder would be too honourable consciously to meddle with a
boy's faith; but the worst of it is, he does not know what is
meddling, and he likes Edgar, and talks eagerly to him. And the boy
enjoys it.'
'He does,' said Felix, 'but he knows enough to be on his guard. There
can't be any harm done.'
'Not yet! Not but what can be counteracted, if--Felix, you cannot
guess how much easier it makes it to me to go, that Edgar will not be
left in Ryder's hands. As to the younger ones, such things do not
come down to the lower forms. And they will be eligible for clergy
orphans. Audley spoke of a choristership for Clement in the clergy-
house at Whittingtonia. Was there ever such a raising up of friends
and helpers? I am glad to have seen Tom Underwood, hearty, kindly--
sure to be always a good friend to you all. What did you think of the
girl, Felix?'
'She is a jolly sort of girl,' said Felix; 'not like ours, you know,
Father, but not half a bad fellow.'
Mr. Underwood smiled thoughtfully, and asked, 'Have you seen enough
of her to judge how she is brought up?'
It was treating his son so much more as a friend than as a boy, that
Felix looked up surprised. 'I should think her mother wanted to make
her no end of a swell,' he said, 'and that it would not take.'
Mr. Underwood lent back thoughtfully. In truth, his cousin had, in
his outburst of affection and remorse at long unconscious neglect,
declared his intention of taking home one of the girls to be as a
sister to his Mary, and then, evidently bethinking himself of some
influence at home, had half taken back his words, and talked of doing
something, bringing his wife to see about it, etc.
And when Mr. and Mrs. Underwood were again alone, they discussed the
probabilities, and considered whether if the offer were made they
would accept it. Mr. Underwood had only seen his cousin's wife once,
in his prosperous days, when he had been at the wedding, and his
impression was not that of perfect refinement. There was reason to
think from the words of her husband and daughter that there was a
good deal of the nouveau riche about her, and Mrs. Underwood did
not know how to think of trusting a daughter in a worldly, perhaps
irreligious household. But Mr. Underwood was a good deal touched by
his cousin's warmth and regret; he believed that the family kept up
religious habits; he thought that Providence had brought him friends
in this last hour, and his affectionate sanguine spirit would not
hesitate in accepting the kindness that provided for another of the
children he was leaving. She trusted him as sure to know best; and,
after her usual mode, said no more, except 'Wilmet would be safest
there.'
'You could spare her least.'
'Yes, indeed, it would be losing my right hand; but poor Alda--'
Poor Alda! but consider if there is not worse evil in keeping her
among girls who hurt her, if they do not Wilmet. Beauty and wounded
vanity are dangerous in a place like this.'
'Dangerous anywhere!'
'Less so in a great house, with that good honest Mary Alda, and Tom,
who will look after her in the main, than here, or as a governess,
with an inferior education.'
'It may be so. I know I can spare her better than her sister.'
'Wilmet is doing something for herself too--as Alda cannot, it seems.
Justice settles the point, dearest, as it did between the boys--that
is, if we have the offer.'
Perhaps the mother still had a lurking hope that the offer would not
be made. Her instinct was to keep all her brood round her; but,
silent and deferential woman that she was, she said nothing and
resolved to be thankful for what so eased her husband's mind.
The handsome carriage tore up to the door, and violet velvet and
feathers descended, Mary Alda sprang after, and then came her father,
and hampers on hampers of game, wine, and fruits ensued; while
Marilda seized on Alda, and turned of herself into the dining-room,
bearing a box of sweets. 'Where are the little ones? Little Bobbie,
here; and all the rest.'
Not many calls were needful to bring a flock to share the feast, with
cries of joy; but Marilda was not yet satisfied.
'Where's the other of you?' she said to Alda. 'I don't know you well
apart yet.'
'Wilmet's in the kitchen,' thrust in Lancelot, 'ironing the collars
for Sunday.'
'Lance!' uttered Alda indignantly.
'Oh! what fun I do let me go down and see! I should so like to iron.'
'But, Marilda--your Mamma--'
'Oh nonsense, come along, show me the way. That's right, Robins, only
your hands are so sticky. What, down here!--Oh, Wilmet, how d'ye do?
what delicious work! do you always do it?'
'Generally, if Sibby is busy.'
'Do let me try.'
And she did try for ten minutes, at the end of which the mother's
voice was heard calling for Edgar, who, turning crimson, went
upstairs, leaving the others standing about the tidy kitchen, fresh
sanded for Saturday.
What, not you!' said Marilda, pausing in her smoothing operations,
and looking at Felix.
'No,' said he. 'I have got my work.'
'Oh? don't talk of it,' said Alda. 'I can't bear it. I didn't think
he was in earnest, or that Papa would let him.'
Marilda turned full round. 'What, you won't go and be my father's
clerk, and be one of Kedge and Underwood, and make a fortune?'
Felix shook his head.
'And what is your work instead?'
'Printing,' said Felix stoutly. 'It gives present payment, and we
can't do without it.'
Both Marilda's hands seized on his. 'I like you!' she said. 'I wish I
were you.'
They all laughed, and Felix coloured, more abashed than pleased.
Lance--to make up for his ignominious rescue at their last meeting--
performed a wonderful progress, holding on by his fingers and toes
along the ledge of the dresser; and Marilda, setting her back (a
broad one) against the ironing-board, went on talking.
'And do you know what besides?' looking round, and seeing they did
not. 'One of you girls is to come and live with me, and be my sister.
I wanted to have this little darling Angela to pet, but Mamma
wouldn't have her, and I did so beg for Geraldine, to let her have a
sofa and a pony carriage! I do want something to nurse! But Mamma
won't hear of anybody but one of you two great ones, to learn and do
everything with me; and that's not half the use.'
'But is it really?' cried Alda.
'Yes, indeed! You'll be had up for her to choose from--that is, if
she can. How exactly alike you are!'
'She won't choose me,' said Wilmet. 'Hark, there's Edgar coming
down.'
Edgar ran in, with orders to the twins to go into the drawing-room.
Wilmet hung back. 'I will not be the one,' she said resolutely. 'Let
Alda go alone.'
'No,' said Felix, 'it is what you are told that you've got to do now.
Never mind about the rest! Let us all come out of this place.' And it
was he who took off his sister's ironing apron as they went up to the
dining-room together, while Marilda cried eagerly, 'Well, Edgar?'
'Well,' said Edgar, not in the enchanted voice she expected; 'it is
very good of your father, and what must be must.'
'Don't you like it!' said Marilda, half hurt; and Edgar, always a boy
of ready courtesy, answered, 'Yes, yes, I'm no end of grateful. I'll
get rich, and go abroad, and buy pictures. Only I did hope to paint
them.'
'Paint pictures!' cried Marilda. What, rather than be a merchant! do
such stupid useless things, only to bother people with having to
stare at them, when you could be making money?'
'There's no reason one should not make money with pictures,' said
Edgar; 'but I'd rather make delight! But it can't be helped, and I am
very glad to have done with this stupid place.'
Meantime Wilmet and Alda found themselves before a large, florid,
much-dressed lady, with a most good-natured face, who greeted them
with 'Good morning, my dears! Just as Marilda told me, so much alike
as to be quite romantic. Well, no doubt it is a pity to separate
between you, but my Marilda will be a true sister. She has spoken of
nothing else. Are you willing, either of you, my dears?'
'Ay!' chimed in Mr. Thomas Underwood; 'we'll make you happy whichever
it is! You shall be in all respects like our own child; Mary would
see to that, if we didn't.'
As to choice,' said the lady, 'there's none that I can see--pretty
genteel girls both, that will do us credit, unless it is their own
fault. Excellent governess, London masters--you may be assured
everything shall be done for her.'
'Shall we toss up which it shall be?' laughed her husband.
'No,' said Mr. Underwood gently. 'We think that this one,' laying his
hand on Alda's arm, 'will value these advantages, and is not quite
such a home-bird as her sister. I hope you will find a grateful good
child in Alda Mary, and a kind sister to Mary Alda.'
The tears came into Alda's eyes, as her father seemed thus making her
over; a great rush of affection for all at home, and contempt for
Mary Alda in comparison with her own twin, seemed to take away any
elation, as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Underwood kissed her, and welcomed her,
and declared they should like to take her home at once.
'You shall have her soon,' said Mr. Underwood. 'Let me keep her for
Christmas Day.'
And for Christmas Day he did keep her, though at the bottom of Alda's
heart there were strong hopes of invitations to join the festivities
at Centry Underwood. Indeed, such a party was insisted on by Marilda,
one that was to include all the little ones, and make them happier
than ever they had been in their lives. It was to be on Twelfth Day,
but Mrs. Underwood hinted to the twins that they had better not talk
to the younger ones about it, for she scarcely believed they would
go. She had never before spoken out that conviction which had long
crushed her down, and Wilmet's whole soul seemed for the moment
scared away by this fresh intimation of the condition in which their
father stood; while Alda vehemently repeated the old declaration that
he was better. He said he was better. Alas! such a better as it
always was.
'How well you ought to be!' said Mr. Audley one day at the
reiteration, 'better every day!'
'Yes, and best of all at last!' was the reply, with a sweet smile.
For he was very happy. The partial provision for the four eldest
children, two by their own exertions, two through friends, had
evidently been received by him as an earnest of protection and aid
for the rest, even to the babe whom he scarcely expected ever to see
in this world. He said it would be ungrateful not to trust, and he
did trust with all his heart, cheered as it was by the tardy
cordiality of his cousin, and the indefinable love of kindred that
was thus gratified. Thomas Underwood poured in good things of all
kinds on the invalid and his house, fulfilled his promise of calling
in further advice, and would have franked half the family to Torquay
--Nice--Madeira--if the doctors had given the slightest encouragement.
It could be of little ultimate avail; but the wine and soup did give
support and refreshment bodily, and produced much gratitude and
thankfulness mentally, besides lightening some of Mrs. Underwood's
present cares.
No one was more anxious to help than Mr. Ryder; he had been assiduous
in his inquiries and offers of service ever since the attack at
Michaelmas; and it was evident that he really venerated the Curate,
while he was a severe and contemptuous judge of the Rector. But when,
after a brilliant examination, he became aware that he was to lose
both the elder Underwoods at once, his mortification was great, he
came to call, and Mr. Underwood had again to undergo an expostulation
on Felix's prospects, and an offer of keeping him free of expense.
The school-fee was a mere trifle, but Mr. Ryder would willingly have
boarded and lodged the boy himself--for the benefit of his authority,
as he said, over younger boarders.
'I am afraid,' said Mr. Underwood, kind and grateful as usual, 'that
there are too many younger boarders here for Felix to be spared. No,
thank you; I am sincerely obliged to you, but the hard cash is a
necessary consideration.'
'And you can sacrifice such a boy's prospects--'
'Bread and cheese _must_ be earned, even at the cost of prospects. He
cannot afford to wait to make his labour skilled.'
'Forgive me, Mr. Underwood, but I cannot think it is right to throw
away his abilities.'
'You can allow that it is a less wrong than to leave the rest to debt
or starvation.'
'You should trust--'
'I do trust; but I can do so better when I humble what is nothing but
pride and vanity in me, after all. I was foolish enough about it at
first, but I am quite content now that my boy should do his duty,
without being curious as to where it is to be done.'
'You will tell me a schoolmaster's vanity is concerned; and I allow
it is, for I looked to your sons to raise the reputation of the
school; but perhaps it is only put off a little longer. Will you let
me have Clement or Fulbert, on the terms I proposed for Felix?'
'No, Ryder; with many, many thanks, much feeling of your generous
kindness--it cannot be.'
'You do not trust me.' This was said with as much indignation as
could be shown to a man in Mr. Underwood's condition.
No. Your very kindness would make the tone I regret in you more
perilous. Do not think Felix ungrateful, Ryder; the desire is mine--
and remember, it is that of a man who is dying, and who really loves
and values you greatly. It is that the younger boys should, as soon
as may be, go to schools where older systems prevail.'
Mr. Ryder was exceedingly mortified, and though he tried hard to
conceal the full extent of his annoyance, he could not help saying,
'You know how I respect your motives; but let me say that I doubt
your finding any place where the ideas you deprecate are not to be
found. And--pardon me--may not the finding their progress obstructed
by your scruples, the more indispose your sons to them?'
'I hope not,' said Mr. Underwood, calmly. 'I hope it may show them
how strong the approach of death makes that faith--nay, rather
assurance--with which your party are tampering.'
'You are not doing me justice, Mr. Underwood. You know that my faith
and hope are at the core the same as your own. All our question is
what outworks are untenable.' Again he spoke hotly, but Mr.
Underwood's gentleness seemed to silence him.
'And that there should be any such question proves--alas!--the utter
difference between our belief. Ryder, you are a young man, and as I
believe and trust verily in earnest; and some day, I think, you will
understand what faith is. Meantime, your uncertainties are doing more
mischief than you understand--they pervade all your teaching more
than you know. I dread what they may do to such as have not your
moral sense to restrain them and bring them back, as I pray--I hope
ever to pray--it may be with you. Thank you for all your kindness,
actual and intended, to my boys.'
Then rising from his chair, while Mr. Ryder remained uncertain how to
speak, he signed to him to remain still while he sought in his
bookcase and returned with a small old copy of Jeremy Taylor's Holy
Living and Dying; then sitting down again, wrote the schoolmaster's
name in it, above his own 'Under-wode, Under-rode' stamp. 'Keep it,
Ryder! I do not say that you will care for it now, but some day I
think you will, and if I am allowed to know of it, it will be joy.'
Mr. Ryder could only wring the hand that held it out to him, and with
a great effort say, 'Thank you.' He saw that Mr. Underwood was too
much tired to prolong the conversation; but he wrote a note of warm
thanks that evening, promising to do whatever lay in his power for
the boys, that their father would not think dangerous for them; and
he added, that whatever he should for the future think or say, such
an example as he had now seen was a strong weight on its own side. It
was warmly and tenderly put, and like everything that befell him,
gratified Mr. Underwood.
A very happy man he had been, as he sincerely told those who would
have grieved over him, and not without some remorse.
'Yes,' as he said to Mr. Audley, who watched him like a son, 'it is
indeed the LORD who hath led me all my life through. I never had a
want or a care unfulfilled till nine years ago. Then, just as I had
become sluggish and mechanical in fixed habits of easy country work,
came this thorough change, break, and rousing. I tell you, I can
never be thankful enough for the mercy. Not to leave them all
provided for, as the saying is, would I go back to be such a priest
as I was becoming. Happy--yes, I have been much happier here, since
no choice was left me but working up to my strength.'
'And beyond it,' said Mr. Audley, sadly.
'If so--well; so much the better!' he said. 'It is a blessing to be
allowed to be spent in that service. And for the children, I wish
only for work and goodness for them--and for that I may well trust my
good Master.'
CHAPTER IV
TWILIGHT AND DAWN
'Two Angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o'er the village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces; and beneath
The sombre houses capped with plumes of smoke.
LONGFELLOW.
'Don't, Ful!'
'That's nothing to you, Clem.'
'I say, this won't do. I must have some light.'
'Indeed, Ed, we must not light a candle before five o'clock.'
'Pish!'
'Oh please, Edgar, don't stir the fire. If you knew how few coals
there are!'
'Stuff''
'No, I won't have it done if Wilmet says not;' and Felix reared up in
the gloom, and struggled with his brother.
Felix--Edgar--Oh, don't.'
'Hsh--sh-- Now, you girls are worse than all, screaming in that way.'
A few moments' silence of shame. It had been a weary, long, wet day,
a trial under any circumstances to eleven people under seventeen, on
the 4th of January, and the more oppressive in St. Oswald's
Buildings, because not only had their father been in a much more
suffering state for some days past, but their mother, who had hoped
to keep up for some weeks longer, had for the last two days been
quite unlike herself. In the sick-room she was as tender and vigilant
as ever in her silent way, but towards her children a strange fretful
impatience, a jealousy of their coming near their father, and an
intolerance of the least interruption from them even for the most
necessary cause. Moreover, the one friend and helper who had never
failed them before, Mr. Audley, had not been seen since he had looked
in before early service; and altogether the wretchedness and
perplexity of that day had been such, that it was no wonder that even
Felix and Wilmet had scarcely spirits or temper for the only task
that seemed at present left them, the hindering their juniors from
making themselves obnoxious.
'Wilmet, do you think we shall go to the party at Centry Park?'
reiterated Fulbert.
'Do hold your tongue about that. I don't believe there's the least
chance,' said Alda fretfully.
'And I don't know how you can think of such a thing,' added Cherry.
'I want to see Cousin Marilda's Christmas tree,' whined Robina.
'Do ask Mamma again,' entreated another voice.
'I shall do no such thing,' said Wilmet, with absolute crossness in
her tone.
Robina began to cry.
'Come here, Bobbie,' said Cherry's voice in the dark end of the room;
'I'll tell you a story.'
'I know all Cherry's stories, and they're rubbish,' said Fulbert.
'This is quite a new one. There was once a little match-girl--'
'Bosh! I know that little brute, and I hate her,' broke in Fulbert.
'Hold your tongue,' said Clement; 'but--'
'Oh no, don't let us have the match-girl,' cried several voices.
'Why can't you be good? There was once an old giant that lived in a
cave--'
'I hate old giants,' said Cherry's critical public; and her voice
grew melancholy.
'But this one had but one eye. Come, _do_ listen; papa told me. He
was in an island--' but the voice grew mournful, and was broken by a
cry.
'Oh! Fulbert hurt me!'
'Fulbert, for shame! What is it, Angel dear?'
'I only laid hold of her pudding arm,' growled Fulbert. 'Oh! I say,
Felix, that's too bad!'
'Hold your row, I say,' said Felix, after his application of fist
law. 'Hollo! what's that?' and he sprang to his feet with Angela in
his arms, as the door was opened by a hand groping, and Mr. Audley's
voice said, 'Darkness visible.'
There was a general scrambling up all over the floor, and Edgar
rushed across to light a candle. Wilmet alone had not stirred, as
Bernard lay asleep across her lap. The flash of the match revealed a
mass of light disordered heads, and likewise a black figure in the
doorway.
'Here is a kind helper for you, Wilmet,' said Mr. Audley, 'from St.
Faith's, at Dearport. You must call her Sister Constance.'
Wilmet did rise now, in some consternation, lifting her little
brother, whose hand was still in the locks, the tangling of which had
been his solace. There was a sweet warm kiss on her brow, and her
lost net was picked up, her hair coiled into it by a pair of ready
tender hands, but she faltered, 'Oh, thank you. Does Mamma know?'
'She was there when I got a sort of consent from your father,' said
Mr. Audley.
'She has not said a word,' said Alda, half resentfully. 'We have
hardly been in all day except just to fetch and carry.'
'Never mind,' said the Sister, 'it is much better that she did not
think about it. Now, my dear, don't! I won't have anything done for
me. You don't know how we Sisters sleep on nothing when we do sleep.'
'But you'll have some tea,' said Alda, the only smooth-haired one of
the party.
'When you do, perhaps, thank you. Will you come to me, my dear!'
relieving Felix from Angela. 'What is your name?' and the child,
though ordinarily very shy, clung to her at once; while she, moving
over to Cherry, found her in tears, shook up her cushion, arranged
her rug, and made her comfortable in a moment. A sense came over them
all that they had among them a head on whom they might rest their
cares; and as the black bonnet and veil were taken off, and they saw
a sweet fair, motherly face beaming on them from the white plain-
bordered cap, they gathered round with an outpouring of confidence,
small and great, while Mr. Audley went upstairs to announce what he
had done. He presently returned, saying, 'All right! Perhaps you had
better come up at once.'
There they sat, on either side of the hearth, he pillowed up and in a
dressing-gown, more entirely the sick man than he had ever before
given up himself to be. Mrs. Underwood rose, and with tears in her
eyes, mutely held out her hand, while her husband at once recognised
Sister Constance as Lady Herbert Somerville, the wife of the late
rector of Dearport. He had last met her when, some six or seven years
before he had been invited to preach at festivals at Dearport, and
had seen her the sunbeam of her house. He knew that her husband, who
was a connection of Mr. Audley's, had since died of the same malady
as his own, and had left her, a childless widow, together with all
else he had to leave, to the Sisterhood they had already founded in
the seaport town. But his greeting was, 'This is _very_ good in you;
but surely it must be too painful for you.'
'The Superior saw how much I wished it,' she said.
'You are like Alexandrine de la Ferronays,' he said, remembering her
love for tending a consumptive priest for her husband's sake.
'I am always wishing that I were!' she said.
So they perfectly understood each other, and poor Mrs. Underwood, who
had, in her new and extraordinary petulance, fiercely resisted the
doctor's recommendation of a nurse, found herself implicitly relying
on and trusting Sister Constance with a wonderful sense of relief--a
relief perhaps still greater to the patient himself, who had silently
endured more discomforts and made more exertions than she knew,
rather than tire her or vex her by employing even son or daughter,
and who was besides set free from some amount of anxiety.
Indeed the widow had too perfect a sympathy to interfere with the
wife's only comfort. When it could safely be done, she left the two
alone together, and applied herself to winning the hearts and
soothing the spirits of the poor children downstairs, and suggesting
and compounding new nourishing delicacies.
She even persuaded Mrs. Underwood to go to the next room for a
night's rest while she sat up, and learnt--what the silent wife had
never told any one--how trying the nights were even to that spirit!
At first the patient liked to talk, and drew out much of the hidden
treasure of her spirit respecting her husband, who, though ailing for
years, had finally passed away with only the immediate warning of a
week--the final cause being harass from the difficulties from those
above and below him that beset an earnest clergyman of his way of
thinking.
What struck her, as it did all, was Mr. Underwood's perfect absence
of all care, and conviction that all the burthen was taken off his
hands. Her own husband had, as she could not help telling him, found
it hard to resign himself to leaving his plans half carried out to
instruments which he had but half formed. He had wished with all his
might to live, and though he had resigned himself dutifully, it had
been with a real struggle, and a longing for continued service rather
than rest, a hope that he should more efficiently serve, and much
difficulty in refraining from laying all about him under injunctions
for the future.
Mr. Underwood half smiled. 'I am neither head nor principal,' he
said. 'Plans have been over long ago. I am only tired out, too tired
to think about what is to follow. If I live three days longer I shall
have just had my forty years in the wilderness, and though it has
blossomed like a rose, I am glad to be near the rest.'
And then he asked for the Midnight Office; and afterwards came fitful
sleep, half dreamy, half broken by the wanderings of slight
feverishness and great weakness; but she thought her attendance would
not be very brief, and agreed mentally with what Mr. Audley had told
her, that the doctor said that the end might yet be many weeks away.
When in the dark winter's mornings the wife crept back again to her
post, and all that could be done in those early hours had been
effected, Sister Constance went to the half-past seven o'clock
service with Felix and Clement, imparting to them on the road that
the Superior of St. Faith's was expecting to receive some of the
least of the children in the course of the day, to remain there for
the present.
Both boys declared it would be an infinite relief, but they doubted
exceedingly whether either father or mother would consent to lose
sight of them, since the former never failed to see each child, and
give it a smile and kiss, if no more. If they were to be sent, Felix
supposed there was no one but himself to take them; nobody with whom
they would be happy could be spared, nor did he show any repugnance
to the notion of acting pere de famille to three babies on the
railway.
It was quickly settled. Mr. Underwood at once confessed the exceeding
kindness, and declared it to be much better for everybody. 'Do you
not feel it so, Mother?'
She bent her head in assent, as she did to all he said.
'Having them back will be good for you,' he added persuasively; and
again she tried to give a look of response. So they were brought--
Robina, Angela, and Bernard--and each stood for a moment on a chair
at his bedside. The two little ones he merely kissed and blessed, but
to Robina he said a few more words about being good, and minding
Mamma and Felix.
'Oh yes, papa! And they'll have a Christmas tree! and I'll save all
my bon-bons to make your cough well.'
He watched wistfully as the bright heads passed out of sight, and the
long struggling cough and gasping that followed had all the pangs of
parting to add to their burthen. Half the family escorted Felix and
his charge to the station, and in the quiet that followed, Sister
Constance had a good sleep on Wilmet's bed, as much, she said, as she
ever required; and she came from it all freshness and brightness,
making the dinner-time very charming to all the diminished party,
though Wilmet felt greatly lost without the little ones; and
afterwards she earned the warmest gratitude from Edgar and Geraldine
by looking over their drawings and giving them some valuable hints--
nay, she even devised the new and delightful occupation of ship-
building for those three inconvenient subjects, Clement, Fulbert, and
Lancelot. Upstairs or down, all was gentle cheerfulness and patience
wherever she went.
Felix came home about five o'clock, and his mother was persuaded to
go to lie down while he amused his father with the account of the
children's exemplary behaviour, and of their kind welcome at St.
Faith's, where he had been kept to dine, feeling, as he said,
'uncommonly queer' at first, but at last deciding, to the great
diversion of his father, that the sisters were a set of jolly old
girls, but not one equal to '_our_ Sister Constance.' Then he had
seen the church, and was almost bewildered with the beauty of the
decorations; and Mr. Underwood, though saying little, evidently much
enjoyed his boy's refreshment and pleasure. He certainly seemed no
worse, and Mr. Audley was allowed, what he had often asked before, to
sit up with him.
But there was much to render it a long, anxious, restless night of a
sort of semi-consciousness, and murmuring talk, as if he fancied
himself at Vale Leston again. However, when Felix crept in, about
four o'clock in the morning, anxious at the sounds he heard, he found
him asleep, and this lasted for two or three hours; he woke
refreshed, and presently said, 'Epiphany! put back the curtain, that
I may see the bright and morning star.'
The morning star was shining in the delicate dawn full in view, and
he looked at it with quiet pleasure. 'Mother,' he said, then
recollecting himself; 'ah, she is resting! Thank you, Audley.'
At that moment a little cry through the thin wall made him start and
flush.
'Is it so?' he murmured; 'thank God! That is well!' But his chest
heaved grievously as he panted with anxiety, and his two watchers
hesitated what to do, until the door was slightly opened, and before
the intended sign could be made to Felix, the breathless exclamation,
'How? what?' brought Sibby's half-scared mournful countenance
forward.
'How is she, Sibby? don't fear to say,' he said, more collectedly.
'Nicely, sir, as well as can be expected; but--'
'The baby? Alive--I heard--'
'Yes, sir; that is--O Sir, it is two; and it would be a mere mercy if
they are taken, as they look like to be--twins, and coming like
this!' Perhaps Sibby was a little more lamentable, because, instead
of looking shocked, he clasped his hands in eager thanksgiving, as he
looked upwards.
Sister Constance followed at the same moment, saying in a far more
encouraging voice, 'She is doing very well.'
'It is another great mercy,' he said. 'Much better than longer
waiting on me. Will these Twelfth-day gifts live? Or do I take them
with me? At least, let me baptize them--now, at once,' he spoke
earnestly. 'My full twelve, and one over, and on Twelfth-day.'
Sister Constance had better hopes of the babes than Sibby, but this
wish of his was one not to be withstood for a moment; and she went to
make ready, while Mr. Audley went down for the little Parian font,
and Felix and Sibby arranged the pillows and coverings. Mr. Underwood
looked very bright and thankful. 'Birthday gifts,' he said, 'what are
they? You have not told me, Sibby.'
'Boy and girl, sir,' she said, 'poor little dears!'
'Jealous for your old twins, Sibby?' he said, smiling.
'Ah! sir, they came in a better time.'
'Better for them, no doubt, but this is the best for these,' he
answered brightly. 'See, Sibby, can't you be thankful, like me, that
your mistress is sheltered from what would try her? I can bear it all
better without her to see.'
Sibby's only reply was a gush of tears, and presently all was made
ready; Geraldine was quietly helped into the room by Edgar, and
placed in her usual station by the pillow, and the boys stood against
the wall, while the two babes, tiny and scarcely animate things, were
carried, each by one of the elder pair and the father, as whitely
robed as if he had been in his surplice, held out his hands, and
smiled with his kindly lips and clear shining blue eyes full of
welcome.
'Has your mother any wishes about names?' he asked. 'Wilmet--what--?'
'No, Papa, I think not;' but her eyes were brimming over with tears,
and it was plain that something was suppressed.
'My dear, let me hear, I am not to be hurt by such things.'
'It is--it is only--she did say, when we came for them, that we were
the children of joy--these are the children of sorrow,' murmured
Wilmet, uttering the words with difficulty.
'I thought so,' he said; then after a brief pause, 'Now, Audley--'
For Mr. Audley said all the previous prayers, though with a voice as
hard to control as Wilmet's had been. Then Wilmet held her charge
close to her father, for, almost inappreciable as the weight was, he
could only venture to lay one arm round that grasshopper burthen, as
with his long thin fingers he dashed the water. 'Theodore Benjamin, I
baptize thee.' Alda brought the other. 'Stella Eudora.' Then the two
hands were folded over his face, and they all knelt round till he
moved and smiled.
'Give them to me again,' he said.
It was for the father's kiss and blessing now.
'They look life-like,' he said. 'You will keep them. Now mind me.
Charge _her_ never to think of them as children of sorrow, but of
joy. She will remember how nearly you were called Theodore, Felix.
Take him as God's gift and mine--may he be a son of your right hand
to you.'
The boy did take the babe, and with a deep resolve in his heart, that
his duty to these helpless ones should be his first thought on earth.
He did not speak it, but his father saw the steadfast wistful gaze,
and it was enough.
Alda ventured to ask, 'Is Eudora a gift too, Papa?'
'Yes. A happy gift. For so she is! Let her be a little Epiphany Star
to you all! Tell Mother that I call them a double joy, a double
comfort! Poor little maid!' and he kissed her again, 'will no one
welcome her, but the father who is leaving her?'
'O Papa! You know how we will love them,' sobbed Wilmet.
'I think I do, my dear;' and he smoothed the glossy hair; but with
love comes joy, you know.'
'It is very hard now,' broke from the poor girl.
'Very, he said tenderly; 'but it will if you make the burthen a
blessing--the cross a crutch--eh, my Cherry? Now, a kiss and go, I am
tired.'
He was tired, but not apparently worse.
Edgar and his three juniors started off directly after church in
quest of ice where they might behold skating, and practise sliding;
and Wilmet, with a view to quiet, actually ventured on the
extravagance of providing them with a shilling, that they might
forage for themselves, instead of coming home to dinner.
She regretted Edgar's absence, however, for when Mr. Bevan came in to
hold the Epiphany Feast in the sick chamber, her father asked for
Edgar and Geraldine, and looked disappointed that the boy was gone.
But he murmured, 'Maybe it is best!' and when the little girl came
in, flushed and awe-struck, he took her hand, and said, 'May not I
have this little one--my last pupil--to share the feast with me?
Willing and desirous,' he smiled as he held her, and she coloured
intensely, with tears in her eyes.
There could be no denial, and his judgment at such a moment could
only be accepted by the Rector; and the child herself durst not say
one word of her alarm and awe. Papa knew. And never could she forget
that he held her hand all the time that she leant--for she could not
kneel--by his bed. Her elder brother and sisters were there too, and
he kissed and blessed each tenderly afterwards, and Sister Constance
too knelt and asked his blessing. Then he thanked Mr. Bevan warmly,
and called it a most true day of brightness. They heard him
whispering to himself, 'Arise, shine, for thy Light is come;' and the
peaceful enjoyment seemed so to soothe him, that he was not, as
usual, eager to get up.
It was only towards the early dusk that a restlessness came on, and
an increase of the distress and oppression of breath, which he
thought might be more bearable in his chair; and Mr. Audley, who had
just come in, began with Felix to dress him, and prepare to move him.
But just as they were helping him towards the chair, there was a sort
of choke, a gasping struggle, his head fell on Felix's shoulder, the
boy in terror managed to stretch out a hand and rang the bell; but in
that second felt that there was a strange convulsive shudder, and--
'Felix!' Mr. Audley's low voice sounded strange and far, away. 'I do
believe--'
The figure was entirely prone as they lifted it back to the bed. They
needed not the exclamation of Sibby to reveal the truth. It was only
an exclamation, it would have been a shriek if Felix had not grasped
her wrist with a peremptory grasp. But that bell had been enough;
there had been a sound of dismay in the very tinkle, and Sister
Constance was in the doorway.
'Felix,' she said, understanding all, 'you must go to her. She heard-
--she is calling you. You cannot conceal it; be as quick and quiet as
you can,' she added, as the stunned boy went past her, only hearing,
and that as through a tempest, the feeble voice calling his name. He
stood by the bedside; his mother looked into his white face, and held
out her hands; then as he bent down, clasped both round his neck. 'He
trusted you,' she said.
He sank on his knees as she relaxed her grasp, and hid her head
beneath the clothes. A few holy words of commendation of the soul
departed sounded from the other room; then at Sister Constance's
touch of his hand, he quitted the room.
Presently after, Felix was sitting in the large arm-chair in the
dining-room, with his sister Geraldine on his lap, his arms round
her, her arms tightly clasped round his neck, her hair hanging
loosely down over his shoulder, her head against him, his face over
her, as he rocked himself backwards and forwards with her, each
straining the other closer, as though the mechanical action and
motion could allay the pain. The table was all over baby-things,
which numerous neighbours had sent in on the first news of the twins
that morning, and which the girls had been inspecting; but no one--
nothing else was to be seen when Mr. Thomas Underwood, on his way
from the station, finding his knock unheard, and the door ajar, found
his way to the room.
'What is this? How is your father?'
Felix raised his face, still deeply flushed, and rising, placed his
sister in the chair.
'What, worse! You don't say so,' said Mr. Underwood, advancing.
'He is gone!' said Felix, steadily, but in an unnatural voice. 'Quite
suddenly. Not very long ago,' he began, but he felt unable to guess
for what space of time he had been rocking Cherry there.
'Dead! Edward Underwood! Bless me!' said Mr. Underwood, taking off
his hat, passing his hand over his forehead, and standing horror-
struck. 'I had no idea! You never sent over to say he was worse.'
'He was not; it came on just now,' said Felix, holding by the
mantelpiece.
He groaned. 'Poor Edward! Well,' and he was forced to put his
handkerchief to his eyes. He spoke more gently after that. 'Well,
this is a sudden thing, but better than lingering on. Your poor
mother, would she like to see me?'
'She was confined last night.'
Bless me! bless me! What a state of things! Have you got any one to
be with you?'
'Yes; a lady from Dearport,' said Felix.
'Humph? Which are you? not my boy?'
'No, I am Felix. O poor Edgar!' he added, still bewildered.
It was at this moment that trampling steps were heard, making Felix
spring forward with an instinct to silence them; but the threshold
the sight of his face brought conviction to Edgar, and with a loud
uncontrollable cry, tired and hungry as he was, he seemed to collapse
into his brother's arms, and fainted away.
'_My_ poor boy!' exclaimed his cousin, coming to Felix's help, and
himself lifting Edgar to the sofa. Of the other boys, Clement ran for
water, Fulbert rushed out of sight, and Lancelot laid his head on a
chair choking with tears.
Felix and Clement were, poor children! used enough to illness to
attend to their brother with a collectedness that amazed their
cousin; and without calling for help, Edgar came shuddering and
trembling to himself, and then burst into silent but agonising sobs,
very painful to witness. He was always--boy as he was--the most
easily and entirely overthrown by anything that affected him
strongly; and Mr. Thomas Underwood was so much struck and touched by
his exceeding grief, especially now that he looked on him as his own
property, that after putting in some disjointed sentences of 'There--
there--You'll always have a father in me--Don't, my boy--I tell you,
you are my son now,'--which to Felix's mind made it more intolerable,
he said, 'I'll take him home now--it will be all the better for him
and for every one, poor lad! So many--'
'The three younger ones were sent to Dearport yesterday,' said Felix;
'but Edgar--'
'To Dearport! Eh! To whom?'
'The Sisters,' said Felix.
A gruff sound followed. 'Come, come, my dear lad, 'tis bad enough,
but I'll do my best to make up to you. It will be much the best way
for you to come out of this,' he added, glancing round the dreary
fireless room, which his entrance had reminded Felix to darken.
'Thank you,' began Felix, not in the least supposing Edgar could go;
'but now--'
'It is not like a stranger,' added his relation. 'Be a sensible lad.
One out of the way is something under the circumstances. Stay--whom
can I see? I will give orders for you,' he added.
'Mr. Audley and Sister Constance are seeing about things, thank you,'
said Felix. 'I'll fetch Mr. Audley,' he added, as another trying
grunt at the other name fell on his ear, and he put his arm round
Geraldine, and helped her away.
Mr. Audley came, having just parted with the doctor, who had
explained the sudden termination as what he had of late not thought
improbable, and further shown that it had been most merciful, since
there might otherwise have been weeks, if not months, of much severer
suffering. He had just looked in at the wife, but she had hardly
noticed him, and he saw no dangerous symptoms about her, except an
almost torpid calmness.
Mr. Thomas Underwood saw Mr. Bevan, and made it clearly understood
that he made himself responsible for all expenses, including mourning
for the whole family. He even offered to have the funeral at Vale
Leston, 'if it were only to shame Fulbert Underwood;' but the wife
was in no state to be asked, and the children shrank from the
removal, so it was decided that Edward Underwood should sleep among
those for whom he had spent his life, and where his children's lot
for the present would be cast.
The cousin carried Edgar back to Centry with him; the boy seemed too
unhappy not to be restless, and as if he were ready to do anything to
leave his misery behind him.
The others remained with their preparations, and with such
consolation as the exceeding sympathy and kindness of the whole town
could afford them. Their mother remained in the same state, except
when roused by an effort; and then there was an attention and
presence of mind about her that gave anxiety lest excitement should
be bringing feverishness, but she always fell back into her usual
state of silence, such that it could be hardly told whether it were
torpid or not.
They looked out that half-finished comment on the Epistle to the
Philippians. It stopped at the words--'Yea, and if I be offered upon
the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you
all.'
Mr. Audley took those words for his text on the Sunday, and, not
without breaking down more than once, read as much of the comment as
there was time for, as the happy-hearted message of the late pastor,
for whom indeed there were many tears shed. It seemed to suit with
that solemn peace and nobleness that seemed like the 'likeness of the
Resurrection face,' bringing back all the beauty of his countenance
as he lay robed in his surplice, with a thorny but bright-fruited
cross of holly on his breast, when his children looked their last,
ere parting with what remained of that loved and loving father.
Poor little Geraldine spent that worst hour of her life sitting by
her mother's bed. She had been helped by Felix to that Feast which
had been spread for the mourners in the church in early morning; but
afterwards she was forced to remain at home, while the white-robed
choir, the brother clergy of all the neighbourhood, and the greater
part of the parish met their pastor for the last time in the church.
There the first part of the service took place; and then--Cherry
could just fancy she could hear the dim echo of the Dies Irae, as
it was sung on the way to the cemetery. It was a very aching heart,
poor child! full of the dull agony of a longing that she knew could
never be satisfied again, the intense craving for her father.
She missed him more really than any of them, she had been so much his
companion; and she was the more solitary from the absence of Edgar,
who had always been her chief partner in her pursuits. His departure
had seemed like a defection; and yet she had reproached herself for
so feeling it when he had run upstairs, on arriving with Mr.
Underwood, looking paler, more scared and miserable, than any of
them; and he was sobbing so much when he took his place in the
procession, that Wilmet had made Felix take Alda, that she might
support him. None of his mother's steady reserve and resolute
stillness had descended to him, he was all sensibility and
nervousness; and Geraldine, though without saying this to herself,
felt as if 'poor Edgar' might really have been nearly killed by the
last few days of sadness, he could bear depression so little. She
could hardly have gone through them but for Sister Constance's
kindness, and that rocking process from Felix, which she and he
called 'being his great baby.' And now, when her mother looked up at
her, held out a hand, and called her Papa's dear little Cherry,
drawing her to lay her cheek by hers on the pillow, there was much
soothing in it, though therewith the little girl felt a painful doubt
and longing to know whether her mother knew what was passing; and
even while perfectly aware that she must not be talked to nor
disturbed, was half grieved, half angry, at her dropping off into a
slumber, and awakening only upon little Stella's behalf. Those few
words to Geraldine had been the only sign that day of perception of
any existence in the world save that of the twins.
So the time went by, and the little bustle of return was heard;
Sister Constance came in, kissed Geraldine, and helped her down that
she might be with Edgar, who was to return with the cousin,
whispering to her by the way that it had been very beautiful. It was
a day of bright sunshine, high wind, and scant sparkling feathery
stars of snow, that sat for a moment shining in their pure
perfectness of regularity on the black, and then vanished. 'So like
himself,' Sister Constance said.
Geraldine found her four elders and the three little boys all
together in the dining-room; and while Wilmet anxiously asked after
Mother, the others, in a sort of sad elation, told of the crowds
present, the number of clergy--Mr. Ryder, too, came home from his
holiday on purpose--the sobbing people, and the wreaths of camellias
and of holly, that loving hands had made, and laid upon the coffin.
And then the last hymn had been so sweet and beautiful, they all
seemed refreshed and comforted except Edgar, who, coming fresh back
to the desolation of the house, was in another paroxysm of grief.
'But, Edgar,' said Alda timidly, 'you like being there, don't you?'
'As if one could like anything now!'
'Well! but, Eddy dear, you know what I mean. It is not bad being
there.'
