THE CACIQUE.
'Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo, "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.'
_Rejected Addresses._
It was a warm night in September, and Wilmet had laid herself down in
bed in her nursery with a careful, but not an oppressed heart. About
many matters she was happier than before. Her mother had revived in
some degree, could walk from her bed-room to the sitting-room, and
took more interest in what was passing; and this the hopeful spirits
of the children interpreted into signs of recovery. Geraldine's health
and spirits had evidently taken a start for the better. Fulbert,
too, was off her mind--safe gone to a clergy orphan foundation; and
though Lancelot had not yet been elected, owing, Mr. Audley imagined,
to Lady Price's talk about their fine friends, Wilmet could not be
sorry, he was such a little fellow, and the house would be so dull
without his unfailing merriment and oddities. And though there had
been sore disappointment that Mrs. Thomas Underwood had chosen to go
to Brighton instead of coming home, there was the promise of a visit
from Alda before Christmas to feed upon. Little Robina had come home
for the summer holidays, well, happy, and improved, and crying only in
a satisfactory way on returning to school. Moreover, Wilmet's finances
had been pleasantly increased by an unexpected present of five pounds
at the end of the half year from Miss Pearson, and the promise of the
like for the next; increasing as her usefulness increased; and she
was also allowed to bring Angela to school with her. The balance of
accounts at Midsummer had been satisfactory, and Felix had proudly
pronounced her to be a brick of a housekeeper. And thus altogether
Wilmet did not feel that the weight of care was so heavy and hopeless
as when it first descended upon her; and she went to bed as usual,
feeling how true her father's words of encouragement and hope had been,
how kind friends were, how dear a brother Felix was, and above all,
how there is verily a Father of the fatherless. And so she fell fast
asleep, but was ere long waked by a voice from the inner room where
Cherry slept with the door open.
'Wilmet, Wilmet, what is it?'
Then she saw that the room was aglow with red light from the window,
and heard a loud distant hubbub. Hurrying out of bed, she flew to the
window of Cherry's room, and drew up the blind. 'O Wilmet, is it fire?'
'Yes,' low and awe-struck, said Wilmet. 'Not here. No. There's nothing
to be frightened at Cherry. It is out--out there. I think it must be
the Fortinbras Arms. Oh, what a sight!'
'It is dreadful!' said Cherry, shrinking trembling to the foot of her
little bed, whence she could see the window. 'How plain one can see
everything in the room! Oh! the terrible red glow in the windows! I
wonder if all the people are safe. Wilmet, do call Felix.'
'I will,' said Wilmet, proceeding in search of her clothes; but her
hands shook so that she could hardly put them on. They longed for Felix
as a protection, and yet Cherry could hardly bear to let her sister go
out of sight.
'I only hope Mamma does not hear,' said Wilmet.
'How lucky her room looks out the other way! but, oh! Wilmet, don't
fires spread?'
'Felix and Mr. Audley will see about us in time, if there is any fear
of that,' said Wilmet, trembling a good deal as she wrapped a shawl
round Cherry, who sat in a heap on her bed, gazing fascinated at the
red sky and roofs. Felix slept at the back of the house; her knock did
not waken him, but her entrance startled both him and Lance.
'Felix, the Fortinbras Arms is on fire.--Hush, Lance; take care; the
little ones and Mamma! O Felix, do come to our room.'
They followed her there in a few seconds, but they had only glanced
from the window before they simultaneously rushed away, to the
increased dismay of their sisters, to whom their manly instinct of
rushing into the fray had not occurred.
'I'll go down. I'll try to catch them,' said Wilmet; and she too was
gone before Cherry could call to her. She found that Felix and Mr.
Audley were in the act of undoing the front door, and this gave her
just time to fly down with the entreaty that Felix would not leave
them. It was a great deal more to ask of him than she knew.
'To the end of the street I must go, Wilmet,' he said.
