HOME.
The house is old for this locality--larger than this family could have
afforded, had it been in better condition,--a cheap house out of repair.
It is impossible to see what is the condition of the little garden
before the door; but the bushes are somewhat straggling, and wave their
long arms about in the rising wind. There is a window on either side of
the door, and the house is but two stories high: it is the most
commonplace of houses, perfectly comfortable and uninteresting, so far
as one may judge from without. Inside, the little hall is merely a
passage, with a door on either side, a long row of pegs fastened against
the wall, and a strip of brightly-painted oil-cloth on the floor. The
parlour door is open--there are but two candles, yet the place is
bright; and in it is the lighted window which shines so cheerily into
the silent street. The father sits by the fire in the only easy-chair
which this apartment boasts; the mother moves about on sundry nameless
errands, of which she herself could scarcely give a just explanation;
yet somehow that comfortable figure passing in and out through light and
shadow adds an additional charm to the warmth and comfort of the place.
Two little children are playing on the rug before the fire--very little
children, twins scarcely two years old--one of them caressing the
slippered foot of Mr Atheling, the other seated upon a great paper book
full of little pictures, which serves at once as amusement for the
little mind, and repose for the chubby little frame. They are rosy,
ruddy, merry imps, as ever brightened a fireside; and it is hard to
believe they are of the same family as Charlie and Agnes and Marian. For
there is a woeful gap between the elder and the younger children of this
house--an interval of heavy, tardy, melancholy years, the records of
which are written, many names, upon one gravestone, and upon the hearts
of these two cheerful people, among their children at their own hearth.
They have lived through their day of visitation, and come again into the
light beyond; but it is easy to understand the peculiar tenderness with
which father and mother bend over these last little children--angels of
consolation--and how everything in the house yields to the pretty
childish caprice of little Bell and little Beau.
Yes, of course, you have found it out: everybody finds it out at the
first glance; everybody returns to it with unfailing criticism. To tell
the truth, the house is a very cheap house, being so large a one. Had it
been in good order, the Athelings could never have pretended to such a
“desirable family residence” as this house in Bellevue; and so you
perceive this room has been papered by Charlie and the girls and Mrs
Atheling. It is a very pretty paper, and was a great bargain; but
unfortunately it is not matched--one-half of the pattern, in two or
three places, is hopelessly divorced from the other half. They were very
zealous, these amateur workpeople, but they were not born paperhangers,
and, with the best intentions in the world, have drawn the walls awry.
At the time Mrs Atheling was extremely mortified, and Agnes overcome
with humiliation; but Charlie and Marian thought it very good fun; Papa
burst into shouts of laughter; Bell and Beau chorused lustily, and at
length even the unfortunate managers of the work forgave themselves. It
never was altered, because a new paper is an important consideration
where so many new frocks, coats, and bonnets are perpetually wanting:
everybody became accustomed to it; it was an unfailing source of family
witticism; and Mrs Atheling came to find so much relaxation from her
other cares in the constant mental effort to piece together the
disjointed pattern, that even to her there was consolation in this dire
and lamentable failure. Few strangers came into the family-room, but
every visitor who by chance entered it, with true human perversity
turned his eyes from the comfort and neatness of the apartment, and from
the bright faces of its occupants, to note the flowers and arabesques of
the pretty paper, wandering all astray over this unfortunate wall.
Yet it was a pretty scene--with Marian’s beautiful face at one side of
the table, and the bright intelligence of Agnes at the other--the rosy
children on the rug, the father reposing from his day’s labour, the
mother busy with her sweet familiar never-ending cares; even Charlie,
ugly and characteristic, added to the family completeness. The head of
the house was only a clerk in a merchant’s office, with a modest stipend
of two hundred pounds a-year. All the necessities of the family, young
and old, had to be supplied out of this humble income. You may suppose
there was not much over, and that the household chancellor of the
exchequer had enough to do, even when assisted by that standing
committee with which she consulted solemnly over every little outlay.
The committee was prudent, but it was not infallible. Agnes, the leading
member, had extravagant notions. Marian, more careful, had still a
weakness for ribbons and household embellishments, bright and clean and
new. Sometimes the committee _en permanence_ was abruptly dismissed by
its indignant president, charged with revolutionary sentiments, and a
total ignorance of sound financial principles. Now and then there
occurred a monetary crisis. On the whole, however, the domestic kingdom
was wisely governed, and the seven Athelings, parents and children,
lived and prospered, found it possible to have even holiday dresses, and
books from the circulating library, ribbons for the girls, and toys for
the babies, out of their two hundred pounds a-year.
Tea was on the table; yet the first thing to be done was to open out the
little paper parcels, which proved to contain enclosures no less
important than those very ribbons, which the finance committee had this
morning decided upon as indispensable. Mrs Atheling unrolled them
carefully, and held them out to the light. She shook her head; they had
undertaken this serious responsibility all by themselves, these rash
imprudent girls.