'Not so bad as being at home. Oh!' and a terrible fit of sobbing came
on, which made the other children stand round rather appalled; while
Felix, hesitating, said,
'It is no good going on in this way, Edgar. Father would say it was
not right; and you are upsetting poor little Cherry.'
'It is worse for him, because he has been away, said Cherry fondling
him.
'Yes,' said Edgar between his sobs 'It did not seem _so_ there.'
'And are they kind?'
'Oh, yes. Marilda let me sit in the school-room, and I had books, and
things to copy; such an angel, Cherry, I'll bring it to you next
time--my copy, I mean.'
Here there was a summons from the other room for Felix.
'Yes,' said Edgar, a good deal reinvigorated by having something to
tell; 'I suppose they are going to tell him what is settled. Mr.
Underwood wrote to the man at Vale Leston, and he won't do anything
for us; but they are going to try for the Clergy Orphan for one of
you two little boys.'
'Oh!' there was a great gasp.
'And about me?' asked Alda.
'You are to come when we all go to London--to meet us at the station.
There's a new governess coming, and you will start both together with
her; and I think you'll beat Marilda, for she knows nothing, and
won't learn.'
'I hope she won't be jealous.'
'I don't think it is in her! She's very jolly.'
'But I can't go till Mamma is better.'
Wilmet felt they were falling into a gossiping kind of way that
jarred on her, and was glad of a summons upstairs.
Mr. Thomas Underwood saw Alda before he returned home, told her she
was his other daughter, and should join them on their way to London;
and he further made arrangements about the christening, contingent,
of course, on the mother's consent, and on the possibility of taking
the very small delicate babies to the church. He made very extensive
promises of patronage for the future, with a full and open heart, and
looked as if he should like to adopt the whole family on the spot.
*** *** ***
For the convenience of our readers we subjoin the first page of the
family Bible.
Edward Fulbert Underwood married August 1st, 1837--Mary Wilmet
Underwood.
Felix Chester . . . born, July 3d, 1838.
Wilmet Ursula )
Alda Mary ). . . " Aug. llth, 1839.
Thomas Edgar. . . . " Oct. 6th, 1840.
Geraldine. . . . . " Oct. 25th, 1841.
Edward Clement . . . " Nov. 23d, 1842.
Fulbert James . . . " Jan. 9th, 1844.
Lancelot Oswald. . . " May 16th, 1846.
Robina Elizabeth . . " Feb. 20th, 1848.
Angela Margaret. . . " Sept.29th, 1851.
Bernard . . . . . " Dec. 1st, 1852.
Stella Eudora )
Theodore Benjamin). . " Jan. 6th, 1854.
CHAPTER V
WORKING FOR BREAD
'Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a nowt when 'e's dead;
Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, an' addle her bread.'
TENNYSON.
'Tell, little one,' said Mr. Rugg, the doctor, as he found Geraldine
on the landing-place outside her mother's room, and spoke to her in a
voice that to her reluctant ears, as well as to those of Sister
Constance, who followed him, sounded all the more vulgar because it
was low, wheedling, and confidential; 'you are always about the
house, you know everything--what accident has your mamma met with?'
Cherry's face grew set.
'She has, then,' said the doctor, looking at Sister Constance. 'I
thought so. Now, be a good child, and tell us all about it.'
'I cannot,' she said.
'Come, don't be silly and sulk. No one will punish you: we know it
was an accident; out with it.'
'My dear,' said Sister Constance, 'this is a pity. Much may depend on
your speaking.'
Cherry began to cry very piteously, though still silently.
'Yes, yes, we see you are sorry,' said Mr. Rugg, 'but there's nothing
for it now but to let us hear the truth.'
She shook her head violently, and brow and neck turned crimson.
Mr. Rugg grew angered, and tried a sharper tone. 'Miss Geraldine,
this is regular naughtiness. Let me hear directly.'
The flush became purple, and something like 'I won't' came from
behind the handkerchief.
'Leave her to me, if you please,' said Sister Constance gently; 'I
think she will tell me what is right to be told.'
'As you please, Lady Somerville,' said Mr. Rugg, who, since he had
discovered her title, was always barbarously misusing it; 'but the
thing must be told. It is doing Mrs. Underwood a serious injury to
let childish naughtiness conceal the truth.'
Constance put her arm round the little girl, a tiny weight for
thirteen years old, and took her into the room where she had last
seen her father. She was sobbing violently, not without passion, and
the more distressingly because she carefully stifled every sound, and
the poor little frame seemed as if it would be rent to pieces.
'Cherry, dear child, don't,' said Constance, sitting down and
gathering her into her arms; 'do try and calm yourself, and think--'
'He--he--I won't tell him!' sobbed the child. 'He's a bad man--he
tells stories. He said he would not hurt me--when he knew he should
most terribly. Papa said it was very wrong. Papa was quite angry--he
called it deceiving, he did! I won't tell him!'
'My dear child, is there anything to tell? Don't think about him,
think about what is good for your mother.'
'She told me not,' sobbed Cherry, but not with the anger there had
been before. 'No, no, don't ask me; she told me not.'
'Your mother? My dear little girl, whatever it is, you ought to say
it. Your dear mother seems to be too ill and confused to recollect
everything herself, and if it is not known whether she has been hurt,
how can anything be done for her?'
Cherry sat upon her friend's lap, and with a very heaving chest said,
'If Felix says I ought--then I will. Papa said we should mind Felix--
like him.'
'I will call Felix,' said Sister Constance.
Mr. Rugg looked very impatient of the delay; but Felix, who had just
come in to dinner, was summoned. He came at once, and was soon
standing by Geraldine's chair.
'Yes, Geraldine, I think you ought to tell,' he said as the loyal
little thing gazed up at her new monarch. 'What did happen?'
'It was on the day after New Year's Day,' said Geraldine, now
speaking very fast. 'You were all at church, and she came out of--
this room with Bernard in her arms--and called to me that I might
come and sit with--him, because she was going down to the kitchen to
make some beef-tea. And just then she put her foot into a loop of
whip-cord, and fell. She could not save herself at all, because of
Bernard; but she went backwards--against the steps.'
'Did she seem hurt at the time?'
'I did not think so. She pulled herself up by the baluster before I
could get up to help her, and she never let Bernard go all the time--
he did not even scream. She only said, "Now mind, Cherry, do not say
one word of this to Papa or anybody else," and she told me she wasn't
hurt. Oh! was she really?' as the Sister left the room.
'I wonder whose the string was,' said Felix vindictively.
'Oh, never mind! He'll be so sorry! Oh! I hope she won't be very much
vexed at my telling!'
'She will not mind now!' said Felix; 'it was only not to frighten
Papa.'
And Felix had his little sister in that one position where she felt a
sort of comfort--like a baby in his arms to be rocked--when Sister
Constance returned with the doctor. He spoke without either the anger
or the persuasive tone now, and Cherry could bear it better, though
she slipped off her brother's lap instantly, and stood up in dignity.
'So your Mamma told you to conceal this mishap. That is some excuse.
Now, tell me, how far did she fall?'
'Not more than four steps, I am sure--I think three.'
'And backwards?'
'Yes.'
'Do you think she struck her head?'
'Yes, the back of it.'
'Ah! And she spoke and moved at once, not like one stunned?'
'Oh no, not at all. She got up and made the beef-tea.'
'The 2d of January? That must have been about the time you began to
observe that change of manner--the irritability your sister
remarked,' said the doctor, turning to Felix. He nodded, angry as he
had been with Alda for remarking it. All that the doctor further said
was, that he must have another examination now that he knew a little
more about the case; and he went away with Sister Constance, saying
to her, 'Mrs. Underwood is a lady of wonderful fortitude and
resolution, and really they are the worst kind of patients.'
It was now more than a fortnight since that 6th of January which saw
the birth of the twins and the death of their father, and Mrs.
Underwood still lay quiet and almost torpid in her bed, seldom
speaking, hardly ever originating anything, and apparently taking no
interest whatsoever in anything outside her room; and yet there was
no symptom unfavourable to her recovery to be detected. Within the
last day or two they had tried to rouse her; papers had been brought
to her to sign, and she did so obediently, but she did not follow the
subject: she did not refuse, but did not second, any proposal for her
beginning to sit up; and this was the more remarkable, as, being a
woman of much health and energy in her quiet way, she had always
recovered rapidly, and filled her place in the family alarmingly
soon. The nurse had begun to suspect that besides the torpor of mind
there was some weakness of limb; and with the new lights acquired,
Mr. Rugg had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that there was
a slight concussion of the spine, causing excitement at first, and
now more serious consequences; and though he did not apprehend
present danger, he thought complete recovery very doubtful.
'So they are almost worse than orphans,' said Sister Constance, when
the Curate went down from reading to the invalid, and she could tell
him the verdict.
'Do they know?'
'The fact? There is no need to lay the future on the shoulders of the
present.'
'A very dark present. I feel as if a great bright sun, warming and
invigorating, had gone out of my life. Yet I knew him but two years.'
'I can understand it, though I knew him but two days.'
'I hope he may have been the making of me,' sighed Mr. Audley. 'He
ought to be.'
'I think he has been,' said she, smiling. 'There is some difference
between you and the boyish young deacon that came here two years
ago.'
'Who thought life without shooting barely endurable by the help of
croquet! I trust so! He was very patient and tolerant--made holidays
for me that first summer which it cuts me to recollect.'
'To live and share in a great sorrow does make a great step in life,'
said Constance, thoughtfully looking at the much graver and more
earnest brow of her husband's young cousin; 'and you were a comfort
to them all as no one else could be.'
'Must you go?' he said. 'I wanted to consult you. I am thinking of
giving up my present lodgings to this Mowbray Smith, who is coming as
curate, and coming here.'
'Here! My dear Charles!'
'I thought I had heard legends of twelve foot square?'
'Not with thirteen children. Besides, we were seasoned!'
'Stay; you don't understand. There are three rooms on this floor.
Poor Mrs. Underwood will hardly want to occupy these two just yet. I
take them, and put in some furniture--live to myself, but let them
board and lodge me. They may as well have what is to be made by it as
any one else.'
'But can they? And, forgive me, Charles, are you prepared for the
cookery here? Really, some of those children have appetites so small,
that I can't bear to see them at dinner.'
'That's the very point. They all say the invaluable Sibby is as good
a nurse as she is bad as a cook. Now, if they have no help, Wilmet
must stay at home to look after her mother and the twins; and that is
not fit for such a young girl. Now, my coming might enable them to
get some one who knows the use of meat and fires, and would send
upstairs the only woman who would undertake such a charge as that
must be.'
'I don't like to say a word against it. It seems excellent for them.'
'I would not live with them, but I should be there to help. I could
keep Felix up in his Latin, and--'
Only one suggestion more, Charles. If you do not stay here long?'
Well--if not, every week I am here is so much tided over; and just at
this time the charge must be heaviest. Those boys may be disposed of
after a time.'
'I wish we could keep those two little girls at St. Faith's, but
there is no place yet for children of their class. I am wanted there
this day week, and I cannot say but that I shall be glad to leave you
here. Only I recollect your mother's feelings.'
'Mothers must draw in the horns of their feelings when their sons are
ordained,' he said, laughing. 'I shall consult that notable person,
Wilmet.'
'Wilmet started and blushed with pleasure. It would be so much less
dreary; and, poor girl! she was feeling as if she were half rent
asunder at the thought of Alda's going. So good for Felix, too. Only
she must ask Mamma. And she did ask Mamma, and, to her great
pleasure, Mrs. Underwood listened, and said, 'It is very kind.'
'And shall it be, Mamma?'
'I shall like for you to have some one in the house. Yes, my dear, I
think--' then she paused. 'My dear, you and Sibby and Sister
Constance had better talk it over. I do not seem able to consider it.
But Sister Constance will tell you. My dear Wilmet, I am afraid you
must have a great deal laid on you.'
'Oh, never mind, Mamma; I like doing things. Besides, you are so much
better.'
'I'll try to help you more,' added Mrs. Underwood wistfully. 'Which
room did you say?'
And she listened, and even made a few suggestions, as Wilmet
explained how she thought of making a sitting-room upstairs, and
giving the two downstairs front ones to Mr. Audley, using the back
room for the boys and children; she was altogether so much more open
to comprehension, and ready to speak, that Wilmet was full of hope
and assurance that she was really mending.
When Sister Constance came in, the readiness to converse continued.
She consulted her friend on the scheme, and its expedience for Mr.
Audley, saying that she feared he would be uncomfortable; but she
could not reject so great a help for her children. She had even
thought of the advantage of keeping Sibby upstairs to attend on the
babies and herself--work not fit to rest entirely on Wilmet, though
the good girl had fully counted on giving up her work at school.
It was evident that the examination by the doctor and Wilmet's
consultation had thoroughly roused her, and she was as clear-headed
as ever. Indeed, it seemed to Sister Constance that she was a little
excited, and in that mood in which the most silent and reserved
people suddenly become the most unreserved.
She was asked at last what Mr. Rugg thought of her, and Sister
Constance in reply asked whether she remembered her accident. She
thought a little. 'Why--yes--I believe I did slip on the stairs; but
it did not hurt me, and I forgot it. Does he think anything of it?'
'I think he fears you gave yourself a shock.'
'Not unlikely,' she said in an indifferent tone, and did not speak
again for some minutes; then said, 'Yes, I see! I am thankful it did
not tell on me sooner,' and her look brought the tears into
Constance's eyes.
'It told more than you did,' said Constance, endeavouring at a smile.
'Not on the babies,' she said; 'and he never knew it, so there is no
harm done! Thank God!'
She lay a little longer, and Constance thought her going into her
usual state of torpor; but she roused herself to say, 'Would you
kindly look into that desk? You will find a green book.'
'Yes.'
'Please tear out the leaves, and burn it for me. I would not have one
of the children see it on any account.'
Constance began to obey, and saw that it was a diary. 'Are you sure
it ought to be done?' she asked. 'Might it not be better to wait till
you are better?'
'I cannot tell that I shall be much less helpless. I know how things
like this go,' she said.
Constance was still reluctant, and Mrs. Underwood added, 'I will tell
you. It is nothing good, I assure you. When we drove from the door at
Vale Leston, the home of all our lives, he turned to me and said,
"Now, Mary, that page is shut for ever. Let us never speak a word to
make the children or ourselves feel turned out of paradise." And I
never did; but, oh! I wrote it. There are pages on pages of repinings
there--I could not let them see it!'
'Nay, but you were resigned.'
'Resigned! What of that? I held my tongue! It was all I could do! I
never knew things could be worse till I saw it was killing him, and
then all I could do was still to keep silence.'
There was an agony in her voice that Constance had never heard there
before.
Silence was, no doubt--as things were--an exceeding kindness to him,'
said Constance, 'and one that must have cost you much.'
'Once--once, so tenderly, with tears in his eyes, he did beg me as a
favour not to complain, or talk of Fulbert Underwood! I did not; but
I never could be the companion I was before to him. He was always
happy, he did believe me so; but I could often only smile. If I
talked, it could only have been of his health and our cares.'
'You kept him happy by taking the weight so entirely to yourself.'
Perhaps; if he had only known how miserable it made me, we might have
moved to a healthier place; but after that one time, I never could
vex him or trust myself. To hear him console me and grieve for me,
was worst of all.'
Constance began to see how the whole woman, brought up to affluence,
had been suddenly crushed by the change; and almost the more so for
her husband's high and cheerful resolution, which had forced back her
feelings into herself. Her powers had barely sufficed for the cares
of her household and her numerous family, and her endurance had
consisted in 'suffering, and being still.' No murmur had escaped, but
only by force of silence. She had not weakened his energies by word
or look of repining; but while his physical life was worn out by toil
and hardship, her mental life had almost been extinguished in care,
drudgery, and self-control; and all his sweetness, tenderness, and
cheerfulness had not been able to do more than just to enable her to
hold out, without manifesting her suffering. Enid had been a very
suitable name for her; though without a Geraint in any respect to
blame for what she underwent, she had borne all in the same silent
and almost hopeless spirit, and with the same unfailing calm temper:
but outside her own house, she had never loved nor taken real
interest in anything since the day she drove from the door of Vale
Leston; she had merely forced herself to seem to do so, rather than
disappoint her eager husband and children.
And now, how much of her torpor had been collapse, how much the
effect of the accident, could not be guessed. She herself was greatly
roused for the present, dwelt on the necessity of trying to get up
the next day, and was altogether in a state excitable enough to make
the Sister anxious.
Other troubles too there were that evening, which made all feel that
even though Mr. Audley was to live to himself, his presence in the
house would be no small comfort.
Fulbert, never the most manageable of the party, had procured a piece
of wood from the good-natured carpenter, and was making a sparrow-
trap on an improved plan, when Wilmet, impatient to have the room
clear for Mr. Audley to come for the final decision--as he was to do
in the evening--anxious to clear away the intolerable litter, and
with more anxiety for Fulbert's holiday task than for the sparrows,
ordered him to bed ten minutes too early, and in too peremptory a
tone.
Fulbert did not stir.
'Fulbert, I say, clear up that litter, and go to bed.'
'Don't you hear, Fulbert?' said Felix, looking up from his book.
Fulbert gave a pull to the newspaper that was spread under his works
on the table, and sent all his chips and sawdust on the ground.
'O Fulbert! how naughty!' broke out Alda.
'Fulbert, are you going to mind?' asked Wilmet. 'Please remember.'
'I shall go in proper time,' growled Fulbert.
'That is not the way to speak to your sister,' interposed Felix, with
authority.
Fulbert eyed him defiantly all over.
Felix rose up from his chair, full of wrath and indignation. There
was quite difference enough in their size and strength to give him
the complete mastery, for Fulbert was only ten years old; but Wilmet,
dreading nothing so much as a scuffle and outcry, sprang up,
imploring, 'O Felix! remember, Mamma is wide awake to-night. Let him
alone--pray, let him alone.'
Felix was thoroughly angry, and kept his hands off with exceeding
difficulty. 'Little sneak,' he said; 'he chooses to take advantage.'
'He always was a sneak; his nose is the shape of it,' said Edgar.
As Felix and Wilmet had the sense to let this amiable observation
drop, Edgar contented himself with making some physiognomical
outlines of sneaks' noses on a slate; and silence prevailed till the
church clock struck the half-hour, when Clement got up, and taking
the slate, where he had been solacing himself with imitating Edgar's
caricatures, he was about to make it an impromptu dust-pan, and went
down on his knees to sweep up Fulbert's malicious litter, but was
rewarded with a vicious kick on the cheek. It was under the table,
out of sight; and Clement, like a true son of his mother, made no
sign, but went off to bed like a Spartan.
'Fulbert,' said Lance, rising to follow his example, 'it is time
now.'
He still sat on; and Felix, in intolerable wrath and vexation, found
himself making such deep bites into a pencil, that he threw it from
him with shame, just as Mr. Audley's bell sounded, and he ran down to
let him in.
'Now, Ful,' said Wilmet coaxingly, 'please go--or Mr. Audley will
see.'
'Let him.'
Mr. Audley was there in a moment, and the next, Alda, in all the
ruffle of offended dignity, was telling him that Fulbert was in one
of his tempers, and would attend to nobody. Fulbert's back looked it.
It evidently intended to remain in that obstinate curve till
midnight.
'I am sorry,' said Mr. Audley, 'I thought no one would have added to
the distress of the house! What is it, Fulbert?' he added, laying his
hand on his shoulder, and signing to Alda to hold her peace.
'They bother,' said Fulbert, in the sulky tone; but still, as he
regarded the newcomer as less of an enemy than the rest--'I'd have
gone at half-past eight if they would let a fellow alone.'
'Then the fellow had better give them no right to bother,' said Mr.
Audley. 'Come, Fulbert, no ship can sail unless the crew obey. No
mutiny. Here's your captain ready to shake hands and wish you good-
night.'
Fulbert could not face Mr. Audley's determined look, but he was not
conquered. He took up his tools and his trap, gave a final puff to
spread his sawdust farther, and marched off without a single good-
night.
'He has the worst temper of us all,' cried Alda.
'You should be very cautious of provoking him, said Mr. Audley.
'I am afraid it was my fault,' sighed Wilmet.
'Nonsense,' said Felix; 'he is an obstinate little dog. I wish I was
licking him. I hope he is not pitching into Clem!'
'Clem is the biggest,' said Alda.
'Yes, but he is much the meekest,' added Wilmet.
'Tina's meek sauce is aggravation, itself,' observed Edgar. 'I should
hope he was catching it!'
'He is certainly not slow to put in his oar,' said Mr. Audley; 'did
you hear of his performance in the vestry the other day?'
'No. I hope he did not make an unusual ass of himself,' said Felix.
'He and Mowbray Smith had last Tuesday's Evensong nearly to
themselves, when Master Clem not only assisted Smith in putting on
his hood, but expressed his doubts as to the correctness of it
(never, of course, having seen any bachelor's but Oxford or
Cambridge), and further gave him some good advice as to his manner of
intoning.'
'I hope he won't go on in that way at St. Matthew's!' exclaimed
Wilmet.
'It is lucky he is going so soon,' said Mr. Audley. 'I doubt if
Mowbray Smith will ever get over it!'
'Regular snob that he is,' said Edgar; 'just one of my Lady's sort!
What did he do? Go crying to her?'
'O Edgar!' remonstrated Wilmet.
'Well, Mettie, if even our spiritual pastors will be snobs, one must
have the relief of expressing one's opinion now and then.'
'I should say it was better to keep any such fact out of one's mind
as much as might be,' said Mr. Audley, feeling himself unable to deny
what had been so broadly expressed.
'And we, at any rate, had better drop talking of snobs,' said Felix.
'Hollo, Felix! I am sure you for one would not be a snob if you had
turned chimney-sweeper, and let Tom Underwood nail me to his office;
he'll never make one of me!'
'I trust so,' said Felix; 'but it is not the way to keep from it to
throw about the word at other folks.'
'What's that?' cried Alda. 'Really, that boy must be falling upon
some of them.'
It was Lance, in great deshabille, who, opening a crack of the door,
called cautiously, 'Wilmet, please come here.'
Wilmet hastily obeyed, saying anxiously, as the door was shut, 'Never
mind, dear Lance, he's in a horrid mood; but do bear it, and not make
Felix more in a rage.'
'Bosh about Ful,' said Lance unceremoniously. 'It is Cherry; she is
crying so upstairs, and Clem and I can't get a word out of her.'
Cherry, though older than the boys, had to precede them in vanishing
for the night, as her undressing was a long operation dependent upon
Sibby. Wilmet ran up in haste, and did indeed find poor little
Geraldine with her face smothered under the clothes in an agony of
weeping, very serious for so frail a little creature.
'Cherry! Cherry, dear, don't! Are you feeling solitary? Are you
missing him? Oh, don't! Yes, dear, 'tis so sad; but we all do love
you so.'
Wilmet would have kissed and fondled her, but the child almost thrust
her away.
'Not that. Oh, not that! I wish it was.'
'My dear Cherry, you can't have been naughty!'
'Yes, yes! indeed I have. And now--'
'I can't think--O Cherry, if you would only tell me what you mean!'
cried Wilmet, aghast.
And with agonised sobs. Cherry whispered, 'Mr. Rugg--O Mettie--such
things as I said about him to Sister Constance--I made sure I had
forgiven--long ago--and now--now, after _that_.'
If Wilmet had not known how deeply both Geraldine and her father had
resented what Mr. Rugg had meant as a little friendly gloss to save
terror before a painful operation, she would have been utterly at a
loss. And now she found herself incapable by any argument or caress
of soothing her sister's sense of heinous offence; for that rite, of
which she had partaken with her father, had required charity with all
men, and now she found she had been deceitful--she hated Mr. Rugg all
the time. Oh, what should she do! how could she be so wicked!
Wilmet tried to tell her that she had not known how it was at the
time, but this seemed no comfort; and it was plain that that day's
solemnity had lessened the inequality between the two girls so much,
that for Wilmet to console her as a child was vain; and indeed, her
invalid state and constant companionship with her father had rendered
her religions feeling much more excitable, and more developed, than
were as yet Wilmet's; and meantime, this piteous sobbing and weeping
was doing great bodily harm.
Wilmet at last, hearing a door open as if the nurse were taking
Sister Constance's place, ran down to take counsel with that kind
friend on the way. She whispered her trouble on the stairs, and the
Sister was soon kneeling over the little bed; but her comfort was not
persuading the child to think less of the fault, but promising that
she should tell all to Mr. Audley to-morrow.
Nay, seeing that even this was too long hence for the 'weary soul,
and burdened sore,' to look forward to--indeed, that the preparation
for the interview would be sleep-destroying--she said, 'Then you
shall see him at once, my dear.'
Wilmet opened her eyes in dismay. That little attic, bare of all but
beds, was her thought; but Sister Constance, ever an effective woman,
had the little black frock, the shoes and stockings, on in no time,
and throwing a shawl over all, actually gathered the small light
frame up into her arms, and carried her down to the fire in the room
now vacated by the nurses and babies. And there she fetched Mr.
Audley to her. 'It will not do,' she whispered on the way to Wilmet,
'to treat her as a child _now_.'
'He always made so much of her,' sighed Wilmet.
'Yes; and now she is a Communicant.'
They left her to Mr. Audley, and presently, when the door opened
again, it was he who was carrying her upstairs again; and when Sister
Constance had taken possession of her, she whispered, 'Yes, thank
you. He says I may come on Sunday, and I think it is forgiven. I
shall say a prayer about charity always now!' And with a deep sigh,
the worn-out little penitent lay down to her sleep.
'O Mr. Audley, it is plain we cannot do without you,' sighed Wilmet,
as she came down, not without tears in her eyes.
And then came the conference upon ways and means, rooms and
attendance. Mr. Audley had parted with his horse and groom in the
autumn, observing that they ate their heads off; and the terms he now
proposed for lodging, board, and attendance were what Felix and
Wilmet would have known to be wondrously liberal but for their
inexperience, especially as he meant to send in some, at least, of
the furniture. He was to have his meals, at his own times, in his
sitting-room; and Sister Constance had a person in her eye at
Dearport, who was likely to do well in the kitchen, and not quarrel
with Sibby.
Wilmet had made up her mind that she must remain at home all day, and
had even told Miss Pearson so; but that good lady had refused to
accept her resignation, and had come to Mr. Bevan about it: and now
both the Sister and the Curate united in telling her that she ought
not, as long as it was possible, to give up this means of improving
herself, as well as lessening the family burthen. To give up her
education now would be to sink into a housewifely drudge, who would
hardly be able to maintain herself when the younger ones would be
getting out into the world; and as Geraldine must stay at home to be
a companion to her mother, there was no need for her being also
always in attendance, while Sibby was equal to the charge. Indeed,
Mrs. Underwood herself had said something that showed her to
contemplate Wilmet's remaining at school.
'You must,' said Felix decidedly. 'Why, you might as well turn
nursery-girl at once.'
'I should like it,' said Wilmet. 'I shall be miserable at school--
always thinking something is going wrong. And Cherry can never bear
with the babies! Oh! please don't tell me I must.'
'I tell you to begin,' said Sister Constance. 'You can always give it
up if you feel that the need lies at home; but I think the few hours'
change every day--for duty's sake, mind--will give you vigour not to
be worn down by the home cares.'
'But Cherry will have them always! She who cares for books and
drawing so much more than I!'
'Yes; but if you go on learning, you can teach her,' said Sister
Constance.
'Oh!' cried Wilmet; 'Cherry knows more than I do.'
'Little Cherry is the cleverest of us all,' added Felix.
'Still,' said the Sister, 'the mere going over your work with you
will give her change and interest. I do feel strongly convinced; dear
Wilmet, that to shut yourself up with her, without gathering anything
from elsewhere, would be very bad for both.'
'We must see how Mamma is, and how Cherry gets on,' was all that
Wilmet would say, but the arrangement was made, and was to take
effect in ten days' time, when Mr. Mowbray Smith was coming to be
second curate, and Sister Constance must change places with the three
absent children, and Alda would be gone to her adopted home.
Then Mr. Audley took leave; and as Felix went to the front door with
him, he said, 'Forgive me, Felix; but I am a younger brother myself,
and I do hope you do not mean to assert your authority by licking.'
Felix coloured a little; and though he spoke respectfully, it was
with some little annoyance. 'There is nothing else that does with
Fulbert.'
'Stay, Felix; I am not questioning that he may be the sort of boy for
whom flogging may be good from some one.'
'He is!' said Felix. 'He never will behave himself till he has felt
his master! It has been so at school; and once, even my father made
himself quite ill for a week with having to flog Fulbert for
disobedience. It settled him; but he is not like the others--Clem and
Lance are not any trouble; but--I know it will come to it sooner or
later; Ful will never mind me or Wilmet till I have done it once.'
'And when his strength is equal to yours?'
'Then I hope he will have more sense.'
'Yes, Felix; but what if by forcing him into dogged submission by
your bodily strength you have lost his confidence, and have no moral
power over him? Things that can be borne from a father come very
differently from a brother.'
Felix was quite crimson now. 'But what shall I do, Mr. Audley, when
he defies Wilmet, and teases Cherry and the little ones?'
'Try all you can with his better sense, but don't anger him by tones
of authority. What you think needful rule may seem to him
domineering. And if necessary, call me. My blows will not leave the
after rankling that yours will, even if they are necessary.'
Felix sighed. He was not desirous of beating his brother in the main;
but being unhappily master of the house, he was unwilling not to be
so entirely. He wished Mr. Audley good-night, not in his most
perfectly cordial tone.
However, the next morning he had brought himself to thank Mr. Audley.
Thank you, Felix,' said the Curate; 'it is a great relief to me. I
was afraid you thought you were going to bring a meddling fellow in
upon you.'
Felix coloured, and with an effort--for which Mr. Audley liked him
the better--said, 'I know I shall always deserve what advice you give
me, and I hope another time I may take it better than the last.'
Soon after, one train carried away four of the young Underwoods to
begin life elsewhere. The Thomas Underwoods had desired that Alda and
Edgar should meet them at the station, and at Felix's entreaty had
also undertaken to convoy Clement, who, thanks to Mr. Audley, was to
be a chorister, and live in the clergy-house at St. Matthew's,
Whittingtonia. It would have been Fulbert, only unluckily he had no
ear, and so he was left at home, while Lady Price, Mrs. Thomas
Underwood, and all the ladies they could enlist in their service,
canvassed desperately, and made the cards of 'Fulbert James and
Lancelot Oswald, sons of the Rev. Edward Fulbert Underwood, THIRTEEN
children,' a weariness to every friend of a subscriber to clergy
orphan schools. Robina was not quite old enough to stand for the like
election; but Sister Constance had negotiated with a lady who had
devoted herself to educating children of better birth than means, and
the little girl was to be dropped at the nearest station to her
school at Catsacre. It had all been settled in a wonderfully short
time, by Sister Constance and Mr. Audley, with full though helpless
acquiescence from Mrs. Underwood. They felt it well to lessen the
crowd of children in the house, and the responsibilities of the elder
ones, and acted at once.
As to Alda, she was too miserable at home not to be ready to follow
Edgar, though she had at first implored to stay and help Wilmet till
their mother was about again; but the Thomas Underwoods were
unwilling to consent to this--and after all, Alda was more apt to cry
than to be of much real use. Sister Constance saw that she was only
another weight on her sister's hands, and that, terrible as the
wrench would be between the twins, Wilmet would be freer when it was
once over. Poor Wilmet! she had felt as if she could hardly have
lived over these weeks save for fondling the younger twins, and
waiting on her mother. She was almost passive, and ran up and
downstairs, or prepared the wardrobes of the departing children, just
as she was bidden, all in one quiet maze of grief. The tears seemed
to be always in her eyes, very often dropping, and yet they never
hindered her, and she never uttered a word of deprecation or
complaint; only she could not eat, and a kiss would bring down a
whole shower; and at night, the two sisters would hold each other
tight, and cry and kiss themselves to sleep.
So had come the last day--the last for all four. Robina, who had only
just come back from St. Faith's, was grave, puzzled, and awestruck,
clinging chiefly to Lancelot, and exchanging confidences in corners
with him, in which they were probably much less childish than they
showed themselves to the outer world. Clement was very grave and
unhappy; but seemed to be most distressed at parting with Harry Lamb,
a favourite school-fellow of his own quiet stamp, with whom he spent
all available time. Alda and Wilmet were hand in hand at every
possible moment, and if possible cheek to cheek--each felt as if
herself was cut in two.
Then Edgar, who had only come home for that farewell Sunday, had
another of his paroxysms of sorrow at the changes at home, which he
contrived to forget when at Centry. All that was becoming in a manner
usual to the others was a shock to him, and he was so very miserable
the whole day, that he treated every attempt of the others to cheer
him as a mere token of their hardness of heart. He went in to see his
mother, and was so overcome at finding her no better, that he rushed
away, and threw himself on a sofa as if he was going to faint; and
when at church he saw his father's place filled up he fell into such
a fit of sobbing, that half a dozen smelling-bottles were handed
across the seats.
However, he had recovered himself on Monday morning, and made it his
particular request that nobody would come bothering to the station,
to make them look like Fulbert's canvassing-card of the thirteen
children--and as the mention of it always affronted Fulbert deeply,
it was plain that he would be no good company. However, Felix had
been allowed an hour from his business for that very purpose, and he
simply said, 'Nonsense, Edgar, I shall take Robin down.' Wilmet
submitted, though with a great pang. She had no assurance that she
should not break down, and a crying match at the station--oh no! It
might make Bobbie roar all the way.
So Alda clung round her neck and Geraldine's in their own little
parlour, and wished her mother good-bye, scarcely knowing whether it
were with a full understanding how many were parted from the wing
that now seemed unable to shelter them; and then Wilmet went up and
quietly lay down by her mother on her bed, feeling as if there was
nothing she cared for in all life, and as if youth, hope, and
happiness were gone away from her for ever, and she were as much
widowed as her mother. She was even past crying--she could do nothing
but lie still. But then her mother's hand came out and stroked her;
and presently one of the babies cried, and Wilmet was walking up and
down the room with it, and all activity with her outward senses,
though her heart felt dead. Meantime, the luggage went in the
omnibus, the four children walked up together only escorted by Felix,
and were passed on their way by the prancing and thundering carriage
from Centry.
But the sense of usefulness that came gave strength and energy to
Felix and Wilmet Underwood as the first excitement passed away, and
they better understood their tasks.
Of the absent ones they heard good accounts. Alda was altogether one
with her cousin's family, and seemed to be completely on an equality
with Marilda; and Edgar had been sent by Thomas Underwood to acquire
modern languages under the care of an Englishman who took private
pupils at Louvaine, whence Edgar despatched most amusing letters and
clever sketches. Clement was in great favour, both musically and
morally, at St. Matthew's; and little Robina was reported to have
bewailed her home with floods of nightly tears, but to have soon
settled down into the bonnie little pet of the elder girls.
Except for the separation, the cloud had hardly fallen on these, but
their departure had made a great hole in the hitherto unbroken
family; and while Felix and Wilmet, by the loss of their
contemporaries, seemed placed at a point far away from the others,
Geraldine was conscious of much loneliness. The twins had always
consorted together, and regarded her as a mere child, and her chief
companions had been her father and Edgar, so that she seemed left at
an equal distance both from the elder and younger party.
Then the world around her was so busy, and she could do so little.
She slept in a little inner room beyond the large nursery, where
Wilmet kept guard over Angela and Bernard; and long before six
o'clock, she always heard the call pass between the eldest brother
and sister; and knew that as soon as he was dressed, Felix--it must
out--was cleaning the family boots, including those of the lodger,
who probably supposed that nature did it, and never knew how much his
young landlord had done before joining him in his early walk to St.
Oswald's.
Meantime Wilmet conducted the toilette of the two little children,
and gave the assistance that Cherry needed, as well as discharging
some of the lighter tasks of the housemaid; leaving the heavier ones
to Sibby and Martha, a stout, willing, strong young woman, whom
Sister Constance had happily found for them, and who was
disqualified, by a loutish manner and horrible squint, from the
places to which her capabilities might have raised her.
Then Wilmet helped her sister downstairs, and a visit was paid to the
mother and the twins, who were Sibby's charge for the night. Mrs.
Underwood was still in the same state. It was indeed possible to
rouse her, but at the expense of much suffering and excitement; and
in general, she was merely tender, placid, and content, mechanically
busied about her babies, and responding to what was said, but
entirely incapable of any exertion of body, and as inactive in mind
as in limb. Wilmet attended to her while Sibby went to her breakfast,
returning with that of her mistress in time to send Wilmet down to
preside at the family meal, a genuine Irish dish of stir-about--for
which all had inherited a taste from their father's Irish mother.
Only Cherry was too delicate for such food, and was rather ashamed of
her cup of tea and slice of bread.
However, this was one of the few times when she could hope she was
useful; for when Felix was gone to the printing-office, the boys to
the grammar-school, and Wilmet, first to the kitchen, and then to
Miss Pearson's, she remained with bowl and cloth to wash up, in her
own peculiarly slow and dainty way, never breaking but always
dreaming, while Angela carried them one by one, first to her, then to
the kitchen.
'Now, Cherry.'
Mr. Audley's door opened, he would step forward and take the well-
worn books in one hand, and hold the doors open with the other as
Cherry tardily hopped in, and perched herself by the table. Her
confirmation studies had been left in his charge, and then followed a
little Greek, some Latin, a page or two of French, the revision of an
exercise, and some help in Euclid and fractions--all studies begun
with her father, and both congenial and useful to her, as the
occupation that (next to drawing) best prevented her from feeling the
dreary loneliness of her days; for though he could seldom give her
more than an hour, the preparation--after he had helped her upstairs-
--occupied her during the whole period of tranquillity while the
younger children slept. Angela appeared first, and did some small
lessons, cat-and-dog readings, and easy hymns, then was generally
content to sit on the floor in Mamma's room, admiring or amusing the
twins. Then Cherry, according to her sense of duty, drew or worked.
There was a horrible never-ending still-beginning basket of mending
in the family, which Wilmet replenished every Saturday; and though
Mrs. Underwood's instinct for piecing and darning had revived as soon
as she was taken out of bed, her work now always needed a certain
revision to secure the boys from the catastrophe of which Wilmet
often dreamt--appearing in public in ragged shirt-sleeves! Geraldine
knew that every stitch she left undone would have to be put in by her
sister in late evening or early morning, and therefore often wrenched
herself from the pencil and paints that best beguiled her thoughts
from the heartache for her father, and the craving for Edgar, or the
mere craving for light, air, liberty, and usefulness. Her only excuse
to her own conscience for allowing herself her chief pleasure was,
that it was her way of helping an old woman who kept a stall of small
wares on market days, and could sometimes dispose of little pictures
on domestic and Scriptural subjects, if highly coloured, glazed with
gum, and bound with bright paper--pickings and stealings, as Felix
called them, gleaned from advertisements and packing-boxes at Mr.
Froggatt's; but these did not allow much scope for the dreams of her
fancy.
Nor had she much choice when Bernard once awoke and came down, in all
the unreasoning tyranny of two years old, when it was an even chance
whether he would peaceably look at the old scrap-book, play with
Angela, or visit Mamma; or be uproarious, and either coalesce with
Angela in daring mischief, fight a battle-royal with her, or be
violent with and jealous of the twins.
The urchin had found out that when once Cherry's crutch was out of
her reach she could not get at him; and he had ridden off upon it so
often, before committing any of his worst misdemeanours, that Cherry
always lay down on it to secure it. After all, he was a fine,
affectionate, impetuous little fellow, but with a very high, proud,
unmanageable will; and she was very fond and proud of him; but never
more so than when he slept till dinner-time.
That was the hour which brought Felix home to help Sibby to carry his
mother into the sitting-room, pay a little court to the babies, and
enliven Cherry with any chance scrap of news or occupation. Best of
all were the proofs of that unfinished comment on the Epistle to
Philippi, which was being printed by subscription of the
congregation, and the clergy of the diocese. It always did Mrs.
Underwood good to have these read aloud to her by her little
daughter, and she could sometimes find a clue to the understanding of
sentences that had puzzled even Mr. Audley.
The two school-boys never appeared till dinner was imminent; and
then--one unuttered wish of poor Cherry was that Mr. Audley could
have dined with them; but he kept to his own hours, and they were
late.
Whereby dinners on five days of the week were apt to be something on
this fashion. Bell-ringing--Felix helping Geraldine to her seat,
Angela trotting after: a large dish of broth, with meat and rice, and
another of mashed potato; no sign of the boys; Angela lisping grace;
Sibby waiting with a tray.
Felix filled a soup-plate for his mother, and a basin for Bernard.
'We must begin, I suppose,' and he helped his sisters and himself.
'Here, Angel, push over your plate; I'll cut that.--How did you get
on to-day?'
'Very well; the only mistake I made I found out before Smith saw it.
I know all the stationery and steel pens apart now, and haven't made
a mistake for a week. Yesterday Bartlett junior came in. he stood
like a post before Mr. Froggatt till he caught sight of me, and then
he shouted out, "O Blunderbore, you know! What is it that Collis
wants?"'
'And did you?'
'When he said it was a horrid sum-book all little a's and b's.--What
have you been doing, Cherry?'
'I have begun an abstract of the first Punic--'
The door flew open with a bounce, and two hot, wild-locked boys, dust
everywhere except in their merry blue eyes, burst in, and tumbled on
their chairs. 'I say--isn't it a horrid sell? we ain't to have a
holiday for Squire's wedding.--Come, Fee, give us some grub.'