'Oh! but Cherry is so frightened! and if Mamma wakes,' she said,
gasping.
'It is all quiet in her room,' said Felix.
'Tell Cherry there is no danger at all here _now_,' said Mr. Audley;
'but if it makes her happier you may dress her. Don't disturb your
mother. If needful, we will carry her out in her bed; but I do not
think it will be.'
'We can only see out in the street,' added Felix, opening the door as
he spoke; and that moment out flew Lance, before anybody had thought of
stopping him, and the necessity of pursuing the little fellow into the
throng, and keeping him out of danger, made both Felix and Mr. Audley
dash after him; while Wilmet, abashed at the men hurrying by, could
not even gaze from the door, but fled upstairs in terror lest the two
little ones should be awake and crying at the appalling red light and
the din, which seemed to her one continuous roar of 'Fire! fire!'
To her great relief, they were still asleep, but Cherry was in a
chilled agony of trembling prayer for the 'poor people,' and the
sisters crouched up together shivering in each other's arms as
they watched the rush of flames streaming up into the sky over the
brew-house opposite to them.
Presently Wilmet heard feet again downstairs. 'Cherry dear, I must go
down, they may want me. Indeed, I don't think there is real danger as
long as that brew-house is safe.'
There was a scuffle of feet that frightened her very much. She
remembered it last Michaelmas when her father was brought home from
church, and as she stood on the stairs--one choking petition in her
heart, 'Let it not be Felix!' she saw that the figure, whatever it was,
was carried by Mr. Audley and a strange man. And so great a horror
came over her, that, regardless of her toilette, and the hair that had
fallen over the jacket on her shoulders, she dropped at once among them
as they were bearing the senseless form into Mr. Audley's bed-room,
with a low but piteous cry, 'Felix! Felix! oh, what has happened?'
'It is not Felix, my dear,' said Mr. Audley; 'he is safe--he is gone
for the doctor. This poor boy has fallen from a window. You can help
us, Wilmet; call Martha, and get some water made hot. The fire is
getting under.'
Wilmet needed no second hint. She was up, reassuring Cherry at one
moment; then breaking into Martha's heavy slumbers, impressing upon her
the necessity of not shrieking; then downstairs again, reviving the
dying kitchen fire, and finding that, as usual, there was some water
not yet cold. For, as she now saw, it was not yet one o'clock. She
durst not go to her mother's room, where ready means of heating food
were always to be found. As she brought the jug to the door, Felix came
in with Mr. Rugg, who, living in a street out of sight, and having ears
for no sound but his own night-bell, had been ready at once to obey the
call. Felix told his sister the little he knew.
'It was a terrible sight. Just as we got to that one big window--a
passage one, I believe, which looks out into this street--we saw this
poor boy and a black man up on the sill, with all the glare of light
behind them, screaming out for help.'
'But where was everybody?'
'In the High Street, round the corner. Crowds there; and here in our
street only ourselves and a few men that hurried up after us. Mr.
Audley shouted to them that we would get a ladder, but whether they
could not hold on any more, or they thought we were going quite away--O
Wilmet! I didn't see; but there was the most horrible thump and crash
on the pavement.'
'What! down from that window?'
'Yes,' said Felix, leaning against the wall, and looking very pale.
'And there was that good black man, he had got the boy in his arms, as
if he had wound himself round to keep him from harm.'
'Oh! And he?'
'Killed--quite killed. Don't ask me about it, Wilmet. It is much too
dreadful to hear of;' and he shuddered all over. 'But this boy's head
was safe at least, and as there seemed no one to attend to anything,
Mr. Audley said he would bring him here, and I went for Mr. Rugg.'
'And where's Lance? Did he go with you?'
'Lance! Is not he in? I never saw or thought of him, I must go and
seek for him,' exclaimed Felix, darting off in haste and alarm at the
thought of little nine-year-old Lance alone among the midnight crowd,
just as Mr. Audley opened the door to try to find a messenger to Mr.