“Now, mamma, what do you think? I told you we could choose them; and the
man said they were half as dear again six months ago,” cried the
triumphant Marian.
Again Mrs Atheling shook her head. “My dears,” said the careful mother,
“how do you think such a colour as this can last till June?”
This solemn question somewhat appalled the youthful purchasers. “It is a
very pretty colour, mamma,” said Agnes, doubtfully.
“So it is,” said the candid critic; “but you know it will fade directly.
I always told you so. It is only fit for people who have a dozen
bonnets, and can afford to change them. I am quite surprised at you,
girls; you ought to have known a great deal better. Of course the colour
will fly directly: the first sunny day will make an end of that. But _I_
cannot help it, you know; and, faded or not faded, it must do till
June.”
The girls exchanged glances of discomfiture. “Till June!” said Agnes;
“and it is only March now. Well, one never knows what may happen before
June.”
This was but indifferent consolation, but it brought Charlie to the
table to twist the unfortunate ribbon, and let loose his opinion. “They
ought to wear wide-awakes. That’s what they ought to have,” said
Charlie. “Who cares for all that trumpery? not old Foggo, I’m sure, nor
Miss Willsie; and they are all the people we ever see.”
“Hold your peace, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, “and don’t say old Foggo,
you rude boy. He is the best friend you have, and a real gentleman; and
what would your papa do with such a set of children about him, if Mr
Foggo did not drop in now and then for some sensible conversation. It
will be a long time before you try to make yourself company for papa.”
“Foggo is not so philanthropical, Mary,” said Papa, for the first time
interposing; “he has an eye to something else than sensible
conversation. However, be quiet and sit down, you set of children, and
let us have some tea.”
The ribbons accordingly were lifted away, and placed in a heap upon a
much-used work-table which stood in the window. The kettle sang by the
fire. The tea was made. Into two small chairs of wickerwork, raised upon
high stilts to reach the table, were hoisted Bell and Beau. The talk of
these small interlocutors had all this time been incessant, but
untranslatable. It was the unanimous opinion of the family Atheling that
you could “make out every word” spoken by these little personages, and
that they were quite remarkable in their intelligibility; yet there were
difficulties in the way, and everybody had not leisure for the close
study of this peculiar language, nor the abstract attention necessary
for a proper comprehension of all its happy sayings. So Bell and Beau,
to the general public, were but a merry little chorus to the family
drama, interrupting nothing, and being interrupted by nobody. Like
crickets and singing-birds, and all musical creatures, their happy din
grew louder as the conversation rose; but there was not one member of
this loving circle who objected to have his voice drowned in the
jubilant uproar of those sweet small voices, the unceasing music of this
happy house.
After tea, it was Marian’s “turn,” as it appeared, to put the little
orchestra to bed. It was well for the little cheeks that they were made
of a more elastic material than those saintly shrines and reliquaries
which pious pilgrims wore away with kissing; and Charlie, mounting one
upon each shoulder, carried the small couple up-stairs. It was touching
to see the universal submission to these infants: the house had been
very sad before they came, and these twin blossoms had ushered into a
second summer the bereaved and heavy household life.
When Bell and Beau were satisfactorily asleep and disposed of, Mrs
Atheling sat down to her sewing, as is the wont of exemplary mothers.
Papa found his occupation in a newspaper, from which now and then he
read a scrap of news aloud. Charlie, busy about some solitary study,
built himself round with books at a side-table. Agnes and Marian, with
great zeal and some excitement, laid their heads together over the
trimming of their bonnets. The ribbon was very pretty, though it was
unprofitable; perhaps in their secret hearts these girls liked it the
better for its unthrifty delicacy, but they were too “well brought up”
to own to any such perverse feeling. At any rate, they were very much
concerned about their pretty occupation, and tried a hundred different
fashions before they decided upon the plainest and oldest fashion of
all. They had taste enough to make their plain little straw-bonnets very
pretty to look at, but were no more skilled in millinery than in
paperhanging, and timid of venturing upon anything new. The night flew
on to all of them in these quiet businesses; and Time went more heavily
through many a festive and courtly place than he did through this little
parlour, where there was no attempt at pleasure-making. When the bonnets
were finished, it had grown late. Mr Foggo had not come this night for
any sensible conversation; neither had Agnes been tempted to join
Charlie at the side-table, where lay a miscellaneous collection of
papers, packed within an overflowing blotting-book, her indisputable
property. Agnes had other ambition than concerned the trimming of
bonnets, and had spoiled more paper in her day than the paper of this
parlour wall; but we pause till the morning to exhibit the gift of Agnes
Atheling, how it was regarded, and what it was.