'You have not said grace,' said Cherry.
Lance, abashed, stood up and bowed; Fulbert looked grim, and mumbled
something.
'You have not washed your hands,' added Felix.
'What's the good?' said Fulbert.
'They'll be as jolly dirty again directly,' said Lance.
'But you would be more decent company in the meantime,' said Felix.
At that moment there was a splash in his plate, a skip-jack made of
the breast-bone of a chicken had alighted there with a leap.
'There's Felix's master come after him,' cried Fulbert, and Lance
went off into choking laughter.
'Boys, how can you?' broke out Cherry.
'Look at Blunderbore fishing out his master!' was Fulbert's answer.
'The frog is in the bog,
And Felix is squeamish,'
chanted Lance.
'Bad rhyme, Lance,' said Felix, who could bear these things much
better from the younger than the elder. Indeed, he scarcely durst
notice them in Fulbert, lest he should be betrayed into violence by
letting out his temper.
'I say!' cried Lance, struck by a new idea, 'what prime stuff it is
for making a fort!' and he began to scrape the more solid parts of
his plateful to one side.
'Oh, I say, isn't it?' echoed Fulbert: 'but I've eaten up the best
part of my castle;' and he grasped at the ladle.
'No, I thank you,' said Felix, putting it on the other side. 'While I
am here, you don't play tricks with that.'
Fulbert swallowed a spoonful in a passion, but a bright thought
struck Lance, who always cared much more for fun than for food. 'I
_say_, we'll empty it all into one, and eat it down.'
'You horrid boys!' plaintively exclaimed Cherry, almost crying--for
this return to savage life was perfect misery to her. 'I can't bear
it.'
'I will not have Cherry tormented,' said Felix, beginning to be very
irate.
'We ain't doing anything to Cherry,' said Lance, amazed.
'Don't you know it spoils Cherry's appetite to see you so
disgusting?'
'Then she'll have the more next time,' said Fulbert. 'Get along,
Captain--you've splashed my face!'
'Hurrah! the red-hot shot! The rice is the cannon-balls! Where's some
bread?'
'O Lance!' entreated Cherry; 'no waste--think of Wilmet and the
bills.'
'We'll eat it every bit up,' asseverated Lance; but Fulbert growled,
'If you bother any more, I shall crumble the whole lot out at
window.'
'It is wicked to waste bread,' lisped Angela, and Martha at that
moment appeared to fetch the tureen for the kitchen dinner.
'Can't you eat any more, Cherry ?' asked Felix gloomily.
'Not a bit, thank you,' she said.
'We've not done!' shouted the boys, seizing on her scarcely-tasted
and half-cold plate.
'You must finish after. Come, Cherry!' Then, as they left the room,
and she laid her head on his shoulder--'Little ruffians!' he said
under his breath.
'Oh, never mind, Felix. I don't--at least I ought not to mind--they
don't mean it.'
'Lance does not, but I think Fulbert does. He'll make me thrash him
within two inches of his life before he has done. And then there's no
one to take me in hand for it. It is horridly bad for them, too, to
live just like young bears.'
But he smoothed his brow as he came into the room where his mother
was, and amused her till his time was up.
Mr. Froggatt had explained to his father long ago that Felix's work
would not be that of a clerk in a great publishing house, but
veritably that belonging to the country bookseller and printer, and
that he must go through all the details, so as to be thoroughly
conversant with them. The morning's work was at the printing-house,
the afternoon's at the shop. The mechanical drudgery and intense
accuracy needed in the first were wearisome enough; and moreover, he
had to make his way with a crusty old foreman who was incredulous of
any young gentleman's capabilities, and hard of being convinced that
he would or could be useful, but old Smith's contempt was far less
disagreeable to him than the subdued dislike he met with from
Redstone, the assistant in the shop, a sharp, half-educated young
man, who had aspired to the very post of confidence for which Felix
was training--and being far less aware of his own utter unfitness for
it than was Mr. Froggatt, regarded the lad as an interloper; and
though he durst not treat him with incivility, was anxious to expose
any deficiency or failure on his part. Having a good deal of
quickness and dexterity, he could act as a reporter, draw up articles
of a certain description for the newspaper, and had, since the death
of Mr. Froggatt's eldest son, been absolutely necessary to him in
carrying on the business; and now, it was a matter of delicate
discretion on the master's part to avoid hurting the feelings of the
assistant, whom a little more would have made his tyrant, and a dread
of the appearance of favouritism made it needful to keep Felix
thoroughly in a subordinate post, till real superiority of mind and
education should assert itself over elder years and mere familiarity
with detail. This reserved ill-will of Redstone's had much increased
the natural discomfort of appearing behind the counter to former
acquaintance, and had rendered the learning the duties there doubly
troublesome and confusing; though, in recalling the day's doings,
there was some amusement in contrasting the behaviour of different
people, some--of whom Mr. Ryder was the type--speaking to him freely
in his own person, others leaving him as an unrecognised shop-boy;
and a third favouring him with a horrid little furtive nod, which he
liked least of all. But though awkward and embarrassed at first, use
soon hardened him, and made the customers indifferent, so that by the
spring he had begun to be useful, and to feel no particular
excitement about it.
The worst of his business was that it kept him so late, that he had
but a very short evening, and no time for exercise. He was on his
feet most of the day, but indoors, and his recreation chiefly
consisted in choir-practice twice a week. Not that he missed more
positive amusement; the cares of life and Edgar's departure seemed to
have taken the boyish element of frolic out of him; and left him
gravely cheerful indeed, but with no greater desire of entertainment
than could find vent in home conversation, or playing with the little
ones.
Wilmet and the two boys were at liberty full two hours before him.
The latter generally stayed out as long as light and hunger
permitted. Mr. Audley continually stumbled on them playing at
marbles, racing headlong in teams of pack-thread harness with their
fellows, upsetting the nerves of quiet folk--staring contentedly at
such shows as required no outlay, or discontentedly at the outside of
those that demanded the pennies they never had. They were thorough
little street-boys; and all that he could do for them was to enforce
their coming in at reasonable hours, and, much to their sister's
relief, cause their daily lessons to be prepared in his room.
Otherwise their places in their classes would have been much less
creditable.
Wilmet's return was always Geraldine's great relief, for the
afternoon of trying to amuse her mother, and keep the peace between
the children, was almost more than she was equal to; though, on fine
days, Sibby always took out the two elder babies, with an alternate
twin, for an hour's air, and Mr. Audley daily visited the invalid.
Mr. Bevan did so twice a week, with a gentle sympathising tone and
manner that was more beneficial than Lady Price's occasional
endeavours to make her 'rouse herself.' Miss Pearson and a few
humbler friends now and then looked in, but Mrs. Underwood had been
little known. With so large a family, and such straitened means, the
part of the active clergyman's wife was impossible to her; she had
shrunk from society, and most people knew nothing more of her than
that the faded lady-like figure they used to see among her little
flock at church, was Mrs. Underwood.
Wilmet's coming home was always a comfort; and though to her it was
running from toil to care, the change was life to her. To have been
either only the teacher or only the house-wife might have weighed
over-heavily on her, but the two tasks together seemed to lighten
each other. She had a real taste and talent for teaching, and she and
her little class were devoted to one another, while the elder girls
loved her much better since Alda had been away. The being with them,
and sharing their recreation in the middle of the day, was no doubt
the best thing to hinder her from becoming worn by the depressing
atmosphere around her mother. She always brought home spirits and
vigour for whatever lay before her, brightening her mother's face,
dispelling squabbles between Angela and Bernard, and taking a load of
care from Geraldine.
There was sure to be some anecdote to enliven the home-keepers, or
some question to ask Cherry, whose grammar and arithmetic stood on
firmer foundations than any at Miss Pearson's, and who was always
pleased to help Wilmet. The evening hours were the happiest of the
day, only they always ended too soon for Cherry, who was ordered up
by Sibby as soon as her mother was put to bed, and had, in
consequence, a weary length of wakeful solitude and darkness--only
enlivened by the reflection from the gas below--while Felix and
Wilmet sat downstairs, she with her mending, and he either reading,
or talking to her.
On Saturday, which she always spent at home, and in very active
employment in the capacities of nurse, housemaid, or even a slight
taste of the cook and laundress, the evening topic was always the
accounts--the two young heads anxiously casting the balance--proud
and pleased if there were even a shilling below the mark, but serious
and sad under such a communication as, 'There's mutton gone up
another halfpenny;' or, 'Wilmet, I really am afraid those boots of
mine cannot be mended again;' or again, 'See what Lance has managed
to do to this jacket. If one only could send boys to school in
sacking!'
'Are not there a few pence to spare for the chair for Cherry? She
will certainly get ill, if she never goes out now spring is coming
on.'
'Indeed, Felix, I don't know how! If there is a penny over, it is
wanted towards shoes for Bernard; and Cherry begs me, with tears in
her eyes, not to let her be an expense!'
Poor Geraldine! the costing anything, and the sense of uselessness,
were becoming, by the help of her nightly wakefulness, a most
terrible oppression on her spirits. Her father was right. His room
had been a hot-bed to a naturally sensitive and precocious character,
and the change that had come over her as time carried her farther and
farther away from him, affected her more and more.
Her brother and sister, busy all day, and scarcely ever at home,
hardly knew what was becoming a sore perplexity to Mr. Audley.
A young tutor, not yet twenty-six, could not exactly tell what to do
with a girl not fourteen, who fell into floods of tears on the
smallest excuse.
'No, no, Cherry--that is not the nominative.'
The voice faltered, struggled to go on, and melted away behind the
handkerchief. Then--'O Mr. Audley, I am so sorry--'
'That's exactly what I don't want you to be, Cherry.'
'Oh, but it was so careless,' and there was another flood.
Or, 'Don't you see, Cherry, you should not have put the negative sign
to that equation. My dear Cherry, what have I said?'
'Oh, oh--nothing. Only I did think--'
'We shall have you a perfect Niobe, if you go on at this rate,
Cherry. Really, we must not have these lessons, if they excite you so
much.'
'Oh! that would be the worst punishment of all!' and the weeping
became so piteously violent, that the Curate looked on in distressed
helplessness.
'I know it is very tiresome of me; I would help it, if I could--
indeed I would.' And she cried the more because she _had_ cried.
Or, as he came in from the town, he would hear ominous sounds, that
his kind heart would not let him neglect, and would find Cherry
sitting on the landing-place in a paroxysm of weeping. She always
crept out of her mother's room on these occasions, for the sight of
tears distressed and excited Mrs. Underwood; and the poor child,
quite unable, in her hysterical condition, to drag herself alone up
that steep stair, had no alternative but to sit, on what Mr. Audley
called her stool of repentance, outside the door, till she had sobbed
herself into exhaustion and calm--or till either Sibby scolded her,
or he heard her confession.
She had been 'so cross' to Bernard, or to Angel--or, once or twice,
even to Mamma. She had made an impatient answer when interrupted in
her lessons or in a dream over a drawing, she had been reluctant to
exert herself when wanted. She had scolded fretfully--or snatched
things away angrily, when the little ones were troublesome; and every
offence of this sort was bewailed with an anguish of tears, that, by
weakening her spirits and temper, really rendered the recurrence more
frequent. 'The one thing they trust to me, I fail in!'
He was very kind to her. He did not yield to the mannish loathing for
girlish tears that began to seize on him, after the first two or
three occasions. He thought and studied--tried comfort, and fancied
it relaxed her--tried rebuke, and that made it worse; tried the
showing her Francois de Sales' admirable counsel to Philothee, to be
'doux envers soi,' and saw she appreciated and admired it; but she
was not an atom more douce envers soi when she had next spoken
peevishly.
At last he fairly set off by the train, to lay the case before Sister
Constance.
'What is to be done, when a child never does anything but cry?'
Sister Constance listened to the symptoms, and promptly answered,
'Give her a glass of port wine every day, before you let her out of
your room.'
'If I can!'
'Tell her they are my orders. Does she eat?'
'I imagine not. I heard Felix reproaching her with a ghoul's dinner
of a grain of rice.'
'Does she sleep?'
'She has told me a great deal of midnight meditation on her own
deficiencies.'
'She must be taken out of doors somehow or other! It is of no use to
reason with her; the tears are not temper, or anything else! Poor
Charlie! it is an odd capacity for you to come out in, but I suppose
no one else can attend to her.'
'No, poor child, she is rather worse than motherless! Well--I will
find some excuse for taking her out for a drive now and then; I don't
know how to speak to the others about having the chair for her, for
they are barely scraping on.'
'Poor children! Well, this year is probably the worst. Either they
will get their heads above water, or there will be a crisis. But they
do scrape?'
'Yes. At Lady-day there was great jubilation, for the rent was paid,
the taxes were ready, there was not a debt; and there was sevenpence
over, with which Felix wanted to give Cherry a drive; but Wilmet, who
is horribly prudent, insisted that it must go to mend Fulbert's
broken window.'
'Well--poor Wilmet! one can't blame her. How does she treat Cherry's
tears?'
'I don't think she has much pity for them. Felix does much better
with Cherry; he rocks her and pets her; though, indeed, she hardly
ever breaks down when he is there; but even his Sundays are a good
deal taken up--and I always hunt him out for a walk on the Sunday
afternoons.'
'Is he still in the choir and teaching at the Sunday school?'
'Yes--though it is not Mowbray Smith's fault.'
'What, is your colleague what you apprehended?'
'My Lady could not have found a curate more to her mind, or more
imbued with her dislike to all that bears the name of Underwood. I
own it is hard to have one's predecessor flung constantly in one's
teeth, and by the very people who were the greatest thorns to dear
Underwood himself. Then Clem, who was a born prig, though a very good
boy, gave some of his little interfering bits of advice before he
went away, and it has all been set down to Felix's account! One
Sunday, Smith made a complaint of Felix having the biggest boys in
the school. It was the consequence of his having taken them whenever
his father could not, till it came to his having them entirely. He
always took great pains with them, and there was a fellow-feeling
between him and them that could hardly be with an older person. I
said all this--too strongly, most likely--and the Rector put in a
mild word, as to his goodness in coming at all. Smith thought there
was nothing wonderful in liking what ministered to his conceit; and
at last it came out that a baker's boy had met Felix and Smith
consecutively in the street, and only touched his hat to one, and
that the wrong one.'
'I should have been only thankful that he touched his hat to
anybody.'
'That is the very remark by which I put my foot in it, but my Lady
was horrified, and the consequence was, that it fell to me to advise
Felix to resign the class. I never hated a piece of work so much in
my life, for he had worked the lads well, and we both knew that there
would be an end of them. Moreover, Felix has some of the true Briton
about him, and he stood out--would give up the class if the Rector
ordered him, but would relinquish Sunday-school altogether in that
case; and the two girls were furious; but, after one Sunday, he came
to me, said that he found hostility poisoned his teaching, gave up,
and accepted the younger ones.'
'Of course the boys deserted.'
'Which has not softened Smith, though it has made him tolerate Felix
in the choir. His voice is of very little use at present; but he is
such an influence, that we should be glad of him if he could not sing
a note, and he clings to it with all his heart. I believe music is
about the only pleasure he has, and it excites his mother too much to
have any at home. We have little Lance in the choir now, with a voice
like a thrush in a dewy morning.'
Mr. Audley acted on the port-wine prescription, to the horror and
dismay of Cherry, who only submitted with any shadow of philosophy on
being told that the more she cried the more necessary she rendered
it; but on the Saturday, Sister Constance suddenly knocked at Mr.
Audley's door. She had been talking the matter over with the
Superior; and the result was, that she had set off on a mission to
see for herself, and if she thought it expedient, to bring Geraldine
back with her. She had chosen Saturday as the time for seeing Wilmet,
and was prepared to overlook that the stairs were a Lodore of soap,
this being Sibby's cleaning day, while Wilmet kept guard over the
mother and the twins.
Geraldine was in the sitting-room, writing a Latin exercise, with a
great pucker in her forehead whenever Angela looked up from her
wooden bricks to speak to her. And though the sharp little pinched
face was all one beam of joy as the visitor came in, Sister Constance
saw at once that the child's health had deteriorated in these last
months. She sat down, and with Angela on her lap, questioned
anxiously. Cherry had no complaints--she always was like this in the
spring. How was her foot? As usual, a falter. Was it _really_? Well,
yes, she thought so. And then, as the motherly eyes looked into hers,
there came a burst of the ready tears; and 'Oh, _please_ don't talk
about it--_please_ don't ask.'
'I know what you are afraid of,' said Sister Constance, remembering
her horror of the Bexley medical attendant, 'but is it right to
conceal this, my dear child?'
'I don't think I do,' said Cherry pitifully. 'You know Sibby _does_
it every night, and it only aches a little more now. And if they did
find it out, then they would have _him_, and there would be a
doctor's bill, and, oh! that would be dreadful!'
Sister Constance saw that the question of right or wrong would be
infinitely too much for Geraldine, and drew off her mind from it to
tell of the good accounts of Robina from Catsacre, and Clement from
Whittingtonia; but when presently Wilmet was so far free as to come
in with _only_ the boy-baby in her arms, and take the guest up to
take off her bonnet, it was the time for entering on the subject.
'Cherry? do you think her looking ill? She always is poorly in the
spring, you know.'
'I do not like what I hear of her appetite, or her sleep, or her
spirits.'
'Oh! but Cherry is always fanciful, you know. Please, please don't
put things in her head.'
'What kind of things do you mean?'
'Fancying herself worse, I mean, or wanting things. You know we must
be so careful, and Mamma and the babies--'
'My dear, I know you have many to care for, and it is hard to strike
the balance; but somehow your voice sounds to me as if Geraldine were
the one you most willingly set aside.'
Wilmet did not like this, and said a little bit hastily, 'I am sure
Geraldine has everything we can give her. If she complains, it is
very wrong of her.'
'She has not said one word of complaint. Her grief and fear is only
of being a burden on you. What brought me here was, that Mr. Audley
was anxious about her.'
Wilmet was silent, a little abashed.
'Did you know that her ankle is painful again?'
'Sister Constance,' said Wilmet, 'I don't think you or Mr. Audley
know how soon Cherry fancies all sorts of things. She does get into
whiny states, and is regularly tiresome; and the more you notice her,
the worse she is. I know Mamma thought so.'
'My dear, a mother can venture on wholesome neglect when a sister's
neglect is not wholesome. I am not accusing you of neglect, mind;
only you want experience and sympathy to judge of a thing with a
frame like Cherry's. Now, I will tell you what I want to do. I am
come to take her back with me, and get her treated by her kind doctor
for a month or so, and the sea air and rest will send her back, most
likely, in a much more cheery state.'
'Indeed!' cried Wilmet, startled; 'it is very good, but how could we
do without her? Mamma and the children! If she could only wait till
the holidays.'
'Let her only hear you say that, Wilmet, and it will do her more good
than anything.'
'What--that she is of use? Poor little thing, she tries to be; but if
Marilda could have had her way, and taken her instead of Alda, it
would have been much better for her and all. Ah! there's Felix. May I
call him in?'
Felix, dashing up to wash his hands, smooth his hair, and dress
himself for the reading-room work instead of the printing-office, had
much rather these operations had been performed before he was called
to the consultation in the nursery; but he agreed instantly and
solicitously, knowing much better than Wilmet what the dinners were
to Cherry, and talking of her much more tenderly.
'Yes, poor little dear, she always breaks down more or less in the
spring; but I thought she would mend when we could get her out more,'
he said. 'Do you think her really so unwell, Sister Constance?'
'Oh, no, no!' cried Wilmet, fearfully.
'Not very unwell, but only so that I long to put her under our good
doctor, who comes to any one in our house, and who is such a fatherly
old gentleman, that she would not go through the misery the thought
of Mr. Rugg seems to cause her.'
'Dr. Lee?' asked Felix. 'Tom Underwood sent him to see my father
once. I remember my father liked him, but called it waste for
himself, only longed for his opinion on Cherry. Thank you, I am sure
it is the greatest kindness.'
'But, Felix, how can she before the holidays?' cried Wilmet.
'Well, Mamma does not want her before dinner; and as to the kids, why
can't you take Angel to school with you? Oh, yes, Miss Pearson will
let you. Then Mr. Audley, or Mr. Bevan, is always up in the
afternoon, and you come home by four.'
'Perhaps I could earlier on days when the girls go out walking,' said
Wilmet. 'If it is to do Cherry good, I don't like to prevent it.'
Wilmet had evidently got all her household into their niches, and the
disarrangement puzzled her. A wonderful girl she was to contrive as
she did, and carry out her rule; but Sister Constance feared that a
little dryness might be growing on her in consequence, and that, like
many maidens of fifteen or sixteen, while she was devoted to the
little, she was impatient of the intermediate.
So when they went down, and Cherry heard of the scheme, and implored
against it in nervous fear of leaving home and dread of new faces,
Wilmet, having made up her practical mind that the going was
necessary, only made light of that value at home which was Cherry's
one comfort, and which made herself feel it so hard to part with her,
that this very want of tact was all unselfishness.
Felix was much more comfortable to Cherry when he made playful faces
at the bear-garden that the dining-room would become without her, and
showed plainly that he at least would miss her dreadfully. Still she
nourished a hope that Mamma would say she should not go; but Mamma
always submitted to the decrees of authority, and Wilmet and Felix
were her authorities now. Sister Constance felt no misgiving lest
Wilmet were hardening, when she heard the sweet discretion and
cheerful tenderness with which she propounded the arrangement to the
sick mother, without giving her the worry of decision, yet still
deferentially enough to keep her in her place as the head of the
family.
Yet it was with unnecessarily bracing severity that Wilmet observed
to Geraldine, 'Now, don't you go crying, and asking questions, and
worrying Mamma.'
'I suppose no person can be everything at once, far less a girl of
fifteen,' thought Sister Constance, as she drove up to the station in
the omnibus with Cherry, who was too miserable and bewildered to cry
now; not that she was afraid of either the Sister or the Sisterhood,
but only because she had never left home in her life, and felt
exactly like a callow nestling shoved out on the ground with a broken
wing.
In two months more the omnibus was setting her down again, much
nearer plumpness, with a brighter face and stronger spirits. She had
been very full of enjoyment at St. Faith's. She had the visitor's
room, with delightful sacred prints and photographs, and a window
looking out on the sea--a sight enough to fascinate her for hours.
She had been out every fine day on the shore; she had sat in the
pleasant community-room with the kind Sisters, who talked to her as a
woman, not a baby; she had plenty of books; one of the Sisters had
given her daily drawing lessons, and another had read Tasso with her;
she had been to the lovely oratory constantly, and to the beautiful
church on Sunday, and had helped to make the wreaths for the great
May holidays; she had made many new friends, and among them the
doctor, who, if he had hurt her, had never deceived her, and had
really made her more comfortable than she had ever been for the last
five years, putting her in the way of such self-management as might
very possibly avert some of that dreadful liability to be cross.
But with all this, and all her gratitude, Geraldine's longing had
been for home. She was very happy, and it was doing her a great deal
of good; but Mamma, and Felix, and Wilmet, and Sibby, and the babies,
were tugging at her heart, and would not let it go out from them. She
was always dreaming that Felix's heels were coming through his
stockings, that Mamma was calling and nobody coming, or that Bernard
was cutting off the heads of the twins with the blunt scissors. And
when Dr. Lee's course of treatment was over, and Felix had a holiday
to come and fetch her home, it is not easy to say which was happiest.
For she was so glad to be at home amid the dear faces, troubling and
troublous as they often were, and so comfortable in the old wheel-
ruts of care and toil, that it really seemed as if a new epoch of joy
had begun. Felix openly professed how sorely he had missed her, and
she clung to his arm with exulting mutual delight; but it was almost
more triumphant pleasure to be embraced by Wilmet with the words:
'Dear, dear Cherry, there you are at last. You can't think how we
have all wanted you! I never knew how useful you are.'
'I suppose,' said Felix quaintly, 'the world would rather miss its
axis, and yet that does not move.'
'Yes, it does,' said Cherry, 'it wobbles. I suppose Wilmet says
rotates, just about as much as I am going to do now I have got back
into my own dear sphere again.
CHAPTER VI
THE CACIQUE
'Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo, "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.'
Rejected Addresses.
It was a warm night in September, and Wilmet had laid herself down in
bed in her nursery with a careful, but not an oppressed heart. About
many matters she was happier than before. Her mother had revived in
some degree, could walk from her bed-room to the sitting-room, and
took more interest in what was passing; and this the hopeful spirits
of the children interpreted into signs of recovery. Geraldine's
health and spirits had evidently taken a start for the better.
Fulbert, too, was off her mind--safe gone to a clergy-orphan
foundation; and though Lancelot had not yet been elected, owing, Mr.
Audley imagined, to Lady Price's talk about their fine friends,
Wilmet could not be sorry, he was such a little fellow, and the house
would be so dull without his unfailing merriment and oddities. And
though there had been sore disappointment that Mrs. Thomas Underwood
had chosen to go to Brighton instead of coming home, there was the
promise of a visit from Alda before Christmas to feed upon. Little
Robina had come home for the summer holidays, well, happy, and
improved, and crying only in a satisfactory way on returning to
school. Moreover, Wilmet's finances had been pleasantly increased by
an unexpected present of five pounds at the end of the half year from
Miss Pearson, and the promise of the like for the next; increasing as
her usefulness increased; and she was also allowed to bring Angela to
school with her. The balance of accounts at Midsummer had been
satisfactory, and Felix had proudly pronounced her to be a brick of a
housekeeper. And thus altogether Wilmet did not feel that the weight
of care was so heavy and hopeless as when it first descended upon
her; and she went to bed as usual, feeling how true her father's
words of encouragement and hope had been, how kind friends were, how
dear a brother Felix was, and above all, how there is verily a Father
of the fatherless. And so she fell fast asleep, but was ere long
waked by a voice from the inner room where Cherry slept with the door
open.
'Wilmet, Wilmet, what is it?'
Then she saw that the room was aglow with red light from the window,
and heard a loud distant hubbub. Hurrying out of bed, she flew to the
window of Cherry's room, and drew up the blind. 'O Wilmet, is it
fire?'
'Yes,' low and awe-struck, said Wilmet. 'Not here. No. There's
nothing to be frightened at Cherry. It is out--out there. I think it
must be the Fortinbras Arms. Oh, what a sight!'
'It is dreadful!' said Cherry, shrinking trembling to the foot of her
little bed, whence she could see the window. 'How plain one can see
everything in the room! Oh! the terrible red glow in the windows! I
wonder if all the people are safe. Wilmet, do call Felix.'
'I will,' said Wilmet, proceeding in search of her clothes; but her
hands shook so that she could hardly put them on. They longed for
Felix as a protection, and yet Cherry could hardly bear to let her
sister go out of sight!
'I only hope Mamma does not hear,' said Wilmet.
'How lucky her room looks out the other way! but, oh! Wilmet, don't
fires spread?'
'Felix, and Mr. Audley will see about us in time, if there is any
fear of that,' said Wilmet trembling a good deal as she wrapped a
shawl round Cherry, who sat in a heap on her bed, gazing fascinated
at the red sky and roofs. Felix slept at the back of the house; her
knock did not waken him, but her entrance startled both him and
Lance.
'Felix, the Fortinbras Arms is on fire.--Hush, Lance; take care; the
little ones and Mamma! O Felix, do come to our room.'
They followed her there in a few seconds, but they had only glanced
from the window before they simultaneously rushed away, to the
increased dismay of their sisters, to whom their manly instinct of
rushing into the fray had not occurred.
'I'll go down. I'll try to catch them,' said Wilmet; and she too was
gone before Cherry could call to her. She found that Felix and Mr.
Audley were in the act of undoing the front door, and this gave her
just time to fly down with the entreaty that Felix would not leave
them. It was a great deal more to ask of him than she knew.
'To the end of the street I must go, Wilmet,' he said.
'Oh! but Cherry is so frightened! and if Mamma wakes,' she said,
gasping.
'It is all quiet in her room,' said Felix.
'Tell Cherry there is no danger at all here now,' said Mr. Audley;
'but if it makes her happier you may dress her. Don't disturb your
mother. If needful, we will carry her out in her bed; but I do not
think it will be.'
'We can only see out in the street,' added Felix, opening the door as
he spoke; and that moment out flew Lance, before anybody had thought
of stopping him, and the necessity of pursuing the little fellow into
the throng, and keeping him out of danger, made both Felix and Mr.
Audley dash after him; while Wilmet, abashed at the men hurrying by,
could not even gaze from the door, but fled upstairs in terror lest
the two little ones should be awake and crying at the appalling red
light and the din, which seemed to her one continuous roar of 'Fire!
fire!'
To her great relief, they were still asleep, but Cherry was in a
chilled agony of trembling prayer for the 'poor people,' and the
sisters crouched up together shivering in each other's arms as they
watched the rush of flames streaming up into the sky over the brew-
house opposite to them.
Presently Wilmet heard feet again downstairs. 'Cherry dear, I must go
down, they may want me. Indeed, I don't think there is real danger as
long as that brew-house is safe.'
There was a scuffle of feet that frightened her very much. She
remembered it last Michaelmas when her father was brought home from
church, and as she stood on the stairs--one choking petition in her
heart, 'Let it not be Felix!' she saw that the figure, whatever it
was, was carried by Mr. Audley and a strange man. And so great a
horror came over her, that, regardless of her toilette, and the hair
that had fallen over the jacket on her shoulders, she dropped at once
among them as they were bearing the senseless form into Mr. Audley's
bed-room, with a low but piteous cry, 'Felix! Felix! oh, what has
happened?'
'It is not Felix, my dear,' said Mr. Audley; 'he is safe--he is gone
for the doctor. This poor boy has fallen from a window. You can help
us, Wilmet; call Martha, and get some water made hot. The fire is
getting under.'
Wilmet needed no second hint. She was up, reassuring Cherry at one
moment; then breaking into Martha's heavy slumbers, impressing upon
her the necessity of not shrieking, then downstairs again, reviving
the dying kitchen fire, and finding that, as usual, there was some
water not yet cold. For, as she now saw, it was not yet one o'clock.
She durst not go to her mother's room, where ready means of heating
food were always to be found. As she brought the jug to the door,
Felix came in with Mr. Rugg, who, living in a street out of sight,
and having ears for no sound but his own night-bell, had been ready
at once to obey the call. Felix told his sister the little he knew.
'It was a terrible sight. Just as we got to that one big window--a
passage one, I believe, which looks out into this street--we saw this
poor boy and a black man up on the sill, with all the glare of light
behind them, screaming out for help.'
'But where was everybody?'
'In the High Street, round the corner. Crowds there; and here in our
street only ourselves and a few men that hurried up after us. Mr.
Audley shouted to them that we would get a ladder, but whether they
could not hold on any more, or they thought we were going quite away--
O Wilmet! I didn't see; but there was the most horrible thump and
crash on the pavement.'
'What! down from that window?'
'Yes,' said Felix, leaning against the wall, and looking very pale.
'And there was that good black man, he had got the boy in his arms,
as if he had wound himself round to keep him from harm.'
'Oh! And he?'
'Killed--quite killed. Don't ask me about it, Wilmet. It is much too
dreadful to hear of;' and he shuddered all over.
'But this boy's head was safe at least, and as there seemed no one to
attend to anything, Mr. Audley said he would bring him here, and I
went for Mr. Rugg.'
'And where's Lance? Did he go with you?'
'Lance! Is not he in? I never saw or thought of him, I must go and
seek for him,' exclaimed Felix, darting off in haste and alarm at the
thought of little nine-year-old Lance alone among the midnight crowd,
just as Mr. Audley opened the door to try to find a messenger to Mr.
Rugg's surgery. He paused to tell Wilmet that it was a lad about
Felix's age, moaning some word that sounded like Diego, and with a
broken leg and ribs, and then, as Martha was in attendance, she felt
herself obliged to return to Cherry, whom indeed she could not leave
again, for though the fire had sunk, and only thick clouds of smoke
showed the play of the engines, the effects of the terror were not so
quickly over in the tender little frame, which was in a quivering
hysterical state, so deadly cold, that Wilmet was frightened, and
went once more down to warm some flannel; and get some hot drink for
her. She intended tea, but meeting Mr. Audley again, he sent up a
glass of wine. Even with this in hot water, Cherry could hardly be
warmed again, and Wilmet lay down, clasping her round, and not daring
to let her know of her own continued anxiety about the two brothers.
At last, however, when the red light had almost faded quite away, the
cautious steps were heard coming up the stairs, and Felix called into
the room in a low voice--
'All right, Wilmet.'
'Oh! come in,' the sisters called. 'Where did you find him, Fee? Is
he safe?'
'O Cherry, you never saw such a lark!' cried Lance in a gusty
whisper. 'Wouldn't Fulbert have given his ears to have seen it? To
see the engines pouring down, and the great hose twining about like
jolly old sea-serpents spouting.'
'Hush, Lance; how can you? How could you! Does Mr. Audley know he is
safe?'
'Yes,' said Felix, 'he opened the door, and said he might have known
Lance was too much of a gamin to come to grief.'
'What's a gamin?' said Lance.
'A street ragamuffin at Paris,' said Wilmet. 'But really, Lance, it
was a terrible thing to do.'
'And where do you think I found him?' said Felix. 'In between little
Jacky Brown and that big old coal-heaver who was so impudent about
the blanket-club, hanging like a monkey upon the rails of the
terrace, and hallooing as loud as they.'
''Twas the coal-heaver that helped me up,' said Lance. 'He's a jolly
good fellow, I can tell you. He said, "You be one of Parson
Underwood's little chaps, baint you? A rare honest gentleman of the
right sort war he--he war!" and he pulled down another boy and put me
up instead, and told me all about the great fire at Stubbs's factory.
You can't think what fun it was. Roar, roar, up went the flame.
Swish, wish, went the water--such a bellowing--such great clouds of
smoke!'
'Was everybody saved?' whispered Cherry's tremulous murmur.
There was a silence, then Lance said, 'Weren't they?' and Cherry had
another shuddering fit.
'Who?' Wilmet asked.
'Poor Mr. Jones's youngest child and his nursemaid were in an attic
room where nobody could get at them,' said Felix in a hurried and
awe-struck voice, causing Cherry to renew that agony of trembling and
sobbing so convulsive and painful that her elder brother and sister
could only devote themselves to soothing her, till at last she lay
still again in Wilmet's arms, with only a few long gasps coming
quivering up through her frame. Then Wilmet implored Felix to go away
and make Lance go to bed, and finding this the only means of reducing
the little excited fellow to quiet, he went. And though all were sure
they should not sleep, they overslept themselves far into Sunday
morning, except Wilmet, who was wakened by the clamours of the
undisturbed Angela and Bernard, and succeeded in dressing them
without disturbing the other three.
Very tired and stiff, and very anxious she felt, but she was obliged
to go down as soon as she was dressed, since she always took charge
of her mother before breakfast on Sunday while Sibby went to mass. It
was so late that she could only listen in vain at the top of the
stairs before she went into the room, where she found Sibby very
indignant at having missed all the excitement of the night past. 'As
if she could not have been trusted not to have wakened the mistress.
She believed they would have let her alone till they all were burnt
in their beds!'
It was not till breakfast, which took place unusually late, that
Wilmet heard much. Felix and Lance had just come downstairs, rather
ashamed of having overslept themselves, and Mr. Audley came in and
begged for a cup of tea.
He told them that the father and uncle of the boy had arrived. They
were American merchants or speculators of some kind, he thought,
named Travis, and they had gone on business to Dearport the day
before, meaning to dine there, and return by the mail train in the
night, and leaving the boy with the black servant in the unfortunate
hotel.
On arriving, at about three o'clock, not long after Felix had brought
Lance home, they had telegraphed to Dearport for a doctor and nurse,
who were momentarily expected to arrive. The patient was only half
conscious, and though he knew his father, continued to murmur for
Diego. Martha was sitting with him whenever she could, for his father
did not seem to understand nursing, and it would be a great relief
when a properly-trained person arrived.
She came, and so did the doctor, but not till close upon church-time,
and little but stray reports from the sick-room reached the
population upstairs all that day, as Mr. Audley, whenever he was not
at church, was obliged to be in attendance on his strange guests. All
that reached the anxious and excited young people was the tidings of
the patient being not unlikely to do well, though he was in great
pain and high fever, and continually calling for the poor negro who
had saved his life at the expense of his own.
This was the last bulletin when the household parted to go their
several ways on Monday morning, not to be all collected again and
free to speak till seven o'clock in the evening, when they met round
the table for tea.
'Mamma looks cheery,' said Felix, coming into the little back room
where Wilmet was spreading bread and butter.
'Yes,' said Wilmet, 'I think she has cared to hear about the fire. So
many people have come in and talked, that it has enlivened her.'
'And how is the boy?'
'A little better, Martha heard; but he keeps on talking of Diego, and
seems not to care about any one else.'
'No wonder. His father must be an unmitigated brute,' said Felix. 'He
came to the inquest, and talked just as if it had been an old
Newfoundland dog; I really think he cared rather less than if it had
been.'
Tell us about the inquest, Felix,' said Lance. 'I wish they'd have
wanted me there.'
'I don't see why, Lance,' said Felix gravely; 'it was a terrible
thing to see poor Mr. Jones hardly able to speak for grief, and the
mother of that poor young nurse went on sobbing as if her heart was
breaking.'
'Nobody knows the cause of the fire, do they?' asked Cherry.
'Lady Price said it was the gas.'
'No; no one knows. Way, the waiter, saw a glare under the door of the
great assembly-room as he was going up very late to bed, and the
instant he opened the door the flame seemed to rush out at him. I
suppose a draught was all it wanted. He saw this poor Diego safe
downstairs once, but he must have gone back to save his young master,
and got cut off in coming back. Poor fellow! he is a Mexican negro,
belonging to an estate that came to Mr. Travis's wife, and he has
always clung to her and her son just like a faithful dog.'
'But he could not be a slave in England,' said Cherry eagerly.
'No; but as this Travis said, his one instinct was the boy: he did
not know how to get rid of him, he said, and I do believe he thinks
it a lucky chance.'
'I wish it had been he!' said Lance.
'Sibby has asked leave to go to the burial,' added Wilmet.
'I hope you gave it,' said Felix. 'Mr. Macnamara came and asked if he
were not a Roman Catholic, and those two Travises laughed a little
offensively, and said they guessed he was so, as much as a nigger was
anything; and the Papists were welcome to his black carcase, only
they would not be charged for any flummery. "I won't be made a fool
of about a nigger," one said. And then, I was so glad, Mr. Audley
begged to know when the funeral would be, and said he would go
anywhere to do honour to faithfulness unto death.'
'Well done, Mr. Audley!' cried Lance. 'Won't we go too, Fee!'
'It will be at nine to-morrow,' said Felix; at which Lance made a
face, since of course he would be in school at the time.
'Maybe I shall have to go,' added Felix; 'for only think, as my good
luck would have it, Redstone went on Saturday night to see his mother
or somebody, and only came back this morning; and Mr. Froggatt
himself was "out at his box," as he calls it, so he told me this
morning to write the account of the fire for the paper, and he would
pay me for it extra, as he does Redstone.'
'Well, and have you done it?'
'I was pretty much at sea at first, till I recollected the letter I
began to Edgar yesterday night, and by following that, I made what I
thought was a decent piece of business of it.'
'Oh, did you put in the way they threw the things out at window at
Jessop's without looking what they were!' cried Lance; 'and the jolly
smash the jugs and basins made, and when their house was never on
fire at all: and how the coal-heaver said "Hold hard, frail trade
there!"'
'Well,' said Felix quaintly, 'I put it in a different form, you see.
I said the inhabitants of the adjacent houses hurled their furniture
from the windows with more precipitation than attention to the
fragility of the articles. And, after all, that intolerable ass,
Redstone, has corrected fire every time into "the devouring element,"
and made "the faithful black" into "the African of sable integument,
but heart of precious ore."'
'Now, Felix!'
'Bald, sir, bald,' he said, with such a face. '"Yes, Mr. Underwood,"
even good old Froggy said, when he saw me looking rather blue, "you
and I may know what good taste and simplicity is; but if we sent out
the Pursuivant with no mouth-filling words in it, we should be cut
out with some low paper in no time among the farmers and mechanics."'
'Is he so led by Mr. Redstone?' asked Wilmet.
'Not exactly; but I believe there's nothing he dreads more than
Redstone's getting offended and saying that I am no use, as he would
any day if he could. O, Mr. Audley, are you coming to stay?'
'Will you have a cup of tea?' said Wilmet.
'Thank you, yes; I've got to dine with these fellows at the Railway
Hotel at eight, but I wanted to speak to you first, Wilmet,' said Mr.
Audley, sitting down as if he were weary of his day.
'How is the boy?'
'Better. He has been quite sensible ever since he woke at twelve
o'clock to-day, only he was dreadfully upset about poor Diego--about
whom his father told him very abruptly--without the least notion he
would feel it so much.'
'I wish I had the kicking of that father,' observed Felix, driving
the knife hard into the loaf.
'He is not altogether such a bad fellow,' said Mr. Audley
thoughtfully.
'Not for an American, perhaps.'
'He is not an American at all. He was born and bred in my own
country, and took me by surprise by calculating that I was one of the
Audleys of Wrightstone Court, and wanting to know whether my father
were Sir Robert or Sir Robert's son. Then he guessed that I might
have heard of his father, if I was not too young, and by-and-by it
dawned on me that whenever there is any complication about business
matters, or any one is in bad circumstances, my father always
vituperates one Travis, who, it seems, was a solicitor greatly
trusted by all the country round, till he died, some twenty years
ago, and it appeared that he had ruined everybody, himself included.
