Jeffreys was not long in finding out the best and the worst of his new
lot at Wildtree Towers. To an ordinary thick-skinned fellow, with his
love of books and partiality for boys, his daily life during the six
months which followed his introduction under Mr Rimbolt's roof might
have seemed almost enviable. The whole of each morning was devoted to
the duties of the library, which, under his conscientious management,
gradually assumed the order of a model collection. A librarian is born,
not made, and Jeffreys seemed unexpectedly and by accident to have
dropped into the one niche in life for which he was best suited. Mr
Rimbolt was delighted to see his treasures gradually emerging from the
chaos of an overcrowded lumber-room into the serene and dignified
atmosphere of a library of well-arranged and well-tended volumes. He
allowed his librarian _carte blanche_ with regard to shelves and
binding. He agreed to knock a third room into the two which already
constituted the library, and to line it with bookcases. He even went
the length of supporting a clever bookbinder at Overstone for several
months with work on his own volumes, and, greatest sacrifice of all,
forebore his craze of buying right and left for the same space of time
until the arrears of work should be overtaken, and a clear idea could be
formed of what he already had and what he wanted. Jeffreys revelled in
the work, and when he discovered that he had to deal with one of the
most valuable private collections in the country, his pride and sense of
responsibility advanced step by step. He occupied his leisure hours in
the study of bibliography; he read books on the old printers and their
works; he spent hours with the bookbinder and printer at Overstone,
studying the mechanism of a book; he even studied architecture, in
connexion with the ventilation and lighting of libraries, and began to
teach himself German, in order to be able to master the stores of book-
lore buried in that rugged language.
All this, then, was congenial and delightful work. He was left his own
master in it, and had the pride of seeing the work growing under his
hands: and when one day Mr Rimbolt arrived from London with a great man
in the world of old books, for the express purpose of exhibiting to him
his treasures, it called an honest flush to the librarian's face to hear
the visitor say, "Upon my word, Rimbolt, I don't know whether to
congratulate you most on your books or the way in which they are kept!
Your librarian is a genius!"
If all his life could have been spent in the shelter of the library
Jeffreys would have had little to complain of. But it was not, and out
of it it needed no great discernment to perceive that he had anything
but a friend in Mrs Rimbolt. She was not openly hostile; it was not
worth her while to wage war on a poor domestic, but she seemed for all
that to resent his presence in the house, and to be possessed of a sort
of nervous desire to lose no opportunity of putting him down.
After about a week, during which time Jeffreys had not apparently taken
her hint as to the arranging of his person in "respectful" raiment.
Walker waited upon the librarian in his chamber with a brown-paper
parcel.
"My lady's compliments," said he, with a grin--he was getting to measure
the newcomer by his mistress's standard--"and hopes they'll suit."
It was a left-off suit of Mr Rimbolt's clothes, with the following
polite note: "As Mr Jeffreys does not appear disposed to accept Mrs
Rimbolt's advice to provide himself with clothes suitable for the post
he now occupies at Wildtree Towers, she must request him to accept the
accompanying parcel, with the wish that she may not again have occasion
to refer to so unpleasant a subject."
Jeffreys flushed scarlet as he read this elegant effusion, and, greatly
to Walker's astonishment crushed the letter up into a ball and flung it
out of the window.
"Take that away!" he shouted, pointing to the parcel.
"The mistress sent it for--"
"Take it away, do you hear?" shouted Jeffreys, starting up with a face
so terrible that Walker turned pale, and evacuated the room with the
offending parcel as quickly as possible.
Jeffreys' outburst of temper quickly evaporated, and indeed gave place
to a much more prolonged fit of shame. Was this like conquering the
evil in his nature, to be thus thrown off his balance by a trifle?
As it happened, he had ordered a suit of clothes in Overstone some days
back, and was expecting them that very afternoon.
