AT WENDERHOLME COTTAGE.
Wenderholme Cottage was in fact a very comfortable and commodious house.
Its claims to the humble title which it bore, were, first, that its
front was all gables, with projecting roofs, and carved or traceried
barge-boards; and, secondly, that its rooms were small. But if they were
small they were numerous; and when it pleased Mrs. Stanburne to receive
visitors--and it often pleased that hospitable lady so to do--it was
astonishing how many people the Cottage could be made to hold.
A little kindness soon wins the affections of a child, and little Jacob
had not been more than three or four days at Wenderholme before he began
to be very fond of Mrs. Stanburne. Hers was just the sort of influence
which is necessary to a young gentleman at that age--the influence of a
woman of experience, who is at the same time a high-bred gentlewoman. No
doubt his old grandmother loved little Jacob more than any thing else in
the world; but she was narrow-minded, and despotic, and vulgar in all
her ways. Mrs. Ogden, too, had moments of caprice and violence, in
which, she was dangerous to oppose, and difficult to pacify; in short,
she was one of those persons, too common in her class, of whom Matthew
Arnold says that they are deficient in sweetness and light. The steady
unfailing goodness of Mrs. Stanburne, her uniformly gentle manners, her
open intelligent sympathy, produced on her young guest an effect made
ten times more powerful by all his early associations. It was like
coming out of a chamber where every thing was rough and uncouth, into a
pleasant drawing-room, full of light and elegance, where there are
flowers, and music, and books. Such a change would not be agreeable to
every one: whether it would be agreeable or not depends upon the
instinctive preferences. Ladies like Mrs. Stanburne do not put everybody
at his ease, and it proves much in little Jacob's favor that he felt
happy in her presence. As Jacob Ogden, the elder, had been formed by
nature for the rude contest with reluctant fortune, so his nephew had
been created for the refinements of an attained civilization. Therefore,
henceforth, though he still loved his grandmother, both from gratitude
and habit, his young mind saw clearly that neither her precepts nor her
example were to be accepted as authoritative, and he looked up to Mrs.
Stanburne as his preceptress.
Little Jacob's healthy honest face and simple manners recommended him to
the good lady from the first, and he had not been a week under her roof
before she took a kind interest in every thing concerning him. The mere
facts that he had no mother, no sister, no brother, and that he had
lived alone with his father in such a place as Twistle Farm, were of
themselves enough to attract attention and awaken curiosity; but the
story of his arrival at Wenderholme in the preceding winter was also
known to her, and she knew how unendurably miserable his lonely home had
been. Mrs. Stanburne talked a good deal with Mr. Prigley about the boy,
and learned with pleasure his father's wonderful and (as now might be
hoped) permanent reformation.
"He does not seem to have neglected the little boy," she said; "he reads
very well. I asked him to read aloud to me yesterday, and was surprised
to hear how well he read--I mean, quite as if he understood it, and not
in the sing-song way children often acquire."
"He's ten years old now, and he ought to read well," replied Mr.
Prigley; "but he knows a great deal for a boy of his age. It's high
time to send him to school, though; it's too lonely for him at the farm.
I am preparing him for Eton."
Mrs. Stanburne expressed some surprise at this. "Boys in his rank in
life don't often go to Eton, do they, Mr. Prigley?"
The clergyman smiled as he answered that little Jacob's rank in life was
not yet definitively settled. Mrs. Stanburne replied that she thought it
was, since his father was a retired tradesman.
"Yes, but his uncle, Mr. Jacob Ogden of Milend, has not left business;
indeed he is greatly extending his business just now, for he has built
an immense new factory. And this little boy is to be his heir--his uncle
told me so himself three weeks since. This child will be a rich
man--nobody can tell how rich. His uncle wishes him to be educated as a
gentleman."
It is a great recommendation to a little boy to be heir to a large
fortune, and Mrs. Stanburne's natural liking for little Jacob was by no
means diminished by a knowledge of that fact. As he was going to Eton,
too, she began to look upon him as already in her own rank of life,
where boys were sent to Eton, and inherited extensive estates.
During Mr. Prigley's frequent absences with Colonel Stanburne at the
Hall, Mrs. Stanburne undertook to hear little Jacob his lessons, and
then the idea struck her that Jacob and Edith might both write together
from her dictation. In this way the boy and the girl became
class-fellows. Edith had a governess usually, but the governess had gone
to visit her relations, and Miss Edith's education was for the present
under the superintendence of her grandmamma.
So between these two children an intimacy rapidly established itself--an
intimacy which affected the course of their whole lives.
One day when they had been left alone together in the drawing-room,
little Jacob asked the young lady some question, and he began by calling
her "Miss Edith."
"Miss Edith!" said she, pouting; "why do you call me Miss? The servants
may call me Miss, but you mayn't. We're school-fellows now, and you must
call me Edith. And I shall call you Jacob. Why haven't you got a
prettier name for me to call you by? Jacob isn't pretty at all. Haven't
you another name?"
Poor little Jacob was obliged to confess his poverty in names. He had
but one, and that one uncouth and unacceptable!
"Only one name. Why, you funny little boy, only to have one name! I've
got four. I'm called Edith Maud Charlotte Elizabeth. But I'll tell you
what I'll do. As I've got four names and you've only one, I'll give you
one of mine. I can't call you Charlotte, you know, because you're not a
girl; but I can call you Charley, and I always will do. So now I begin.
Charley, come here!"
Little Jacob approached obediently.
"Ha, ha! he answers to his new name already!" she cried in delight,
clapping her hands. "What a clever little boy he is! He's a deal
cleverer than the pony was when we changed _its_ name! But then, to be
sure, the pony never properly knew its first name either."
Suddenly she became grave, and put her fingers on the young gentleman's
arm. "Charley," she said, "this must be a secret between us two, because
if grandmamma found out, she might be angry with me, you know. But you
like to be called Charley, don't you? isn't it nice?"