These men are his sons. They went out to America, and got up in the
world. They told me the whole story of how they had knocked about
everywhere, last evening, but I was too sleepy to enter into it much,
though I daresay it was curious enough; successful speculations and
hair's-breadth escapes seemed to come very thick one upon another,
but all I am clear about is that this poor boy, Fernando's mother was
a Mexican heiress, they--one of them, I mean--managed to marry, her
father English, but her mother old Spanish blood allied to the old
Caciques, he says; whether it is a boast I don't know, but the boy
looks like it--such a handsome fellow; delicate straight profile,
slender limbs, beautifully made, inky-black hair and brows, pure
olive skin--the two doctors were both in raptures. Well, they thought
affairs in Mexico insecure, so they sold the poor woman's estate and
carried her off to Texas. No; was it? I really can't remember where;
but, at any rate, Diego stuck to her wherever she went, and when she
died, to her child; nursed him like an old woman, and-- In short, it
was that touching negro love that one sometimes hears of. Now they
seem to have grown very rich--the American Vice-Consul, who came over
this morning from Dearport, knew all about them--and they came home
partly on business, and partly to leave Fernando to be made into an
English gentleman, who, Mr. Travis says, if he has money to spend,
does whip creation. He's English enough for that still. Well, they
have got a telegram that makes them both want to sail by the next
steamer.'
'That's a blessing. But the boy?
'He cannot be moved for weeks. It is not only the fractures, but the
jar of the fall. He may get quite over it, but must lie quite still
on his back. So here he is, a fixture, by your leave, my lady
housekeeper.'
'It is your room, Mr. Audley,' said Wilmet. 'But can his father
really mean to leave him alone so very ill, poor boy?'
'Well, as his father truly says, he is no good to him, but rather the
reverse; and as the Travis mind seems rather impressed by finding an
Audley here, I am to be left in charge of him now, and to find a
tutor for him when he gets better. So we are in for that!'
'But what is to become of you?' asked Wilmet. 'The nurse has got the
little back study.'
'I have got a room at Bolland's to sleep in, thank you,' he answered;
'and I have been representing the inconvenience to the house of this
long illness, so that the Travises, who are liberal enough--'
'I thought them horrid misers,' said Felix.
'That was only the American conscience as to negroes. In other
matters they are ready to throw money about with both hands; so I
hope I have made a good bargain for you, Wilmet. You are to have five
guineas a week, and provide for boy and nurse, all but wine and beer,
ice and fruit.'
'Five guineas!' murmured Wilmet, quite overpowered at the munificent
sum.
'I am afraid you will not find it go as far as you expect, for he
will want a good deal of dainty catering.'
'And your room should be deducted,' said Wilmet.
'Not at all. Mrs. Bolland said she did not take lodgers, but should
esteem it a favour if I would sleep there while her son is away. It
is all safe, I think. He has given me orders on his London banker,
and they say here at the bank that they are all right. It is a
strange charge,' he added thoughtfully; 'we little thought what we
were taking on ourselves when we picked up that poor fellow, Felix;
and I cannot help thinking it will turn out well, there was something
so noble about the poor lad's face as he lay insensible.'
It was about three weeks later, that one Sunday evening, when Mr.
Audley came in from church, Felix followed him to his sitting-room,
and began with unusual formality. 'I think I ought to speak to you,
sir.'
'What's the matter?'
'About Lance, and him in there. I have had such a queer talk with
_him_!'
'As how?'
'Why he wanted us to stop from church, asked me to let off the poor
little coon; and when I said we couldn't, because we were in the
choir, wanted to know what we were paid, then why we did it at all;
and so it turned out that he thinks churches only meant for women and
psalm-singing niggers and Methodists, and has never been inside one
in his life, never saw the sense of it, wanted to know why I went.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I don't know; I was so taken aback. I said something about our duty
to God, and it's being all we had to get us through life; but I know
I made a dreadful mess of it, and the bell rang, and I got away. But
he seems a sheer heathen, and there's Lance in and out all day.'
'Yes, Felix, I am afraid it is true that the poor lad has been
brought up with no religion at all--a blank sheet, as his father
called him.'
'Wasn't his father English?'
'Yes; but he had lived a roving, godless life. I began, when I found
the boy must stay here, by asking whether he were of his father's or
his mother's communion, and in return heard a burst of exultation
that he had never let a priest into his house. His father-in-law had
warned him against it, and he had carried his wife out of their reach
long before the child's birth; he has not even been baptized, but you
see, Felix, I could not act like Abraham to the idolater in the
Talmud.'
Felix did not speak, but knocked one foot against the other in
vexation, feeling that it was his house after all, and that Mr.
Audley should not have turned this young heathen loose into it to
corrupt his brother, without consulting him.
'I told Travis,' continued the Curate, 'that if I undertook the
charge as he wished, it must be as a priest myself, and I must try to
put some religion into him. And, to my surprise, he said he left it
to me. Fernando was old enough to judge, and if he were to be an
English squire, he must conform to old-country ways; besides, I was
another sort of parson from Yankee Methodists and Shakers or Popish
priests--he knew the English clergy well enough, of the right sort.'
'So he is to learn religion to make him a squire?'
'I was thankful enough to find no obstruction.'
'And have you begun?' asked Felix moodily.
'Why--no. He has been too ill and too reserved. I have attempted
nothing but daily saying a short prayer for him in his hearing,
hoping he would remark on it. But you know the pain is still very
absorbing at times, and it leaves him exhausted; and besides, I fancy
he has a good deal of tropical languor about him, and does not notice
much. Nothing but Lance has roused him at all,'
'I would never have let Lance in there by himself, if I had known,'
said Felix. 'He is quite bewitched.'
'It would have been difficult to prevent it. Nor do I think that much
harm can be done. I believe I ought to have told you, Felix; but I
did not like denouncing my poor sick guest among the children, or its
getting round all the town and to my Lady. After all, Lance is a very
little fellow; it is not as if Edgar or Clem were at home.'
'I suppose it cannot be helped,' sighed Felix; 'but my father--' and
as he recollected the desire to take his brothers away from Mr.
Ryder, he felt as if his chosen guardian had been false to his trust,
out of pity and enthusiasm.
'Your father would have known how to treat him,' sighed Mr. Audley.
'At any rate, Felix, we must not forget the duties of hospitality and
kindness; and I hope you will not roughly forbid Lance to go near
him, without seeing whether the poor fellow is not really
inoffensive.'
'I'll see about it,' was all that Felix could get himself to say; for
much as he loved Mr. Audley, he could not easily brook interference
with his brothers, and little Lance, so loyal to himself, and so
droll without a grain of malice, was very near to his heart. 'A young
pagan,' as he thought to himself, 'teaching him all the blackguard
tricks and words he has learnt at all the low schools in north or
south!' and all the most objectionable scenes he had met with in
American stories, from Uncle Tom onwards, began to rise before his
eyes. 'A pretty thing to do in a fit of beneficence! I'll order Lance
to keep away, and if he dares disobey, I'll lick him well to show him
who is master.'
So he felt, as he swung himself upstairs, and halted with some
intention of pouring out his vexed spirit to Wilmet, because Mr.
Audley had no business to make it a secret; but Wilmet was putting
her mother to bed, and he went on upstairs. There he found all the
doors open, and heard a murmuring sound of voices in Geraldine's
room. In a mood to be glad of any excuse for finding fault, he strode
across the nursery, where Angela and Bernard slept, and saw that
Lance, who ought to have gone at once to bed on coming in, was
standing in his sister's window, trying to read in the ray of gas-
light that came up from a lamp at the brew-house door.
'Go to bed, Lance,' he said; 'if you have not learnt your lessons in
proper time, you must wake early, or take the consequences. I won't
have it done on Sunday night.'
Lance started round angrily, and Cherry cried, 'O Felix, it is no
such thing! Only would you tell us where to find about the king and
his priests that defeated the enemy by singing the "mercy endureth
for ever" psalm?'
'In the Bible!' said Felix, as if sure it was a blunder. 'There's no
such story.'
'Indeed there is,' cried Lance, 'for Papa (the word low and
reverently) took out his blue poly-something Bible and read it out in
the sermon. Don't you remember, Fee, a hot day in the summer, when he
preached all about those wild robbers--horrid fellows with long
spears--coming up in the desert to make a regular smash of the Jews?'
'Lance!' cried Cherry.
'Well, he did not say that, of course, but they wanted to; and how
the king sent out the priests without a fighting man, only all in
white, praising God in the beauty of holiness, and singing, "His
mercy endureth for ever." I saw him read that, though he told us all
the rest without book; how all the enemy began to quarrel, and all
killed one another, and the Jews had nothing to do but to pick up the
spoil, and sing another psalm coming back.'
'I remember now,' said Felix, in a very different tone. 'It was
Jehoshaphat, Lancey boy. I'll find it for you in the book of
Chronicles. Did you want it for anything?'
Lance made an uneasy movement.
'It was to show poor Fernando Travis, wasn't it?' said Cherry; and as
Lance wriggled again, she added, 'He seems to have been taught
nothing good.'
'Now, Cherry,' broke out Lance, 'I told you to say not a word.'
'I know a little about it, Lance,' said Felix, sitting down on the
window-seat and lifting Lance on his knee, as he said, in a tone very
unlike his intended expostulation, 'You must not let him do you harm,
Lance.'
'He wouldn't; but he does not know anything about anything,' said the
little boy. 'They never taught him to say his prayers, nor sing
hymns, nor chant, and he thinks it is only good for niggers. So I
told him that singing psalms once beat an army, and he laughed; and I
thought Cherry was sure to know where it was--but girls will always
tell.'
'Indeed you never told me not,' said Cherry, humbly.
'She has done no harm,' said Felix. 'Mr. Audley has just been talking
to me about that poor boy. He really is as untaught as that little
scamp at the potteries that we tried to teach.'
'He's a stunning good fellow,' broke in Lance; 'he has seen an
alligator, and ridden mustangs.'
'Never mind that now, Lance; I dare say he is very amusing, but--'
'Don't hinder me from going to him,' broke in the younger boy
vehemently.
'If,' said Felix gravely, 'you can be quite sure my Father would not
mind it.'
Lance was nestling close up to him in the dark, and he was surprised
to find that round face wet with tears. 'Papa would not let him lie
dull and moped all day long,' he said. 'O Fee, I can't keep away; I
am so sorry for him. When that terrible cramp comes, it is of no use
to say those sort of things to him.'
'What sort of things?'
'Oh, you know; verses such as Papa used to have said to him. They
weren't a bit of good. No, not though I did get the book Papa marked
for Cherry.'
'You did!' gasped Cherry, who little thought that sacred possession
of hers was even known to Master Lance.
'You'd have done it yourself, Cherry,' said the little boy, 'if you
had only seen how bad he was; he got quite white, and had great drops
on his forehead, and panted so, and would not let out a bit of a cry,
only now and then a groan; and so I ran to get the verse Papa used to
say over and over to you when your foot was bad. And I'm sure it was
the right one, but--but--it did him no good, for, oh! he didn't know
who our Saviour is;' and the little fellow clung to his brother in a
passion of tears, while Felix felt a pang at the contrast.
'Have you been telling him, Lancey?' he asked.
'I wanted him to ask Mr. Audley, but he said he was a parson, and his
father said that there would be no parsons if men were not fools.
Now, Fee, I've told you, but don't keep me away.'
'It would be hard on a poor sick fellow,' said Felix, thoroughly
softened. 'Only, Lance, you know I can't be with you; will you
promise to go away if ever you think Papa would wish it?'
'Oh yes, one has to do that, you know, when our own fellows get
blackguardly,' said little Lance, freely; whereat Cherry shuddered
somewhat. 'And, Fee,' he added, 'if you would only come and make him
understand about things.'
'Mr. Audley must do that,' said Felix; 'I can't.'
'You teach the boys in the Sunday-school,' said Lance. 'And he'd mind
you, Blunderbore. He says you are the grandest and most splendiferous
fellow he ever did set eyes on, and that he feels something like,
when you've just looked in and spoken to him.'
'You little ass, he was chaffing you.'
'No, no, _indeed_ he wasn't. I told him all about it, because he
liked your face so much. And he does care so very much when you look
in. Oh! _do, do_, Fee; he is so jolly, and it is so lonely and horrid
for him, and I do so want Papa for him;' and the child cried
silently, but Felix felt the long deep sobs, and as Geraldine, much
moved, said, 'Dear little Lancey,' he carried him over to her as she
sat up in bed, and she kissed and fondled him, and murmured in his
ear, 'Dear Lance, I'm sure he'll get good. We will get Mr. Audley to
talk to him, you know, and we will say a prayer every day for him.'
Lance, beginning to recover, put his arms round Cherry's neck, gave
her a tremendous hug, released himself from his brother's arms, and
ran off to bed. Felix remained a few moments, while Cherry
exclaimed, 'Oh! the dear good little fellow!'
'Better than any of us,' said Felix. 'I was quite savage with Mr.
Audley when I found out about it. I must go down and tell him. I
never thought all that was in the little chap! I'm glad he came to
you, Cherry. Good-night.'
'And you will try to teach this poor boy, Felix?'
'I don't say that. I don't in the least know how; but I shall not
dare to hinder Lance, now I see how he goes on.'
On his way down he heard voices in the sitting-room, where, in fact,
Mr. Audley had joined Wilmet, to explain to her how vexed he was to
have so much annoyed Felix, and perhaps also something of his own
annoyance at the manner in which Felix took it. Wilmet, partly from
her 'growing on the sunny side of the wall,' partly from her early
authority, was in some ways older than her brother, and could see
that there was in him a shade of boyish jealousy of his prerogative;
and as she sat, in her pretty modest gravity, with her fair hair and
her Sunday frock, she was softly but earnestly telling Mr. Audley
that she was sure Felix would not mind long, and that he was very
sorry for the poor boy really, only he was so anxious about Lance,
and he did like to be consulted. Both looked up, startled, as Felix
opened the door, and they saw that his eyes were full of tears. He
came up to Mr. Audley, and said, 'I beg your pardon, sir; I'd no
business to grumble, and that little fellow has been--'
'Beforehand with us?' asked Mr. Audley, as Felix broke down. 'The
nurse has been just telling me how he sat on his bed saying bits of
psalms and verses to him when he had that bad fit of cramp, "so
pretty," she said; but I was afraid it must have been rather like a
spell.'
Felix told his story, feeling it too much not to make it lame, and
with the tearfulness trembling in his voice and eyes all the time.
'Our little gamin has the most of the good Samaritan in him,' said
Mr. Audley. ''Tis not quite the end I should have begun at, but
perhaps it may work the better.'
'Dear little boy, that he should have remembered that sermon!'
exclaimed Wilmet.
'I am afraid it is more than I do,' said Felix; 'all last summer the
more I tried to listen, the more I saw how he was changing. Do you
remember it, Wilmet?'
'Yes; the text was, "The joy of the Lord is your strength," and he
said how praising God, and going on thinking about His goodness and
thankfulness, was the way to make our adversaries dissolve before us,
and never trouble us at all, just like the bands of the Moabites and
Ammonites before Jehoshaphat.'
'I recollect it well, and how I thought it such a likeness of
himself,' said Mr. Audley; 'he was walking over his troubles,
scarcely seeing them, as if they could not dim the shine of his
armour while he went on looking up and being thankful. I fancy little
Lance has a good deal of that kind of bright fearless way.'
'He has,' said Felix in a grave thoughtful tone that made the Curate
look at him and sigh to think how early care and grief had come to
make that joyous buoyancy scarce possible to the elder boy, little
more than seventeen though he was.
'He is very idle, though,' added Wilmet; 'such caricatures as there
are all over his books! Edgar's were bad enough, but Lance puts pig-
tails and cocked hats to all Edgar's.'
So Lance's visits to the sick stranger remained unobstructed. He had
no notion of teaching him; but the foreign boy in his languor and
helplessness curiously fascinated him, perhaps from the very contrast
of the passive, indolent, tropical nature with his own mercurial
temperament. The Spaniard, or perhaps the old Mexican, seemed to
predominate in Fernando, as far as could be guessed in one so weak
and helpless. He seemed very quiet and inanimate, seldom wanting or
seeking diversion, but content to lie still, with half-closed eyes;
his manner was reserved, and with something of courteous dignity,
especially when Lady Price came to visit him; and the Yankeeisms that
sometimes dropped from his tongue did not agree with the polish of
the tone, and still less with the imperious manner in which he
sometimes addressed the nurse. He seemed, though not clever, to be
tolerably well cultivated; he had been at the schools of whatever
cities his father had resided in, and his knowledge of languages was
of course extensive.
However, he never talked freely to Mr. Audley. He had bitterly
resented that gentleman's interference, one day when he was
peremptorily commanding the nurse to place him in a position that had
been forbidden, and the endeavour to control him had made him
fearfully angry. There was a stormy outbreak of violent language,
only checked by a severe rebuke, for which he did not forgive the
Curate; he was coldly civil, and accepted the attentions he could not
dispense with in a grave formal manner that would have been sulky in
an English lad, but had something of the dreary grandeur of the
Spanish Don from that dark lordly visage, and made Mr. Audley half
provoked, half pitying, speak of him always as his Cacique. He only
expanded a little even to Lance, though the little boy waited on him
assiduously, chattering about school doings, illustrating them on a
slate, singing to him, acting Blondin, exhibiting whatever he could
lay his hands on, including the twins, whom he bore down one after
the other, to the great wrath of Sibby, not to say of little Stella
herself, while Theodore took the exhibition with perfect serenity.
As to Felix, he was, as Lance said, the subject of the sick lad's
fervent admiration. Perhaps the open, fair, cheerful, though grave
countenance, fresh complexion, and strong, steadfast, upright bearing
had something to do with the strange adoration that in his silent way
Fernando paid to the youth, who looked in from time to time, bringing
a sort of air of refreshment with his good-natured shy smile, even
when he least knew what to say. Or else it was little Lance's fervent
affection for Felix which had conduced to the erection of the elder
brother into the idol of Fernando's fancy; and his briefest visit was
the event of the long autumnal days spent in the uncurtained iron bed
in the corner of the low room. The worship, silent though it was, was
manifest enough to become embarrassing and ridiculous to the subject
of it, whose sense of duty and compassion was always at war with his
reluctance to expose himself to it. Not another word passed on any
religious subject. Mr. Audley was not forgiven enough to venture on
the attempt; the Rector was shy and frightened about it, and could
make no beginning; and Mr. Mowbray Smith, who found great fault with
them for their neglect, had been fairly stared down by the great
black eyes, which, when the heavy lids were uplifted, proved to be of
an immense size and force; and Felix was so sure that it could not be
his business while three clergymen were going in and out that he had
never done more than describe the weather, or retail any fresh bit of
London news that had come down to the office.
At last, however, one November day, he found Fernando sitting up in
bed, and Lance, perched on the table, talking so earnestly as not to
perceive his entrance, until Fernando broke upon his words: 'There!
it's no use!'
'Yes, it is,' cried Lance, jumping down. 'O Fee, I am glad you are
come; I want you to tell him the rights of it.'
'The rights of what, Lance?'
'Tell him that it is all the devil's doing, and the men he has got on
his side; and that it was the very thing our Saviour came for to set
us free, only everybody won't,' said Lance clinging to his brother's
hand and looking up in his face.
'That's about right, Lance,' said Felix, 'but I don't quite know what
you are talking about.'
'Just this,' said Fernando. 'Lance goes on about God being merciful
and good and powerful--Almighty, as he says; but whatever women may
tell a little chap like that, nobody can think so that has seen the
things I have, down in the West, with my own eyes.'
'Felix!' cried Lance, 'say it. You know and believe just as I do, as
everybody good does, men and all.'
'Yes, indeed!' said Felix with all his heart.
'Then tell me how it can be,' said Fernando.
Felix stood startled and perplexed, feeling the awful magnitude and
importance of the question, but also feeling his own incompetence to
deal with it; and likewise that Wilmet was keeping the tea waiting
for him. He much wished to say, 'Keep it for Mr. Audley,' but he
feared to choke the dawning of faith, and he likewise feared the
appearance of hesitation.
'Nobody can really explain it,' he said, 'but that's no wonder. One
cannot explain a thunderstorm, but one knows that it is.'
'That's electricity,' said Fernando.
'And what's electricity?'
'A fluid that--'
'Yes; that's another word. But you can't get any farther. God made
electricity, or whatever it is, and when you talk about explaining
it, you only get to something that is. You know it is, and you can't
get any farther,' he repeated.
'Well, that's true; though science goes beyond you in America.'
'But no searching finds out _all_ about God!' said Felix reverently.
'All we know is that He is so infinitely great and wise, that of
course we cannot understand why all He does is right, any more than a
private soldier understands his general's orders.'
'And _you--you_,' said Fernando, 'are content to say you don't
understand.'
'Why not?' said Felix.
There was a silence. Fernando seemed to be thinking; Lance gazed from
one to the other, as if disappointed that his brother was not more
explicit.
'And how do you know it is true?' added Fernando. 'I mean, what Lance
has been telling me! What makes you sure of it, if you are?'
'_If_ I am !' cried Felix, startled into indignation. 'To be sure I
am!'
'But how?'
'I _know_ it!' said Felix.
'How?'
'The Bible!' gasped Lance impatiently.
'Ay; so you have said for ever,' broke in Fernando; 'but what
authenticates that?'
'The whole course of history,' said Felix. 'There is a great chain of
evidence, I know, but I never got it up. I can't tell it you,
Fernando, I never wanted it, never even tried to think about the
proofs. It is all too sure.'
'But wouldn't a Mahometan say that?' said Fernando.
'If he did, look at the Life of our Lord and of Mahomet together, and
see which must be the true prophet--the Way, the Life, the Truth.'
'That one could do,' said Fernando thoughtfully. 'I say' as Felix
made a movement as if he thought the subject concluded, 'I want to
know one thing more. Lance says it is believing all this that makes
you--any one I mean--good.'
'I don't know what else should,' said Felix, smiling a little; the
question seemed to him so absurd.
'Is it really what makes you go and slave away at that old boss's of
yours?'
'Why, that's necessity and my duty,' said Felix.
'And is it what makes this little coon come and spend all his play-
hours on a poor fellow with a broken leg? I've been at many schools,
and never saw the fellow who would do that.'
'Oh! you are such fun!' cried Lance.
'All that is right comes from God first and last,' said Felix
gravely.
'And you--you that are no child--you believe all that Lance tells me
you do, and think it makes you what you are!'
'I believe it; yes, of course. And believing it should make me much
better than I am! I hope it will in time.'
'Ah!' sighed Fernando. 'I never heard anything like it since my
father said he'd take the cow-hide to poor old Diego, if he caught
him teaching me nigger-cant.'
They left him.
'Poor fellow!' sighed Felix; 'what have you been telling him, Lance?'
'Oh, I don't know; only why things were good and bad,' was Lance's
lucid answer; and he was then intent on detailing the stories he had
heard from Fernando. He had been in the worst days of Southern
slavery ere its extinction, on the skirts of the deadly warfare with
the Red Indians; and the poor lad had really known of horrors that
curdled the blood of Wilmet and Geraldine, and made the latter lie
awake or dream dreadful dreams all night.
But the next day Mr. Audley was startled to hear the two friends in
the midst of an altercation. When Lance had come in for his mid-day
recreation, Fernando had produced five shillings, desiring him to go
and purchase a Bible for him; but Lance, who had conceived the idea
that the Scriptures ought not to be touched by an unchristened hand,
flatly refused, offering, however, to read from his own. Now Lance's
reading was at that peculiar school-boy stage which seems calculated
to combine the utmost possible noise with the least possible
distinctness; and though he had good gifts of ear and voice, and his
reciting and singing were both above the average, the moment a book
was before him, he roared his sentences between his teeth in horrible
monotony. And as he began with the first chapter of St. Matthew, and
was not perfectly able to cope with all the names, Fernando could
bear it no longer, and insisted on having the book itself. Lance
shook his head and refused; and matters were in this stage when Mr.
Audley, not liking the echoes of the voices, opened the door. 'What
is it?' he asked anxiously.
'Nothing,' replied Fernando, proudly trying to swallow his vexation.
'Lance!' said Mr. Audley rather severely; but just then, seeing what
book the child was holding tight under his arm, he decided to follow
him out of the room and interrogate.
'What was it, Lance?'
'He ought not to touch a Bible--he sha'n't have mine,' said Lance
resentfully.
'Was he doing anything wrong with it?'
'Oh no! But he ought not to have it before he is christened, and I
would have read to him.'
Mr. Audley knew what Lance's reading was, and smiled.
'Was that all, Lance? I like your guardianship of the Bible, my boy;
but it was not given only to those who are Christians already, or how
could any one learn?'
'He sha'n't touch mine, though,' said Lance, with an odd sturdiness;
stumping upstairs with his treasure, a little brown sixpenny S. P. C.
K. book, but in which his father had written his name on his last
birthday but one.
Mr. Audley only waited to take down a New Testament, and present
himself at Fernando's bedside, observing gladly that there was much
more wistfulness than offence about his expression.
'It was a scruple on the young man's part,' said Mr. Audley, smiling,
though full of anxiety; 'he meant no unkindness.'
'I know he did not,' said Fernando quietly, but gazing at the purple
book in the clergyman's hands.
'Did you want this?' said Mr. Audley; 'or can I find anything in it
for you?'
'Thank you;' and there was a pause. The offended manner towards Mr.
Audley had been subsiding of late into friendliness under his
constant attentions, and Fernando's desire for an answer prevailed at
last. 'Felix told me to read the Life of Christ,' he said, not
irreverently, 'and that it would show me He must be True.'
'I hope and trust that so it may be,' said Mr. Audley, more moved
than he could bear to show, but with fervour in his voice far beyond
his words.
'Felix,' said Fernando, resting on the name, 'Felix does seem as if
he must be right, Mr. Audley; can it be really as he says--and Lance-
--that their belief makes them like what they are?'
'Most assuredly.'
'And you don't say so only because you are a minister?' asked the boy
distrustfully.
'I say so because I know it. I knew that it is the Christian faith
that makes all goodness, long before I was a minister.'
'But I have seen plenty of Christians that were not in the least like
Felix Underwood.'
'So have I; but in proportion as they live up to their faith, they
have what is best in him.'
'I should like to be like him,' mused Fernando; 'I never saw such a
fellow. He, and little Lance too, seem to belong to something bright
and strong, that seems inside and outside, and I can't lay hold of
what it is.'
'One day you will, my dear boy,' said Mr. Audley. 'Let me try to help
you.'
Fernando scarcely answered, save by half a smile, and a long sigh of
relief: but when Mr. Audley put his hand over the long brown fingers,
they closed upon it.
CHAPTER VII
THE CHESS-PLAYER'S BATTLE
'Dost thou believe, he said, that Grace
Itself can reach this grief?
With a feeble voice and a woeful eye--
"Lord, I believe," was the sinner's reply,
"Help Thou mine unbelief."'
SOUTHEY.
By the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Fernando Travis was able
to lie on a couch in Mr. Audley's sitting-room. His recovery was even
tardier than had been expected, partly from the shock, and partly
from the want of vigour of the tropical constitution: and he still
seemed to be a great way from walking, though there was no reason to
fear that the power would not return. His father wrote, preparing for
a journey to Oregon, and seemed perfectly satisfied, and he was
becoming very much at home with his host.
He was much interested in that which he was learning from Mr. Audley,
and imbibing from the young Underwoods. The wandering life he had
hitherto led, without any tenderness save from the poor old negro,
without time to make friends, and often exposed to the perception of
some of the darkest sides of human life, in the terrible lawlessness
of the Mexican frontier, had hitherto made him dull, dreary, and
indifferent, with little perception that there could be anything
better; but first the kindness and then the faith he saw at Bexley,
had awakened new perceptions and sensations. His whole soul was
opening to perceive what the love of God and man might be; and the
sense of a great void, and longing to have it satisfied, seemed to
fill him with a constant craving for the revelation of that inner
world, whose existence had just dawned upon him.
After a little hesitation, Mr. Audley decided on reading with
Geraldine in his presence after he had come into the sitting-room,
explaining to her how he thought it might be helpful. She did not
much like it, but acquiesced: she used to hop in with her sweet
smile, shy greeting, and hand extended to the invalid, who used to
lie looking at her through his long eyelashes, and listening to her
low voice reading or answering, as if she were no earthly creature;
but the two were far too much in awe of one another to go any
farther; and he got on much better with Wilmet, when she looked in on
him now and then with cheery voice and good-natured care.
Then Fulbert and Robina came home; and the former was half
suspicious, half jealous, of Lance's preoccupation with what he chose
to denominate 'a black Yankee nigger.' He avoided the room himself,
and kept Lance from it as much as was in his power; and one day Lance
appeared with a black eye, of which he concealed the cause so
entirely, that Felix, always afraid of his gamin tendencies,
entreated Fulbert, as a friend, to ease his mind by telling him it
was not given in a street row.
'I did it,' said Fulbert; 'he was so cocky about his Yankee that I
could not stand it.'
'Why shouldn't he be kind to a poor sick fellow?'
'He has no business to be always bothering about Fernando here--
Fernando there--Fernando for ever. I shall have him coming up to
school a regular spoon, and just not know what to do with him.'
'Well, Fulbert, I think if you had a broken leg you'd wish some one
to speak to you. At any rate, I can't have Lance bullied for his good
nature; I was very near doing it myself once, but I was shamed out of
it.'
'Were you--were you, indeed?' cried Fulbert, delighted at this
confession of human nature; and Felix could not help laughing. And
that laugh did much to bring him down from the don to the brother. At
any rate, Fulbert ceased his persecution in aught but word.
Robina, always Lance's companion, followed him devotedly, and only
hung about the stairs forlorn when he went to Fernando without her;
or if admitted, she was quite content to sit serenely happy in her
beloved Lance's presence, expecting neither notice nor amusement,
only watching their occupation of playing at draughts. Sometimes,
however, Lance would fall to playing with her, and they would roll on
the floor, a tumbling mass of legs, arms, and laughter, to the
intense diversion of Fernando, to whom little girls were beings of an
unknown order.
So came on Christmas, with the anniversaries so sweet and so sad, and
the eve of holly-dressing, when a bundle of bright sprays was left by
some kind friend at No. 8, and Lance and Bobbie were vehement to
introduce Fernando to English holly and English decking.
Geraldine suggested that they had better wait for either Mr. Audley
or Wilmet to come in, but for this they had no patience, and ran down
with their arms full of the branches, and their tongues going with
the description of the night's carols, singing them with their sweet
young voices as they moved about the room. Fernando knew now what
Christmas meant, but the joy and exhilaration of the two children,
seemed to him strange for such a bygone event. He asked them if they
would have any treat.
'Oh no! except, perhaps, Mr. Audley said he should drink tea one
day,' said Robina. And then she broke out again, 'Hark! the herald
angels,' like a little silver bell.
Suddenly there was a cry of dismay. She had been standing on a chair
over the mantelpiece, sticking holly into the ornaments, behind and
under which, in true man's fashion, a good many papers and letters
had accumulated. One of these papers--by some unlucky movement--fell,
and by a sudden waft of air floated irrevocably into the hottest
place in the fire.
'O dear! oh dear!' wailed Robina.
'That's a pretty go,' cried Lancelot.
'That comes of your open fires,' observed Fernando.
'What was it?' asked Lance.
'I don't know. I think it was a list of names! Oh! how vexed he'll
be, and Wilmet; for she told me never to get on a chair over the
fender, and I forgot.' Bobbie's round face was puckering for a cry.
'No, no, don't cry, Bob; I told you to get up, and I'll say so,' said
Lance, smothering her in his arms after the wont of consoling
brothers.
'I dare say he'll not miss it,' said Fernando good-naturedly; 'he
very seldom meddles with those things.'
Bobbie's great round gray eyes came out over Lance's shoulder, and
flashed amazement and wrath at him. 'I'm not going to tell stories,'
she said stoutly.
'No,' said Lance, equally scandalised; 'I thought you had learnt
better, Fernando.'
Robina, be it observed, was ignorant of Fernando's untaught state.
'I only said you could hold your tongue,' was of course Fernando's
rejoiner.
'That's just as bad,' was the little girl's response.
'But, Lance, you held your tongue about your black eye.'
'That's my affair, and _nobody else's_,' said Lance, flushing up and
looking cross at the allusion.
'And Fulbert told!' added Robina.
'Will they punish you?' asked Fernando.
'I think Wilmet will, because it was disobedience! I don't think
she'll let me have any butter at tea,' Bobbie nearly sobbed. 'Mr.
Audley won't punish! But he'll look--' and she quite cried now.
'And do you like that better than not telling?' said Fernando, still
curious.
She looked up, amazed again. 'I must! I don't like it! But I couldn't
ever have a happy Christmas if I didn't tell! I wish they would come
that I might have it over.'
The street door opened at the moment, and Mr. Audley and Wilmet came
in together from Lady Price's convocation of the parish staff.
Fernando heard the sobbing confession in the passage, and Lance's
assurance that he had been art and part in the disobedience, and
Wilmet gravely blaming the child, and Mr. Audley telling her not to
think so much about the loss as the transgression; and then the door
was shut, and he heard no more, till Mr. Audley came in, examined the
chimney-piece, and performed the elegy of the list in a long low
whistle.
'Is much harm done?' Fernando asked.
'Not much; only I must go and get another list made out, and I am
afraid I shall not be able to come in again before church.'
'I hope they have not punished her?'
'Wilmet recommended not taking the prize prayer-book to church, and
she acquiesced with tears in her eyes. A good child's repentance is a
beautiful thing--
"'O happy in repentance' school
So early taught and tried."'
These last words were said to himself as he picked up his various
goods, and added, 'I must get some tea at the Rectory. I am sorry to
leave you, but I hope one of them will come down.'
They did not, except that they peeped in for a moment to wish him
good-night, and regretted that they had not known him to be alone.
As Felix was going out to begin the Christmas Feast in the darkness
of morning, he looked in as he usually did, since Mr. Audley,
sleeping out of the house, never came in till after early church. The
nurse, who still slept in the room, was gone to dress; there was only
a flickering night-light, and the room looked very desolate and
forlorn, still more so the voice that called out to him, 'Felix! oh,
Felix! is that you?'
'Yes. A happy Christmas to you,' said Felix.
'Happy--! there was a sort of groan.
'Why, what's the matter? have you had a bad night? Aren't you so
well?'
'I don't know. Come here, I must speak to you.'
Felix was, as usual, in a great haste, but the tone startled him.
'Felix, I can't stand this any longer. I must let you know what a
frightful, intolerable wretch I've been. I tried to teach Lance to
bet.'
'Fernando!' He was so choked with indignation, he could not say more.
'He wouldn't do it. Not after he understood it. It seems he tried it
with another little boy at school, and one of the bigger ones boxed
his ears and rowed him.'
'Ay; Bruce promised me to look after him.'
'So he refused. He told me he was on his honour to you not to stay if
I did anything your father would have disapproved. He did leave me
once, when I would not leave off.'
'But how could you?'
'I was so bored--so intolerably dull--and it is the only thing on
earth that one cares to do.'
'But Lance had nothing to stake.'
'I could lend him! Ah! you don't know what betting is; why, we all do
it--women, boys and all!' His voice became excited, and Felix in
consternation broke in--'When did you do this?'
'Oh! weeks ago. Before I was out of bed. When I found my dice in my
purse; but I have not tried it since, with him!'
'With whom, then?'
'Why--don't fall on him--with Fulbert. He knew what it meant. Now,
Felix, don't come on him for it. Come on me as much as you please.
I've been a traitor to you. I see it now.'
'Anything but that!' sighed Felix, too much appalled for immediate
forgiving, dejected as was the voice that spoke to him.
'Yes, yes, I know! I see. The worst thing I could do,' said Fernando,
turning his face in on the pillow, in so broken-hearted a manner that
Felix's kindness and generosity were roused.
'Stay, don't be so downcast,' he said. 'There's no harm done with
Lance, and you being so sorry will undo it with Fulbert! I do thank
you for telling me, _really_, only it upset me at first.'
'Upset! Yes, you'll be more so when you hear the rest,' said
Fernando, raising his head again. 'Do you know who set that inn on
fire?'
'Nobody does.'
'Well, I did.'
'Nonsense! You've had a bad night! You don't know what you are
talking about,' said Felix, anxiously laying hold of one of the hot
hands--perceiving that his own Christmas Day must begin with mercy,
not sacrifice, and beginning to hope the first self-accusation was
also delirious.
'Tell me. Didn't the fire begin in the ball-room? Somebody told me
so.'
'Yes, the waiter saw it there.'
'Then I did it; I threw the end of a cigar among the flummery in the
grate,' cried Fernando, falling back from the attitude into which he
had raised himself, with a gesture of despair.
'Nobody can blame you.'
'Stay. It was after father and uncle had gone! I was smoking at the
window of our room, and the landlord came in and ordered me not,
because some ladies in the next room objected. He told me I might
come down to the coffee-room; but I had never heard of such meddling,
and I jawed him well; but he made me give in somehow. Only when I saw
that big ball-room all along the side of the building, I just took a
turn in it with my cigar to spite him. Poor Diego came up and begged
me not, but you know the way one does with a nigger. Oh!'
Felix did not know; but the voice broke down in such misery and
horror, that his soul seemed to sink within him. 'Have you had this
on your mind all this time?' he asked kindly.
'No, no. It didn't come to me. I think I've been a block or a stone.
The dear faithful fellow, that loved me as no one ever did. I've been
feeling the kiss he gave me at the window all to-night. And then I've
been falling--falling--falling in his black arms--down--down to hell
itself. Not that he is there; but I murdered him, you know--and some
one else besides, wasn't there?'
'This is like delirium, really, Fernando,' said Felix, putting his
arms round him to lay him down, as he raised himself on his elbow. 'I
must call some one if you seem so ill.'
'I wish it was illness,' said Fernando with a shudder. 'Oh! don't go-
--don't let me go--if you can bear to touch me--when you know all!'
'There can't be any worse to know. You had better not talk.'
'I must! I must tell you all I really am, though you will never let
your brothers come near me, or the little angels--your sisters. I'd
not have dared look at them myself if I had known it, but things
never seemed so to me before.'
Felix shivered at the thought of what he was to hear, but he gave
himself up to listen kindly, and to his relief he gathered from the
incoherent words that there was no great stain of crime, as he had
feared; but that the boy had come to open his eyes to the evils of
the life in which he had shared according to his age, and saw them in
their foulness, and with an agonised sense of shame and pollution.
Felix could not help asking whether this had long dwelt on his
thoughts.
'No,' he said, 'that's the wonder! I thought myself a nice,
gentlemanly, honourable fellow. Oh!' with a groan. 'Fancy that! I
never thought of recollecting these things, or what they have made
me. Only, somehow, when those children seemed so shocked at my
advising them to hold their tongues about their bit of mischief--I
thought first what fools you all were to be so scrupulous, and then I
recollected the lots of things I have concealed, till I began to
think, Is this honour--would it seem so to Lance--or Felix? And then
came down on me the thought of what you believe, of God seeing it
all, and laying it up against one for judgment; and I know--I know it
is true!' and there came another heavy groan, and the great eyes
shone in the twilight in terror.
'If you know that is true,' said Felix, steadfastly and tenderly,
'you know something else too. You know Whom He sent into the world
for our pardon for these things.'
There was a tightening of the grasp as if in acquiescence and
comfort; but the nurse came back to tidy the room, and still Fernando
clung to Felix, and would not let him go. She opened the shutters,
and then both she and Felix were dismayed to see how ill and spent
her patient looked; for she had slept soundly through his night of
silent anguish and remorse--misery that, as Felix saw by his face,
was pressing on him still with intolerable weight.
By the time the woman had finished Mr. Audley came in, and seeing at
once that Felix's absence was accounted for by Fernando's appearance,
he stepped up at once to the bed, full of solicitude. Felix hardly
knew whether to reply or escape; but Fernando's heart was too full
for his words not to come at once.
'No, I am not worse, but I see it all now.--Tell him, Felix; I cannot
say it again.'
'Fernando thinks--' Felix found he could hardly speak the words
either--'Fernando is afraid that it was an accident of his own--'
'Don't say an accident. It was passion and spite,' broke in Fernando.
'That caused the fire at the Fortinbras Arms,' Felix was obliged to
finish.
'Not on purpose!' exclaimed Mr. Audley.
'Almost as much as if it had been,' said Fernando. 'I smoked to spite
the landlord for interfering, and threw away the end too angry to
heed where. There!' he added grimly; 'Felix won't tell me how many I
murdered besides my poor old black. How many?'
'Do not speak in that way, my poor boy,' said Mr. Audley. At least,
this is better than the weight you have had on your mind so long.'
'How many?' repeated Fernando.
'Two more lives were lost,' said Mr. Audley gently, 'Mr. Jones's baby
and its nurse. But you must not use harder words than are just,
Fernando. It was a terrible result, but consequences do not make the
evil.'
He made a kind of murmur, then turning round, uneasily said, 'That is
not all; I have seen myself, Mr. Audley.'