Mr Rimbolt, on the day after his engagement, had as delicately as
possible offered him a quarter's salary in advance, which Jeffreys,
guessing the source which inspired the offer, had flatly refused. Mr
Rimbolt's gentlemanly urging, however, and the consciousness that his
present clothes were disreputable, as well as another consideration,
induced him to accept a month's stipend; and on the strength of this he
had visited the Overstone tailor.
But before doing so he had discharged his mind of a still more important
duty. The sense of the debt still due to Bolsover had hung round his
neck night and day. It was not so much on Mr Frampton's account. He
came gradually to hate the thought of Bolsover, and the idea of being a
defaulter to the place worried him beyond measure. It seemed like an
insult to the memory of poor young Forrester to owe money to the place
which had witnessed that terrible tragedy; and the hope of washing his
hands once for all of the school and its associations was the one faint
gleam of comfort he had in looking back on the events of last year. It
was therefore with a feeling of almost fierce relief that he procured a
post-office order for the balance of his debt on the very afternoon of
receiving the money, and enclosing it with merely his name added--for he
wanted no receipt, and felt that even Mr Frampton's letters would now
no longer be of service to him--he posted it with his own hands, and
hoped that he was done with Bolsover for ever. After that, with very
different emotions, he visited the tailor.
The clothes arrived on the same afternoon which had witnessed the
summary rejection of Mrs Rimbolt's gift. That lady, from whom Walker
had considered it prudent to keep back some of the particulars of his
interview with the librarian, merely reporting "that Mr Jeffreys was
much obliged, but did not require the things," took to herself all the
credit of his improved appearance when that evening Mr Rimbolt brought
him in from the library to have coffee in the drawing-room.
Jeffreys, aware that he was undergoing inspection, felt very shy and
awkward, but could not quite do away with the improvement, or conceal
that, despite his ugly face and ungainly figure there was something of
the gentleman about him.
Mrs Rimbolt by no means approved of her husband bringing his librarian
into the drawing-room. She considered it a slight to herself and
dangerous to Percy and Raby to have this person added to their family
circle; and she most conscientiously made a point of lessening that
danger on every occasion, by reminding him of his place and rendering
his temporary visits to exalted latitudes as uncomfortable as possible.
Mr Rimbolt, good easy-going gentleman, shrugged his shoulders and felt
powerless to interfere, and when, after a week or two, his librarian
generally pleaded some pressing work as an excuse for not going in to
coffee, he understood it quite well and did not urge the invitation.
Percy, however, had a very different way of comporting himself. What he
liked he liked; what he did not like he most conveniently ignored. He
was anything but a model son, as the reader has discovered. He loved
his parents, indeed, but he sadly lacked that great ornament of youth--a
dutiful spirit. He was spoiled, and got his own way in everything. He
ruled Wildtree Towers, in fact. If his mother desired him to do what he
did not like, he was for the time being deaf, and did not hear her. If
he himself was overtaken in a fault, he changed the subject and talked
cheerily about something else. If one of his great "dodges" came to a
ridiculous end, he promptly screened it from observation by a new one.
From the day of the kidnapping adventure he was a sworn ally of
Jeffreys. It mattered nothing to him who else snubbed the new
librarian, or who else made his life uncomfortable. Percy liked him and
thought much of him. He established a claim on his afternoons, in spite
of Mrs Rimbolt's protests and Mr Rimbolt's arrangements. Even
Jeffreys' refusal to quit work at his bidding counted for nothing. He
represented to his mother that Jeffreys was necessary to his safety
abroad, and to his father that Jeffreys would be knocked up if he did
not take regular daily exercise. He skilfully hinted that Jeffreys read
Aeschylus with him sometimes; and once, as a crowning argument, produced
a complete "dodge," perfected and mechanically clever, "which," he
asserted, "Jeff made me stick to till I'd done."
Mr Rimbolt did not conceal the satisfaction with which he noticed the
good influence on the boy of his new friend, and readily fell in with
the arrangement that Jeffreys' afternoons should be placed at his own
(which meant Percy's) disposal. As for Mrs Rimbolt, she groaned to
think of her boy consorting with quondam tramps, yet consoled herself
with the knowledge that Percy had now some one who would look after him
and keep him out of danger, even with a vulgar right arm.