Rugg's surgery. He paused to tell Wilmet that it was a lad about
Felix's age, moaning some word that sounded like Diego, and with a
broken leg and ribs; and then, as Martha was in attendance, she felt
herself obliged to return to Cherry, whom indeed she could not leave
again, for though the fire had sunk, and only thick clouds of smoke
showed the play of the engines, the effects of the terror were not
so quickly over in the tender little frame, which was in a quivering
hysterical state, so deadly cold, that Wilmet was frightened, and went
once more down to warm some flannel, and get some hot drink for her.
She intended tea, but meeting Mr. Audley again, he sent up a glass of
wine. Even with this in hot water, Cherry could hardly be warmed again,
and Wilmet lay down, clasping her round, and not daring to let her know
of her own continued anxiety about the two brothers. At last, however,
when the red light had almost faded quite away, the cautious steps were
heard coming up the stairs, and Felix called into the room in a low
voice--
'All right, Wilmet.'
'Oh! come in,' the sisters called. 'Where did you find him, Fee? Is he
safe?'
'O Cherry, you never saw such a lark!' cried Lance in a gusty whisper.
'Wouldn't Fulbert have given his ears to have seen it? To see the
engines pouring down, and the great hose twining about like jolly old
sea-serpents spouting.'
'Hush, Lance; how can you? How could you! Does Mr. Audley know he is
safe?'
'Yes,' said Felix, 'he opened the door, and said he might have known
Lance was too much of a _gamin_ to come to grief.'
'What's a _gamin?_' said Lance.
'A street ragamuffin at Paris,' said Wilmet. 'But really, Lance, it was
a terrible thing to do.'
'And where do you think I found him?' said Felix. 'In between little
Jacky Brown and that big old coal-heaver who was so impudent about the
blanket-club, hanging like a monkey upon the rails of the terrace, and
hallooing as loud as they.'
''Twas the coal-heaver that helped me up,' said Lance. 'He's a jolly
good fellow, I can tell you. He said, "You be one of Parson Underwood's
little chaps, baint you? A rare honest gentleman of the right sort war
he--he war!" and he pulled down another boy and put me up instead, and
told me all about the great fire at Stubbs's factory. You can't think
what fun it was. Roar, roar, up went the flame. Swish, wish, went the
water--such a bellowing--such great clouds of smoke!'
'Was everybody saved?' whispered Cherry's tremulous murmur.
There was a silence; then Lance said, 'Weren't they?' and Cherry had
another shuddering fit.
'Who?' Wilmet asked.
'Poor Mr. Jones's youngest child and his nursemaid were in an attic
room where nobody could get at them,' said Felix in a hurried and
awe-struck voice, causing Cherry to renew that agony of trembling
and sobbing so convulsive and painful that her elder brother and
sister could only devote themselves to soothing her, till at last
she lay still again in Wilmet's arms, with only a few long gasps
coming quivering up through her frame. Then Wilmet implored Felix to
go away and make Lance go to bed, and finding this the only means of
reducing the little excited fellow to quiet, he went. And though all
were sure they should not sleep, they overslept themselves far into
Sunday morning, except Wilmet, who was wakened by the clamours of the
undisturbed Angela and Bernard, and succeeded in dressing them without
disturbing the other three.
Very tired and stiff, and very anxious she felt, but she was obliged to
go down as soon as she was dressed, since she always took charge of her
mother before breakfast on Sunday while Sibby went to mass. It was so
late that she could only listen in vain at the top of the stairs before
she went into the room, where she found Sibby very indignant at having
missed all the excitement of the night past. 'As if she could not have
been trusted not to have wakened the mistress. She believed they would
have let her alone till they all were burnt in their beds!'
It was not till breakfast, which took place unusually late, that Wilmet
heard much. Felix and Lance had just come downstairs, rather ashamed of
having overslept themselves, and Mr. Audley came in and begged for a
cup of tea.
