A GENTLEMAN-BLACKSMITH.
The energy of the Altruists languished a good deal during the long
summer vacation. Edward and Muriel Carlyon went on a six-weeks’ visit
to a relative in the north, and enjoyed themselves mightily after a
year of hard work. Edward’s black coat did not hinder him from tasting
the happiness peculiar to the sportsman-naturalist; and Muriel’s
governessing had not taken the charm from her tramps through heather
and bracken. A good many of the younger Altruists were off to the
seaside: those that remained in Woodend voted it ridiculous to attend
meetings over which there was nobody in particular to preside.
Florry Fane received a long-hoped-for invitation to visit an aunt who
had settled in Normandy, whence she was in the habit of making frequent
excursions to continental cities. The chance of seeing Paris, Rome,
and Florence was suddenly flashed before Florry’s dazed eyes, and her
parents prepared to miss for a couple of months, at least, the light of
their quiet home. Frances Morland did not learn till long afterwards
that Florry had turned resolutely from the offered treat because she
would not leave her friend in the hour of trouble.
“Paris must wait,” said Florry, “till Frances is happy again.”
The self-denying little Altruist proved that no meetings were necessary
to hold her to the accepted motto of her Society. Hardly a day passed
without the appearance at Rowdon of her bright face and helpful hands.
Jim’s heart grew lighter directly he heard “Miss Fane’s” voice. It
was good to hear for its own sake, and then it meant the best of
comradeship for Frances.
The Society sent another delegate to do its work at the smithy. Max
and Florry frequently travelled the three miles together, arguing as
they went with a vivacity learned at the school “symposia”. They never
convinced one another, but it was all the better to be able to look
forward to a fresh bout of disagreeing next time. Sometimes they
walked, sometimes they rode with a friendly farmer or begged a lift
in the Doctor’s trap. Journey as they might, they always turned up
smiling, contented, and in hot dispute.
It was Max’s fair season at Woodend; the season when his many public
concerns made least demand on him, and he was most free to remember
private interests. His invalids were at their best; his poor folk
were recovering from the effects of the burning heat in their stuffy
rooms, and were still independent of warm clothing. Moreover, a wealthy
valetudinarian had bought Elveley, and was demanding a daily visit
from Dr. Brenton. Max ventured to anticipate the consequent fees,
and on his own responsibility borrowed from the “Examinations” fund
the wherewithal to present the dog-cart with a new rug and its owner
with a new overcoat. Dr. Brenton retaliated by ordering for Max a
trim Eton suit--challenging the chancellor of the exchequer to refuse
to pay for it, and in so doing to ruin his father’s credit. Then the
unconventional pair attired themselves festively, and beamed at each
other in the joy of their reciprocal liberality.
Max and Austin were always merry at the smithy, and they did their best
to make Jim merry likewise. With fervent good-will they wielded the
hammer, and smote the anvil, and practised horse-shoeing until their
teacher pronounced them adepts. Sometimes they dragged Jim off to the
common, where they had cut and rolled a decent pitch for their cricket.
Jim could play, of course, but his science was behind theirs. It seemed
to the boys a fair return for lessons in horse-shoeing when their
hints, added to natural quickness of eye and hand, had made of Jim a
most respectable bowler.
The Morland family had by this time fairly settled at Rowdon, and
accepted, after their varying fashion, the fresh order of their lives.
The first excitement of change and bustle was over, and with it had
gone the impression of relief from pressing disaster, as well as the
sense of unrest and adventure which had served to dispel fruitless
broodings and cast a glamour of romance over the new cottage-home.
Frances and Austin were too busy and too active to sink back into
despondency; but their mother suffered acutely--all the more acutely
because she shut herself and her gloom out of the reach of the
kindliest sympathizers.
Loneliness and misery rendered her harsh and intolerant to the
youngsters who longed to comfort her. She was irritated by seeing her
own children seemingly happy and contented, and by witnessing the small
_gaucheries_ of her stepson’s harmless rusticity. Jim, better able than
the younger ones to understand her condition, bore her sharp reproofs
and covert sneers with determined self-control. They hurt him none the
less; and he suspected that he was despised for the very efforts after
a dutiful bearing which cost him so much: but he never had cherished
any hope of pleasing or satisfying his stepmother, and was grateful
that she kept her promise of not intervening between him and his
brother and sister.