Mr. Audley looked at Felix, who spoke with some difficulty and
perplexity. 'He has been very unhappy all night. He thinks things
wrong that he never thought about before.'
Mr. Audley felt exceedingly hopeful at those words; but he was
alarmed at the physical effect on his patient, and felt that the
present excitement was mischievous. 'I understand in part,' he said.
'But it seems to me that he is too restless and uncomfortable to
think or understand now. It may be that he may yet see the joy of to-
day; but no more talk now. Have you had your breakfast?'
He shook his head, but Felix had to go away, and breakfast and
dressing restored Fernando to a more tranquil state. He slept, too,
wearied out, when he was placed on his couch, while Felix was at
Christmas service, singing, as he had never sung before,--
'Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.'
Oh! was the poor young stranger seeing the way to that
reconciliation? and when Lancelot's sweet clear young notes rose up
in all their purity, and the rosy honest face looked upwards with an
expression elevated by the music, Felix could not help thinking that
the boy had verily sung those words of truth and hope into the poor
dark lonely heart. Kindness, steadfastness, truth, in that merry-
hearted child had been doing their work, and when Lance marched away
with the other lesser choristers, the elder brother felt as if the
younger had been the more worthy to 'draw near in faith.'
Fernando was more like himself when Felix came in, but he was a good
deal shaken, and listened to the conventional Christmas greeting like
mockery, shrinking from the sisters, when they looked in on him, with
what they thought a fresh access of shyness, but which was a feeling
of terrible shame beside the innocence he ascribed to them.
'I wish I could help that poor boy,' sighed Wilmet. 'He does look so
very miserable!'
And Geraldine's eyes swam in tears as she thought of the loneliness
of his Christmas, and without that Christmas joy that even her
mother's dulled spirit could feel--the joy that bore them through the
recollections of this time last year.
Lance's desire to cheer took the more material form of acting as
Fernando's special waiter at the consumption of the turkey, which Mr.
Audley had insisted on having from home, and eating in company with
the rest, to whom it was a 'new experience,' being only a faint
remembrance even to Felix and Wilmet; but Fernando had no appetite,
and even the sight of his little friend gave him a pang.
'Do you want any one to stay with you!' asked Lance. 'If Cherry
_would_ do--for Felix said he would take Fulbert and me out for a
jolly long walk, to see the icicles at Bold's Hatch.'
'No, I want no one. You are better without me.'
'I'll stay if you do want it,' said Lance, very reluctantly. 'I don't
like your not having one bit of Christmas. Shall I sing you one
Christmas hymn before I go?' And Lance broke into the 'Herald Angels'
again.
'Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.'
Fernando's face was bathed in tears; he held out his arms, and to
little Lance's great amazement, somewhat to his vexation, he held him
fast and kissed him.
'What did you do that for?' he asked in a gruff astonished voice.
'Never mind!' said Fernando. 'Only I think I see what this day can
be! Now go.'
Presently Mr. Audley came softly in. The lad's face was turned in to
his cushion, his handkerchief over it; and as the young priest stood
watching him, what could be done but pray for the poor struggling
soul? At last he turned round, and looked up.
'I saw it again,' he said with a sigh.
'Saw what!'
'What you all mean. It touched me, and seemed true and real when
Lance was singing. What was it--"Born to save the sons of earth"? Oh!
but such as I am, and at my age, too!'
And with a few words from Mr. Audley, there came such a disburthening
of self-accusation as before to Felix. It seemed as if the terrible
effects of his wilfulness at the inn--horrified as he was at them--
were less oppressive to his conscience than his treachery to his host
in his endeavour to gamble with the little boys. He had found a pair
of dice in his purse when looking for the price of a Bible, and the
sight had awakened the vehement hereditary Mexican passion for
betting, the bane of his mother's race. His father, as a clever man
of the world, hated and prohibited the practice; but Fernando had
what could easily become a frenzy for that excitement of the lazy
south, and even while he had seen it in its consequences, the intense
craving for the amusement had mastered him more than once, when
loathing the dulness and weariness of his confinement, and shrinking
from the doctrines he feared to accept. He knew it was dishonourable-
--yet he had given way; and he felt like one utterly stained,
unpardonable, hopeless: but there was less exaggeration in his state
of mind than in the early morning, and when Mr. Audley dwelt on the
Hope of sinners, his eyes glistened and brightened; and at the
further words that held out to him the assurance that all these sins
might be washed away, and he himself enabled to begin a new life, his
looks shone responsively; but he shook his head soon--'It went away
from him,' he said; poor boy! 'it was too great and good to be true.'
Then Mr. Audley put prayer before him as a means of clinging even
blindly to the Cross that he was barely beginning to grasp, and the
boy promised. He would do anything they would, could he but hope to
be freed from the horrible weight of sense of hopeless pollution that
had come upon him.
For some days he did not seem able to read anything but the Gospels
and the Baptismal Service; and at length, after a long silence, he
said, 'Mr. Audley, if your sermon is finished, can you listen to me?
May I be baptized?'
Then indeed the Curate's heart bounded, but he had to keep himself
restrained. The father's consent he had secured beforehand, but he
thought Fernando ought to write to him; and it was also needful to
consult the Rector as to the length of actual preparation and
probation.
Then, when the question came, 'Can I indeed be like Felix and
Lancelot' the reply had to be cautious. 'You will be as entirely
pardoned, as entirely belonging to the holiness within and without,
as they; but how far you will have the consciousness, I cannot tell;
and it is very probable that your temptations may be harder. Guilt
may be forgiven, while habits retain their power; and they have been
guarded, taught self-restraint, and had an example before them in
their father, such as very few have been blessed with.'
Fernando sighed long and sadly, and said, 'Then you do not think it
will make much difference.'
'The difference between life and death! But you must expect to have
to believe rather than feel. But go on, and it will all be clear.'
The Rector was at first anxious to wait for definite sanction from
the father; but as Mr. Audley was sure of the permission he had
received, and no letter could be had for several months, he agreed to
examine the lad, and write to the Bishop--a new Bishop, who had been
appointed within the last year, and who was coming in the spring for
a Confirmation.
Mr. Bevan was really delighted with the catechumen, and wrote warmly
of him. The reply was, that if the Baptism could take place the day
before the Confirmation, which was to be in a month's time, the
Bishop himself would like to be present, and the youth could be
confirmed the next day. There was much that was convenient in this,
for it gave time for Fernando to make progress in moving about. He
had made a start within the last week or two, was trying to use
crutches, and had been out on fine days in a chair; and once or twice
Lady Price had taken him for a drive, though she had never thought of
doing so by Geraldine. The doctor said that change of air would
probably quite restore his health; and he had only to wait to be a
little less dependent before he was to go to a tutor, an old friend
of the Audley family.
Everything promised well; but one wet afternoon, in the interim
between the end of Lance's and that of Fulbert's holidays, Mr.
Audley, while coming down from a visit to Mrs. Underwood, fancied he
heard an ominous rattle, and opening the door suddenly, found
Fernando and Fulbert eagerly throwing the dice and with several
shillings before them.
Both started violently as he entered, and Fulbert put his arm and
hand round as if to hide the whole affair; while Fernando tried to
look composed.
All that the Curate said in his surprise was one sharp sentence.
'Fernando Travis, if you are to renounce the devil, you will have to
begin by throwing those dice into the fire.'
Fernando's eyes looked furious, and he swept the dice and the money
into his pocket--all but three shillings. Fulbert stole out of the
room quietly. No doubt these were his winnings, which he did not dare
to touch.
Mr. Audley took up a book and waited, fully expecting that sorrow
would follow; but Fernando did not speak; and when at length he did
on some indifferent matter, it was in his ordinary tone. Well, there
must be patience. No doubt repentance would come at night! No; the
evening passed on, and Fernando was ready for all their usual
occupations. Perhaps it would come with Felix, or in the dawn after a
troubled night. Alas! no. And moreover, Felix, to whom it was
necessary to speak, was exceedingly angry and vexed, and utterly
incredulous of there being any good in the character that could be so
fickle, if not deceitful and hypocritical. His own resolute temper
had no power of comprehending the unmanliness of erring against the
better will; he was absolutely incapable of understanding the
horrible lassitude and craving for excitement that must have tempted
Fernando, and he was hard and even ashamed of himself for having ever
believed in the lad's sincerity.
This anger, too, made him speak with such a threatening tone to
Fulbert as to rouse the doggedness of the boy's nature. All that
could be got out of Fulbert was that 'his going there was all Felix's
doing,' and he would not manifest any sign of regret, such as would
be any security against his introducing the practice among the clergy
orphans, or continuing it all his life. He was not a boy given to
confidences, and neither Wilmet nor Cherry could get him beyond his
glum declaration that it was Felix's fault, he only wanted to keep
out of the fellow's way. They could only take comfort in believing
that he was really ashamed, and that he suffered enough within to be
a warning against the vice itself.
As to Fernando, he made no sign, he went on as if nothing had
happened; and nothing was observable about him, but that he showed
himself intensely weary of his present mode of life, put on at times
the manners that were either those of the Spanish Don or of the
Indian Cacique, and seemed to shrink from the prospect of the English
tutor. Yet he continued his preparation for baptism, and Mr. Bevan
was satisfied with him; but Mr. Audley was perplexed and unhappy over
the reserve that had sprung up between them, and could not decide
whether to make another attempt or leave the lad to himself.
One afternoon, only ten days from the time fixed for the Bishop's
visit, Mr. Audley returned from a clerical meeting to find an
unexpected visitor in the room--namely, Alfred Travis, Fernando's
uncle, a more Americanised and rougher person than his brother. He
rose as he entered. 'Good morning, Mr. Audley; you have taken good
care of your charge. He is fit to start with me to-morrow. See a
surgeon in town--then to Liverpool--'
'Indeed!' Mr. Audley caught a deprecating look from Fernando. 'Do you
come from his father?'
'Well--yes and no. His father is still in the Oregon; but he and I
have always been one--and opening the boy's letters, and finding him
ready to move, I thought, as I had business in England, I'd come and
fetch him, and just settle any claim the fellow at yonder hotel may
have cheek enough to set up, since Fernan was green enough to let it
out.'
'May I ask if you have any authority from his father?'
'Authority! Bless you! William will be glad to see his boy; we don't
go by authority between brothers.'
'Because,' continued Mr. Audley, 'I heard from your brother that he
wished Fernando to remain with me to receive an English education.'
'All sentiment and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An
English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new
republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I
saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan--Got his
lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London
gave me another hint. It won't do, I can assure you. That style of
thing is all very well for you spruce parsons of good family, as you
call it in the old country; but we are not going to have a rising
young fellow like this, with a prospect of what would buy out all
your squires and baronets in the old country, beslobbered and
befooled with a lot of Puseyite cant. You've had your turn of him; it
is time he should come and be a man again.'
Mr. Audley was dizzy with consternation. Fernando was no child. He
was full sixteen, and he was so far recovered that his health formed
no reason for detaining him. If he chose to go with his uncle, he
_must_. If not--what then? He looked at Fernando, who sat uneasily.
'You hear what your uncle says?' he asked.
'I told him,' said Fernando, 'I must wait for a fortnight.' He spoke
with eyes cast down, but not irresolutely.
His uncle broke out--He knew what that meant; it was only that he
might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a
greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and
he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding-
houses at Saratoga, and leave him there to enjoy himself.
'I have letters from my father,' said Fernando, looking up to Mr.
Audley, 'before he went to Oregon. He said nothing.'
'Do you wish to stay?' said Mr. Audley, feeling that all depended on
that, and trying to hide the whirl of anxiety and disappointment he
felt.
The answer was not what he expected. Fernando sat upright in his
chair, looked up to him and then at his uncle, and said low but
resolutely, 'I will stay.'
'Then you shall stay,' said Mr. Audley.
'You have worked upon him, I see, sir, with your old-world prejudiced
superstition,' said Alfred Travis, evidently under the delusion that
he was keeping his temper. 'A proper fool my brother was to leave him
to you. But you do it at your peril. I shall see if there's power
even in this old country to keep a boy from his own relations. You'll
see me again, Fernan. You had better make ready.'
The words were not unaccompanied with expletives such as had never
been personally uttered to Charles Audley before, and that brought
the hot colour to his cheek. When he looked round, Fernando's face
was covered with his hands. 'Oh! Mr. Audley,' he cried, as his uncle
hastily shut the door, 'is he going to send for the police?'
'I do not believe he can do any such thing,' said Mr. Audley, seeing
that Fernando was in great nervous agitation. 'I have authority from
your father, he has none; and you are old enough to make your own
decision. You really mean and wish to stay?' he added.
'I told him so from the first,' said Fernando.
'Then he has no power to force you away.'
Fernando was silent. Then he said, 'If I could have gone after my
Baptism.'
'Would you have wished that?' said Mr. Audley, somewhat disappointed.
The tears were now on the long black lashes.
'Oh, don't think me ungrateful, or-- But this English life does come
over me as intolerably dull and slow. No life nor go in it. Sometimes
I feel sick of it; and going back to books and all, after what I have
been used to. If my uncle could wait for my Baptism, or,' more
hesitating, 'if I could be baptized at once. Men do lead Christian
lives out there. I would try to keep from evil, Mr. Audley. I see
your face! Is this another temptation of the devil?'
'I think it is an attempt of his,' said Mr. Audley, sadly. 'Even here
you have not been able to abstain entirely from giving way to your
old passion, when you had little temptation, and felt your honour
bound. What will it be when you have comparatively no restraint?'
'I am resolved not to go unbaptized,' said Fernando. 'I said so from
the first, but he will not wait! Yet if my father sends for me, I
must go.'
'Then it will be your duty, and you will have more right to look for
help. Besides, a summons from your father could not come for three or
four months, and in that time you would have had time to gain
something in Christian practice and training.'
'Oh, there is the bell! Must you go, Mr. Audley? He will come back!'
'I wish I could stay, but Smith is gone to Dearport, and I do not
know whether the Rector is in. Besides, this must be your own doing,
Fernan, not mine. I shall pray for you, that you well know. Pray for
yourself, for this is a real crisis of life. God bless you, my dear
boy.' He laid his hand on the head, and Fernando looked up
gratefully, then said, 'You never did that before. May Lance come to
me, if he has not gone?'
'I will call him,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that he really dreaded
being alone. The little boy was on the stairs with something in his
hand. 'Go in to Fernan,' he was told, 'he wants you. What have you
got there?'
'This queer drawing. Cherry found it in an old portfolio, and has
been copying it.'
It was Ketzsch's outline of the chess-player, and it almost startled
Mr. Audley by its appropriateness. He went out to Evensong, and never
was more glad to get back to reinforce the feeble garrison.
Lance opened the front door to him. 'I'm so glad you are come!' he
said. 'Mr. Bruce is there.'
'Not the uncle?'
'No, only Mr. Bruce.'
Mr. Bruce was a lawyer, and a very respectable man, in whom Mr.
Audley felt confidence. He rose at the clergyman's entrance, and
asked to speak to him in another room, so he was taken into the
little back dining-room, and began--'This is a very unpleasant
business, Mr. Audley; this gentleman is very much annoyed, and
persuaded that he has a right to carry off his nephew; but as I told
him, it all turns upon the father's expressions. Have you any written
authority from him?'
Mr. Audley had more than one letter, thanking him, and expressing
full satisfaction in the proposed arrangements for Fernando; and this
Mr. Bruce thought was full justification, together with the youth's
own decided wishes. The words were likewise clear, by which William
Travis had given consent to his son's Baptism, but there was no
witness of them. Mr. Bruce explained that Alfred Travis, who seemed
to regard Fernando as the common property of the brothers, had come
to him in what he gently termed 'a great state of excitement,'
complaining of a Puseyite plot. He had evidently taken umbrage at the
tone of the letters he had opened for his brother, and had been
further prejudiced by some Dearport timber merchant he had met at
Liverpool, who had told him how the parson had got hold of his
nephew, and related a farrago of gossip about St. Oswald's. He was
furious at the opposition, and could not understand that law in the
old country was powerless in this case, because he was neither father
nor guardian. In fact he seemed to be master of his brother; and Mr.
Bruce told Mr. Audley that it was quite to be considered whether
though law was on his side now, the father might not be brought over
to the brother's side, be very angry at the detention of the boy, and
refuse the payment, which, while he was in America, could not be
forced from him. Of that Mr. Audley could happily afford to run the
risk; and Mr. Bruce said he had also set before the young gentleman
that he might have to suffer much displeasure from his father for his
present refusal, although his right to make it was incontestable. To
this Fernando had likewise made up his mind; and Mr. Bruce, who had
never seen him before, thought he looked utterly unfit for a long
journey and sea voyage, so that the uncle had taken nothing by his
application to the law.
Fernando was flushed and panting, but more resolute, for resentment
at the attempt at force had come to back him up, and rouse the spirit
of resistance. Not half an hour had elapsed before there was another
ring at the door. The uncle and lawyer were come together now. It was
to make a last offer to Fernando; Mr. Alfred Travis offered to take
him up to London the next day, and there to have advice as to the
safety of the voyage, in the meantime letting him be baptized, if
nothing else would satisfy him, but by some London clergyman--not one
of the Bexley set whom the uncle regarded with such aversion.
Fernando drew himself up, and stood, leaning on the end of the sofa.
'Thank you, uncle,' he said, 'I cannot. I am obeying my father now,
and I will not leave those to whom he trusted me.'
There followed a volley of abuse of his English obstinacy and Spanish
pride and canting conceit, which made Mr. Bruce stand aghast, and
Fernando look up with burning cheeks and eyes glowing like hot coals;
but with the Indian impassibility he did not speak till Alfred Travis
had threatened him not only with his father's displeasure, but with
being cast off by both, and left to his English friends' charity.
'My father will not!' said Fernando. 'If he sends for me I will
come.' But there his strength suddenly collapsed, and he was forced
to sit down and lean back.
'Well, Fernan,' said his uncle, suddenly withdrawing his attempt when
he found it vain, 'you seem hardly in marching order, so I'm off by
the night train; but if you change your mind in the next week, write
to me at Peter Brown's--you know--and I'll run down. I will save you
the coming out by yourself. Good-bye.'
Mr. Bruce tarried one moment to aver that he was unprepared for his
client's violence, and that he thought the nephew had done quite
right.
The door was shut, and Mr. Audley came back holding out his hand, but
Fernando did not take it. He was occupied in supporting himself by
the furniture from the sofa to the fireplace, where, holding by the
mantelpiece with one hand, he took his dice from his pocket with the
other, and threw them into the reddest depth. Then he held the hand
to Mr. Audley, who wrung it, and said, 'It has been a hard fight, my
boy.'
Fernando laid his weary head on his shoulder, and said, 'If my father
is not poisoned against me!'
'Do not fear that, Fernando. You are where he left you. You have
given up something for the sake of your new Lord and Master; you will
have his armour another time.'
Fernando let himself be helped to sit down, and sighed. He was
thoroughly worn out, and his victory was not such as to enliven his
spirits. He took up the drawing that lay on the table, and gazed on
it in a sort of dreamy fascination.
'You have checked him this time,' said Mr. Audley.
'Here or there, I will never bet again,' said Fernan solemnly.
'God help me to keep the resolution! It is the one thing that I care
for, and I know I should have begun the first day I was away from
you.'
'I think that with those tastes you cannot make too strong a
resolution against it,' said Mr. Audley.
Their dinner was brought in, but Fernando had no appetite. He soon
returned to his chess player, and seemed to be playing over the game,
but he was too much tired for talk, and soon went to bed; where after
a short sleep feverishness set in, bringing something approaching to
delirium. The nurse had gone a fortnight previously; but as he was
still too helpless to have no one within call, Felix slept on the bed
in the corner of the room.
When he came down the opening of the door was greeted by 'Don't let
him come! Is Mr. Audley there!'
'Yes, he is not gone.'
Then he knew Felix, but soon began again to talk of the game at
chess, evidently mixing up his uncle with the personage with the long
feather.
'He has been checked once. I've taken one piece of his. He is gone
now. Will he come back after my Baptism? No; I shall go to him.'
This lasted till past midnight, when, as they were deliberating
whether to send for Mr. Rugg, he fell soundly asleep, and awoke in
the morning depressed, but composed and peaceful; and this state of
things continued. The encounter with his uncle, and the deliberate
choice, had apparently given some shock to his nerves; and whenever
night recurred, there came two or three hours of misery, and
apparently of temptation and terror. It took different forms.
Sometimes it was half in sleep--the acting over again of one or two
horrible scenes that he had partly witnessed in the Southern States,
when an emancipator had been hunted down, and the slaves who had
listened to him savagely punished. In spite of his Spanish blood, the
horror had been ineffaceable; and his imagination connected it with
the crowd of terrors that had revealed themselves to his awakened
conscience. He seemed to think that if he lost in the awful game of
life, he should be handed over to that terrible slave-master; and
there were times when Diego's fate, and his own lapses, so fastened
on his mind, as to make him despair of ever being allowed to quit
that slave-master's dominions; and that again joined with alarm lest
his uncle should return and claim him.
Sometimes, likewise, the old wandering life, with the flashes of
rollicking mirth and excitement, rather glimpsed at and looked
forward to than really tasted, would become so alluring a contrast to
the flat and tasteless--nay, as it seemed to him, tedious and
toilsome--future sketched out for him, and the restraints and
constant watchfulness of a Christians life appeared so distressing a
bondage, that his soul seemed to revolt against it, and he would talk
of following his uncle at once to London while yet it was time, and
writing to him the next morning. This state was sure to be followed
by a passion of remorse, and sheer delirious terror lest he should be
given up to the enemy, who seemed now to assume to his fancy the form
of his uncle. A great deal was no doubt delirious, and this betrayed
the struggles which he had been for weeks fighting out in silence and
apparent impassiveness; but it was impossible not to feel that
therewith was manifested the wrestling with the Prince of Darkness,
ere his subject should escape from his territory, and claim the
ransom of his manumission. Mr. Audley--after the second night--would
not let Felix remain, but took the watch entirely on himself, and
fought the battle with the foe by prayer and psalm. Sleep used to
come before morning; and by day Fernando was himself again, very
subdued and quiet, and, in fact, having lost a good deal of ground as
to health.
Strange to say, the greatest pleasure he had at this time was sitting
in the upstairs parlour. The custom had begun in consequence of his
nervous shuddering at being left alone lest his uncle should return,
and Felix and Geraldine had then proposed taking him to their mother,
who was rather interested than annoyed by his presence, and indeed
all her gentle motherly instinct was drawn out by his feebleness and
lameness; she talked to him kindly and quite rationally, and he was
wonderfully impressed and soothed by her tenderness. It was so
utterly unlike anything he had ever even seen, that he watched her
with a sort of awe; while Cherry worked, read aloud, or drew, and
felt proud of being able to fetch what was beyond the capacity of her
little errand boy, Bernard.
The children, too, entertained him; he was a little afraid of
Bernard's roughness, but delighted in watching him, and he and little
Stella were intensely admiring friends. She always knew him, cooed at
him, and preferred the gold of his watch-chain to all things in
nature or art. Then when Wilmet, Angela, and Lance came home, and
family chatter began, the weary anxious brain rested; and even in
that room, so sad to most eyes, Fernando began to realise what
Christian peace and cheerfulness could be.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOME
'Within those walls each fluttering guest
Is gently lured to one safe nest;
Without, 'tis moaning and unrest.'
KEBLE.
A great delight came to Wilmet and Geraldine the day of the Bishop's
visit, no other than Alda's being able to spend a week with them.
Miss Pearson spared Wilmet that whole afternoon, that she might go up
to meet her at the station, whither she was escorted by a maid going
down to Centry.
There she was, in her pretty black silk, with violet trimmings,
looking thoroughly the grown young lady, but clinging tight to her
twin in an overflow of confused happiness, even while they stood
together to get their first glance of the Bishop, who came down by
the same train, and was met by Mr. Bevan with the carriage.
'I'm glad it is so nice and warm; it is better for Fernan, and Cherry
can go!' said Wilmet, ready for joy about everything.
'Nice and warm! 'Tis much colder than in London,' said Alda, with a
shiver. 'Has Cherry kept well this winter?'
'Quite well. She walks much better. And Marilda?'
'Oh, Marilda is always well. Rude health, her mother calls it. What
do you think she has sent you, Wilmet? A darling little watch! just
like this one of mine!'
'O Alda, you should not have let her. It is too much. Fernan wanted
to give Lance a watch, but Felix would not let him.'
'Yes, but he is not like Uncle Thomas, and it makes you like me.'
'That we shall never be quite again,' sighed Wilmet.
'Oh! a little setting off, and trimming up! I've brought down lots of
things. Aunt Mary said I might. What is this youth like, Wilmet--is
he a boy or a young man?'
'I don't know,' said Wilmet; 'he is younger than Felix, if that helps
you.'
'Well, Americans are old of their age. I have met some at Mr.
Roper's. Oh, and do you know, Mrs. Roper told Aunt Mary that these
Travises are quite millionaires, and that this youth's mother was a
prodigious Mexican heiress. Aunt Mary wants to ask him to Kensington
Palace Gardens, when he comes up to town! I'm glad I am in time for
the christening. Doesn't he have godfathers and godmothers?'
'Yes; he would have nobody but Felix and Mr. Audley, and Lady Price
chose to be his godmother; indeed, there was nobody else.'
'You could not well be, certainly,' laughed Alda. 'Oh! and I've
brought a dress down. I thought some of us might be asked to the
Rectory in the evening.'
'My dear Alda, as if such a thing ever happened!'
'Ah! you see I have been so long away as to forget my Lady's
manners.'
'Mr. Audley is going, and Fernan was asked, but he is not anything
like well enough. So when Mamma and the little ones go to bed, we are
to come down and spend the evening with him.'
'Fancy, Wilmet, I have quite been preparing Marilda for her
Confirmation. She had hardly been taught anything, and never could
have answered the questions if she had not come to me. She is always
asking me what Papa said about this and that; and it is quite
awkward, she will carry out everything so literally, poor dear girl.'
'She must be very good.'
'Oh! to be sure she is! But just fancy, she keeps a tithe of her
pocket-money to give to the Offertory so scrupulously; she would
really not buy something she wanted because it would have been just a
shilling into her tenth. I'm so glad she is confirmed. I never knew
what to do at church before. I couldn't go home by myself, and now a
servant always waits for us. Oh! how fast the poor hotel is building
again! It will brighten our street a little! Dear me, I did not know
how dingy it was!'
Nothing could look dingy where two such fair bright faces were; but
Alda's became awe-struck and anxious as she went up to her mother's
room. Indeed Mrs. Underwood looked up at her rather confused, and
scarcely knowing the fashionable young lady, and it was only when the
plumed hat was laid aside, and the two heads laid together, their
fair locks mingling, that she knew she had her elder twins again, and
stroked their faces with quiet delight.
There was scarcely more than time to kiss the little ones, and
contend with Stella's shyness, before first Lance hurried in and then
Felix, excused from his work two hours earlier. He could only just
run up and dress before he convoyed Geraldine to church, she having
the first turn of the chair, helped her to her seat near the Font,
and then came back for Fernando, who was under his special charge.
Fernando sat looking very pale, and with the set expression of the
mouth that always made Cherry think of Indians at the stake His
little new prayer-book was in his hand, and he was grasping it
nervously, but he said nothing, as Felix helped him up and Lance held
his crutch for him. It was his first entrance into a place of
worship. They had intended to have accustomed him a little to the
sights and sounds, but the weather and his ailment had prevented
them. He was drawn to the porch, and there Felix partly lifted him
out and up the step, while Lance took his hat for him, and as they
were both wanted for the choir procession that was to usher the
Bishop into church, they had to leave him in his place under
Geraldine's protection.
He had not in the least realised the effect of the interior of a
church. St. Oswald's was a very grand old building, with a deep
chancel a good deal raised, seen along a vista of heavy columns and
arched vaults, lighted from the clerestory, and with a magnificent
chancel-arch. The season was Lent, and the colouring of the
decorations was therefore grave, but all the richer, and the light
coming strongly in from the west window immediately over the
children's heads, made the contrast of the bright sunlight and of the
soft depths of mystery more striking, and, to an eye to which
everything ecclesiastical was absolutely new, the effect was almost
overwhelming. That solemnity and sanctity of long centuries, the
peaceful hush, the grave beauty and grandeur, almost made him afraid
to breathe, and Cherry sat by his side with her expressive face
composed into the serious but happy look that accorded with the whole
scene.
He durst not move or speak. His was a silent passive nature, except
when under strong stimulus, and Cherry respected his silence a great
deal too much to break upon it by any information. She was half sorry
when the noise of steps showed that the congregation were beginning
to drop in, chiefly of the other young Confirmation candidates. Then
presently Alda came, and whispered to her that Wilmet could not leave
Mamma; and presently after, Lady Price bustled in with her daughter,
looked severely at Alda under the impression that she was Wilmet very
improperly tricked out, and pressed Fernando's hand before going on
to her own place. Then came the low swell of the organ, another new
sensation to one who had only heard opera music; then the approaching
sound of the voices. Geraldine gave him the book open at the
processional psalm, and the white-clad choir passed by, one of the
first pair of choristers being Lance, singing with all his might, and
that merry monkey-face full of a child's beautiful happy reverence.
And again could be recognised Felix, Mr. Audley, Mr. Bevan, all whom
the poor sick stranger had come to love best, all to his present
perception glorified and beautiful. They had told him it would be all
faith and no sight, but he seemed to find himself absolutely within
that brighter better sphere to which they belonged, to see them
walking in it in their white robes, to hear their songs of praise,
and to know whence came that atmosphere that they carried about with
them, and that he had felt when it was a riddle to him.
And so the early parts of the service passed by him, not so much
attended to or understood as filling him with a kind of dreamy
rapturous trance, as the echoes of the new home, to which he, with
all his heavy sense of past stain and present evil propensity, was
gaining admission and adoption. For the first time he was really
sensible of the _happiness_ of his choice, and felt the compensation
for what he gave up.
When the Second Lesson was ended, and the clergy and the choir, in
their surplices, moved down to encircle the Font, it was as if they
came to gather him in among them. Felix came and helped him up. He
could stand now with one support, and this was his young godfather's
right arm, to which he held tightly, but without any nervous
convulsiveness--he was too happy for that now--during the prayers
that entreated for his being safely gathered into the Ark, and the
Gospel of admission into the Kingdom. He had an impulse to loose his
clasp and stand alone at the beginning of the vows, but he could not;
he had not withdrawn his hand before he was forced again to lean his
weight upon the steady arm beside him.
Nothing had been able to persuade Lady Price that she was not to make
all the vows as for an infant, but luckily nobody heard her except
her husband and the other sponsors, for it was a full, clear,
steadfast voice that made reply, 'I renounce them all!' and as the
dark deep eyes gazed far away into the west window, and Felix felt
the shudder through the whole frame, he knew the force of that
renunciation; and how it gave up that one excitement that the lad
really cared for. And when that final and carefully-guarded vow of
obedience was uttered, the pressure on his arm seemed to show that
the moral was felt of that moment's endeavour to stand alone.
The sound of prayer, save in his own chamber, was so entirely new,
that no doubt the force of the petitions was infinitely enhanced, and
the entreaty for the death of the old Adam had a definite application
to those old habits and tastes that at times exerted their force. The
right hand was ready and untrembling when the Rector took it; the
stream of water glittered as it fell on the awe-struck brow and jetty
hair, and the eyes shone out with a deep resolute lustre as
'Ferdinand Audley' was baptized into the Holy Name, and sworn a
faithful soldier and servant.
He had begged to be baptized by the English version of his name; the
Spanish one had grown up by a sort of accident, and had always been
regretted by his father. He had wished much to take the name of
Felix, but they were so certain that this would not be approved, that
they had persuaded him out of it. He was soon set down again by
Geraldine's side, and she put out her hand and squeezed his hard,
looking up into his face with tearful eyes of welcome.
When the last sounds of the voluntary had died away, and the
congregation had gone, she ventured again to look up at him and say,
'I am so glad!'
'Why did you never tell me it was like this?' he said. 'I should
never have hung back one moment. Now nothing can touch me, since I
belong to _this_.'
'Nothing can _really_,' said Geraldine softly. 'Above all, when it is
sealed to us to-morrow.'
Then there came a movement from the vestry, and the Rector and Mr.
Audley were seen following the Bishop, who came down to where the two
lame children still sat together, and putting his hand upon
Ferdinand's head with the hair still wet, gave him his blessing
before he spoke further. It was only a word or two of congratulation,
but such as to go very deep; and then, seeing that the boy looked not
excited, but worn and wearied, he added, 'You are going home to rest.
I shall see you to-morrow after the Confirmation;' and then he shook
hands with him and with Geraldine, asking if she were the little girl
of whom he had been told.
'She is very young,' said Mr. Bevan, strongly impressed with the
littleness of the figure;' but she has been a Communicant for more
than a year, and she is--a very good child.'
'I can believe so,' said the Bishop, smiling to her. 'I have heard of
your father, my dear, and of your brother.'
Cherry coloured rosy red, but was much too shy to speak; and the
Rector and Bishop went away, leaving only Mr. Audley.
'Are you very much tired, Fernan?'
'I don't know,' he half smiled.
'I think he is; he is too happy to know it,' said Geraldine.
'Please let him go home first.'
So Mr. Audley helped him out to the chair, where Felix, Alda, and
Lance were waiting; and he said, 'Thank you,' and held out his hand,
while Lance eagerly shook it, saying, 'Now it is right at last; and
here's Alda--isn't she a stunner?'
'I thought it was Wilmet,' said Fernan; and Alda went into church to
keep Cherry company, thinking how curiously blind the male sex were
not to distinguish between her dress and poor dear Wilmet's.
Mr. Audley was more than satisfied, he was surprised and comforted.
He had prepared to meet either disappointment or excitement in his
charge; he found neither--only a perfect placid content, as of one
who had found his home and was at rest. The boy was too much tired,
after his many bad nights and the day's exertion, to say or think
much; all he did say was, 'I shall mind nothing now that I know what
it is to be one of you.'
Mr. Audley tried to remember that there must be a reaction, but he
could not bring himself to fear or to warn, or do anything but enjoy
the happiest day of his three years' ministry.
He had to go to the Rectory dinner-party, and leave his neophyte to
the tendance of the Underwoods. Felix sat with his friend in a great
calm silence, while the rest were taken up by the counter-attraction
upstairs, where Alda was unpacking an unrivalled store of presents
from herself and Marilda, useful and ornamental, such as seemed a
perfect embarras de richesses to the homely, scantily-endowed
children. That little gold watch was the prize and wonder of all. It
was the first in the family, except that Felix wore his father's, and
Alda knew how an elder girl was scorned at school if she had none;
but Wilmet, though very happy with hers, smiled, and would not agree
to having met with disrespect for want of it. Then there were
drawing-books for Cherry, and a knife of endless blades for Lance,
and toys for the little ones; and dresses--a suit for Wilmet like
Alda's plainest Sunday one, and Alda's last year's silk for
Geraldine, and some charming little cashmere pelisses--Aunt Mary's
special present to the two babies--things that would lengthen
Wilmet's purse for many a day to come; and a writing-case for Felix;
and all the absent remembered, too. Uncle Thomas had given Alda a
five-pound note to buy presents, and Marilda had sent every one
something besides, mostly of such a matter-of-fact useful type that
Alda stood and laughed at them. And Mrs. Underwood was pleased with
the exhibition, and smiled and admired, only her attention was tired
out at last, and she was taken early to her own room.
The elder ones went down to sit round the fire in Mr. Audley's room,
where Ferdinand insisted on leaving his sofa to Geraldine, and
betaking himself to the easy-chair, where he leant back, content and
happy to watch the others through his eye-lashes. Alda was a little
on her company manners at the first, but all the others were at
perfect ease, as they sat in the dim light. Felix on the floor by
Cherry, who delighted in a chance of playing fondling tricks with his
hair and fingers; the twins in Mr. Audley's big chair, where they
could lean against each other; and Lance cross-legged on the hearth-
rug roasting chestnuts, of which a fellow chorister had given him a
pocketful, and feeding every one in turn.
Geraldine gave a sigh to the wish that poor dear Edgar were there.
'He is very happy!' said Alda.
'Oh yes, but I wish he had not missed being here to-morrow. I wonder
when he will come home.'
'I cannot guess; Aunt Mary wants to go down the Rhine next summer
(only she is not quite sure it is not the Rhone), and if so, I
suppose he would join us there.'
'It is a whole year since we have set eyes on him,' said Felix.
'But I believe he writes more to Cherry than anybody, does not he?'
'Oh yes, and sends me lovely photographs to copy. Such a beauty of
himself! Have you seen it?'
'I should think I had! They have set it up in a little gold frame on
the drawing-room table, and everybody stands and says how handsome it
is; and Aunt Mary explains all about him till I am tired of hearing
it.'
'And Clem?'
'Oh, Clem came to luncheon yesterday. He is very much grown, and
looks uncommonly demure, and as much disposed to set everybody to
rights as ever.'
But Alda did not enter much more into particulars; she led away the
conversation to the sights she had seen in their summer tour; and as
she had a good deal of descriptive power, she made her narratives so
interesting that time slipped quickly past, and the young company was
as much surprised as Mr. Audley was when he came home and found them
all there, not yet gone to bed. They were greatly ashamed, and afraid
they had done Ferdinand harm, and all were secretly very anxious
about the night; but, though the wakeful habit and night feverishness
were not at once to be broken through, yet the last impression was
the strongest, and the long-drawn aisle, the 'dim religious light,'
and the white procession, were now the recurring images, all joyful,
all restful, truly as if the bird had escaped out of the snare of the
fowler. Real sleep came sooner than usual, and Fernan rose quite
equal to the fatigue of the coming day, the Confirmation day, when
again Geraldine had to sit beside him--this newly admitted to the
universal brotherhood, instead of being beside that dear Edgar of her
own, for whom her whole heart craved, as she thought how their
preparation had begun together beside her father's chair.
Their place was now as near the choir as possible, and they were
brought in as before, very early, so that Fernan gazed with the same
eager, unsated eyes into the chancel and at the altar, admitted as he
was farther into his true home.
The church was filled with candidates from the villages round as well
as from the town, and the Litany preceded the rite which was to seal
the young champions ere the strife. The Bishop came down to the two
lame children, and laid his hands on the two bent heads, ere he gave
his final brief address, exhorting the young people to guard
preciously, and preserve by many a faithful Eucharist, that mark
which had sealed them to the Day of Redemption, through all this
world's long hot trial and conflict.
There was holiday at both schools, and Felix had been spared to take
his place in the choir, but Mr. Froggatt could not do without him
afterwards, as the presence of so many of the country clergy in the
town was sure to fill the reading-room and shop; and he was obliged
to hurry off as soon as he came out of church. Now, the Bishop had
the evening before asked Lady Price 'whether that son of poor Mr.
Underwood's' were present among the numerous smart folk who thronged
her drawing-room, to which my lady had replied, 'No; he was a nice,
gentlemanly youth certainly, but, considering all things, and how
sadly he had lowered himself, she thought it better not. In fact,
some might not be so well pleased to meet him.'
The Bishop took the opportunity of trying to learn from the next
person he fell in with, namely, Mr. Ryder, how Felix had lowered
himself; and received an answer that showed a good deal of the
schoolmaster's disappointment, but certainly did not show any sense
of Felix's degradation. And what he said was afterwards amplified by
Mr. Audley, whom the Bishop took apart, and questioned him with much
interest upon both Ferdinand Travis and the Underwood family, of whom
he had only heard, when, immediately after his appointment, his vote
for the orphan school had been solicited for the two boys, and he had
been asked to subscribe to the Comment on the Philippians. Mr Audley
felt that he had a sympathising listener, and was not slow to tell
the whole story of the family--what the father had been, what Felix
now was, and how his influence and that of little Lancelot had told
upon their young inmate. The Bishop listened with emotion, and said,
'I must see that boy! Is the mother in a state in which she would
like a call from me?' but there an interruption had come; and when
the country clergy came in the morning, Mr. Audley had thought it
fittest not to swell the numbers unnecessarily, and had kept himself
out of the way, and tried to keep his fellow-curate.
So he had seen no more of the Bishop, until, some little time after
he and Fernan had lunched, and were, it must be confessed, making up
for their unrestful nights by having both dropped asleep, one on his
chair, the other on the sofa, there came a ring to the door, and
Lance, who had a strong turn for opening it, found himself face to
face with the same tall gray-haired gentleman at whom he had gazed in
the rochet and lawn-sleeves. He stood gazing up open-mouthed.
'I think I have seen you in the choir, and heard you too,' said the
Bishop, kindly taking Lance's paw, which might have been cleaner, had
he known what awaited it. 'Mr. Audley lives here, I think.'
Lance was for once without a word to say for himself, though his
mouth remained open. All he did was unceremoniously to throw wide Mr.
Audley's door, and bolt upstairs, leaving his Lordship to usher
himself in, while Mr. Audley started up, and Ferdinand would have
done the same, had he been able, before he was forbidden.
There was a kindly talk upon his health and plans, how he was to
remain at Bexley till after Easter and his first Communion, and then
Mr. Audley would take him up to London to be inspected by a first-
rate surgeon before going down to the tutor's. The tutor proved to be
an old school-fellow and great friend of the Bishop; and what Fernan
heard of him from both the friend and pupil would have much
diminished his dread, even if he had not been in full force of the
feeling that whatever served to bind him more closely to the new
world of blessing within the Church must be good and comfortable.