He told them that the father and uncle of the boy had arrived. They
were American merchants or speculators of some kind, he thought, named
Travis, and they had gone on business to Dearport the day before,
meaning to dine there, and return by the mail train in the night, and
leaving the boy with the black servant in the unfortunate hotel.
On arriving, at about three o'clock, not long after Felix had brought
Lance home, they had telegraphed to Dearport for a doctor and nurse,
who were momentarily expected to arrive. The patient was only half
conscious, and though he knew his father, continued to murmur for
Diego. Martha was sitting with him whenever she could, for his father
did not seem to understand nursing, and it would be a great relief when
a properly-trained person arrived.
She came, and so did the doctor, but not till close upon church-time,
and little but stray reports from the sick-room reached the population
upstairs all that day, as Mr. Audley, whenever he was not at church,
was obliged to be in attendance on his strange guests. All that reached
the anxious and excited young people was the tidings of the patient
being not unlikely to do well, though he was in great pain and high
fever, and continually calling for the poor negro who had saved his
life at the expense of his own.
This was the last bulletin when the household parted to go their
several ways on Monday morning, not to be all collected again and free
to speak till seven o'clock in the evening, when they met round the
table for tea.
'Mamma looks cheery,' said Felix, coming into the little back room
where Wilmet was spreading bread and butter.
'Yes,' said Wilmet, 'I think she has cared to hear about the fire. So
many people have come in and talked, that it has enlivened her.'
'And how is the boy?'
'A little better, Martha heard; but he keeps on talking of Diego, and
seems not to care about any one else.'
'No wonder. His father must be an unmitigated brute,' said Felix.
'He came to the inquest, and talked just as if it had been an old
Newfoundland dog; I really think he cared rather less than if it had
been.'
'Tell us about the inquest, Felix,' said Lance. 'I wish they'd have
wanted me there.'
'I don't see why, Lance,' said Felix gravely; 'it was a terrible thing
to see poor Mr. Jones hardly able to speak for grief, and the mother of
that poor young nurse went on sobbing as if her heart was breaking.'
'Nobody knows the cause of the fire, do they?' asked Cherry. 'Lady
Price said it was the gas.'
'No; no one knows. Way, the waiter, saw a glare under the door of
the great assembly-room as he was going up very late to bed, and
the instant he opened the door the flame seemed to rush out at him.
I suppose a draught was all it wanted. He saw this poor Diego safe
downstairs once, but he must have gone back to save his young master,
and got cut off in coming back. Poor fellow! he is a Mexican negro,
belonging to an estate that came to Mr. Travis's wife, and he has
always clung to her and her son just like a faithful dog.'
'But he could not be a slave in England,' said Cherry eagerly.
'No; but as this Travis said, his one instinct was the boy: he did not
know how to get rid of him, he said, and I do believe he thinks it a
lucky chance.'
'I wish it had been he!' said Lance.
'Sibby has asked leave to go to the burial,' added Wilmet.
'I hope you gave it,' said Felix. 'Mr. Macnamara came and asked if he
were not a Roman Catholic, and those two Travises laughed a little
offensively, and said they guessed he was so, as much as a nigger was
anything; and the Papists were welcome to his black carcase, only they
would not be charged for any flummery. "I won't be made a fool of about
a nigger," one said. And then, I was so glad, Mr. Audley begged to know
when the funeral would be, and said he would go anywhere to do honour
to faithfulness unto death.'
'Well done, Mr. Audley!' cried Lance. 'Won't we go too, Fee?'
'It will be at nine to-morrow,' said Felix; at which Lance made a face,
since of course he would be in school at the time.
'Maybe I shall have to go,' added Felix; 'for only think, as my good
luck would have it, Redstone went on Saturday night to see his mother
or somebody, and only came back this morning; and Mr. Froggatt himself
was "out at his box," as he calls it, so he told me this morning to
write the account of the fire for the paper, and he would pay me for it
extra, as he does Redstone.'