It was true that she had not much opportunity of doing so, for the
three young people were seldom together. Frances found plenty of ways
in which she could help Elizabeth; who was willing to be relieved of
lighter duties, though she would not for worlds have allowed her young
mistress to do anything she could make time to do herself. Then there
were studies to be kept up, books to be read on the recommendation of
Miss Carlyon or Florry, old friends to be visited in spare hours, and
the family mending to be attended to.
Jim was an excellent craftsman, as his neighbours had soon discovered;
but working alone, and with only the simplest appliances, he could
not attempt the higher branches of a smith’s trade. He had constant
employment, but no greater returns than any other skilled artisan could
depend on; and after the first month of his new life had gone by he
began to be tormented by anxiety as to ways and means. Part of his
weekly income came from his small invested capital, and on the latter
he soon found he must draw to meet household expenses. This meant, by
and by, a reduction on the interest paid to him in consideration of his
grandfather’s savings, and a consequent lessening of his resources.
When Mrs. Morland had first come to Rowdon, he had told her frankly the
amount of his income, and had suggested that she should have control
over it and make the housekeeping her own charge. Most women would have
been touched by the offer, which was surely honourable to the lad who
made it.
“My good boy,” replied Mrs. Morland, “you really must excuse me from
undertaking the management of your house and the responsibility of
your wealth. I have never learned how to spend pennies, and I have
no idea when porridge and herrings are in season. I might order by
mistake a halfpenny-worth too much milk, and then where would you
be? No, believe me, you will manage far better yourself. Or stay,
it might amuse Frances to play with sixpences, and she is terribly
conscientious. No doubt she would calculate the required milk to a
drop. I have always felt sure she had a genius for figures, since
she told me she “kept the accounts” of that funny little Society she
started and got tired of. Children always get tired of everything; but
Frances might find housekeeping quite a pleasant entertainment for a
time. Go and ask her, James. And do try to avoid grimacing. It makes me
quite uncomfortable to see that frowning brow and those tightly-drawn
lips. So like some melodramatic, middle-class novel. Run away, boy.
Ta-ta.”
Jim’s courage, after this rebuff, was not equal to the task of
approaching Frances, and his sister would have heard nothing of the
interview if Mrs. Morland had not diverted herself by giving Frances
a special version of it. The girl listened in silence, and with
half-acknowledged regret on Jim’s behalf. Frances felt instinctively
that Jim had made an honest advance, and that he had been unworthily
answered.
She was sorry that time did not prove correct her mother’s prophecy
that her brother would come to her next; and she debated anxiously with
herself whether he would be vexed if she were to offer to try her own
prentice hand at the ordering of the cottage affairs. Jim had certainly
invited her to remember that she was “mistress” at Rowdon; there could
be no undaughterly presumption in filling the place her mother had
refused.
Frances decided that Jim had better be the one to open the question;
but Jim held his tongue, and bore his own burdens. He had been
accustomed to leave the provisioning of his little household to
Elizabeth, and to pay the weekly bills without investigation. Now he
found that he must not only investigate, but urge on Mrs. Macbean the
strictest economy. Even then, as has been said, his income must be
supplemented somehow.
Further, the lad worried himself about the arrested education of his
young brother and sister. At first it was undivided happiness to have
Austin so constantly at his side, and to catch glimpses of Frances
tending the flowers or feeding the chickens. But when he found his
brother obstinately determined to help in the smithy, and discovered
that his sister actually made beds and dusted rooms, he began to accuse
himself of grossly neglected duties.
Edward and Muriel Carlyon had sought out Mrs. Morland on their return
home, and had begged her in most tactful fashion to let them keep
their two pupils without payment of school-fees. Mrs. Morland’s pride
had not been sufficient to render her quite blind to the value of the
opportunity; but she had tried to save her self-esteem by leaving the
matter for the children’s own settlement. Austin and Frances were
not blind either, and they saw more clearly now than before what a
good education might mean to them. They had talked the subject over
together, they had invited the counsel of Florry and Max. It was
significant that they did not seek their mother’s advice. Finally, they
went to Woodbank in company, and put their concerns bravely and fully
before their two kindly friends and teachers.