This visit over the Bishop asked whether Mrs. Underwood would like to
be visited, and Mr. Audley went up to ascertain. She was a woman who
never was happy or at rest in an untidy room, or in disordered
garments, and all was in as fair order as it could be with the old
furniture, that all Wilmet's mending could not preserve from the
verge of rags. Her widow's cap and soft shawl were as neat as
possible, and so were the little ones in their brown-holland,
Theodore sitting at her feet, and Stella on Wilmet's lap, where she
was being kept out of the way of the more advanced amusement of a
feast of wooden tea-things, carried on in a corner between Angela and
Bernard, under Lance's somewhat embarrassing patronage.
Alda sprang up, stared about in consternation at the utter unlikeness
to the drawing-room in Kensington Palace Gardens, and exclaimed, 'Oh!
if Sibby had only come to take the children out! Take them away,
Lance.'
'Sibby will come presently, or I will take them to her,' whispered
Wilmet. 'I should like them just to have his blessing.'
'So many,' sighed Alda, but meantime Mr. Audley had seen that all
was right at the first coup d'oeil, had bent over Mrs. Underwood,
told her that the Bishop wished to call upon her, and asked her leave
to bring him up; and she smiled, looked pleased, and said, 'He is
very kind. That is for your Papa, my dears. You must talk to him, you
know.'
The Bishop came up almost immediately, and the perfect tranquillity
and absence of flutter fully showed poor Mrs. Underwood's old high-
bred instinct. She was really gratified when he sat down by her,
after greeting the three girls, and held out his hands to make
friends with the lesser ones, whom their sisters led up, Angela
submissive and pretty behaved, Bernard trying to hide his face, and
Stella in Wilmet's arms staring to the widest extent of eyes. The
sisters had their wish--the fatherless babes received the pastoral
blessing; and the Bishop said a few kind words of real sympathy that
made Mrs. Underwood look up at him affectionately and say, 'Indeed I
have much to be thankful for. My children are very good to me.'
'I am sure they are,' said the Bishop. 'I cannot tell you how much I
respect your eldest son.'
The colour rose in the pale face. 'He is a very dear boy,' she said.
'I should like to see him before I go. Is he at home?'
'Lance shall run and call him,' said Alda; but the Bishop had asked
where he was, and Wilmet had, not unblushingly, for she was red with
pleasure, but shamelessly, answered that he was at Mr. Froggatt's,
offering to send Lance in search of him.
'I had rather he would show me the way,' said the Bishop. 'Will you,
my boy?'
The way to Mr. Froggatt's was not very long, but it was long enough
to overcome Lance's never very large amount of bashfulness; and he
had made reply that he went to the Grammar School, and was in the
second form, that he liked singing in the choir better than--no, not
than _anything_--anything except--except what? Oh a jolly good snow-
balling, or a game at hockey. Did he like the school? Pretty well, on
the whole; but he did not suppose he should stay there long, his
brother at the Clergy Orphan said there was such a lot of cads, and
that he was always grubbing his nose among them; but now, 'do you
really think now that cads are always such bad fellows?'
His Lordship was too much diverted to be easily able to speak, but he
observed that it depended on what was meant by a cad.
'That's just it!' exclaimed Lance. 'I'm sure some that he calls cads
are as good fellows as any going.'
'And what does your eldest brother say?'
'Felix! Oh! he does not mind, as long as one does not get into a real
scrape.'
'And then?'
'Oh, then he minds so much that one can't do it, you know.'
'What, does he punish you ?'
'N--no--he never licks any of us now--but he is so horridly sorry--
and it bothers him so,' said Lance. 'Here's old Froggatt's,' he
concluded, stopping at the glass door. 'My eyes! what a sight of
parsons!' (Lance had pretty well forgotten whom he was talking to.)
'There, that's Felix--no, no, not that one serving Mr. Burrowes,
that's Redstone; Felix is out there, getting out the sermon paper for
that fat one, and that's old Froggy himself, bowing away. Shall I go
and call Felix? I suppose he will not mind this time.'
'No, thank you, I will go in myself. Good-bye, my little guide, and
thank you.'
And Lance, when his hand came out of the Bishop's, found something in
it, which proved to be a tiny Prayer-book, and moreover a half-
sovereign. He would have looked up and thanked, but the Bishop and
that 'fat one' were absorbed in conversation on the step; and when he
turned over the leaves of the little blue morocco book, with its
inlaid red cross, he found full in his face, in the first page, the
words, 'Lancelot Underwood, March 15th, 1855,' and then followed an
initial, and a name that utterly defeated Lance's powers, so that
perceiving the shop to be far too densely full of parsons for him to
have a chance there, he galloped off at full speed to Cherry, who
happily could interpret the contracted Latin by the name of the See,
and was not _quite_ so much astonished as Lance, though even more
gratified.
Meantime, the Bishop had made his way to the bowing Mr. Froggatt and
asked to speak with him in his private room, where he mentioned his
kindness to young Underwood, and was answered by a gratified
disclaimer of having done anything that was not of great advantage to
himself. The good man seemed divided between desire to do justice to
Felix and not to stand in his light, and alarm lest he should have to
lose an assistant whom he had always known to be above his mark, and
who was growing more valuable every month; and he was greatly
relieved and delighted when the Bishop only rejoiced at his character
of Felix, and complimented the Pursuivant by being glad that a
paper of such good principles should be likely to have such a youth
on its staff; it had been well for the lad to meet with so good a
friend. Mr. Froggatt could not be denied an eulogium on the father,
for whose sake he had first noticed the son; and when the Bishop had
expressed his sorrow at never having known so bright a light as all
described the late Curate to have been, he courteously regretted the
interruption on a busy day, but he begged just to see the young man.
He had little time himself, but if he could be spared to walk up to
the station--'
Mr. Froggatt bustled out with great alacrity, and taking the charge
of the customer on himself, announced, for the benefit of all who
might be within earshot, 'Mr. Underwood, his Lordship wishes to speak
with you. He wishes you to walk up to the station with him. You had
better go out by the private door.'
Felix was red up to the ears. His eight years' seniority to Lance
were eight times eight more shyness and embarrassment, but he could
only obey; and at his first greeting his hand was taken--'hoped to
have seen you sooner,' the Bishop said; 'but you had always escaped
me in the vestry.'
'I had to go to help my sister, my Lord,' said Felix.
'And your friend, said the Bishop. 'That is a good work that has been
done in your house.'
Felix coloured more, not knowing what to say.
'I wish to see you,' continued the Bishop, 'partly to tell you how
much I honour you for the step you have taken. I wish there were more
who would understand the true uprightness and dutifulness of thinking
no shame of an honest employment. I am afraid you do sometimes meet
with what may be trying,' he added, no doubt remembering Lady Price's
tone.
'I do not care now, not much. I did at first,' said Felix.
'No one whose approval is worth having can consider yours really a
loss of position. You are in a profession every one respects, and you
seem to have great means of influence likely to be open to you.'
'So my father said, when he consented,' said Felix.
'I shall always regret having just missed knowing your father. Some
passages in that book of his struck me greatly. But what I wished to
say was to ask whether there is any way in which I can be useful to
you in the education of any of the younger ones, or--'
'Thank you, my Lord,' said Felix. 'I think you kindly voted for my
brothers last year for the Clergy Orphan school. Only one got in, and
if you would vote again for little Lancelot--'
'My droll little companion, who Mr. Audley tells me did so much for
that poor young American.'
'Indeed he did,' said Felix. 'I doubt if any of us would have got at
him but for Lance, who did not mean anything but good-nature all the
time.'
'He is just the boy I want for our Cathedral school.' And then he
went on to explain that a great reformation was going on. There was a
foundation-school attached to the Cathedral, with exhibitions at the
University, to which the Cathedral choristers had the first claim.
There had been, of course, a period of decay, but an excellent
Precentor had been just appointed, who would act as head master; and
the singing-boys would be kept on free of expense after their voices
became unavailable, provided that by such time they had passed a
certain examination. Such a voice as Lance's was sure to recommend
him; and besides, the Bishop said with a smile, he wanted to raise
the character of the school, and he thought there was the stuff here
that would do so.
Felix could only be thankful and rejoiced; but it was a pang to think
of Lance being as entirely separated from home as was Clement; with
no regular holidays, and always most needed at his post at the great
festivals. There was something in his tone that made the Bishop say,
'You do not like to part with him?'
'No, my Lord; but I am glad it should be so. My father was not happy
about--things here, and charged me to get my brothers away when I
could.'
'And as to holidays, you are near at hand, and most of the choir are
of our own town. I think he may generally be spared for a good term
at each holiday time. The organist is very considerate in giving
leave of absence, even if he should turn out to have a dangerously
good voice for solos. I will let you know when to send him up for
examination, which he will pass easily. Good-bye. You must write to
me if there is anything for me to do for you. One month more, and
your father would have been one of my clergy, remember.'
Felix went back, flushed with gratification, and yet, to a certain
degree, with confusion, and not exactly liking the prospect of being
interrogated as to what the Bishop had said to him: indeed, he never
told the whole of it to any one but Cherry. Somehow, though Wilmet
was his counsellor and mainstay, Geraldine was the sharer of all
those confidences that came spontaneously out of the full but
reserved heart.
Besides, Wilmet was at present in such a trance of enjoyment of her
twin sister, that she seemed scarcely able to enter into anything
else. She went through her duties as usual, but with an effort to
shake off her absorption in the thought of having Alda at home; and
every moment she was not in sight of her darling seemed a cruel
diminution of her one poor fortnight. Indeed it was tete-a-tetes
that her exclusive tenderness craved above all; and she was often
disappointed that Alda should be willing to go and visit Fernan
Travis when they might have had a quarter of an hour together alone.
How much more selfish she must have grown than Alda in this last half
year!
Alda's talk was indeed full of interest, and gave a much better
notion of her way of life than her letters did. She seemed to have
been fully adopted as a daughter of the house, and to enjoy all the
same privileges as Marilda; indeed, she had a good deal more credit
with all varieties of teachers, since she learnt rapidly and eagerly;
and Marilda, while encouraging her successes, without a shade of
jealousy, made no attempt to conquer her own clumsiness and
tardiness. Even 'Aunt Mary,' as Alda called Mrs. Thomas Underwood,
often had recourse to Alda for sympathy in her endeavours to be
tasteful, and continually held her up as an example to Marilda.
'And poor dear good woman,' said Alda, 'she has such a respect for
Underwood breeding and our education, that I believe I could persuade
her into anything by telling her it was what she calls "comifo."
Even when she was going to get the boudoir done with apple-green
picked out with mauve, enough to set one's teeth on edge, and Marilda
would do nothing but laugh, she let me persuade her into a lovely
pale sea-green.'
'Is not sea-green too delicate for her?' asked Cherry.
'Why, it was very wicked of Edgar, to be sure, but he said that it
was to suit the nymph reining in the porpoises. He made a sketch, and
Marilda was delighted with it; she really is the most good-natured
creature in the world.'
'She must be!' ejaculated Wilmet; 'but surely she ought not to like
laughing at her mother.'
'Oh, everybody laughs at Aunt Mary, and she hardly ever finds it out,
and when she does, she does not mind! Even old Mrs. Kedge, her
mother, does nothing but laugh at her for trying to be fine. Old
Granny is not a bit by way of being a lady, you know; she lives in a
little house in the city with one maid, and I believe she rubs her
own tables. I am sure she goes about in omnibuses, though she has
lots of money; and Marilda is so fond of her, and so like her, only
not so clever and shrewd.'
'But why does she live in such a small way?'
'Because she never was used to anything else, and does not like it.
She hates grand servants, and never will come to Kensington Palace
Gardens; but she really is good-natured. She told Clement to drop in
on her whenever he likes, and bring any of his friends; and she
always gives them a superb piece of plum-cake, and once she took them
to the Tower, and once to the Zoological Gardens, for she thinks that
she cannot do enough to make up to them for being bred up to be
little monks, with cords and sandals, and everything popish.'
'You don't let her think so?'
'Well, really when she has got a thing into her head nothing will
uproot it; and, after all, they do carry things very far there, and
Clement goes on so that I don't wonder.'
'Goes on how?'
'Why, just fancy, the other day when Uncle Thomas fetched him in his
brougham because I was coming home, there he sat at luncheon and
would not eat a scrap of meat.'
'Ah! it was a Wednesday in Lent,' said Cherry.
'Only a Wednesday, you know; and _there_, with four or five strange
people, too. One of them asked if he was a Catholic, and of course
Clement looked very wise, and greatly pleased, and said, "Yes, he
was;" and that brought down Aunt Mary with her heavy artillery.
"Bless me, Clement, you don't say so. Is Mr. Fulmort really gone
over?" "Yes," said Clem. (I know he did it on purpose.) "He is gone
over to preach at St. Peter's." And then one of the gentlemen asked
if Clem meant Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew's, Whittingtonia, and when
he said "Yes, he lived in the clergy house," he began regularly to
play him off, asking the most absurd questions about fasts and feasts
and vigils and decorations, and Clem answered them all in his prim
little self-sufficient way, just as if he thought he was on the high-
road to be St. Clement the Martyr, till I was ready to run away.'
'Couldn't you have given him a hint?' asked Wilmet.
'My dear, have you lived twelve years with Clem without knowing that
hints are lost on him?'
'Dear Clem, he is a very good steady-hearted little fellow,' said
Cherry. 'It was very nice of him.'
'Well, I only hope he'll never come to luncheon again in Lent. There
are times and seasons for everything, and certainly not for display!
And to make it worse, Marilda is the most literal-minded girl.
Fasting was quite a new mind to her, for she never realises what she
does not see; and she got Clem into a corner, where I heard him going
on, nothing loth, about days of abstinence, out of Mr. Fulmort's last
catechising, I should think; and ended by asking what Cousin Edward
did, so that I fully expected that I should find her eating nothing,
and that I should be called to account.'
'And what did you tell her then?'
'Oh, you know I could say quite truly that he did not.'
'I don't think that was quite fair,' said Wilmet gravely. 'You know
it was only because he really could not.'
'You don't know how glad I was to have an answer that would hinder
the horrid commotion we should have had if Marilda had taken to
fasting. And, after all, you know, Papa would have said minding her
mother was her first duty.'
'Why did not you tell her that?'
'I have, dozens of times; but you know there are mothers and mothers,
and nobody can always mind Aunt Mary, good soul! Marilda has just
made herself, with her own good rough plain sense. I wish she was a
man; she would be a capital merchant like her father; but it is hard
to be a great heiress, with nothing she really likes to do. She is
always longing to come down to Centry, and tramp about the lanes
among the cottages.'
'Oh! I wish they would!'
'I don't think Aunt Mary will ever let them, she hates the country;
and though she likes to have a place for the name of the thing, she
does not want to live there, especially where there are so many of
us; and then, Felix's situation!'
'For shame, Alda!'
'Well, I did not say anything myself. It is only Aunt Mary--it is
very foolish of people, but, you see, they _will_. As to Marilda, I
believe she would like to stand behind the counter with him this
minute.'
'Marilda is the oddest and best girl I ever heard of!'
'You may say that. And so ignorant she was! She had a great velvet-
and-gold Church Service, and hardly guessed there was any Bible or
Prayer-Book besides. I am sure Felix cannot have had more work to
teach that youth than I have had with Marilda. Such a jumble as she
had picked up! She really had only little baby prayers to say, till
she saw my book.'
'What a blessing you must be to her!' said Wilmet, fondly looking at
her sister.
'Well, I do hope so. You must know she was regularly struck with dear
Papa. I am sure he is the first saint in her calendar, and everything
is--"What did Cousin Edward say?" And when once she has made up her
mind that a thing is right, she will blunder on through fire and
water, but she will do it.'
'Then,' said Cherry, 'she ought to try and learn, and not to be
awkward because of obedience.'
Alda burst out laughing. 'People can only do what they can. Marilda
trying to be graceful would be worse than Marilda floundering her own
way. But she really is the best and kindest girl living, and she gets
on much better for having me to keep her out of scrapes.'
Wilmet went to bed that night thankful to have Alda's head on the
pillow beside her, and most thankful for the tokens that she watched
among her brothers and sisters, which showed how much her father's
influence was extending beyond his short life.
CHAPTER IX
THE THIRTEEN
'They closed around the fire,
And all in turn essayed to paint
The rival merits of their saint;
A theme that ne'er can tire
A holy maid, for be it known
That their saint's honour is their own.'
SCOTT.
The thirteen Underwoods did not meet again in the same house for many
a long day, and when they did, it was on a grey misty morning in the
Christmas week of the year following; and the blinds were down, and
the notes of the knell clashing out overhead, as the door was opened
to Edgar, Alda, and Clement, as they arrived together, having been
summoned late on the previous night by a telegram with tidings that
their mother had been struck by a paralysis. They knew what to expect
when Felix, with one of the little ones on his arm, came quietly down
the stairs and admitted them. All they had to ask, was 'when,' and
'how,' and to hear, that the long living death had ended in peaceful
insensibility at last. Then they followed him upstairs to the room
where the others sat, hushed, over their pen or their books, where
Wilmet, her eyes gushing with quiet tears, held Alda in her embrace,
and Geraldine, after her first eager kiss, gazed wistfully at Edgar
as though there must be comfort in the very sight of him, if she
could only feel it; while the very little ones opened their puzzled
eyes on the newcomers as strangers.
And so they were: Clement had indeed been at home in September, but
Alda not for a year and three-quarters, nor Edgar since he first left
it three years before. The absence of the two latter was not by their
own choice, a doctor who had ordered Mrs. Thomas Underwood to spend
the summer months, year after year, at Spa was partly the cause, and
moreover, during the autumn and winter of 1856 Bexley had been a
perfect field of epidemics. Measles and hooping-cough had run riot in
the schools, and lingered in the streets and alleys of the potteries,
fastening on many who thought themselves secured by former attacks,
and there had been a good many deaths, in especial Clement's chief
friend, Harry Lamb. Nobody, excepting the invalid mother, throughout
the Underwood household, had escaped one or other disorder, and both
fell to the lot of the four little ones, and likewise of Mr. Audley,
who was infinitely disgusted at himself, and at the guarded childhood
for which he thus paid the penalty pretty severely. When matters were
at the worst, and Felix was laid up, and Wilmet found herself
succumbing, she had written in desperation to Sister Constance, whose
presence in the house had made the next three weeks a time of very
pleasant recollections. Finally she had carried off Geraldine,
Angela, and Bernard, to the convalescent rooms at St. Faith's, where
their happiness had been such that the favourite sport of the little
ones had ever since been the acting of Sisters of Mercy nursing sick
dolls. The quarantine had been indefinitely prolonged for the
proteges of Kensington Palace Gardens; for the three at school,
though kept away till all infection was thought to be over, had
perversely caught the maladies as soon as they came home for the
summer holidays; and indeed the whole town and neighbouring villages
were so full of contagion, that Mrs. Thomas Underwood had not far to
seek for a plea for avoiding Centry.
All this time, from day to day, the poor mother had been growing more
feeble, and it had been fully purposed that on Edgar's return at
Christmas, on the completion of his studies at Louvaine, he and Alda
should make some stay at home; but the brother and sister were both
so useful and ornamental that their adopted home could not spare them
until after a series of Christmas entertainments; and Clement had
been in like manner detained until the festival services at St.
Matthew's no longer required him. Indeed, when he had been at home in
the autumn, he had been scarcely recognised.
For the last week, however, Mrs. Underwood had been much clearer in
mind, had enjoyed the presence of her holiday children, and had for a
short time even given hopes that her constitution might yet rally,
and her dormant faculties revive. She had even talked to Mr. Audley
and Geraldine at different times as though she had some such
presentiment herself, and had made some exertions which proved much
increased activity of brain. Alas! though their coming had thus been
rendered very happy, the brightening had been but the symptom and
precursor of a sudden attack of paralysis, whence there was no
symptom of recovery, and which in a few hours ended in death.
For the present, the hopes that had been entertained gave poignancy
to the sudden disappointment and grief, and the home children could
not acquiesce in the dispensation with the same quiet reasonableness
as those who had been so long separated from them as not to miss the
gentle countenance, or the 'sweet toils, sweet cares, for ever gone.'
Indeed Wilmet was physically much exhausted by her long hours of
anxiety, and went about pale-cheeked and tear-stained, quietly
attending to all that was needful, but with the tears continually
dropping, while Geraldine was fit for nothing but to lie still,
unable to think, but feeling soothed as long as she could lay her
hand upon Edgar and feel that he was near.
So the whole thirteen were together again; and in the hush of the
orphaned house there was a certain wonder and curiosity in their
mutual examination and comparison with one another and with the
beings with whom they had parted three years ago, at the period of
their first separation. All were at a time of life when such an
interval could not fail to make a vast alteration in externals. Even
Geraldine had gained in strength, and though still white, and with
features too large for her face, startlingly searching grey eyes, and
brows that looked strangely thick, dark, and straight, in contrast
with the pencilled arches belonging to all the rest, she was less
weird and elfin-like than when she had been three inches shorter, and
dressed more childishly. As Edgar said, she was less Riquet with a
tuft than the good fairy godmother, and her twin sisters might have
been her princess-wards, so far did they tower above her--straight as
fir-trees, oval faced, regular featured, fair skinned, blue eyed, and
bright haired. During those long dreary hours, Edgar often beguiled
the time with sketches of them, and the outlines--whether of
chiselled profiles, shapely heads, or Cupid's-bow lips--were still
almost exactly similar; yet it had become impossible to mistake one
twin for the other, even when Alda had dressed the tresses on
Wilmet's passive head in perfect conformity with her own. Looking at
their figures, Alda's air of fashion made her appear the eldest, and
Wilmet might have been a girl in the schoolroom; but comparing their
faces, Wilmet's placid recollected countenance, and the soberness
that sat so well on her white smooth forehead and steady blue eyes,
might have befitted many more years than eighteen. There were not
nearly so many lights and shades in her looks as in those of Alda and
Geraldine. The one had both more smiles and more frowns, the other
more gleams of joy and of pain; each was more animated and sensitive,
but neither gave the same sense of confidence and repose.
As usually happens when the parents are of the same family, the
inventory of the features of one of the progeny served for almost all
the rest. The differences were only in degree, and the prime
specimens were without doubt the two elder twins and Edgar, with like
promise of little Bernard and Stella.
Edgar had grown very tall, and had inherited his father's advantages
of grace and elegance of figure, to which was added a certain
distinguished ease of carriage, and ready graciousness, too simple to
be called either conceit or presumption, but which looked as if he
were used to be admired and to confer favours. Athletics had been the
fashion with him and his English companions, and his complexion was
embrowned by sun and wind, his form upright and vigorous: and by
force of contrast it was now perceived that Felix seemed to have
almost ceased growing for the last three years, and that his indoor
occupations had given his broad square shoulders a kind of slouch,
and kept his colouring as pink and white as that of his sisters. Like
Wilmet, he had something staid and responsible about him, that, even
more than his fringe of light brown whiskers, gave the appearance of
full-grown manhood; so that the first impression of all the newcomers
was how completely he had left the boy behind him, making it an
effort of memory to believe him only nineteen and a half. But they
all knew him for their head, and leant themselves against him. And in
the meantime, Edgar's appearance was a perfect feast of enjoyment,
not only to little loving Geraldine, but to sage Felix. They
recreated themselves with gazing at him, and when left alone together
would discuss his charms in low confidential murmurs, quite aware
that Wilmet would think them very silly; but Edgar was the great
romance of both.
Edgar observed that Clement had done all the growth for both himself
and Felix, and was doing his best to be a light of the Church by
resembling nothing but an altar-taper. When they all repaired to the
back of the cupboard door in Mr. Audley's room to be measured, his
head was found far above Edgar's mark at fourteen, and therewith he
was lank and thin, not yet accustomed to the length of his own legs
and arms, and seeming as if he was not meant to be seen undraped by
his surplice. His features and face were of the family type, but a
little smaller, and with much less of the bright rosy tinting;
indeed, when not excited he was decidedly pale, and his eyes and hair
were a little lighter than those of the rest. It was a refined,
delicate, thoughtful face, pretty rather than handsome, and its only
fault was a certain melancholy superciliousness or benignant pity for
every one who did not belong to the flock of St. Matthew's.
Regular features are always what most easily lose individuality, and
become those of the owner's class; and if Clement was all chorister,
Fulbert and Lancelot were all schoolboy. The two little fellows were
a long way apart in height, though there were only two years between
them, for Lance was on a much smaller scale, but equally full of
ruddy health and superabundant vigour; and while Fulbert was the more
rough and independent, his countenance had not the fun and sweetness
that rendered Lance's so winning. Their looks were repeated in
Robina, who was much too square and sturdy for any attempt at beauty,
and was comically like a boy and like her brothers, but with much
frank honesty and determination in her big grey darkly-lashed eyes.
Angela was one of the most altered of all; for her plump cherub
cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping
process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure
little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and
pickle at school, and a romp at home--the sworn ally, offensive and
defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the
loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable
of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty,
gracefulness, and quickness of all kinds. Alda was delighted with her
pretty caressing ways and admiration of the wonderful new sister. She
was of quieter, more docile mood than these two, though aspiring to
their companionship; for it was startling to see how far she had left
Theodore behind. He was still in arms, and speechless, a little pale
inanimate creature, taking very little notice, and making no sound
except a sort of low musical cooing of pleasure, and a sad whining
moan of unhappiness, which always recurred when he was not in the
arms of Sibby, Wilmet, or Felix. It was only when Felix held out his
arms to take him that the sound of pleasure was heard; and once on
that firm knee, with his shining head against that kind heart, he was
satisfied, and Felix had accustomed himself to all sorts of
occupations with his little brother in his left arm. Even at night,
there was no rest for Theodore, unless Felix took him into his room.
So often did the little fretting moan summon him, that soon the crib
took up his regular abode beside his bed. But Felix, though of course
spared from the shop, could not be dispensed with from the printing-
house, where he was sub-editor; and in his absence Theodore was
always less contented; and his tearless moan went to his sister's
heart, for the poor little fellow had been wont to lie day and night
in his mother's bosom, and she had been as uneasy without him as he
now was without her. All her other babes had grown past her helpless
instinctive tenderness, and Theodore's continued passiveness had been
hitherto an advantage, which had always been called his 'goodness and
affection.'
Alda was the first to comment on the wonderful interval between the
twins, when Wilmet accounted for it by Theodore's having been quite
kept back for his mother's sake, and likewise by his having been more
reduced by measles and hooping-cough than Stella had been; but to
fresh observers it was impossible to think that all was thus
explained, and Edgar and Alda discussed it in a low voice when they
found themselves alone.
'The fact is plain,' said Edgar; 'but I suppose nothing can be done,
and I see no use in forcing it on poor Wilmet.'
'I don't understand such blindness.'
'Not real blindness--certainly not on Felix's part. He knows that
load is on his back for life. Heigh-ho! a stout old Atlas we have in
Blunderbore; I wonder how long I shall be in plucking the golden
apples, and taking a share.'
'I thought it was Atlas that gathered the apples.'
'Don't spoil a good simile with superfluous exactness, Alda! It is
base enough to compare the gardens of the Hesperides to a merchant's
office! I wonder how many years it will take to get out of the
drudgery, and have some power of enjoying life and relieving Felix.
One could tear one's hair to see him tied down by this large family
till all his best days are gone.'
'Some of the others may get off his hands, and help.'
'Not they! Clem is too highly spiritualised to care for anything so
material as his own flesh and blood; and it is not their fault if
little Lance does not follow in his wake. Then if Ful has any brains,
he is not come to the use of them; he is only less obnoxious than
Tina in that he is a boy and not a church candle, but boys are
certainly a mistake.'
If ever the mature age of seventeen could be excused for so regarding
boyhood, it was under such circumstances. All were too old for any
outbreaks, such as brought Angela and Bernard to disgrace, and
disturbed the hush of those four sad days; but the actual loss had
been so long previous, that the pressure of present grief was not so
crushing as to prevent want of employment and confinement in that
small silent house from being other than most irksome and tedious.
Clement would have done very well alone; he went to church, read,
told Angela stories, and discoursed to Cherry on the ways of St.
Matthew's; but, unfortunately, there was something about him that
always incited the other boys to sparring, nor was he always
guiltless of being the aggressor, for there was no keeping him in
mind that comparisons are odious.
Church music might seem a suitable subject, but the London chorister
could not abstain from criticising St. Oswald's and contemning the
old-fashioned practices of the Cathedral, which of course Lance
considered himself bound to defend, till the very names of Gregorians
and Anglicans became terrible to Cherry as the watchwords of a
wrangling match. Fulbert, meantime, made no secret of his contempt
for both brothers as mere choristers instead of schoolboys, and
exalted himself whenever he detected their ignorance of any choice
morceau of slang; while their superior knowledge on any other point
was viewed as showing the new-fangled girlish nonsense of their
education.
This Lance did not mind; but he was very sensitive as to the dignity
of his Cathedral, and the perfections of his chosen friend, one Bill
Harewood; and Fulbert was not slow to use the latter engine for
'getting a rise' out of him, while Clement as often, though with less
design, offended by disparagement of his choir; nor could Edgar
refuse himself the diversion of tormenting Clement by ironical
questions and remarks on his standard of perfection, which mode of
torture enchanted Fulbert, whenever he understood it. Thus these four
brothers contrived to inflict a good amount of teasing on one
another, all the more wearing and worrying because deprived of its
only tolerable seasoning, mirth.
Clement had indeed a refuge in Mr. Audley's room, where he could find
books, and willing ears for Mr. Fulmort's doings; but he availed
himself of it less than might have been expected. Whether from
inclination to his brothers' society, desire to do them good, or
innate pugnacity, he was generally in the thick of the conflict; and
before long he confided to Felix that he was seriously uneasy about
Edgar's opinions.
'He is only chaffing you,' said Felix.
'Chaff, _now_!' said Clement.
'Well, Clem, you know you are enough to provoke a saint, you bore so
intolerably about St. Matthew's.'
The much disgusted Clement retired into himself, but Felix was not
satisfied at heart.
_One_ was lacking on the cold misty New Year's morning, when even
Geraldine could not be withheld from the Communion Feast of the
living and departed. Each felt the disappointment when they found
themselves only six instead of seven, but it was Clement who, as the
boys were waiting for breakfast afterwards, began--
'Have not you been confirmed, Edgar?'
'How should I?'
'I am sure there are plenty of foreign Confirmations. I see them in
the British Catholic.'
'Foreign parts isn't all one,' said Edgar; and the younger boys
sniggled.
'If one took any trouble,' persisted Clement.
'Yes, but _one_,' dwelling with emphasis on the awkward impersonal,
'one may have scruples about committing an act of schism by
encouraging an intruding bishop performing episcopal functions in
another man's diocese. Has not your spiritual father taught you that
much, Tina?'
'I--I must find out about that,' said Clement thoughtfully; 'but, at
any rate, the Lent Confirmations are coming on in London, and if I
were to speak to the Vicar, I have no doubt he would gladly prepare
you.'
'Nor I,' answered Edgar.
'Then shall I?' eagerly asked Clement.
'Not at present, thank you.'
Clement stood blank and open mouthed, and Fulbert laughed, secure
that the joke, whatever it might be, was against him.
'Of course,' burst out Lance, 'Edgar does not want you to speak for
him, Clem; he has got a tongue of his own, and a clergyman too, I
suppose.'
Clement proceeded to a disquisition, topographical and censorial,
upon the parish and district to which Edgar might be relegated, and
finally exclaimed, 'Yes, he is not much amiss. He has some notions.
He dines with us sometimes. You can go to him, Edgar, and I'll get
the Vicar to speak to him.'
'Thank you, I had rather be excused.'
'You cannot miss another Confirmation.'
'I can't say I am fond of pledges, especially when no one can tell
how much or how little they mean.
Whether this were in earnest, or a mere thrust in return for
Clement's pertinacity, was undecided, for Wilmet came in, looking so
sad and depressed that the brothers felt rebuked for the tone in
which they had been speaking.
Mr. Thomas Underwood soon arrived, having come to Centry the night
before; and after a few words had passed between him and Edgar, the
latter announced his intention of returning with him to London that
evening.
'Very well,' said Felix, much disappointed at this repetition of
Edgar's willingness to hurry from the house of mourning, 'but we have
had very little of you; Clement must go on the day after Twelfth Day,
and we shall have more room. It will be a great blow to Cherry.'
'Poor little Cherry! I'll come when I can see her in greater peace,
but I must buckle to with the beginning of the year, Fee.'
There was no further disputing the point, but Edgar was always a
great loss. To every one except Clement he was so gentle and
considerate that it was impossible not to think that the strange
things reported of him were not first evoked and then exaggerated by
the zeal of the model chorister: and indeed he led Geraldine to that
inference when he went to her in the sitting-room, where, as before,
she had to remain at home.
'My Cherry, I find I must go back with old Tom. Don't be vexed, my
Whiteheart, I am not going back to Belgium, you know: I can often run
down, but my work ought to begin with the year.'
'You cannot even stay over the Epiphany!'
'Well, I would have made an effort, but I am really wanted; and then
if I am long with that light of the church, Tina, he will get me into
everybody's black books. Never mind, old girl. I'll be for ever
running down. Is any one going to stay with you?'
'Bernard is coming presently; I must try to make him recollect
something about it.'
'You don't mean that child Angel is going.'
'She wishes it, and it seems right.'
'Right to leave a black spot in her memory! If children could but
believe people were sublimated away!'
'Children can believe in the Resurrection of the body as well as we,'
said Cherry reverently.
'Better, too, by a long chalk,' he muttered; then perceiving her
dismayed expression, he added, 'No, no--I'm not talking to Tina, only
he has put me in the humour in which there is nothing he could not
make me dispute--even my Cherry being the sweetest morsel in the
world. There, good-bye for the present, only don't afflict that poor
little Bernard and yourself into too great wretchedness, out of a
sense of duty.'
'No, I do not really grieve,' said Cherry. 'Tears come for
thankfulness. The real sorrow came long ago; we grew up in it, and it
is over now.'
'Right, little one. The mortal coil was very heavy and painful these
last years, and no one can help being relieved that the end has come.
It is the conventionalities that are needlessly distressing. What
earthly purpose can it serve save the amusement of the maids and
children of Bexley, that nine of us should present ourselves a
pitiful spectacle all the way up to the cemetery in veils and
hatbands?'
'Don't talk so, Edgar; you do not know how it jars, though I know you
mean no disrespect.'
'Well, it must be a blessed thing to end by drowning or blowing up,
to save one's friends trouble.'
'Edgar, indeed I cannot bear this! Recollect what a treasure that
dear shattered earthen vessel has held. What a wonderful life of
patient silent resignation it was!'
'Indeed it was,' said Edgar, suddenly softened. 'No lips could tell
what the resolution must have been that carried her through those
years, never murmuring. What must she not have spared my father! Such
devotion is the true woman's heritage.'
Cherry was soothed as she saw the dew on his eye-lashes, but just
then Felix came in to fetch him, and, stooping down, kissed her, and
said in his low and tender but strong voice, 'We leave her with him,
dear child. Recollect--
'"The heart may ache, but may not burst:
Heaven will not leave thee, nor forsake."'
Much as Geraldine had longed for Edgar, his words brought vague
yearning and distress, while Felix's very tone gave support. How
could Edgar say patient, silent, self-devotion was not to be found
except in woman?
So the worn-out body that once had been bright smiling Mary Underwood
was borne to the church she had not entered since she had knelt there
with her husband; and then she was laid beside him in the hillside
cemetery, the graves marked by the simple cross, for which there had
been long anxious saving, the last contribution having been a quarter
of the Bishop's gift to Lancelot. The inscription was on the edges of
the steps, from which the cross rose--
UNDER WODE, UNDER RODE.
EDWARD FULBERT UNDERWOOD,
NINE YEARS CURATE of THIS PARISH,
EPIPHANY, 1855,
AGED 40.
'Thy Rod and Thy Staff comfort me.'
There was room enough for the name of Mary Wilmet, his wife, to be
added at the base of the Rood, that Cross which they had borne, the
one so valiantly, the other so meekly, during their 'forty years in
the wilderness.'
Many persons were present out of respect not only to the former
Curate, but to his hard-working son and daughter, and not only the
daughter's holly-wreath, but one of camellias sent by Sister
Constance, lay upon the pall. When the mourners had turned away, Mr.
Audley saw a slender lad standing by, waiting till the grave was
smoothed to lay on it a wreath of delicate white roses and ferns.
There was no mistaking the clear olive face; and indeed Mr. Audley
had kept up a regular correspondence with Ferdinand Travis, and knew
that the vows made two years ago had been so far persevered in, and
without molestation from father or uncle. He had written an account
of Mrs. Underwood's death, but had received no answer.
'This is kind, Ferdinand,' he said, 'it will gratify them.'
'May I see any of them?' the youth asked.
'Felix and Lance will be most glad.'
'I only received your letter yesterday evening. Dr. White forwarded
it to me in London, and I persuaded my father to let me come down.'
'You are with your father?'
'Yes; he came home about a fortnight ago. I was going to write to
you. O Mr. Audley, if you are not in haste, can you tell me whether
I can see my dear Diego's grave?'
'The Roman Catholic burial-ground is on the other side of the town. I
think you will have to go to Mr. Macnamara for admittance. Come home
with me first, Fernan.'
'Home!' he said warmly. 'Yes, it has always seemed so to me! I have
dreamt so often of her gentle loving face and tender weak voice. She
was very kind to me;' and he raised his hat reverently, as he placed
the flowers upon the now completed grave. 'I saw that all were here
except the little ones and Geraldine,' he added. 'How is she?'
'As well as usual. Wilmet is a good deal worn and downcast, but all
are calm and cheerful. The loss cannot be like what that of their
father was.'
'Will they go on as they are doing now?'
'I trust so. I am going down to the family consultation. The London
cousin is there.'
'Then perhaps I had better not come in,' said Ferdinand, looking
rather blank. 'Shall I go down to Mr. Macnamara first?'
'Had you rather go alone, or shall I send Lance to show you the way?'
'Dear little Lance, pray let me have him!'
'It is a longish walk. Is your lameness quite gone?'
'Oh yes, I can walk a couple of miles very well, and when I give out
it is not my leg, but my back. They say it is the old jar to the
spine, and that it will wear off when I have done growing, if I get
plenty of air and riding. This will not be too much for me, but I
must be in time for the 3.30 train, I promised my father.'
'Is he here alone?'
'Yes, my uncle is in Brazil. My father is here for a month, and is
very kind; he seems very fairly satisfied with me; and he wants me to
get prepared for the commission in the Life Guards.'
'The Life Guards!'
'You see he is bent on my being an English gentleman, but he has some
dislike to the University, fancies it too old-world or something;
and, honestly, I cannot wish it myself. I can't take much to books,
and Dr. White says I have begun too late, and shall never make much
of them.'
'If you went into the Guards, my brother might be a friend to you.'
'My back is not fit for the infantry,' said Ferdinand, 'but I can
ride anything; I always could. I care for nothing so much as horses.'
'Then why not some other cavalry regiment?'
'Well, my father knows a man with a son in the Life Guards, who has
persuaded him that it is the thing, and I don't greatly care.'
'Is he prepared for the expensiveness?'
'I fancy it is the recommendation,' said Ferdinand, smiling with a
little shame; 'but if you really see reason for some other choice
perhaps you would represent it to him. I think he would attend to you
in person.'
'Have you positively no choice, Fernan?'
'I never like the bother of consideration,' said Ferdinand, 'and in
London I might have more chance of seeing you and other friends
sometimes. I do know that it is not all my father supposes, but he
thinks it is all my ignorance, and I have not much right to be
particular.'
'Only take care that horses do not become your temptation,' said Mr.
Audley.
'I know,' gravely replied Ferdinand. 'The fact is,' he added, as they
turned down the street, 'that I do not want to go counter to my
father if I can help it. I have not been able to avoid vexing him,
and this is of no great consequence. I can exchange, if it should not
suit me.'
'I believe you are right,' said the Curate; 'but I will inquire and
write to you before the application is made. Wait, and I will send
out Lance. But ought you not to call at the Rectory?'
'I will do so as I return,' said Ferdinand; and as Mr. Audley entered
the house, he thought that the making the Cacique into an English
gentleman seemed to have been attained as far as accent, mind, and
manner went, and the air and gesture had always been natural in him.
His tone rather than his words were conclusive to the Curate that his
heart had never swerved from the purpose with which he had stood at
the Font; but the languor and indolence of the voice indicated that
the tropical indifference was far from conquered, and it was an
anxious question whether the life destined for him might not be
exceptionally perilous to his peculiar temperament of nonchalance and
excitability.
Consideration was not possible just then, for when Mr. Audley opened
the door, he found that he had been impatiently waited for, and
barely time was allowed to him to send Lance to Ferdinand Travis,
before he was summoned to immediate conference with Thomas Underwood,
who, on coming in, had assumed the management of affairs, and on
calling for the will, was rather displeased with Felix's protest
against doing anything without Mr. Audley, whom he knew to have been
named guardian by his father. The cousin seemed unable to credit the
statement; and Wilmet had just found the long envelope with the black
seal, exactly as it had lain in the desk, which had never been
disturbed since the business on their father's death had been
finished.