Jeffreys accepted this new responsibility cheerfully, and even eagerly.
It sometimes came over him with a shock, what would these people say if
they knew about young Forrester? Yet was not this care of a boy given
to him now as a means, if not of winning back his good name, at least of
atoning in some measure by the good he would try to do him, and the
patience with which he would bear with his exacting ways for what was
past? It was in that spirit he accepted the trust, and felt happy in
it.
As the summer passed on, Wildtree, the moors around which were famous
for their game, became full of visitors. The invasion did not disturb
Jeffreys, for he felt that he would be able to retire into private life
and avoid it. The company numbered a few boys of Percy's age, so that
even that young gentleman would not be likely to require his services
for a while. He therefore threw himself wholly into his work, and with
the exception of an hour each afternoon, when he took a turn on the
hill-side, showed himself to no one.
On one of these occasions, as he was strolling through the park towards
the moor, he encountered Miss Atherton, very much laden with a camp-
stool, a basket, a parasol, and a waterproof. Shy as he was, Jeffreys
could hardly pass her without offering to relieve her of part of her
burden. "May I carry some of those things?" said he.
He had scarcely exchanged words with Raby since the day of his first
arrival; and though he secretly numbered her among his friends, he had
an uncomfortable suspicion that she looked down on him, and made an
effort to be kind to him.
"Thanks, very much," said she, really glad to get rid of some of her
burdens; "if you wouldn't mind taking the chair. But I'm afraid you are
going the other way."
"No," said Jeffreys, taking the chair, "I was going nowhere in
particular. May I not take the waterproof and basket too?"
"The basket is far too precious," said Raby, smiling; "it has grapes in
it. But if you will take this horrid waterproof--"
"There is not much use for waterproofs this beautiful weather," said
Jeffreys, beginning to walk beside her. Then, suddenly recollecting
himself, with a vision of Mrs Rimbolt before his mind, he fell back,
and said awkwardly,--
"Perhaps I had better--I must not detain you, Miss Atherton."
She saw through him at once, and laughed.
"You propose to follow me with those things as if I was an Eastern
princess! Perhaps I had better carry them myself if you are afraid of
me."
"I'm not afraid of you," said Jeffreys.
"But you are afraid of auntie. So am I--I hope she'll meet us. What
were you saying about the weather, Mr Jeffreys?"
Jeffreys glanced in alarm at his audacious companion. He had nothing
for it after this challenge but to walk with her and brave the
consequences. There was something in her half-mutinous, half-confiding
manner which rather interested him, and made the risk he was now running
rather exhilarating.
"Percy seems to have forsaken you," said she, after a pause, "since his
friends came. I suppose he is sure to be blowing his brains out or
something of the sort on the moors."
"Percy is a fine fellow, and certainly has some brains to blow,"
observed Jeffreys solemnly.
Raby laughed. "He's quite a reformed character since you came," said
she; "I'm jealous of you!"
"Why?"
"Oh, he cuts me, now he has you! He used about once a week to offer to
show me what he was doing. Now he only offers once a month, and then
always thinks better of it."
"The thing is to get him to work at one thing at a time," said Jeffreys,
to whom Percy was always an interesting study. "As soon as he has
learned that art he will do great things."
"I think Percy would make a fine soldier," said Raby, with an enthusiasm
which quite captivated her companion, "he's so brave and honest and
determined. Isn't he?"
"Yes, and clever too."
"Of course; but my father always says a man needn't be clever to be a
good soldier. He says the clever soldiers are the least valuable."
"Was your father a soldier?"
"Was? He is. He's in Afghanistan now."
"In the middle of all the fighting?"
"Yes," said Raby, with a shade across her bright face. "It's terrible,
isn't it? I half dread every time I see a letter or a newspaper. Mr
Jeffreys!" added the girl, stopping short in her walk, "my father is the
best and bravest man that ever lived."