'Well, and have you done it?'
'I was pretty much at sea at first, till I recollected the letter I
began to Edgar yesterday night, and by following that, I made what I
thought was a decent piece of business of it.'
'Oh, did you put in the way they threw the things out at window at
Jessop's without looking what they were?' cried Lance; 'and the jolly
smash the jugs and basins made, and when their house was never on fire
at all: and how the coal-heaver said "Hold hard, frail trade there!"'
'Well,' said Felix quaintly, 'I put it in a different form, you see. I
said the inhabitants of the adjacent houses hurled their furniture from
the windows with more precipitation than attention to the fragility
of the articles. And, after all, that intolerable ass, Redstone, has
corrected fire every time into "the devouring element," and made "the
faithful black" into "the African of sable integument, but heart of
precious ore."'
'Now, Felix!'
'Bald, sir, bald,' he said, with such a face. '"Yes, Mr. Underwood,"
even good old Froggy said, when he saw me looking rather blue, "you and
I may know what good taste and simplicity is, but if we sent out the
Pursuivant with no mouth-filling words in it, we should be cut out with
some low paper in no time among the farmers and mechanics."'
'Is he so led by Mr. Redstone?' asked Wilmet.
'Not exactly; but I believe there's nothing he dreads more than
Redstone's getting offended and saying that I am no use, as he would
any day if he could. O, Mr. Audley, are you coming to stay?'
'Will you have a cup of tea?' said Wilmet.
'Thank you, yes; I've got to dine with these fellows at the Railway
Hotel at eight, but I wanted to speak to you first, Wilmet,' said Mr.
Audley, sitting down as if he were weary of his day.
'How is the boy?'
'Better. He has been quite sensible ever since he woke at twelve
o'clock to-day, only he was dreadfully upset about poor Diego--about
whom his father told him very abruptly--without the least notion he
would feel it so much.'
'I wish I had the kicking of that father,' observed Felix, driving the
knife hard into the loaf.
'He is not altogether such a bad fellow,' said Mr. Audley thoughtfully.
'Not for an American, perhaps.'
'He is not an American at all. He was born and bred in my own country,
and took me by surprise by calculating that I was one of the Audleys
of Wrightstone Court, and wanting to know whether my father were Sir
Robert or Sir Robert's son. Then he guessed that I might have heard
of his father, if I was not too young, and by-and-by it dawned on me
that whenever there is any complication about business matters, or any
one is in bad circumstances, my father always vituperates one Travis,
who, it seems, was a solicitor greatly trusted by all the country
round, till he died, some twenty years ago, and it appeared that he
had ruined everybody, himself included. These men are his sons. They
went out to America, and got up in the world. They told me the whole
story of how they had knocked about everywhere, last evening, but I
was too sleepy to enter into it much, though I daresay it was curious
enough; successful speculations and hair's-breadth escapes seemed to
come very thick one upon another, but all I am clear about is that
this poor boy, Fernando's mother was a Mexican heiress, they--one of
them, I mean--managed to marry; her father English, but her mother old
Spanish blood allied to the old Caciques, he says; whether it is a
boast I don't know, but the boy looks like it--such a handsome fellow;
delicate straight profile, slender limbs, beautifully made, inky-black
hair and brows, pure olive skin--the two doctors were both in raptures.
Well, they thought affairs in Mexico insecure, so they sold the poor
woman's estate and carried her off to Texas. No; was it? I really can't
remember where; but, at any rate, Diego stuck to her wherever she
went, and when she died, to her child; nursed him like an old woman,
and-- In short, it was that touching negro love that one sometimes
hears of. Now they seem to have grown very rich--the American
Vice-Consul, who came over this morning from Dearport, knew all about
them--and they came home partly on business, and partly to leave
Fernando to be made into an English gentleman, who, Mr. Travis says, if
he has money to spend, does whip creation. He's English enough for that
still. Well, they have got a telegram that makes them both want to sail
by the next steamer.'