There was the old will made long before, leaving whatever there was
to leave unconditionally to the wife, with the sole guardianship of
the children; and there was the codicil dated the 16th of October
1854, appointing Charles Somerville Audley, clerk, to the
guardianship in case of the death of the mother, while they should
all, or any of them, be under twenty-one, and directing that in that
contingency the property should be placed in his hands as trustee,
the interest to be employed for their maintenance, and the capital to
be divided equally among them, each receiving his or her share on
coming of age. All this was in Edward Underwood's own handwriting,
and his signature was attested by the Rector and the doctor.
Thomas Underwood was more 'put out,' than the management of such an
insignificant sum seemed to warrant. He was no doubt disappointed of
his cousin's confidence, as well as of some liberal (if domineering)
intentions; and he was only half appeased when Edgar pointed to the
date, and showed that the arrangement had been made before the
renewal of intercourse. 'It was hardly fair to thrust a charge upon a
stranger when there was a relation to act. Poor Edward, he ought to
have trusted,' he said. There was genuine kindness of heart in the
desire to confer benefits, though perhaps in rather an overbearing
spirit, as well as disappointment and hurt feeling that his cousin
had acquiesced in his neglect without an appeal. However, after
asking whether Mr. Audley meant to act, and hearing of his decided
intention of doing so, he proceeded to state his own plans for them.
The present state of things could not continue, and he proposed that
Wilmet and Geraldine should go as half boarders to some school, to be
prepared for governesses. Felix--could he write shorthand? 'Oh yes;
but--' Then he knew of a capital opening for him, a few years, and he
would be on the way to prosperity: the little ones might be boarded
with their old nurse till fit for some clergy orphan schools; if the
means would not provide for all, there need be no difficulty made on
that score.
Mr. Audley saw Felix's start of dismay and glance at him, but knowing
as he did that the lad was always more himself when not interfered
with, and allowed to act for himself, he only said, 'It is very kind
in you, sir, but I think Felix should be consulted.'
'It is impossible!' began Felix hastily.
'Impossible! It is quite impossible, I would have you to understand,
that a lot of children like you should keep house together, and on
such an income as that. Quite preposterous.'
'As for that,' said Felix, still unsubmissively, 'it is only what we
have been doing, except for the name of the thing, for the last three
years on the same means.'
'You don't mean to tell me that you have kept things going on such
means without a debt?'
'Of course we have! We never let a bill run,' said Felix, slightly
indignant.
'Now mind, I'm not insulting you, Felix, but I know what the women
are and what they tell us. Are you sure of that? No debts--honour
bright?'
'None at all!' said Felix, with an endeavour at calmness, but glowing
hotly. 'I help my sister make up her books every Saturday night. We
always pay ready money.'
'Humph,' said Mr. Underwood, still only half convinced. 'Living must
be cheap at Bexley.'
'You had better explain a little, Felix,' said Mr. Audley.
Felix did bring himself to say, 'I am sub-editor now, and get 100
pounds a year, besides being paid for any article I write. Wilmet has
25 pounds a year and her dinner, and Angela's at school, so there are
only five of us constantly dining at home, and with Mr. Audley's two
guineas a week we can do very well.'
'What, you lodge here?'
'Did not you know that?' said Felix surprised.
Mr. Underwood gave a whistle, and the Curate felt his cheeks growing
redder and redder, as he perceived that seven-and-twenty was not
considered as so very much older than eighteen. Edgar understood and
smiled, but Felix only thought he was suspected of making a good
thing of his lodger, and was beginning something awkward about, 'It
is all kindness,' when Mr. Audley broke in--
'Of course nothing is settled yet, but--but I believe I shall change
my quarters. A smaller house would be better for them; but I think
the children should keep together. Indeed, my dear friend said he
chiefly appointed me that Felix might be kept at their head.'
Thereupon Mr. Underwood began to expostulate against the sacrifice of
position and talent that Felix was making for the sake of bearing the
burthen of a family that would have pressed heavily on a man double
his age. It was what Felix already knew, much better than when at
sixteen he had made his first venture. He had experienced the effects
of change of station, as well as of exertion, drudgery, and of the
home hardship that no one except Mr. Audley had tried to sweeten. He
saw how Edgar had acquired the nameless air and style that he was
losing, how even Clement viewed him as left behind; and, on the other
hand, he knew that with his own trained and tested ability and
application, and his kinsman's patronage, there was every reasonable
chance of his regaining a gentleman's position, away from that half-
jealous, half-conceited foreman, who made every day a trial to him,
and looked at him with an evil eye as a supplanter in the post of
confidence. But therewith he thought of his father's words, that to
him he left this heavy burthen, and he thought what it would be to
have no central home, no place of holiday-meeting, no rallying-point
for the boys and girls, and to cast off the little ones to hired
service, this alternative never seriously occurred to him, for were
they not all bound to him by the cords of love, and most closely the
weakest and most helpless? Yet his first reply did not convey the
weight of his determination. It was only 'Geraldine is too delicate.'
'Well, well, good advice and treatment might make a change. Or, if
she be fit for nothing else, would not that Sisterhood at Dearport
take her on reasonable terms? Not that I can away with such nonsense,
but your father had his fancies.'
'My father wished us not to break up the home.'
'That was all very well when your poor mother was alive. You have
been a good son to her, but it is impossible that you and your
sister, mere children as you are, should set up housekeeping by
yourselves. Mr. Audley must see it cannot be suffered; it is the
bounden duty of your friends to interfere.'
Mr. Audley did not speak. He knew that Felix could reckon on his
support; and, moreover, that the youth would show himself to greater
advantage when not interfered with. So after pausing to see whether
his guardian would speak, Felix said, 'Of course we are in Mr.
Audley's power, but he knows that we have made some trial, and except
in name we have really stood alone for these three years. Wilmet can
quite manage the house, and it would be misery for ever to us all to
have no home. In short--' and Felix's face burnt, his voice choked,
and his eyes brimmed over with hot indignant tears, as he concluded,
'it shall never be done with my good will.'
'And under the circumstances,' said Mr. Audley, 'I think Felix is
right.'
'Very well,' said Thomas Underwood, much displeased. 'I have no power
here, and if you and that lad think he can take charge of a house and
a dozen children, you must have it your own way. Only, when they have
all gone to rack and ruin, and he is sick of being a little tradesman
in a country town, he will remember what I said.'
Felix forced back his resentful feelings, and contrived to say, 'Yes,
sir, I know it is a great disadvantage, and that you only wish for
our good; but I do not think anything would be so bad for the
children as to be all cast about the world, with no place to go to,
and becoming strangers to one another; and since there is this way of
keeping them together, it seems right.'
The steadiness of his manner struck Mr. Underwood, and the reply was
not unkind.
'You are a good boy at bottom, Felix, and mean well, and I am only
sorry not to be able to hinder you from throwing yourself away for
life by trying to do what is morally impossible, in a foolish spirit
of independence. Do not interrupt. I warn you that I am not to be
appealed to for getting you out of the difficulties you are plunging
into; but of course your brother and sister will be mine as before;
and as I promised myself to do the same by your mother as by your
father--my near cousins both--here is to cover necessary expenses.'
It was a cheque for 150, pounds the same as he had given on the former
occasion; and though Felix had rather not have taken it, he had
little choice, and he brought himself to return cold but respectful
thanks; and Mr. Underwood did not manifest any more displeasure, but
showed himself very kind at the meal that was spread in Mr. Audley's
sitting-room, and even invited Wilmet to accompany Alda, when she
joined the family in a week's time at Brighton, so as to have sea air
for the remainder of her holidays.
Nothing could be more reluctant than was Wilmet at first, but there
was a chorus of persuasions and promises; and the thought of being a
little longer in Alda's presence made her waver and almost consent.
Ferdinand Travis came in, but had only time for a greeting and a
hasty meal, before Mr. Underwood's carriage came round; and, nothing
loth, he gave a lift to the Mexican millionaire to the station with
him and Edgar. So, for the last time, had all the thirteen been at
home together.
CHAPTER X
THE FAMILY COBWEB ON THE MOVE
'Oh! the auld house, the auld house,
What though the rooms were wee;
Oh! kind hearts were dwelling there,
And bairnies full of glee.'
Lady Nairn.
Every one except Edgar would, it was hoped, stay at home till after
the Epiphany, that most marked anniversary of birth and death.
Clement at first declared it impossible, for St. Matthew's could not
dispense with him on the great day; and Fulbert grinned, and nudged
Lance at his crest-fallen looks, when he received full leave of
absence for the next three weeks.
But Lance was bursting with reverse troubles. The same post had
brought him a note from his organist; and that 'stupid old Dean' as
he irreverently called him, had maliciously demanded 'How beautiful
are the feet,' with the chorus following, and nobody in the choir was
available to execute the solo but Lance. He had sung it once or twice
before; and if he had the music, and would practise at home, he need
only come up by the earliest train on the Epiphany morning; if not,
he must arrive in time for a practice on the 5th; he would be wanted
at both the festival and Sunday services, but might return as early
as he pleased on Monday the 9th.
Lance did not receive the summons in an exemplary spirit. It is not
certain that he did not bite it. He rolled on the floor, and
contorted himself in convulsions of vexation; he 'bothered' the Dean,
he 'bothered' the Precentor, he 'bothered' the Organist, he
'bothered' Shapcote's sore throat, he 'bothered' Harewood's wool-
gathering wits, he 'bothered' his own voice, and thereby caused
Clement to rebuke him for foolish murmurs instead of joy in his gift.
'A fine gift to rejoice in, to make one be whipped off by an old
fogey, when one most wants to be at home! I thank my stars I can't
sing!' said Fulbert.
'I should thank mine if Bill Harewood had any sense,' said Lance,
sitting up in a heap on the floor. 'He can go quite high enough when
he pleases; only, unluckily, a goose of a jackdaw must needs get into
the cathedral just as Bill had got to sing the solo in "As pants the
hart;" and there he stood staring with his mouth wide open--and no
wonder, for it was sitting on the old stone-king's head! Wasn't Miles
in a rage; and didn't he vow he'd never trust a solo to Harewood
again if he knew it! Oh, I say, Wilmet--Fee, I know! Do let me bring
Bill back with me on Monday morning; and he could go by the six
o'clock train. Oh, jolly!'
'But is he really a nice boy, Lance?' asked Wilmet, doubtfully.
'Oh, isn't he just? You'll see! His father is a Vicar-choral, you
know, lives in our precincts; his private door just opposite ours,
and 'tis the most delicious house you ever saw! You may make as much
row as you please, and nobody minds!'
'I know who Mr. Harewood is. Librarian too, is he not?' said Felix.
'I have heard people laughing about his good-natured wife.'
'Aren't they the people who were so kind to you last year, Lance,'
asked Cherry, 'when you could not come home because of the measles?'
'Of course. Do let me bring him, Fee,' entreated Lance; 'he is no end
of a chap--captain of our form almost always--and such a brick at
cricket! I told him I'd show him the potteries, and your press, and
our organ, and everything--and it is such a chance when we are all at
home! I shall get the fellows to believe now that my sisters beat all
theirs to shivers.'
'Can you withstand that flattering compliment, Wilmet?' said Felix,
laughing. 'I can't!'
'He is very welcome,' said Wilmet; 'only, Lance, he must not stay the
night, for there really is not room for another mouse.'
The little girls had heard so much about Bill Harewood, that they
were much excited; but their sympathy kindly compensated for the lack
of that of the elder brothers. Fulbert pronounced that a cathedral
chorister could never be any great shakes; and Clement could not
forgive one who had been frivolous enough to be distracted by a
jackdaw; but Lance, trusting to his friend's personal attractions to
overcome all prejudice, trotted blithely off to the organist-
schoolmaster, to beg the loan of the music, and received a promise of
a practice in church in the evening. Meantime, he begged Clement to
play the accompaniment for him on the old piano. Neither boy knew
that it had been scarcely opened since their father's hand had last
lingered fondly upon it. Music had been found to excite their mother
to tears; Geraldine resembled Fulbert in unmusicalness, and Wilmet
had depended on school, the brothers on their choir-practice, so that
the sound was like a new thing in the house; nor was any one prepared
either for the superiority of Clement's playing, or for the exceeding
beauty and sweetness of Lance's singing. No one who appreciated the
rare quality of his high notes wondered that he was indispensable;
Geraldine could hardly believe that the clear exquisite proclamation,
that came floating as from an angel voice, could really come from the
little, slight, grubby, dusty urchin, who stood with clasped hands
and uplifted face; and Clement himself--though deferring the
communication till Lance was absent, lest it should make him vain--
confided to Wilmet that they had no such voice at St Matthew's, and
it was a shame to waste him on Anglicans.
Wilmet hardly entered into this enormity. She had made a discovery
which interested her infinitely more. Little Theodore, hitherto so
inanimate, had sat up, listened, looked with a dawning of expression
in the eyes that had hitherto been clear and meaningless as blue
porcelain, and as the music ceased, his inarticulate hummings
continued the same tune. Could it be that the key to the dormant
senses was found? His eyes turned to the piano, and his finger
pointed to it as soon as he found himself in the room with it, and
the airs he heard were continually reproduced in his murmuring
sounds; that 'How beautiful!' which had first awakened the gleam--his
own birthday anthem--being sure to recur at sight of Lance; while a
doleful Irish croon, Sibby's regular lullaby, always served for her,
and the 'Hardy Norseman' for Felix, who had sometimes whistled it to
him. Wilmet spent every available moment in awaking the smile on the
little waxen face that had never responded before; it seemed to be
just the cheering hope she needed to revive her spirits, only she was
almost ready to renounce her journey with Alda for the sake of
cultivating the new-found faculty.
No one would permit this; and indeed, so far from waiting to be
exhibited to Lance's friend, the two sisters received their billet
de route on the very day he was expected; and there was no appeal,
since a housekeeper was to travel from Centry, who would take charge
of them to London, whence they would go down with Mr. Underwood. Poor
Wilmet was much dismayed at leaving Geraldine to what they both
regarded as the unprecedented invasion of a strange boy; indeed, the
whole charge made Cherry's heart quail, though she said little of her
fears, knowing the importance of Wilmet's having and enjoying her
holiday; and Mr. Audley promised extra aid in keeping order among the
boys.
But as they came in that evening from the practice at the church, to
which Clement had insisted on their coming to hear Lance, Mr. Audley
beckoned Felix to his room with the words, 'There's a thing I want to
talk over with you.'
Felix recollected those ominous words to Mr. Underwood, and stood
warming his hands in dread of what might be coming. It was all he
feared.
'I wanted to say--I wanted to tell you--' began Mr. Audley. 'I would
not have chosen this time, but that I think it may save Wilmet
something to be able to tell her friends that the present arrangement
is to cease.'
'Wilmet!' exclaimed Felix; then bethinking himself. 'Was _that_ what
Tom Underwood meant? But you will not trouble yourself about such
rubbish.'
'Well, you see,' began the Curate, with heightening colour, 'it can't
be denied that your sister _has_ grown up, and that things are
changed.'
'Mrs. Froggatt _did_ ask me if you were going on here,' said Felix,
still unconvinced; 'but can't we leave people to be _stoopid_ without
interfering with us?'
'Felix, you ought to be a better protector to your sisters. You would
not like to have my Lady remonstrating--nay, maybe writing to my
mother: she is quite capable of it.'
Felix's cheeks were in a flame. 'If people would mind their own
business,' he said; 'but if they _will_ have it so--'
'They are right, Felix,' said the Curate quietly; 'appearances must
be carefully heeded, and by you almost more than by any one. Your
slowness to understand me makes me almost doubtful about my further
design.'
'Not going away altogether!'
'Not immediately; but things stand thus--Dr. White, my old tutor, you
know, and Fernan's, is nearly sure of the new Bishopric in Australia,
and he wants me.'
Felix hardly repressed a groan.
'Any way I should not go immediately; but when your father spoke to
me about the guardianship, he made me promise not to let it stand in
the way of any other call. I fancied he had mission work in his mind,
and it disposes me the more to think I ought not to hold back; but
while your dear mother lived, I would not have gone.'
'Yes, you have been very good to us,' was all Felix could say. 'But
when?'
'Not for some time; but I am not going this moment. Three months'
notice Mr. Bevan must have, and if he requires it, six; I must spend
some time at home, and very like shall not be off till you are of
age--certainly not if I find there is any difficulty in handing the
management of things over to you. How long I remain with you must
depend on circumstances. How much notice must you give before leaving
this house?'
'I do not know--half a year, I fancy. You think we ought to give it
up? I suppose it is too large for us now.'
'And you could take no lodger but one of the old-lady type.'
'Horrid!' said Felix. 'Well, we will see; but it will be a great
stroke on poor Cherry--she can remember nothing before this house.'
'It will be very good for her to have no old associations to sit
brooding over.'
'My poor little Cherry! If I saw how to cheer up her life; but
without your lessons it will be more dreary for her than ever!'
'Give her all you can to do, and do not be over-careful to keep your
anxieties from her knowledge. She is very much of a woman, and if you
leave her too much to herself, she will grow more introspective.'
'Wilmet and I have always wanted to shelter her; she never seems fit
for trouble, and she is so young!'
'Compared with you two venerable people!' said Mr. Audley, smiling.
'But her mind is not young, and to treat her as a child is the way to
make her prey upon herself. I wish her talent could be more
cultivated; but meantime nothing is better for her than the care of
Bernard and Stella. I hope you will not be in a hurry to promote them
out of her hands.'
'Very well; but she will miss you sorely.'
'I hope to see her brightened before I am really gone, and I am not
going to decamp from this house till some natural break comes. To do
that would be absurd!'
There was a silence; and then Felix said with a sigh, 'Yes, a smaller
house, and one servant. I will speak to Wilmet.'
'Perhaps you had better, so that she may have an answer in case she
is attacked.'
Wilmet was aghast at first, but a hint from Alda made her acquiesce,
not with blushing consciousness, but with the perception that the way
of the world was against the retention of the lodger; and sorry as
she was to lose Mr. Audley, her housewifely mind was not consoled,
but distracted, by calculations on the difference of expenditure.
Again she tried to beg herself off from her visit, in the dread that
Felix would go and take some impracticable house in her absence--some
place with thin walls, no cupboards, and no coal-hole; and she was
only pacified by his solemn promise to decide on no house without
her. She went away in an avalanche of kisses and tears, leaving
Geraldine with a basketful of written instructions for every possible
contingency, at which the anxious maiden sat gazing anxiously, trying
to store her mind with its onerous directions.
'Shall I give you a piece of advice, Cherry?' said the Curate, as he
saw the dark eyebrows drawn together.
'Oh, do!' she earnestly said.
'Put all that in the fire!'
'Mr. Audley!'
'And go by the light of nature! You have just as many senses as
Wilmet, and almost as much experience; and as to oppressing yourself
with the determination to do the very, thing she would have done
under all circumstances, it is a delusion. People must act according
to their own nature, not some one else's.'
'Certainly,' said Geraldine, smiling. 'I could never walk stately in
and say, "Now, boys!"--and much they would care for it if I did.'
'It seems to be a case for "Now, boys!" at this moment,' said Mr.
Audley; 'what can all that row be?'
'Oh, it must be that dreadful strange boy, Lance's friend,' sighed
Geraldine, almost turning pale. Then, trying to cheer up, 'But it is
only for the day, and Lance wished it so much.'
As she spoke, the shout of 'Cherry, here's Bill!' came nearer, and
the whole of the younger half of the family tumbled promiscuously
into the room, introducing the visitor in the midst of them. To the
elders, 'no end of a chap' appeared, as Mr. Audley said, to mean all
ends of shock hair, and freckles up to the eyes; but when Fulbert and
Lance had whirled him out again to see the lions of Bexley, Robina
and Angela were overheard respectfully pronouncing that he was nice
and spotty like the dear little frogs in the strawberry-beds at
Catsacre, and that his hair was just the colour Cherry painted that
of all the very best people in her 'holy pictures.'
The object of their admiration was seen no more till the middle of
dinner, when all three appeared, immoderately dusty; and no wonder,
for the organist had employed them to climb, sweep fashion, into the
biggest organ-pipe to investigate the cause of a bronchial affection
of long standing,--which turned out to be a dead bat caught in a
tenacious cobweb.
Shortly after, the guest was found assisting Angela in a tableau,
where a pen-wiper doll in nun's costume was enacting the exorcism of
the said bat, in a cave built of wooden bricks.
Clement was undecided whether to condemn or admire; and Geraldine, to
whom Edgar had lent some volumes of Ruskin, meditated on the
grotesque.
Before there had been time for the fanciful sport to become rough
comedy, Lance had called off his friend to see the potteries; and to
poor Cherry's horror, she found that Robina had been swept off in the
torrent of boyhood. Clement, pitying her despair and self-reproach,
magnanimously offered to follow, and either bring the little maid
back, or keep her out of harm's way; and for some time Cherry reposed
in the conviction that 'Tina was as good as a girl any day.'
But at about a quarter to six, a little tap came to Mr. Audley's
door, and Angela stood there, saying, with a most serious face,
'Please, Mr. Audley, Cherry wants to know whether you don't think
something must have happened.' And going upstairs, he found the poor
young deputy in a nervous agony of despair at the non-return of any
of the party, quite certain that some catastrophe had befallen them,
and divided between self-reproach and dread of the consequences.
'The very first day Wilmet had gone!' as she said.
It was almost time for Harewood's train, which made it all the more
strange. Mr. Audley tried to reassure her by the probability that the
whole party were convoying him to the station, and would appear when
he was gone; but time confuted this pleasing hypothesis, and Cherry's
misery was renewed. She even almost hinted a wish that Mr. Audley
would go out and look for them.
'And then,' he said, smiling, 'in an hour's time you would be sending
Felix to look for me. No, no, Cherry, these waiting times are often
hard, no doubt; but, as I fear you are one of those destined to
"abide by the tents" instead of going out to battle, you had better
learn to do your watching composedly.'
'O Mr. Audley! how can I? I know it must be very wrong, but how can I
not care?' And verily the nervous sensitive girl was quivering with
suspense.
'"He will not be afraid of any evil tidings, for his heart standeth
fast and believeth in the Lord,"' answered Mr. Audley. 'I see that
does not tell you how not to be afraid; but I imagine that a few
trusting ejaculations in the heart, and then resolute attention to
something else, may be found a help.'
Cherry would have sighed that attention was the most impossible thing
in the world; but before she had time to do so, Mr. Audley had begun
to expound to her his Australian scheme. It excited her extremely;
and as a year and a half seemed an immense period of time to her
imagination, the dread of losing him was not so immediate as to damp
her enthusiasm. They had discussed his plans for nearly an hour
before Cherry started at the sound of the door, and then it was only
Felix who entered. He was irate, but not at all alarmed; and
presently the welcome clatter of steps approached, and in dashed the
whole crew, mired up to the eyes, but in as towering spirits as ever.
Their delay had, it appeared, been caused by a long walk that ensued
upon the visit to the potteries, and a wild venture of Will Harewood
upon impracticable ice, which had made him acquainted with the depths
of a horse-pond. There was none of the dignity of danger, for the
depths were shallows and the water only rose to his waist; but the
mud was above his ankles, and he had floundered out with some
difficulty. He wanted to walk back with no more ceremony than a
water-dog; but the Underwoods had made common cause against him, and
had dragged him to a cottage, where he had the pleasing alternative
of an old woman's blankets and petticoats while his garments were
drying. He was as nearly angry as a Harewood could be, Lance
observed, declaring that they should never have got him into the
cottage without fighting him, if Tina had not been so tall, and if
Robin had not nearly cried; while he, throwing off all responsibility,
ascribed all his lateness to his friend's 'maggots.' No more trains
stopped at Bexley till after midnight, but as to his absence causing
any uneasiness at home, he laughed at the notion, and was corroborated
by Lance in averring that they had too much sense; listening with
undisguised amazement to the elaborate explanations and apologies about
Robina, which Clement was scrupulously pouring forth to his brother and
sister, saying that he would have brought her home at once, but that he
really did not like to trust those boys alone.
Whereat Lance held up his hands with a dumb show of amazement that
convulsed Fulbert, Bill Harewood, and Robina herself, with agonies of
half-suppressed merriment. The boy had come in, prepared to be grave
and quiet, as knowing how lately affliction had come to the family,
and having been warned by Lance, that 'as to going on as we do in the
precincts, why it would make Cherry jump out of her skin.'
But by some extraordinary influence--whether it were the oddity of
William Harewood's face, or the novelty of his perfect insouciance
in the household whither care had come only too early--some infection
seized on the young Underwoods, and before the end of the evening
meal, if the 'goings on' were not equal to those in the precincts,
they were, at any rate, not far short of it.
Lance presently incited his friend to show 'how he had mesmerised
Lucy.' Clement made a horrified protest; and Geraldine looked alarmed
at her eldest brother, who began, 'Indeed, Lance, we can have nothing
of that sort here.'
'But, Felix, I do assure you there is no harm.'
'Upon my word and honour, there's not a spice of anything the
Archbishop of Canterbury could stick at,' added Will Harewood.
'It is impossible there should not be harm,' interposed Clement; but
the boys, including Fulbert, were in such fits of laughter, that
Felix began to suspect the seriousness of the performance; and when
Lance sprang at him, exclaiming, 'I'll go to Mr. Audley! Fee--Cherry-
--will you be satisfied if Mr. Audley says we may?' Felix and Cherry
both consented; and Lance rushed off to make the appeal, and returned
not only with full sanction, but with Mr. Audley himself, come to see
the operation. This perfectly satisfied Felix, who even consented, on
the entreaty of his brothers, to become the first subject; and Cherry
knew that where the Curate and Felix had no scruples, she need have
none; but, for all that, she was more than half frightened and
uncomfortable--above all, when Clement, amid shouts of mirth from the
three schoolboys, indignantly marched away to shut himself up in his
cold bedroom.
By and by, after some unseen preparation--all the more mystifying
because carried on in the kitchen, where Sibby always used to keep
Theodore in a cradle till Felix was ready for him--Will Harewood
caused Felix to stand exactly opposite to him and to the spectators,
with a dinner-plate in his hand, and under injunctions to imitate the
operator exactly. Armed with another plate, William rubbed his own
finger first on the under side of the plate, and then, after some
passes and flourishes, on his own forehead, entirely without effect
so far as he himself was concerned; but his victim, standing meekly
good-natured and unconscious, was seen by the ecstatic audience to
be, at each pass, painting his own face with the soot from a flame
over which his plate had been previously held. The shrieks of
amusement redoubled at the perplexity they occasioned him, till they
penetrated the upper rooms: and suddenly a cry of horror made all
turn to the door and see a little white bare-footed figure standing
there, transfixed with fright, which increased tenfold when Felix
hurried towards it, not yet aware of the condition of his visage,
until a universal shout warned him of it; while Lance, darting in
pursuit, picked up Bernard, and by his wonderful caressing arts, and
partly by his special gift of coaxing, partly as the object of the
little fellow's most fervent adoration, made the scattered senses
take in that it was 'all play,' and even carried back the little
white bundle, heart throbbing and eyes staring, but still secure in
his arms, to admire Felix all black, and then to be further relieved
by beholding the restoration of the natural hue at the pump below
stairs.
Then amid Sibby's scoldings and assurances that the child would catch
his death of cold, Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who
found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and
preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer.
Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke,
entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of
course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather
doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own
face, and I wasn't afraid.'
'Naughty boy!' commented Stella. 'Poor Fee!'--and she reared up to
kiss him, and stroke the cheeks that had suffered such an indignity.
'What! It was only a trick?' said Clement slowly, as if half
mystified.
'Of course,' said Felix; 'could not you trust to that?'
'I don't know. Cathedrals are very lax, and it had a questionable
name.'
'O Clem! if it had not been in you before, I should wish you had
never gone to St. Matthew's. Come down now, don't let us disturb the
little ones any longer. --Good-night, Angel; good-night, little star;
we'll not make a row to wake you again.'
Clement, in a severe mood, followed Felix downstairs; but some
wonderful spirit of frolic was on all the young people that night--a
reaction, perhaps, from the melancholy that had so long necessarily
reigned in that house, for though the fun was less loud, it was quite
as merry: a course of riddles was going on; and Clement, who really
was used to a great deal of mirth among the staff of St. Matthew's,
absolutely unbent, and gloried in showing that even more conundrums
were known there than by the house of Harewood. He was not strong in
guessing them; but then Will Harewood made such undaunted and
extraordinary shots at everything proposed, that the spirit of
repartee was fairly awakened, and Cherry's bright delicate wit began
to play, so that no one knew how to believe in the lateness of the
hour, and still less that this was the same house that grave Wilmet
had left that morning.
'Poor dear little Cherry!' said Felix to Mr. Audley, after helping
her upstairs, 'she is quite spent with laughing; indeed my jaws ache,
and she is ready to cry, as if it had been unfeeling.'
'Don't let her fancy that. We certainly were surprised into it to-
night; but I only wish for her sake--for all your sakes--that you
could keep the house merrier.'
Felix sighed. He too felt as if he had been betrayed into unbecoming
levity; and though he would not dispute, his heart had only become
the heavier. However, he did not forget, and when Cherry again
breathed a little sigh as to what Wilmet would think of their first
day, he stoutly averred that there was no use in drooping, and no
harm in liveliness, and that no one had ever been so full of
joyousness as their father.
She owned it. 'But--'
And that _but_ meant the effects of the three years that she had
spent as the companion of her mother's mournful widowhood, and of the
cares of life on her elder brother and sister.
It was true, as Mr. Audley said, that the associations of the rooms
were not good for her spirits in her many lonely hours and confined
life; and this reconciled Felix more than anything else to the
proposed change. He was keeping his promise to Wilmet of not seeking
a house till her return, when Mr. and Mrs. Froggatt, whose minds had
been much relieved by hearing that the lodger would consult the
proprieties, communicated to him their own scheme of taking up their
residence at a village named Marshlands, about two miles from Bexley,
where they already spent great part of the summer in a pleasant
cottage and garden which they had bought and adorned. Mr. Froggatt
would drive in to attend to the business every day, but the charge of
the house was the difficulty, as they did not wish to let the rooms;
and they now proposed that the young Underwoods should inhabit them
rent-free, merely keeping a bedroom and little parlour behind the
shop for Mr. Froggatt, and providing firing in them. With much more
diffidence, at his wife's earnest suggestion, the kindly modest old
man asked whether Miss Underwood would object to his coming in to
take a piece of bread and cheese when he was there in the middle of
the day.
It was an excellent offer, and Felix had no hesitation in gratefully
closing with it, even without consulting Wilmet. Her reply showed
that a great weight was taken off her mind; and she was only longing
to be at home again, contriving for the move, which was to take place
at Lady Day. She was burning to study the new rooms; nevertheless, as
by kind Marilda's contrivance, she was taking lessons in German every
day from a superior Fraulein who had once been her cousin's
governess, and was further allowed to inspect the working of a good
school, her stay was extended, by Miss Pearson's entreaty, a full
fortnight beyond what had been intended. Nor had anything gone wrong
in her absence. Even the overlooking of the boys' linen, which she
had believed impossible without her, was safely carried on by Cherry,
and all were sent off in sound condition. No catastrophe occurred;
and the continual occupation and responsibility drove away all the
low spirits that so often had tried the home-keeping girl. She _did_
enjoy those tete-a-tete evenings, when Felix opened to her more
than he had ever done before; and yet it was an immense relief to
have the day fixed for Wilmet's return, and how much more to have her
walking into the room with all the children clinging about her in
incoherent ecstacy, which had not subsided enough for much
comprehension when Felix came joyously in. 'Hurrah, Wilmet! Mr.
Froggatt sent me home a couple of hours before time!'
'How very good! I met him in the street, just now. Really, he is the
kindest old gentleman in the world!'
'I believe you dazzled him, Mettie; he says he did not know you till
you spoke to him, and if he had realised what a beautiful and
majestic young lady you were, he should hardly have ventured to
propose your taking up your abode under his humble roof.'
'That must be the effect of living with Alda,' said Wilmet merrily;
'but, oh! I am glad to be at home again!'
'And I never was so glad of anything in my life,' said Geraldine
eagerly.
'I am longing to go over the house, and know what to do about
furniture,' continued Wilmet.
'There! now W. W. is herself again!' said Felix.
'Mrs. Froggatt came and called on me,' said Geraldine. 'She talked of
leaving us the larger things that will not go into the cottage.'
'Which is well,' said Felix; 'for how much of ours will survive the
shock of removing is doubtful.'
'All the things that came from Vale Leston are quite solid,' said
Wilmet, bristling up.
'That carpet is solid darn,' said Felix. 'We tried one evening, and
found that though the pattern of rose-leaves is a tradition, no one
younger than Clem could remember having seen either design or
colour.'
'You should not laugh at it, Felix,' said Wilmet, a little hurt: for
indeed her mother's needle and her own were too well acquainted with
the carpet for her to like to hear it contemned.
Felix and Cherry both felt somewhat called to order, as if their
mistress had come home again; and Cherry was the first to break
silence by inquiring after Wilmet's studies at Brighton.
'Oh yes,' said Wilmet, 'I do hope I am improved. That was all
Marilda's kindness. She quite understood how I missed everybody and
everything; and at last, one day, when I was wishing I could
pronounce German like Alda, and that Alda had time to give me some
lessons--'
'Alda hasn't time!'
'Oh, you don't know how useful she is! She writes all the notes.
Marilda devised getting this Fraulein--such a good-natured woman! and
when she heard what I wanted, she got leave for me to come every day
to study the working of the school. I do believe I shall teach much
better now, if only I were not so ignorant. I never had any notion
before how little I knew!'
However, Wilmet's value had really risen so much in consequence of
these instructions, that Miss Pearson arranged that she should lay
the French and German foundations, and prepare the scholars, and
should receive half a sovereign a half year from each girl whom she
thus instructed, being the moiety of 'extra.' Moreover, the head
teacher talked of retiring, and her succession was promised to
Wilmet--a brilliant prospect, that the sight of Alda's grandeur did
not make her contemn.
Wilmet's anxious mind was well satisfied by her inspection of the new
quarters, which, among other conveniences, had that of shortening by
ten minutes her walk to school. The family apartments were all
upstairs, the space below being entirely taken up by the business,
and the kitchens were under ground. The chief sitting-room upstairs
was unfortunately towards the street, and had a northern aspect; it
was a spacious room, with three large windows filled with boxes of
flowers, and contained a big table and two sofas, which, with the
carpet and curtains, would remain well covered up. Folding-doors led
into a smaller room, with a south window towards the little garden,
where Mrs. Froggatt generally sat, and which had been used for the
dining-room. There were two bedrooms besides on the same floor, one
of which would remain untouched for Mr. Froggatt; and above these,
there was a large nursery, and more rooms than had been ever
furnished. Rent, rates, taxes, and repairs, all off her mind! Wilmet
felt as if prosperity were setting in; and she was the first to make
the audacious statement that they need not part with Martha, and
indeed, that the house could not be kept in order, nor dinners cooked
fit for Mr. Froggatt, by Sibby single-handed. And Cherry made up her
mind that they were like a family of caterpillars moving their cobweb
tent; Angela, seeing such an establishment of young tortoise-shells,
in their polished black, under their family web, had asked, 'Which
was their brother Felix?' and the name was adopted.
So a time of much business and excitement set in, and the lengthening
spring evenings were no sinecure to Wilmet, as the flitting day
approached, being rather hurried on by the old bookseller, who wanted
to be at Marshlands in time to admire his hyacinths and sow his
annuals. Mr. Audley would take rooms at the Fortinbras Arms for the
remainder of his stay at Bexley; and indeed, there was a good deal to
break the old habit of constantly depending on him, for his brother's
young wife was slowly dying in London, and the whole family seemed
instinctively to turn to him for comfort and advice, so that he was
obliged to be continually going backwards and forwards.
On the 24th of March, when he came down by an afternoon train, he
found the house door open, the steps scattered with straw, and after
looking in and seeing his own parlour intact, and with a cheerful
fire, he pursued his way upstairs, and there found the sitting-room
bare except for a sort of island consisting of the sofa, on which
Geraldine lay rolled in cloaks and shawls, trying to amuse the twins
by a feeble attempt to sing
'Weel may the boatie row,'
while making paper boats for Stella to drag by strings upon the
smooth boards.
'Eh, Cherry, are you the Last Man, or the Last Rose of Summer ?'
'The last of the caterpillars,' said Cherry, smiling, but with
effort. 'Do you see Stella's fleet--just thirteen?'
'Making omens, foolish child!' but though Stella was eagerly pointing
and explaining, 'Tat Tella's boat--tat Tedo's--tat brothers--tat
Angel,' and so on, the word _foolish_ was not directed to the little
one, but to the gray eyes heavy with unshed tears, that rested
wistfully upon a wreck that had caught upon a nail and lay rent and
ragged.
'Pray don't look which it is,' said she.
'Certainly not; I hate auguries.'
'Do you think there is nothing in them?'
'I think there is nothing in this room but what ought to be in mine.
Do you expect me to stand discussing superstition in this horrible
raw emptiness? Here,' picking up Theodore, 'I'll come back for you.'
'Oh no, thank you, let me get down by myself; he cannot be left alone
in a room.'
'Come, Stella, and take care of him.'
'That's worse, she leads him into mischief. We are fox, goose, and
cabbage. Please give me my crutch; Wilmet put it out of reach because
she said I was destroying myself.'
'You are tired to death.'
'Oh no; but one can't sit still when so much is going on. Oh, how
delicious!' as after an interval she arrived, and found Mr. Audley
winding up a musical box, which Theodore was greeting with its own
tunes, and Stella with a dance and chant of 'Sing box--sing box;' and
then the two sat listening to the long cycle of tunes which would
hold Theodore entranced for any length of time.
After a short inquiry and a reply as to the sister-in-law's state,
and a few words on the progress of the flitting, there was a silence
while Mr. Audley read the letters that had come for him in his
absence, and Cherry's face became more and more pensive. At last,
when Mr. Audley laid down his letters, and leant against the
chimneypiece, she ventured to say, 'Is it wrong?'
'Is what wrong?' said the Curate, who had quite forgotten the
subject.
'To care about omens.'
'That depends. To accept them is sometimes necessary; to look out for
them is generally foolish and often wrong.'
'Sometimes necessary?' said Cherry eagerly.
'Sometimes experience seems to show that in good Providence a
merciful preparation is sent not so much to lead to anticipations, as
to bring the mind into keeping with what is coming, and, as it were,
attune it.'
'So that little things may be constantly types of great future ones?'
'My dear Cherry, I said not constantly.'
'Just let me tell you. Sibby says that the very day we all came into
this poor old house, just as the omnibus stopped, there was the knell
ringing overhead, and a funeral coming up the street. She knew it was
a token, and burst out crying; and dear Mamma, who you know never
shed tears, turned as white as a corpse, as if she was struck to the
heart.'
'And your father?'
'Oh! Sibby said he just stood in the doorway, lifted his hat as the
funeral passed and then well-nigh carried Mamma, with the baby (that
was Fulbert) in her arms, over the threshold, and smiled at her,
saying, "Well, mother, what better than to have found our home till
death!" So you see he did believe in it.'
'I see he wanted to cheer her spirits, not by saying "stuff and
nonsense," but reminding her that there are worse things than death.
Have you an omen on your mind, Cherry? Have it out; don't let it sink
in.'
'Only please don't laugh at me. Indeed, it was not my own doing, but
Stella's fancy to have a boat for each of us, when she was launching
them; and I could not help recollecting how we are all starting out
and away from our first home.'
'Stella's was not a very perilous ocean.'
'That was a comfort at first; and Stella tried to draw all the
thirteen lines together, but they tangled, and one thread broke, and
that boat was left behind; and one poor crooked ill-made thing fell
over, and was left at home because hindering all the rest, and even
Stella knew that was me, and--'her voice quivered, 'one was caught on
a nail, and torn into a wreck! Now, can I help thinking, though
you'll just call them newspaper-boats, dragged by a baby on a dry
dusty floor?'
'Watched by a weary fanciful damsel,' said Mr. Audley, sitting down
by her, 'who does not know a bit more than she did before, that all
are launching on a sea, and if it is a rougher one, there's a better
Guiding Star than Stella Eudora to lead them, and they have compasses
of their own--ay, and a Pilot. And if there are times when He seems
to be asleep in the ship--why, even the owner of the unseaworthy boat
left at home can show the Light, and pray on till the others are
roused to awaken Him.
'I wish there had not been that wreck,' she sighed.
'What seems a wreck need not be really one,' said Mr. Audley. 'It may
be the very way of returning to the right course. And by and by we
shall see our Master standing on the shore in the morning light.'
At that moment there was a sound at the door--Felix had accompanied
Cherry's chair, to bring her and Theodore to the new home. There was
too much haste for the wistful last looks she intended: she was
deposited in the chair with Theodore on her knee, Stella trotting
after, with Felix and Mr. Audley who was coming to see the
inauguration. St. Oswald's Buildings were left behind, and she was
drawn up to the green private door, beside the shop window; Wilmet
hurried down and took Theodore from her; Felix helped her out, and up
the narrow steep staircase, which certainly was not a gain, but when
landed in the drawing-room, the space seemed to her magnificent. And
their own furniture, the two or three cherished portraits brought
from Vale Leston, their father's chair, their mother's sofa, the silk
patchwork table-cover that had been the girl's birthday present to
Mamma, the bookcase with Papa's precious books, made it seem home-
like.