"I know he is," said Jeffreys, beginning to wonder whether some of the
father's good qualities were not hereditary.
Raby looked up curiously and then laughed.
"You judge of him by seeing how heroic I am braving my aunt's wrath! Oh
dear, I do hope she meets us. It would be such a waste of courage if
she doesn't."
"I have benefited by your courage," said Jeffreys, quite staggered at
his own gallantry.
"I expect you're awfully dull in that old library," said the girl; "you
should hear how uncle praises you behind your back! Poor auntie--"
At that moment they turned a corner of the shrubbery leading up to the
house, and found themselves suddenly face to face with Mrs Rimbolt with
a gentleman and two or three of her lady guests. Jeffreys flushed up as
guiltily as if he had been detected in a highway robbery, and absolutely
forgot to salute. Even Raby, who was not at all sure that her aunt had
not overheard their last words, was taken aback and looked confused.
Mrs Rimbolt bridled up like a cat going into action. She took in the
situation at a glance, and drew her own inferences.
"Raby, my dear," said she, "come with us. Colonel Brotherton wishes to
see Rodnet Force, and we are going there. Oh, Mr Jeffreys," added she,
turning frigidly upon the already laden librarian, "when you have
carried Miss Atherton's things into the house, be good enough to go to
Kennedy and tell him to meet us at the Upper Fall. And you will find
some letters on the hall table to be posted. By-the-way, Colonel
Brotherton, if you have that telegram you want to send off, the
librarian will go with it. It is a pity you should have the walk."
To these miscellaneous orders Jeffreys bowed solemnly, and did not fail
to exhibit his clumsiness by dropping Raby's waterproof in a belated
effort to raise his hat. Mrs Rimbolt would hardly have been appeased
had he not done so; and it was probably in a final endeavour to show him
off as he departed that she added,--
"Raby, give Mr Jeffreys that basket to take in; you cannot carry that
up to the Falls."
"Oh, aunt, I've told Mr Jeffreys I can't trust him with it. It has
grapes in it. Didn't I, Mr Jeffreys?" she said, appealing gaily to him
with a smile which seemed to make a man of him once more.
"I will undertake not to eat them," said he, with a twitch of his mouth,
receiving the precious basket.
After that he sacrificed even his afternoon constitutionals, and took to
the life of a hermit until Wildtree Towers should be rid of its
visitors. But even so he could not be quite safe. Percy occasionally
hunted him out and demanded his company with himself and a few choice
spirits on some hare-brained expedition. Jeffreys did not object to
Percy or the hare-brained expedition; but the "choice spirits" sometimes
discomposed him. They called him "Jeffy," and treated him like some
favoured domestic animal. They recognised him as a sort of custodian of
Percy, and on that account showed off before him, and demonstrated to
Percy that he was no custodian of theirs. They freely discussed his
ugliness and poverty within earshot. They patronised him without stint,
and made a display of their own affluence in his presence. And when
once or twice he put down his foot and interdicted some illegal
proceeding, they blustered rudely, and advised Percy to get the cad
dismissed.
It was like some of the old Bolsover days back again, only with the
difference that now he steeled himself to endure all patiently for young
Forrester's sake. It disappointed him to see Percy, led away by his
company, sometimes lift his heel against him; yet it suited his humour
to think it was only right, and a part of his penance, it should be so.
Percy's revolt, to do that youth justice, was short-lived and speedily
repented of. As soon as his friends were gone he returned to Jeffreys
with all his old allegiance, and showed his remorse by forgetting all
about his recent conduct.
Perhaps the most trying incident in all that trying time to Jeffreys was
what occurred on the last day of the Brothertons' visit. The colonel
and his family had been so busy seeing the natural beauties of Wildtree,
that, till their visit was drawing to an end, they found they had
scarcely done justice to the beautiful house itself, and what it
contained. Consequently the last evening was spent in a visit _en
masse_ to the library where Jeffreys was duly summoned to assist Mr
Rimbolt in exhibiting the treasures it contained.