Frances and Austin did not go back to school, but they went twice a
week to Woodbank for private lessons in modern languages, classics, and
mathematics, and studied at home between whiles. Every evening they
spent at least a couple of hours over their books, and found chances
for music and drawing as best they could in the daytime.
It was this custom which led, one evening in November, to an unexpected
development in the quiet life of Rowdon Cottage. The boy and girl
(Austin being the chief spokesman) had persuaded Jim that they would
not accept sole rights in his old “den”. He must spend there his few
hours of leisure, and a book-case brought from Elveley should be
consecrated to his library. Jim at first availed himself but sparingly
of his opportunities. Usually he worked all the early part of the
evening in the smithy or the shed, and later on disappeared into the
little lumber attic where he had disposed the tools and materials
for his wood-carving. But sometimes he would slip quietly into the
children’s room--the study, as they chose to call it,--and after a
respectful, interested glance at the pair of young students seated
opposite one another, with the shaded lamp between them, at the round
table, would take a book from his shelf and try to remember that he was
one of the family.
On the evening in question, Frances had noticed that Jim had betaken
himself to his own corner with a volume which she had seen with some
surprise to be Green’s _Short History of the English People_. The lad
read steadily for an hour or so, and Frances, each time she looked up,
saw that his attention was firmly fixed on the page. But presently Jim
leaned back in his chair, his book rested on his knee, and his eyes
were turned towards the round table with an expression which his sister
found uncomfortably suggestive of some latent longing. She hesitated
for a moment, and then said diffidently:
“Don’t you like your book, Jim?”
“Yes, but I’ve finished it, thank you, Missy.”
Jim had not learned to say “Frances”; but “Missy”, as he pronounced it,
had the accents of a pet-name, and his sister had ceased to find fault
with it.
“Fancy! You must read fast. Can you remember all those names and
things? I do think it’s difficult.”
“I’ve read this book three times,” said Jim gently. He had read, ever
since he could remember, all the historical works he could get hold of.
“I ought to remember it now, Missy.”
“Do you want to?” asked Frances curiously.
“Ay--surely. Else, what good to be an Englishman?”
“Jim,” began Frances after anxious cogitation, “would you like--would
you care--to study with Austin and me?” The girl flushed a little as
she went on hurriedly: “There are heaps of things I dare say you know
far more about than we do; but there are some ... and Papa would have
liked....”
Poor Frances stopped in awkward fear of hurting the lowly-reared
brother.
She need not have paused. The words were hardly spoken when Jim’s face
lighted up with eager pleasure.
“Missy--I’d love it! Oh, would you--could you--?”
“Of course we could,” interrupted Austin with a merry laugh. “Jim, old
man, you are an eccentric. Fancy meeting a fellow who needn’t stew at
lessons, and actually wants to! Come to the table this very minute!”
Austin flew to drag up a third chair and force Jim into it. “Now then,
what’s it to be first--classics or mathematics?”
“Austin, don’t worry, dear,” said Frances, seeing that Jim’s breath
came fast from the excitement of what was to him a momentous
opportunity. “Tell Jim the lessons we have at Woodbank, then he can
choose what he would like best.”
Then Jim seized his chance and spoke.
“I’d like best to learn to speak right, Missy,” said the youth
earnestly; “so as you’d have no need, some day, to feel shame of me.”
It was a hard thing to say, but Jim got through it.
Frances was on the point of disclaiming vehemently. She was checked by
the certainty that her brother would not believe her. Had she not long
ago proved him right?
“Humph!” said Austin, again filling the breach; “that’s in your line,
Sis. ‘Grammar and Analysis’, and all that twaddle. I hate the stuff.”
“Very well,” agreed Frances quickly, “Jim and I will study subjects and
objects; and you’ll see, sir, _my_ pupil won’t hate them.”
“And you’ll see, miss, that _my_ pupil will cross the _Pons Asinorum_
with a leap and a bound.”
“_My_ pupil will read Latin without a crib.”
“_My_ pupil will parley-voo frangsay like a gay moonseer.”
“You ridiculous boy!”
“You cockaleekie girl!”