'That's a blessing. But the boy?'
'He cannot be moved for weeks. It is not only the fractures, but the
jar of the fall. He may get quite over it, but must lie quite still on
his back. So here he is, a fixture, by your leave, my lady housekeeper.'
'It is your room, Mr. Audley,' said Wilmet. 'But can his father really
mean to leave him alone so very ill, poor boy?'
'Well, as his father truly says, he is no good to him, but rather the
reverse; and as the Travis mind seems rather impressed by finding an
Audley here, I am to be left in charge of him now, and to find a tutor
for him when he gets better. So we are in for that!'
'But what is to become of you?' asked Wilmet. 'The nurse has got the
little back study.'
'I have got a room at Bolland's to sleep in, thank you,' he answered;
'and I have been representing the inconvenience to the house of this
long illness, so that the Travises, who are liberal enough--'
'I thought them horrid misers,' said Felix.
'That was only the American conscience as to negroes. In other matters
they are ready to throw money about with both hands; so I hope I have
made a good bargain for you, Wilmet. You are to have five guineas a
week, and provide for boy and nurse, all but wine and beer, ice and
fruit.'
'Five guineas!' murmured Wilmet, quite overpowered at the munificent
sum.
'I am afraid you will not find it go as far as you expect, for he will
want a good deal of dainty catering.'
'And your room should be deducted,' said Wilmet.
'Not at all. Mrs. Bolland said she did not take lodgers, but should
esteem it a favour if I would sleep there while her son is away. It is
all safe, I think. He has given me orders on his London banker, and
they say here at the bank that they are all right. It is a strange
charge,' he added thoughtfully; 'we little thought what we were taking
on ourselves when we picked up that poor fellow, Felix; and I cannot
help thinking it will turn out well, there was something so noble about
the poor lad's face as he lay insensible.'
It was about three weeks later, that one Sunday evening, when Mr.
Audley came in from church, Felix followed him to his sitting-room, and
began with unusual formality. 'I think I ought to speak to you, sir.'
'What's the matter?'
'About Lance, and him in there. I have had such a queer talk with
_him!_'
'As how?'
'Why he wanted us to stop from church, asked me to let off the poor
little coon; and when I said we couldn't, because we were in the
choir, wanted to know what we were paid, then why we did it at all;
and so it turned out that he thinks churches only meant for women and
psalm-singing niggers and Methodists, and has never been inside one in
his life, never saw the sense of it, wanted to know why I went.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I don't know; I was so taken aback. I said something about our duty
to God, and it's being all we had to get us through life; but I know I
made a dreadful mess of it, and the bell rang, and I got away. But he
seems a sheer heathen, and there's Lance in and out all day.'
'Yes, Felix, I am afraid it is true that the poor lad has been brought
up with no religion at all--a blank sheet, as his father called him.'
'Wasn't his father English?'
'Yes; but he had lived a roving, godless life. I began, when I found
the boy must stay here, by asking whether he were of his father's or
his mother's communion, and in return heard a burst of exultation that
he had never let a priest into his house. His father-in-law had warned
him against it, and he had carried his wife out of their reach long
before the child's birth; he has not even been baptized, but you see,
Felix, I could not act like Abraham to the idolater in the Talmud.'
Felix did not speak, but knocked one foot against the other in
vexation, feeling that it was his house after all, and that Mr. Audley
should not have turned this young heathen loose into it to corrupt his
brother, without consulting him.
'I told Travis,' continued the Curate, 'that if I undertook the charge
as he wished, it must be as a priest myself, and I must try to put
some religion into him. And, to my surprise, he said he left it to
me. Fernando was old enough to judge, and if he were to be an English
squire, he must conform to old-country ways; besides, I was another
sort of parson from Yankee Methodists and Shakers or Popish priests--he
knew the English clergy well enough, of the right sort.'
'So he is to learn religion to make him a squire?'