As usual when the lady of the house was of the party, the librarian went
through his work awkwardly. He answered her questions in a confused
manner, and contrived to knock over one or two books in his endeavour to
reach down others. He was conscious that some of the company were
including him among the curiosities of the place, and that Mr Rimbolt
himself was disappointed with the result of the exhibition. He
struggled hard to pull himself together, and in a measure succeeded
before the visit was over, thanks chiefly to Mrs Rimbolt's temporary
absence from the library. The lady returned to announce that coffee was
ready in the drawing-room, and Jeffreys, with a sigh of relief,
witnessed a general movement towards the door.
He was standing rather dismally near the table, counting the seconds
till he should be left alone, when Mrs Brotherton advanced to him with
outstretched hand. Imagining she was about to wish him good-evening in
a more friendly manner than he had expected, he advanced his own hand,
when, to his horror and dismay, he felt a half-crown dropped into it,
with the half-whispered remark, "We are much obliged to you."
He was too staggered to do anything but drop his jaw and stare at the
coin until the last of the party had filed from the room, not even
observing the look of droll sympathy which Raby, the last to depart,
darted at him.
Left to himself, one of his now rare fits of temper broke over him. He
stormed out of the place and up into his room, where, after flinging the
coin into the grate, he paced up and down the floor like an infuriated
animal. Then by a sudden impulse he picked the coin up, and opening a
toolbox which he kept in the room, he took from it a hammer and bradawl.
Two or three vicious blows sufficed to make a hole in the centre of the
Queen's countenance. Then with a brass-headed nail he pinned the
miscreant piece of silver to the wall above the mantelpiece, and sat
looking at it till the storm was over.
It was a week or two before he quite recovered from this shock and
settled down again to the ordinary routine of his life at Wildtree
Towers. As the afternoons became shorter, and out-of-door occupations
in consequence became limited, he found Percy unexpectedly amenable to a
quiet course of study, which greatly improved the tone of that versatile
young gentleman's mind. Percy still resolutely set his face against a
return to school, and offered no encouragement to his perplexed parents
in their various schemes for the advancement of his education.
Consequently they were fain to be thankful, until some light dawned on
the question, that his education was not being wholly neglected, and Mr
Rimbolt in particular recognised that under Jeffreys' influence and
tuition the boy was improving in more ways than one.
The autumn passed uneventfully. Mr Rimbolt had occasion once or twice
to go up to London, and on these occasions Jeffreys was reminded that he
was not on a bed of roses at Wildtree. But that half-crown over the
mantelpiece helped him wonderfully. Raby continued to regard him from a
distance with a friendly eye, and now and then alarmed him by
challenging him to some daring act of mutiny which was sure to end in
confusion, but which, for all that, always seemed to him to have some
compensation in the fellow-feeling it established between the poor
librarian and the dependent and kept-under niece.
News arrived now and then from India, bringing relief as to what was
past, but by no means allaying anxiety as to what might be in store for
the soldier there. A week before Christmas, Raby told Jeffreys, with
mingled pride and trepidation, that her father had written to say he had
been made major, and expected to be sent in charge of a small advance
force towards Kandahar, to clear the way for a general advance. By the
same post another letter came for Mrs Rimbolt, the contents of which,
as the Fates would have it, also came to Jeffreys' ears.
"My dear," said the lady, entering the library that evening, letter in
hand, and addressing her husband, who was just then engaged with his
librarian in inspecting some new purchases, "here is a letter from my
old friend Louisa Scarfe. She proposes to come to us for Christmas, and
bring with her her son, who is now at Oxford. I suppose I can write and
say Yes?"
"Certainly," said Mr Rimbolt; "I shall be delighted."
A chill went to Jeffreys' heart as he overheard this hurried
consultation. If this should be the Scarfe he knew, he was not yet rid,
he felt, of Bolsover or of his bad name.