A DOMESTIC CRISIS.
The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they had noted
with so much attention was not destined to meet with any immediate
reward. Neither he, nor "the young lady in black," whom he hurried
across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two
days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula,
especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a
companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same
time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss
Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so much
less to do than she. Ursula did not recollect the name of the fortunate
girl who was so much in the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though
Phoebe had been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity
and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had, and all
those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor little
stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure. She
whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room when all the
family were assembled.
"Do you think she will call?" said Ursula, asking counsel even of
Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous on other
occasions.
"Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?" said Janey.
"As if you knew anything about it!" Ursula retorted with great
injustice.
"If I don't know, then why do you ask me?" complained Janey with reason.
The room looked more cheerful since Ursula had come home. The fire, no
longer choked with cinders, burned clear and red. The lamp, though it
was a cheap one, and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old
curtains were nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs.
All this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity
natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning his lessons
on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing, with a candle all to
himself, at a writing-table in a corner. Ursula and Janey were working
at the centre table by the light of the lamp. They had no time, you may
imagine, for fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person,
especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the movements
of her needle, was stitching up a sleeve of her new frock which Miss
Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker, who "went out," was
at this moment making up in the schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy
with the basket of stockings which she had found awaiting her on their
return. What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably a
great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation as no one
ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their conversation
under their breath, not to interrupt him. The little children had gone
to bed, tea was over, and several hours of the long winter evening still
before them. Janey had given over lessons, partly because there was no
one to insist upon her doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave
her a lecture for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a
long sum in arithmetic out of the first old "Colenso" that could be
picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to a sense of
her own deficiencies, she would "practise" energetically on the old
piano. This was all that was being done for Janey in the way of
education. She was fifteen, and as Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at
an age when school is a necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to
keep Janey at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the
same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she
had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts. A girl
is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners. Janey
possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could
acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they
worked--Ursula's shining and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey's rough
with elf-locks; but they were more interesting than Reginald, though he
was so much better informed. As for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug,
his head slightly raised on his two hands, his book on a level with the
rest of his person, saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips.
And now and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the
sound of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the
interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.
This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the entry of Mr. May.
From the moment that he closed the hall-door behind him, coming in, a
little thrill ran through the family party. The girls looked at each
other when they heard that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his
inward repetition, shifted himself and his book adroitly, with the
cleverness of practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire.
Reginald's pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair
to give an appealing glance at his sisters.
"What is it now?" he said hurriedly. Every one knew that when the door
was closed like that it meant something like a declaration of war. But
they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the
door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the
January night. He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a "humph"
of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which
is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for
grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause
for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have
been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their
time, instead of being occupied in this perfectly dutiful way--even
Johnnie at his lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was
the world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of leading up to
it gradually by a general _battue_ of his children all round, he had to
open upon his chief subject at once, which was not nearly so agreeable a
way.
"What are you doing, Reginald?" he asked, roughly, pulling his chair to
the other side of the fire, opposite the corner to which Johnnie had
scuffled out of the way. "I have come in especially to speak to you. It
is time this shilly-shallying was done with. Do you mean to accept the
College chaplaincy or not? an answer must be given, and that at once.
Are you so busy that you can't attend to what I say?"
"I am not busy at all, sir," said Reginald, in a subdued voice, while
his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both the girls, it is true,
thought him extremely foolish, but what of that? Necessarily they were
on his side against papa.
"I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what you could find
to be busy at. But look here, this must come to an end one way or
another. You know my opinion on the subject."
"And you know mine, sir," said Reginald, rising and coming forward to
the fire. "I don't say anything against the old College. For an old man
it might be quite a justifiable arrangement--one who had already spent
his strength in work--but for me--of course there is nothing in the
world to do."
"And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it--not to speak of
the house, which you could let for fifty more."
"Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I object to, so
much for nothing."
"You prefer nothing for nothing," said Mr. May, with a smile; "well, I
suppose that is more fair, perhaps--to the public;--but how about me? A
son of three-and-twenty depending upon me for everything, useless and
bringing in nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same," he said,
"all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes,
amusement--"
"I am sure," said the irrepressible Janey, "it is not much clothes we
get, and as for amusements--and education!"
"Hold your tongue," cried her father. "Here are six of you, one more
helpless than another, and the eldest the most helpless of all. I did
not force you into the Church. You might have gone out to James if you
had liked--but you chose an academical career, and then there was
nothing else for it. I gave you a title to orders. You are my curate
just now--so called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I
can't afford to keep you. Providence--" said Mr. May, sitting up in his
chair, with a certain solemnity, "Providence itself has stepped in to
make your path clear. Here is better than a living, a provision for you.
I don't bid you take it for life; take it for a year or two till you can
hear of something better. Now what on earth is your objection to this?"
The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother. Janey,
always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously. "Yes, what
on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?"
Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly at them.
Against his father alone he might have made a stand--but when the united
family thus gazed at him with inquiring and reproachful looks, what was
he to say?
"Objection!" he faltered, "you know very well what my objection is. It
is not honest work--it is no work. It is a waste of money that might be
better employed; it is a sinecure."
"And what do you call your nominal curateship," said his father, "is not
that a sinecure too?"
"If it is," said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder, for here the
family veered round, and placed itself on his side, "it is of a contrary
kind. It is _sine_ pay. My work may be bad, though I hope not, but my
pay is nothing. I don't see any resemblance between the two."
"Your pay nothing!" cried the father, enraged; "what do you call your
living, your food that you are so fastidious about, your floods of beer
and all the rest of it--not to speak of tailors' bills much heavier than
mine?"
"Which are never paid."
"Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the others who
weigh me down to the ground, and never try to help or do anything for
themselves. Never paid! how should I have gone on to this period and
secured universal respect if they had never been paid? I have had to pay
for all of you," said Mr. May, bitterly, "and all your vagaries;
education, till I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a
hundred fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never
give me back a farthing."
"Papa!" cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.
"Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to scrub the
floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever be good for--and
you must have a servant forsooth to do even that. But why should I speak
of the girls?" he added, with a sarcastic smile, "they can do nothing
better, poor creatures; but you! who call yourself a man--a University
man, save the mark--a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you,
twenty-three your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still
have to support you."
Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing--not
that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such
taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and
susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in
nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that
his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his
father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May
knew, of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say? It
was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips were closed;
but the effort was a hard one. He could not stand still there and face
the man who had so little consideration for his feelings. All he could
do was to keep his agitation and irritation down by that hurried
promenade about the room, listening as little as he could, and answering
not at all.
"Oh, papa! how can you?" cried Janey, seizing the first pause. Janey was
not old enough to understand the delicacy that closed Reginald's lips,
and the impulse of self-defence was stirring in her; "how dare you talk
to Ursula so? I mayn't be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you
were when she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning;
to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub floors!" cried
Janey, in the violence of her resentment. "I'll go out and be a
maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am sure it would be much happier
than here."
"Hold your tongue," said Mr. May, "you scolding and Ursula crying;
that's the beauty of the feminine element in a house. I ought to be very
thankful, oughtn't I, that I have girls to furnish this agreeable
variety? But as for you, Reginald," his father added, "mark my words, if
you determine to reject this windfall that Providence has blown into
your hands, it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I
would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you will
please to understand that I have no further need for a curate that suits
me still less. I want your room. If nothing else can be done, I must try
to take a pupil to add a little to the income which has so many claims
upon it; and I don't mean to go on keeping you--this is plain enough, I
hope."
"Very plain, sir," said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red
before.
"I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once,
accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done to-night.
I must insist on its being done to-night; and if you find yourself
sufficiently bold to reject an income," said Mr. May with emphasis, "and
go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of
it; it is nothing to me."
Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair,
and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made
everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and
desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but
Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other
side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the
discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.
He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not
resist this temptation.
"Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?" he cried
suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. "Get up this
moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is
nobody to disturb you, is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you
hear me? get up, sir, and go."
Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say
anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which
Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that
haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something
about the hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of
doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders
and turned him out of the drawing-room. "I said your own room, sir,"
cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of
his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and
looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. "There is
not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive," he
said. "It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find a reception
like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me some coffee to my
study. I am going to write."
"Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?" burst forth Janey,
the moment her father had closed the door. "Who does it all, I wonder?
Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can't hush,
I won't hush! Oh, shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do
anything!"
"Oh, Janey, hush! we can't help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with
it," said Ursula; "but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself
when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald,
aren't you a little bit unreasonable too?"
"Don't you begin to reproach me," cried the young man, "I have had
enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has
he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he
knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the
vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's
money--"
"Oh, never mind that, never mind the past," cried Ursula, "think of the
present, that's what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if _I_ had
the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I
would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do
anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what
you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh,
dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to
please yourself!"
"I shall be independent anyhow after to-night," he said. "Ursula, you
will help me to pack my things, won't you? It is leaving you here, you
girls, with nobody to stand up for you; it is that I feel most."
"Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us," cried Janey, leaning on the back
of his chair; "what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage
like to-night, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald,
can't you, can't you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for
us."
"Yes, I will pack your things," said Ursula, "I will help you to get out
of it, though we must stay and put up with it all, and never, never
escape. But where will you go? You have no money, not enough scarcely to
pay your railway fare. You would have to take to teaching; and where are
you to go?"
"I have some friends left," cried Reginald, his lips quivering, "some
people care for me still and would hold out a hand. I am--not--quite so
badly off as he thinks; I could go to town, or to Oxford--or--"
"You don't know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned house all ready
for you to step into, and an income," cried Ursula, her tone deepening
to mark the capital letter; "an Income, quite sure and ready--without
any difficulty, without any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think
what a comfort for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in
trouble! Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted room
for your study, with the book-cases all ready--and plenty of money to
buy books." This being the highest point to which Ursula could reach,
she dropped down after it into an insinuating half whisper, "And plenty
of work to do; dear Reginald, plenty of work in the parish, you may be
sure, if you will only help the Rector; or here where you are working
already, and where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh,
Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work."
The young man was already beginning to melt. "Do you think so?" he
said.
"Think!" cried Janey, "I am sure you may do all papa's work for him and
welcome, if that is all. For my part I think you are very silly, both
Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far better if you weren't such a pair of
simpletons. After all, he has a little reason to be angry. Good
gracious! why shouldn't you take it? Some one else will, if you won't. I
would in a minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should you
be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is quite childish for
my part."
"Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn't understand
('Child yourself,' cried Janey). I don't understand very well, but still
I can see what you want. Oh, you might find such quantities of work,
things nobody is ever found to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that
they get that money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to
get a fellowship--"
"That is different, that is a reward of scholarship."
"Well, and so is this too," said Ursula; "it is (I am sure) because the
old men knew you were one that would be kind. You were always kind,
Reginald, that is what it is for."
"The old men have nothing to do with it," he said, shaking his head, "it
is the Corporation, and they are--"
"Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very sensible! what
does it matter about their education? And then you would be a really
educated man, always ready to do anything that was wanted in
Carlingford. Don't you see that was their meaning? They pay you for that
which is not work, but they will find you plenty of work they don't pay
for. That is what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there
in that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us every
day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!"
Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she made a dash at the
writing-table and brought him paper and pens and ink, "Say yes, say
yes," she cried; "oh, Reginald, if it was only to spite papa!"