Austin flung his arm round his brother’s shoulders and hugged them with
a will.
“Don’t mind us, Jim,” he said. “We must lark a bit, and so must you.
We’ll be awful strict teachers, and give you a hundred lines every time
you miss a question. But you may wink one eye between whiles.”
Austin’s mirth drowned Jim’s attempted thanks. But the younger boy
suddenly became sober, and thrusting his Euclid under Jim’s eyes,
entered on a careful explanation of certain well-known axioms necessary
to the comprehension of the First Proposition. Then Frances delivered a
lucid lecture on the Nominative Case. Finally, Jim carried off a couple
of lesson-books to his corner, and set to work to recall half-forgotten
rudiments learned long ago at elementary schools, and to assure himself
that he never would disgrace the pair of accomplished scholars he had
left at the round table.
Elizabeth kept a divided opinion with regard to Mrs. Morland, but the
discords feared by Jim were not heard at Rowdon Cottage. The chief
reason for the comparative harmony which reigned between kitchen and
sitting-room was the undisguised satisfaction of Mrs. Macbean in being
again in contact with gentle-people, and in seeing her young master
recognized as one of them. It is to be feared that her estimation of
“gentlefolk” was strictly conventional, and that in her heart of hearts
she thought all the more of her “fine leddy” mistress because Mrs.
Morland never dreamed of soiling her fingers over household matters,
but maintained a dignified privacy among the remnants of her former
prosperity.
Elizabeth found that a late dinner was expected as a matter of course.
Here, there might have been a difficulty, since the old woman had been
in the habit of going home to her “gudeman” as soon as she had served
Jim’s tea and “tidied up”. But while ordering dinner for half-past
eight, Mrs. Morland happened to mention that her stepson would dine
with her; and Elizabeth immediately became complaisant.
Jim’s soul grew faint within him when he was informed of the coming
ordeal--a dinner _à deux_ with his stepmother. A refusal was on the
poor lad’s lips, but he held it back. He could do nothing, he supposed,
to narrow the gulf between himself and his father’s second wife; but
he had determined that no act or word of his should make the gulf
wider. He assented quietly to Mrs. Morland’s peremptory demand for his
company in the sitting-room at half-past eight, and promised meekly
enough to don his Sunday suit before he ventured to present himself.
He imagined that his stepmother’s request was prompted solely by
a desire to “teach him manners”, and so render him a little more
presentable to her friends; but in this he did Mrs. Morland less than
justice. She was slow to act in matters for any reason displeasing to
her; but having once taken a step in any direction, she did not care
to turn back. She had been, in her own limited sense, in earnest when
she had said that she would henceforth regard Jim as the head of the
family. She meant him to endure to the full the penalties attaching at
present to the unenviable position, and would not strain a nerve to
lighten his load; but she intended also to see that a certain respect
and consideration should be offered him by everyone except herself, and
it was a part of her plan that he should be found in her company on
fitting occasions.
The family meals were served in the children’s study, but at none of
these was the mother present. Her breakfast was carried up to her
bedroom, and she lunched alone in her sitting-room. It was Austin’s
duty to take her cup backward and forward across the passage at the
children’s tea-hour. After dinner Frances and Austin were ordered to
appear for dessert. Thus Mrs. Morland attempted to retain among her
present surroundings some of the customs and restrictions of the life
she had been used to; though the imitation might be a faint likeness
of the model, and the result pathetic rather than impressive.
The various courses of the meal were perhaps only Scotch broth, broiled
chicken, and rice-pudding, and the dessert a dish of apples and another
of nuts. But the glass, china, and silver were the joy of Elizabeth’s
soul; and the simple food must be served most daintily. Jim was right
in anticipating severe drilling and remorseless fault-finding; yet,
taking all in wise humility, he had sense to acknowledge that the
experience had its value. He soon learned to satisfy Mrs. Morland’s
requirements as to his comportment at table, and his association with
her and her children taught him quickly to note the errors in his
speech and to correct them for himself.
“The lad is no dullard,” admitted the victorious stepmother in
her thoughts; “he will be a gentleman before he knows it. A
gentleman-blacksmith! Delightful absurdity! Oh, shall we never escape
from this dreadful place!”