'The mantelpiece is just the same!' cried Cherry, delighted, as she
recognised all the old ornaments.
The next moment her delight was great at the flower-stands, which Mr.
Froggatt had kindly left full of primulas, squills, and crocuses; and
when she looked out from the back room into the little garden, where
Mr. Froggatt's horticultural tastes had long found their sole
occupation, and saw turf, green laurels, and bunches of snowdrops and
crocuses, she forgot all Stella's launch!
CHAPTER XI
THE CHORAL FESTIVAL
'And with ornaments and banners,
As becomes gintale good manners,
We made the loveliest tay-room upon Shannon shore.'
THACKERAY.
'Of course, after _this_,' said Lady Price, 'Miss Underwood did not
expect to be visited.'
Otherwise the gain was great. The amusement of looking out of window
into the High Street was alone a perpetual feast to the little ones,
and saved Geraldine worlds of anxiety; and the garden, where they
could be turned out to play, was prized as it only could be by those
who had never had any outlet before. It was a pleasant little long
narrow nook, between the printing-house on the west, and such another
garden on the east, a like slip, with a wall masked by ivy and
lilacs, and overshadowed by a horse-chestnut meeting it on the south.
It was not smoky, and was quite quiet, save for the drone and stamp
of the steam-press; there was grass, a gum-cistus and some flower-
beds in the centre, and a gravel-walk all round, bordered by narrow
edgings of flowers, and with fruit trees against the printing-house
wall, and a Banksia and Wisteria against that of the house. Mr.
Froggatt was quite touched at the reverence with which Angela and
Stella regarded even the daisies that had eluded his perpetual spud;
and when he found out the delight it was to Cherry to live with
flowers for the first time in her life, he seldom failed to send her
a bunch of violets or some other spring beauty as soon as he arrived
in the morning, and kept the windows constantly supplied with plants.
The old bookseller was at first very much afraid of his new inmates.
To Felix he was used, but he looked on the sisters as ladies, and to
ladies, except on business-terms, he was much less accustomed than to
gentlemen. Besides, being a thorough gentleman himself at heart, he
had so much delicacy as to be afraid of hurting their feelings by
seeming at home in his own house, and he avoided being there at
luncheon for a whole week, until one afternoon Felix ran up to say
that he was sure Mr. Froggatt had a cold, and would be glad if a cup
of tea appeared in his parlour. Gratitude brought him in to face the
enemy; and after he had been kept at home for a day or two by the
cold, his wife's injunctions and Felix's entreaties brought him to
the dinner.
It happened to be one of Wilmet's favourite economical stews; but
these were always popular in the family, though chiefly composed of
scraps, pot-liquor, rice, and vegetables, and both for its excellence
and prudence it commanded Mr. Froggatt's unqualified approbation. All
that distressed his kind heart was to see no liquor but water, except
Cherry's thimbleful of port; he could not enjoy his glass of porter,
and shook his head--perhaps not without reason--when he found that
his young assistant's diet was on no more generous scale, and was not
satisfied by Felix's laughing argument that it was impossible to be
more than perfectly healthy and strong. 'False economy,' said the old
man in private; but Felix was not to be persuaded into what he
believed to be an unnecessary drain on the family-finances, and was
still more stout against the hint that if Redstone discovered this
prudential abstinence, it might make him 'disagreeable.' Felix had
gone his way regardless of far too many sneers for poverty and so-
called meanness to make any concession on their account, though the
veiled jealousy and guarded insolence of that smart 'gent' the
foreman had been for the last three years the greatest thorn in his
side. And at least he made this advance, that the errand-boy cleaned
the shoes!
Geraldine, though shy at first from the utter seclusion in which she
had lived, put forth a pretty bashful graciousness that perfectly
enchanted Mr. Froggatt, who was besides much touched by her patient
helplessness. He became something between her grandfather and her
knight, loading her with flowers, giving her the run of the
circulating library, and whenever it was fine enough, taking her for
a mile or two in his low basket-carriage either before or after his
day's business in the shop. It was not exactly like being with her
only other friend, Mr. Audley; but he was a thoroughly kind, polite,
and by no means unlettered old man; and Geraldine enjoyed and was
grateful, while the children were his darlings, and were encouraged
to take all manner of liberties with him.
Among the advantages of the change was the having Felix always at
hand; and though she really did not see him oftener in the course of
the day than at St. Oswald's Buildings, still the knowing him to be
within reach gave great contentment to Cherry. The only disadvantage
was that he lost his four daily walks to and fro, and hardly ever had
sufficient fresh air and exercise. He was indeed on his feet for the
most of the day, but not exerting his muscles; and all taste for the
active sports in which his kind old master begged him to join seemed
to have passed away from him when care fell upon him. He tried not to
hold his head above the young men of his adopted rank, many of whom
had been his school-fellows; but, except with the members of the
choir and choral society, he had no common ground, and there were
none with whom he could form a friendship. Thus he never had any real
relaxation, except music, and his Sunday walks, besides his evenings
with his sisters and of play with the children. It was not a natural
life for a youth, but it seemed to suit with his disposition; for
though not given to outbursts of animal spirits, he was always full
of a certain strong and supporting cheerfulness.
Indeed, though they did not like to own it to themselves, the young
people had left behind them much of the mournfulness of the widowed
household, which had borne down their youthful spirits; and though
the three elders could never be as those who had grown up without
care or grief, yet their sunshine could beam forth once more, and
helped them through the parting with their best friend. For Mr.
Audley's sister-in-law died in the beginning of June, and his father
entreated him to go abroad with his brother, so that he was hurried
away directly after midsummer, after having left his books in Felix's
charge, and provided for the reception of the dividends in his
absence.
His successor was a quiet amiable young Mr. Bisset, not at all
disinclined to cultivate Felix as a link with the tradesfolk; only he
had brought with him a mother, a very nice, prim, gentle-mannered,
black-eyed lady, who viewed all damsels of small means as perilous to
her son. Had she been aware that Bexley contained anything so white
and carnation, so blue-eyed and straight-featured, so stately, and so
penniless as Wilmet Underwood, he would never have taken the Curacy.
She was a kind woman, who would have taken infinite pains to serve
the orphan girls; and she often called on them; but when the Rector's
wife had told her that such a set had been made at Mr. Audley that he
could bear it no longer, it was but a natural instinct to cherish her
son's bashfulness.
That autumn Wilmet came home elevated by the news that the head
teacher was going to retire at Christmas, and that she was to be
promoted to her place of forty pounds a year. Her successor was
coming immediately to be trained, being in fact the daughter of Miss
Pearson's sister, who had married an officer in the army. She had
been dead about three years, and the girl had been living in London
with her father, now on half pay, and had attended a day-school until
he married again, and finding his means inadequate to his expenses,
and his wife and daughter by no means comfortable together, he
suddenly flitted to Jersey to retrench, and made over his daughter of
seventeen to her aunts to be prepared for governess-ship.
This was the account Miss Pearson and Miss Maria gave to Wilmet, and
Wilmet repeated to Geraldine, who watched with some interest for the
first report of the newcomer.
'She is rather a nice-looking little thing,' was the first report,
'but I don't know whether we shall get on together.'
The next was, 'Miss Maria has been begging me to try to draw her out.
They are quite distressed about her, she is so stiff and cold in her
ways with them, and they think she cries in her own room.'
'Poor thing, how forlorn she must be! Cannot you comfort her,
Mettie?'
'She will have nothing to say to me! She is civil and dry, just as
she is to them.'
'I think she can talk,' said Angela.
'How do you know anything about it, little one? said Wilmet.
'I heard her talking away to Lizzie Bruce in the arbour at dinner-
time. Her face looked quite different then from what it does in
school.'
'Then I hope she is settling down to be happier,' said Wilmet
thoughtfully; but, having watched Angela out of hearing, she added,
'Not that I think Lizzie Bruce a good friend; she is rather a weak
girl, and is flattered by Carry Price making a distinction between
her and some of the others.'
'When is Carry Price ever going to leave school?'
'When she can play Mendelssohn well enough to satisfy Mr. Bevan. I
wonder Lady Price does keep her on here, but in the meantime we can
only make the best of her.'
A day or two later, Wilmet and Angela came in from school eager,
indignant, and victorious.
'You did manage it well! the younger was saying. 'I was so glad you
saw for yourself.--Just fancy, Cherry, there were Carry Price and
Lizzie Bruce turning out all the most secret corners of Miss
Knevett's work-box, laughing at them, and asking horrid impertinent
questions, and she was almost crying.'
'And you fetched Wilmet?'
'She was sitting out in the garden, showing some of the little ones
how to do their crochet--it was the play-time after dinner--and I
just went to her and whispered in her ear, and so she strolled
quietly by the window.'
'Yes,' added Wilmet, 'and before I came to it Edith was saying to
Jane Martin, on purpose for me to hear, that she thought it would be
a good thing if Miss Underwood would look into the school-room. So
Angel was not getting into a scrape.'
'I should not have minded if I had,' said Angel; 'it was such a
shame, and she looks such a dear--'
'There she was,' said Wilmet, 'her fingers shaking, and her eyes full
of tears, trying to do some work, while Carry Price went on in her
scoffing voice, laughing over all the little treasures and jewels,
and asking who gave them to her, and what they cost. All I could do
was to put my hand on her shoulder and say I saw she did not like it;
and then Lizzie Bruce looked ashamed, but Miss Price bristled up, and
declared that Miss Knevett had unlocked the box herself. Then the
poor child burst out that she had only said she would show her
Maltese cross; she had never asked them to turn everything out, and
meddle with it; and Carry tossed her head, just like my Lady, and
said, "Oh, very well, they did not want to see her trumpery, since
she was so cross about it. I suppose you mean to show the things one
by one to the little girls! A fine exhibition!" She cried out,
"Exhibit! I don't mean to exhibit at all; I only showed it to you as
my friend!" Whereupon Carry Price flounced off with, "As if I were
going to make a friend of an underteacher!" and she went into a
tremendous fit of crying, like what you used to have, Cherry, except
that it was more passionate!'
'I'm sure I never had anything like that to cry for. What did you do
with her? How lucky she had you!'
'Why, when she went on sobbing, "I'll not stay here," "I won't be
insulted." "I'll tell my aunts," my great object was to get her
upstairs, and to silence her, for I was sure Miss Pearson would
dislike nothing so much as having a regular complaint from her about
Carry; and, besides that, all the girls, who pity her now, would be
turned against her, and think her a mischief-maker. I did get her up
at last, and, oh dear! what a scene we had! Poor thing, I suppose she
has been a spoilt child, going to a lady's fashionable institute, as
she calls it, where she was a great girl, and rather looked up to,
for the indulgences she got from her father--very proud, too, of
being a major's daughter. Then came the step-mother; what things she
said about her, to be sure! No end of misery, and disputes--whose
fault, I am sure I don't know; then a crisis of debts. She says it
was all Mrs. Knevett's extravagance; but Miss Pearson told me before
that she thought it had been going on a long time; and at last, when
the father and his wife and her child go off to Jersey, this poor
girl is turned over to the aunts she never saw since her mother died,
twelve years ago.'
'I dare say it is the best thing for her.'
'If she can only think so; but she fancies the being a teacher the
most horrid thing in the world.'
'Oh, Wilmet!' interrupted Angela; 'why, you like teaching: and Robin
means to be a real governess, and so do I, if I am not a Sister!'
'Me too,' called out Stella.
'But you see this unlucky girl can't understand that teaching may be
a real way of doing good; she fancies it a degradation. She says she
and her friends at her institute hated and despised the teachers, and
played all manner of tricks upon them.'
'How foolish the teachers must have been!'
'She did say something about their being low and mean. She did me the
favour to say not like me, and that she was quite shocked to find I
was one of this dreadful race. It was quite amazing to her when I
told her how Robina's dear Miss Lyveson keeps school without
necessity, only to be useful. You may imagine what it is to her to be
plunged all on a sudden into this unhappy class. She began by trying
to take her old place as an officer's daughter, and to consort with
the girls; but I think if she and Carry Price were left to one
another, she would very soon sink as low as any of the poor hounded
teachers she describes.'
'She must be very silly and conceited.'
'No, I think she is sensible, and loving too, at the bottom,' said
Wilmet, 'only every one is strange here. I think she will understand
better soon; and in the meantime she has quite forgiven me for being
a teacher. She clung about me, and called me all sorts of pretty
names--her only friend, and so forth.'
'Perhaps she can forgive you for being a teacher, in consideration of
your being a twin,' said Cherry.
'There, Cherry, you understand her better already than I do! I'll
bring her to you, I have not time for such a friendship.'
'Poor thing! I should like to try to comfort her, if she is strange
and dreary; but I think she must be rather a goose. What's her name?'
'Alice; but in school Miss Pearson is very particular about having
her called Miss Knevett. We have exchanged Christian names in
private, of course.'
'You horrid old prosy thing of four U's,' said Geraldine. 'You are
sitting up there, you great fair creature, you, for the poor child to
worship and adore, and not reciprocating a bit!'
'Of course,' said Wilmet, 'if she can't be happy without being
petted, I must pet her, and let her be nonsensical about me; but I
think it is all great stuff, and that you will suit her much better
than I ever shall.'
'Do you never mean to have a friend, Mettie?'
'Oh no, I haven't time; besides, I've got Alda.'
Geraldine had, however, many dreams about the charms of friendship.
She read of it in the books that Felix selected for her; and Robina
had a vehement affection for a schoolfellow whose hair and whose
carte she treasured, and to whom she would have written daily
during the holidays but for the cost of stamps. The equality and
freedom of the letters she received always made Cherry long for the
like. Since Edgar had left her, she had never been on those equal
terms with any one; Wilmet was more like mother or aunt than sister;
and though Felix had a certain air of confidence and ease when with
her, and made her his chief playfellow, he could not meet all her
tastes or all her needs; and there was a sort of craving within her
for intimacy with a creature of her own species.
And though Wilmet's description of Alice Knevett did not sound
particularly wise, Cherry, in her humility, deemed her the more
secure of being on her own level, not so sensible and intolerant of
little dreams, fancies, and delusions as those two sensible people,
the twin sisters. So she watched impatiently for the introduction;
and at last Wilmet said, 'Well, she is coming to tea to-morrow
evening. Little ridiculous chit, she bridled and doubted, but as you
were an invalid, she supposed she might, only it was not what she had
been used to, and Papa "might object."'
'What? To the shop? Well, I really think she had better not come!
I'll have nobody here that thinks it a favour, and looks down on
Felix.'
'My dear, if she contrives to look down on Felix after she has seen
him, she will deserve anything you please. Just now, I believe the
foolishness is in her school, and not in herself.'
Nevertheless, Geraldine's eagerness underwent a great revulsion.
Instead of looking forward to the visit, she expected it with dread,
and dislike to the pert, conceited, flippant Londoner, who despised
her noble brother, and aspired to the notice of Carry Price. Her
nervous shrinking from strangers--the effect of her secluded life--
increased on her every moment of that dull wet afternoon; her feet
grew cold, her cheeks hot, and she could hardly find temper or
patience for the many appeals of Bernard and Stella for her
attention.
Her foolish little heart was palpitating as if a housebreaker were
entering instead of Wilmet, conducting a dainty cloud of fresh lilac
muslin, out of which appeared a shining black head, and a smiling
sparkling face, with so much life and play about the mouth and eyes
that there was no studying their form or colour, and it was only
after a certain effort that it could be realised that Alice Knevett
was a glowing brunette, with a saucy little nose, retrousse, though
very pretty, a tiny mouth full of small pearls, and eyes of black
diamond.
In spite of her gracious manner, and evident consciousness of her own
condescension, the winsomeness of the dancing eyes fascinated Cherry
at once. Indeed, the simplicity and transparency of her little
dignities disarmed all displeasure, they were so childish; and they
vanished in a moment in a game at play with Bernard and Stella. When
Wilmet brought out Geraldine's portfolio, her admiration was
enthusiastic if not critical.
A sketch of Wilmet and Alda enchanted her; she had never seen
anything so lovely or so well done.
'No, no,' said Cherry, rather shocked, 'you must have seen the Royal
Academy.'
'Oh, but I am sure this ought to be in the Royal Academy; I never saw
anything there that I liked half so much. How clever you must be!'
Cherry could not but laugh at the extravagant compliment. 'My brother
Edgar draws much better than that,' she said, producing a capital
water-colour of a group of Flemish market-women.
'I shall always like yours best. Oh! and what is this?'
'I did not know it was there,' said Cherry, colouring, and trying to
take it away.
'Oh, let me look. What! Is it a storm, or a regatta, or fishing
boats? What is that odd light? What is written under? "The waves of
this troublesome world." Why, that is in the Bible, is not it?'
'Thirteen boats, Cherry,' said Wilmet; 'is that a device of your
own?'
'What, not copied? Oh dear! I wish I was so clever!'
'It is the sea of this life, isn't it?' said Angela, coming up. 'Is
it ourselves, Cherry, all making for the golden light of Heaven, and
the star of faith guiding them?'
'She reads it like a book,' exclaimed Alice. 'And those two close
together--that means love, I suppose!'
'Love and help, the weak and the strong,' said Geraldine, in her
earnest dreamy voice.
'Do pray make a picture of my boat on a nice smooth sea of light; I
don't like rocks and breakers, such as you have done there.'
'There always must be a last long wave,' said Cherry.
'Oh, but don't let us think about horrid things. I like the summer
sea. Aren't there some verses--
'"Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm?"'
'That would not be a pleasant augury,' said Cherry. 'Do you know what
this is meant for, bad as it is? Longfellow's verses--'
'The phantom host that beleaguered the walls of Prague? How can you
draw such things?'
'So I say,' observed Wilmet.
'They come and haunt me, and I feel as if I must.'
'Who is this kneeling on the wall? He looks like a knight watching
his armour.'
'So he is,' said Cherry.
'But there is nothing about him in the poem. Did you make him for
yourself?'
'Why, he is Ferdinand Travis!' exclaimed Wilmet.
'What, is it a real man? I thought it was somebody in a story.'
'I see! said Angela quietly. 'He is watching his armour the night
before he was baptized.'
For the child had never forgotten the adult baptism, though she had
been little more than four years old at the time; but she was one of
those little ones to whom allegory seems a natural element, with
which they have more affinity than with the material world.
However, the mention of Ferdinand Travis led to the history of the
fire at the hotel, and of his recovery, Alice declared that
'everything nice' seemed to happen at Bexley, and was laughed at for
her peculiar ideas of niceness; but there was something in the
feminine prattle that was wonderfully new and charming to Geraldine,
while, on the other hand, the visitor was conscious of a stimulus and
charm that she had never previously experienced; and the eager
tongues never flagged till Felix came in. He had evidently taken
pains with his toilette, in honour of the unusual event; and the
measured grave politeness of his manners renewed Alice's scared
punctilious dignity of demeanour, and entire consciousness that she
was a major's daughter and he a bookseller.
But Felix had brought in some exciting Eastern news; and Alice put on
an air capable, as one connected with India and the army, but she
soon found out the deficiency of her geography, and was grateful for
the full clear explanations, while her amour propre was gratified
by finding that her familiarity with a few Indian terms was valuable.
Before the end of the evening all were at ease, and she was singing
with Felix and Wilmet at the old piano.
No sooner had the door shut on her when the maid came to fetch her,
than a storm fell on Wilmet.
'So that's what you call rather nice-looking?'
'Well, she is under-sized and very brown, but I did think you would
have allowed that she was rather pretty.'
'Rather!' exclaimed Cherry indignantly.
'That's what it is to be a handsome woman!' said Felix.
'Do you mean to say that you think her anything remarkable?' said
Wilmet.
'Say no more, my dear W. W.,' laughed Felix. 'I never understood
before why negroes don't admire white people.'
'I am sure I don't know what you are talking about,' said Wilmet,
betaking herself to her darning with great good-humour. 'Alice
Knevett is prettier than I thought she was when she was all tears and
airs; but I can't see any remarkable beauty to rave about.'
'No, _you_ can't,' said Geraldine merrily. 'You look much too high
over her head, but you see I don't; and such a little sparkling
diamond beetle is a real treat to me.'
And Geraldine often enjoyed the treat.
In a very short time the green door and steep stairs were as familiar
to Alice as to the Underwoods themselves, for her aunts were thankful
to have her happy and safe, and she was rapturously fond of
Geraldine, reflecting and responding to most of her sentiments. Most
of the Underwoods had the faculty of imprinting themselves upon the
characters of their friends, by taking it for granted that they felt
alike; and Alice Knevett had not spent six weeks at Bexley before she
had come to think it incredible that she had thought either teaching
or the Underwoods beneath her. She was taking pains to do her work
well, and enjoying it, and was being moulded into a capital
subordinate to Wilmet; while with Geraldine she read and talked over
her books, obtained illustrations for the poetry she wrote out in her
album, and brought in a wholesome air of chatter, which made Cherry
much more girl-like than she had ever been before. It was an
importation of something external, something lively and interesting,
which was very refreshing to all; and even Felix, in his grave
politeness and attention to his sister's friend, manifested that so
far from being in his way, as they had feared, he found her a very
agreeable element when she joined the home party or the Sunday walk.
Indeed, there was a certain tendency to expansion about the life of
the young people; the pinch of poverty was less griping than
previously, and their natural spirits rose. In January Lance was
allowed to bring his friend Harewood to a concert of the choral
society; and on the following evening Alice Knevett came to tea, and
there was a series of wonderful charades, chiefly got up by Clement
and Robina, and of comic songs by Lance and Bill Harewood--all with
such success, that Alice declared that she had never seen anything so
delightful in all her experience of London Christmases!
The young people really seemed to have recovered elasticity enough
that year to think of modest treats and holidays as they had never
ventured to do since that memorable sixteenth birthday of Felix's.
Here was his twenty-first not very far off; and when it was announced
that this identical 3rd of July had been fixed on for a grand choral
meeting at the Cathedral, at which the choir of Bexley was to assist,
there was such a spirit of enterprise abroad in the family, that
Geraldine suggested that Wilmet might take Robina to see the
Cathedral and hear Lance.
'Lance will be just what will not be heard,' said Felix. 'They will
not show off their solos; but the Robin ought to have the pleasure,
if possible; and as I go in two capacities, press and choir, I hope
we can manage it for her.'
He came in full early for the evening. 'All right,' he said. 'Two
tickets are come for the Pursuivant, and Mr. Froggatt says he would
not go at any price; and besides, each of the choir may take a
friend--so that's three.'
'Am I to be reporter or friend?' asked Wilmet.
'Reporter, I think, for you will have to do audience.'
'Nay, Cherry ought to be the gentleman connected with the press,'
said Wilmet, for in fact Geraldine did sometimes do copying and
correcting work for her brother; 'and, indeed, I do not see why she
should not. We could go home directly after morning service, and
leave you there.'
'Oh no, impossible,' said Geraldine, 'it would never do; it would
only spoil everybody's pleasure, and be too much for me.'
'I think you are wise,' said Felix; and somehow it struck her with a
prick that he had rather the proposal had not been made. 'There is
sure to be a great crush, and I may be obliged to be with the choir.'
'I am quite able to take care of her, I can always lift her,' said
Wilmet, surprised.
'I would not go on any account,' protested Cherry. 'I should be like
the old woman in that Servian proverb, who paid five dollars to go to
the fair, and would have paid ten to be safe at home again.'
'There might be no getting a bench fit for you to sit upon,' added
Felix, who, as a gentleman of the press, was not devoid of
experience. 'I could not be easy about you, my dear; it is much safer
not.'
'Perhaps so,' owned Wilmet, disappointed; 'but Angel is too little
for such a long day, and Cherry is so much stronger, that I
thought--'
'Oh, but could not Alice Knevett go?' put in Cherry.
'A very good suggestion,' said Felix. 'She hardly ever has any
amusements. Well thought of, Whiteheart!'
I believe he thought of it from the first, felt Geraldine, angry with
herself that this conviction gave a prick like the point of a needle.
She threw her energies into the scheme, and was begging Wilmet to go
and make the proposal, when there was a sudden peal of the bell, a
headlong trampling rush, a dash open of the door--Theodore began to
hum the anthem 'How beautiful,' the other three small ones hailed
'Lance' at the top of their voices, and his arms were round the neck
of the first sister who came in his way.
'What, Lance! how came you here?'
'Our organ is tuning up its pipes--man comes to-morrow--Prayers in
the Lady Chapel and not choral, and it's a holiday at school, so I
got off by the 5.20, and need not go back till the 6.10 to-morrow. We
are practising our throats out to lead you all on the 3rd. You know
yon are coming, the whole kit of you.'
'Do we?' said Wilmet. 'It is only for the last ten minutes that we
have known that any of us were coming.'
'All right; that's what I'm come about. Robina must be got home.
'She will be come. She comes on the 1st.'
'That's right; then there's to be a great spread in Bishop's Meads
between services. Everybody sends provisions, and asks their friends;
but Cherry is to go and rest at the Harewoods'. The governor will get
her in through the library into the north transept as quiet as a
lamb, no squash at all. It is only along the cloister--a hop, step,
and lump; and Miles has promised me the snuggest little seat for her.
Then the Harewood sofa--'
'It is too much, Lance,' began Cherry. 'Mrs. Harewood--'
'Don't be absurd; she wishes it with all her heart. She won't want a
ticket if Mr. Harewood smuggles her in, but I can get as many as you
want. How many--Wilmet, Cherry, Robin, Angel, and Miss Knevett.
She'll come, won't she?'
'We were thinking of going to ask her.'
'I'll do it; I've brought my own ticket for a friend for her; here it
is, with L. O. U. in the corner. I'll run down with it before any one
else cuts in.'
'Hold hard,' said Felix; 'we shall not get her if you set about it in
that wild way!'
'Oh, but I'll promise Wilmet shall take her in tow, and if anything
will pacify the old girls, that will.'
'You had better let me come with you,' said Wilmet.
'Look sharp then. Is it a practising night? Yes, that's well; Miles
is in a state of mind at the short notice, and has crammed me choke-
full of messages; he says it will save his coming down; come along,
then, W. W., and soft-sawder the venerable aunts.'
No more of this operation was necessary than the assurance that Miss
Underwood was going, and that Mrs. Harewood would be a sort of
chaperon. Alice Knevett was happy and grateful; and if anything were
wanting to the universal enthusiasm of anticipation, it was supplied
by Lance. The boy, with his musical talent, thorough trustworthiness
and frank joyous manners, was a favourite with the organist, and was
well versed in the programme; and his eagerness, and fulness of
detail, were enough to infect every one. Geraldine thought it was
great proof of his unspoilableness, that he took quite as much
pleasure in bringing them to these services, where he would be but a
unit in the hundreds, as if it had been one of the anthems, of which
every one said, 'Have you heard little Underwood?' In the charm of
the general welcome and the congratulation on Lance's arrangement,
Geraldine had quite forgotten both her alarms and her tiny pang of
surprise at not having been Felix's prime thought. Lance, by dint of
a judicious mixture of hectoring and coaxing, obtained leave for
Angela to be of the party, though against Wilmet's judgment; and
Bernard and Stella were to spend the day with Mrs. Froggatt, which
they regarded as an expedition quite as magnificent as that to St.
Mary's Minster.
Mr. Froggatt was almost as eager about this pleasure for 'his young
people,' as he called them, as they could be. He came in early to
drive Geraldine to the station, and looked with grandfatherly
complacency at the four sisters, who had ventured on the extravagance
of white pique and black ribbons, and in their freshness looked as
well-dressed as any lady in the land.
He entertained Cherry all the way with his admiration of Wilmet's
beauty and industry, and when arrived at the station, waited there
with her till first the three girls came up with Alice Knevett, white
with pink ribbons, and then the choir arrived, marching with the
banner with the rood of St. Oswald before them, each with a blue
satin bow in his button-hole, and the bag with his surplice under his
arm, the organist, the schoolmaster, and the two curates, bringing up
the rear. Mr. Bevan, my Lady, and Miss Price, whirled up in the
carriage, the omnibus discharged the friends of the choir, and two
waggon loads of musical talent from the villages came lumbering and
cheering in! The very train roared and shrieked in with a sound of
cheering from its vertebrae, and banners were projecting from the
windows, amid nodding heads and waving handkerchiefs of all colours;
the porters ran about distracted, and Geraldine began to be alarmed,
and to think of the old woman of Servia, but behold, Felix had her on
one side, Mr. Froggatt on the other, a solid guard held open the
door, and protected her from the rush, and before she well knew what
they were doing with her, she was lying on the seat of the carriage,
with her sisters and Alice all in a row in front of her; the recently
crowded platform was empty of all but a stray porter, the
stationmaster, and Mr. Froggatt kissing his hand, and promising to
come and fetch her on her return.
The train seemed hardly to have attained its full speed before it
slackened again, and another merry load was disposed of within its
joints. Another start, another arrival; and before the motion was
over, a flash of sunny looks had glanced before the sisters' eyes.
There was Lance, perfectly radiant, under his square trencher cap--
hair, eyes, cheeks, blue bow, boots, and all, seeming to sparkle with
delight as he snatched open the door.
'Hurrah! there they are. Give her out to me, Wilmet!' (as if she had
been a parcel).
'Stay, wait for Felix. You can't---'
Felix rushed up from his colleagues of the choir, and Geraldine was
set on her foot and crutch. 'Come along! I've got Ball's chair for
you, and Bill Harewood is sitting in it for fear any one should bone
it. Where's your ticket?'
'Lance, take care! Don't take her faster than she can go!' as he
whisked her over the platform; and Wilmet was impeded by the seeking
for Alice's parasol and Angela's cloak. They were quite out of sight
when Lance had dragged Cherry through the crowd at the door, and
brought her to the wheeled chair just in time to find Bill Harewood
glaring out of it like the red planet Mars, and asseverating that he
was the lame young lady it was hired for.
In went Geraldine, imploring to wait for Wilmet, but all in vain; off
went the chair, owner and escort alike in haste, and she was swept
along, with Lance and Will with a hand holding either side of the
chair, imparting breathless scraps of information, and exchanging
remarks: 'There goes the Archdeacon.' 'The Thorpe choir is not come,
and Miles is mad about it.' 'That's the Town Hall.' 'There's where
Jack licked a cad for bullying.' 'There's a cannon-ball of Oliver
Cromwell's sticking out of that wall.' 'That's the only shop fit to
get gingerbeer at!' 'That old horse in that cab was in the Crimea.'
'We come last in the procession, and if you see a fellow like a sheep
in spectacles, that's Shapcote.' 'Hurrah! what a stunning lot! where
is it from?' 'Bembury? My eyes, if that big fellow doesn't mean to
bawl us all down. Down that way--that's the palace. Whose carriage is
it stopping there! Now, here's the Close.'
'Is that the Cathedral? Oh!'
'You may well say so! No, not that way.' And on rattled poor amazed
Geraldine through an archway, under some lime trees, round a corner,
round another comer, to another arched doorway, with big doors
studded with nails, with a little door for use cut out of one of the
big ones.
'You must get out here,' said Lance, 'we are close by,' and he helped
her out, and paid and thanked the man with the chair. 'Here's our
domain,' he continued, as he introduced Cherry through the open
doorway into a small flagged court, with two houses, gray and old-
fashioned, forming one side, and on the other an equally old long low
building with narrow latticed arched windows. Opposite to the
entrance was a handsome buttressed Gothic-looking edifice, behind
which rose the gable of the north transept of the Cathedral,
beautiful with a rose window, and farther back, far, far above, the
noble tower.
Already everything was very wonderful to Geraldine. 'That's our
kennel,' said Lance, pointing to the low buildings to the right.
'School's behind; but we boarders are put up in one of the old monks'
dormitories, between court and cloister.'
'Is it really!' exclaimed Geraldine.
'So my father says,' said Will. 'Here's our door.' Another stone-
arched passage, almost dark, with doors opening on either side,
seemed common to both houses; and Will was inviting them to enter,
but Lance held back. 'No time,' he said; 'better call your father.'
'The others,' sighed Geraldine.
'Bother the others! That's right: here he is!'
'Halloo, Father!' cried Will; 'we've got Cherry.'
'By which unceremonious designation I imagine you to mean to
introduce Miss Underwood,' said a figure, appearing from beneath the
archway, in trencher cap, surplice, and hood, with white hair, and a
sort of precision and blandness that did not at all agree with
Cherry's preconceived notions of the Harewood household. 'I am very
glad to see you. My ladies, as usual, are unready. Will you have a
glass of wine? No?--What do you say, Lancelot?--Very well, we will
take you in at once. You will not object to waiting there, and this
is the quiet time. --Boys, you ought to be with the choir.'
'Oceans of time, Dad,' coolly answered Will; 'none of the fellows up
there are under weigh.'
Mr. Harewood offered his arm, but perceived that Cherry preferred
Lance and her crutch; advancing to the door opposite that by which
they had entered, he unlocked it, and Geraldine found herself passing
through a beauteous old lofty chamber, with a groined Tudor roof, all
fans, and pendants, and shields; tall windows stained with armorial
bearings, parchment charters and blazoned genealogies against the
walls, and screens upon screens loaded with tomes of all ages,
writing-tables and chairs here and there, and glass-topped tables
containing illuminations and seals. 'Here is my paradise,' said the
librarian, smiling.
'I think it must be,' said Geraldine, with a long breath of wonder
and admiration.
'Ah! would you not like to have a good look, Cherry?' said Lance.
'That's Richard Coeur de Lion's seal in there.'
'Don't begin about it--don't set him on,' whispered Willie, with a
sign of his head towards his father, who was fitting the key into the
opposite door, 'or we shall all stay here for the rest of the day.'
This low door open, Mr. Harewood and the boys bared their heads as
they entered, and Geraldine felt the strange solemn sensation of
finding herself in a building of vast height and majesty, full of a
wonderful stillness, as though the confusion of sounds she had been
in so recently were far, far off.
'Where now, Lancelot?' asked Mr. Harewood, in a hushed voice; 'do you
want me any further?'
'No, thank you, sir, I'll just take her across the choir to Mr.
Miles, and then join the rest of us at the vestry.'
'Good-bye for the present, then,' said Mr. Harewood kindly. 'You are
in safe hands. Your brother comes round every one. _I_ could not do
this.'
Through the side-screen, into the grandly beautiful choir, arching
high above, with stall-work and graceful canopies below, and rich
glass casting down beams of coloured light--all for 'glory and for
beauty,' thought Geraldine.
'You must not stop; you must look when you are settled. That's my
side,' pointing to one of the choristers' desks. 'It will be only we
that sing in here; the congregation is in the nave--a perfect sea of
chairs. I'll come for you when it is over. Here is Mr. Miles. My
sister, sir.'
A pale gentleman in spectacles, with a surplice and beautiful blue
hood, was here addressed. He too greeted Geraldine, very shyly but
kindly, and she found herself expected to ascend some alarming-
looking stone steps. The organ was on the choir screen, and to the
organist's little private gallery was she to ascend. It was a
difficult matter, and she had in her trepidation despairingly
recognised the difference between Lance's good will and Felix's
practised strength; but at last she was landed in an admirable little
cushioned nook, hidden by two tall painted carved canopies--exactly
over the Dean's head, her brother told her--and where, as she sat
sideways, she could see through the quatrefoils into the choir on the
right hand, and the nave on the left. 'Delightful! Oh, thank you, how
kind! If I am only not keeping any one out.'
'No,' said Lance, smiling, and whispering lower than ever, 'he has no
one belonging to him. He hates women. Never a petticoat was here
before in his reign. Have you a book?'
'They are robing, Underwood,' said the misogynist in the organ-loft;
and Lance hurried away, leaving Geraldine alone, palpitating a good
deal, but almost enjoying the solitude, in the vast structure, where
the sanctity of a thousand years of worship seemed to fill the very
air, as she gazed at the white vaultings and bosses carved with
emblems above, at the vista of clustered columns terminating in the
great jewelled west window, or at the crown-like loveliness that
encompassed the sanctuary. All was still, except a deep low tone of
the organ now and then. Mr. Miles looked in after the first, to hope
she did not feel it uncomfortably, and to assure her that though she
was too near his organ, she need not fear its putting forth its full
powers; it was to be kept in subordination, and only guide the
voices. This was great attention from a woman-hater, and Geraldine
ventured to reiterate her thanks; at which he smiled, and said, 'When
one has such a boy as your brother, there is pleasure in doing
anything he wishes. You are musical?'
'I never was able to learn to play.'
'But you can read music?'
'Oh yes,' for she had often copied it.
So he brought her whole sheets of music, and put her in the way of
following and understanding, perceiving, as he went, that she was
full of intelligence and perception.
When he went back to his post, a few groups, looking very small, were
creeping in by transept doors--by favour, like herself: then a little
white figure flitted across to the desks, opened and marked the
books, took up something, and disappeared; and in another moment
Lance, in his broad white folds, was at her side. 'Here's the music.
Oh, you have it! I've seen Fee,' he whispered; 'they are at Mrs.
Harewood's, all right!' and he was gone.
Here she sat, her attention divided between the sacred impressions of
the place, its exceeding beauty, and the advance of the multitude
into the nave, as the doors were open, and they surged up the space
left in the central aisle, and occupied the ranks of chairs prepared
for them. Then came a long pause; she scanned each row in search of
her sisters, and only was confused by the host of heads; felt lost
and lonely, and turned her eyes and mind to the silent grandeur to
the east, rather than the throng to the west.
At last there came the sweet floating sound of the chant, growing in
power like the ocean swell as it approached, and the first bright
banner appeared beneath the lofty pointed archway; and the double
white file came flowing on like a snowy glacier, the chant becoming
clear and high as the singers of each parish marched along to their
places, each ranked under a bright banner with the symbol of their
church's dedication. St. Oswald's rood helped Geraldine to make out
that of Bexley better than their faces, though she did make out her
eldest brother's fair face, and trace him to his seat. The cathedral
singers came at last, and that kenspeckle red head of Will Harewood's
directed her to the less conspicuous locks belonging to Lance, whose
own clear thrush-like note she could catch as he passed beneath the
screen. Then came the long train of parish clergy, the canons, the
Dean, and lastly the Bishop, the sight of whom recalled so much.
The unsurpliced contribution had meantime been ushered in by the side
doors, and filled seats in the rear of the others, so as to add their
voices without marring the general effect--the perfection of which
Geraldine enjoyed--of the white-robed multitude that seemed to fill
the whole chancel.
The sight seemed to inspire her whole soul with a strange yearning
joy, as though she were beholding a faint earthly reflex of the great
vision of the Beloved Disciple; and far more was it so at the sound,
which realised in a measure the words, 'As the voice of mighty
waters, and as the voice of thunder.'
These were the very words that had been selected for the Second
Lesson, and the First consisted of those verses in which we hear of
David's commencement of the continual chant of psalms at the
sanctuary; and both, unwonted as they were, gave a wonderful thrill
to the audience, as though opening to them a new comprehension of
their office as singers of the sanctuary.
There is no need to dwell on the wonderful and touching exhilaration
derived from the harmony of vast numbers with one voice attuned to
praise. It is a sensation which is so nearly a foretaste of eternity,
that participation alone can give the most distant perception
thereof. To the entirely unprepared and highly sensitive Geraldine it
was most overpowering, all the more because she was entirely out of
sight, and without power of taking part by either gesture or posture--
she was passive and had no vent for her emotion.
Lance, who made his way to her round through the transept the moment
he had disrobed, found her pale, panting, tearful, and trembling,
with burning cheeks, so that his exaltation turned to alarm. 'Are you
done up, Cherry? It is too hot up here? Ill try to find Felix or
Wilmet, which?'
'Neither! I am quite well, only--O Lance, I did not know anything
could be so heavenly. There seemed to be the sweeping of angels'
wings all round and over me, and Papa's voice quite clear.'
'I know,' said Lance; 'it always does come in that Te Deum.'
The sister and brother were silent, not yet able for the critical
discussion of single points; only, as he put his arm round her to
help her to rise, she said, with a sigh, 'O Lance, it is a great
thing to be one of them! Thank you. I think this is the greatest day
of all my life.'
The getting her down, what with Lance's inexperience and want of
height and strength, was anxious work; and just as it had been safely
accomplished, the rest of their party were seen roaming the aisle in
distress and perplexity. Geraldine was very glad of Felix's
substantial arm, but she had rather he had omitted that rebuke for
venturesomeness in dealing with her, which would have affronted
Fulbert, but never seemed to trouble Lance, who was only triumphant
in his success; and her perfect contentment charmed away the vexation
which really arose from a slight sense of having neglected her.
The others had been perfectly happy in their several ways, and made
eager comments on their way to the house of Harewood, whither Lance
piloted them--this time by the front way, through the garden, which
lay behind the close--entering, in spite of the mannerly demurs of
the elder ones, through the open door, into a hall whence a voice of
hearty greeting at once ensued. 'Here you are at last; and how's the
poor darling your sister! not over-tired?'
And Cherry, before she was aware, found herself kissed, and almost
snatched away from Felix, to be deposited on a sofa; and while the
like kisses were bestowed on the two little girls, and hospitable
offers showered on all, she was amused by perceiving that good Mrs.
Harewood was endowed with exactly the same grotesque order of
ugliness as her son William; but she was even more engaging, from an
indescribably droll mixture of heedlessness, blundering, and tender
motherliness.
'There, now, you'll just leave her to me, the poor dear; and 
The Pillars of the House, V1 / Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 1823-1901