'I was thankful enough to find no obstruction.'
'And have you begun?' asked Felix moodily.
'Why--no. He has been too ill and too reserved. I have attempted
nothing but daily saying a short prayer for him in his hearing, hoping
he would remark on it. But you know the pain is still very absorbing at
times, and it leaves him exhausted; and besides, I fancy he has a good
deal of tropical languor about him, and does not notice much. Nothing
but Lance has roused him at all.'
'I would never have let Lance in there by himself, if I had known,'
said Felix. 'He is quite bewitched.'
'It would have been difficult to prevent it. Nor do I think that much
harm can be done. I believe I ought to have told you, Felix; but I
did not like denouncing my poor sick guest among the children, or its
getting round all the town and to my Lady. After all, Lance is a very
little fellow; it is not as if Edgar or Clem were at home.'
'I suppose it cannot be helped,' sighed Felix; 'but my father--' and as
he recollected the desire to take his brothers away from Mr. Ryder, he
felt as if his chosen guardian had been false to his trust, out of pity
and enthusiasm.
'Your father would have known how to treat him,' sighed Mr. Audley.
'At any rate, Felix, we must not forget the duties of hospitality and
kindness; and I hope you will not roughly forbid Lance to go near him,
without seeing whether the poor fellow is not really inoffensive.'
'I'll see about it,' was all that Felix could get himself to say; for
much as he loved Mr. Audley, he could not easily brook interference
with his brothers, and little Lance, so loyal to himself, and so droll
without a grain of malice, was very near to his heart. 'A young Pagan,'
as he thought to himself, 'teaching him all the blackguard tricks and
words he has learnt at all the low schools in north or south!' and all
the most objectionable scenes he had met with in American stories, from
'Uncle Tom' onwards, began to rise before his eyes. 'A pretty thing to
do in a fit of beneficence! I'll order Lance to keep away, and if he
dares disobey, I'll lick him well to show him who is master.'
So he felt, as he swung himself upstairs, and halted with some
intention of pouring out his vexed spirit to Wilmet, because Mr. Audley
had no business to make it a secret; but Wilmet was putting her mother
to bed, and he went on upstairs. There he found all the doors open, and
heard a murmuring sound of voices in Geraldine's room. In a mood to be
glad of any excuse for finding fault, he strode across the nursery,
where Angela and Bernard slept, and saw that Lance, who ought to have
gone at once to bed on coming in, was standing in his sister's window,
trying to read in the ray of gas-light that came up from a lamp at the
brewhouse door.
'Go to bed, Lance,' he said; 'if you have not learnt your lessons in
proper time, you must wake early, or take the consequences. I won't
have it done on Sunday night.'
Lance started round angrily, and Cherry cried, 'O Felix, it is no such
thing! Only would you tell us where to find about the king and his
priests that defeated the enemy by singing the "mercy endureth for
ever" psalm?'
'In the Bible!' said Felix, as if sure it was a blunder. 'There's no
such story.'
'Indeed there is,' cried Lance, 'for Papa (the word low and reverently)
took out his blue poly-something Bible and read it out in the sermon.
Don't you remember, Fee, a hot day in the summer, when he preached all
about those wild robbers--horrid fellows with long spears--coming up in
the desert to make a regular smash of the Jews?'
'Lance!' cried Cherry.
'Well, he did not say that, of course, but they wanted to; and how
the king sent out the priests without a fighting man, only all in
white, praising God in the beauty of holiness, and singing, "His mercy
endureth for ever." I saw him read that, though he told us all the rest
without book; how all the enemy began to quarrel, and all killed one
another, and the Jews had nothing to do but to pick up the spoil, and
sing another psalm coming back.'
'I remember now,' said Felix, in a very different tone. 'It was
Jehoshaphat, Lancey boy. I'll find it for you in the book of
Chronicles. Did you want it for anything?'
Lance made an uneasy movement.
'It was to show poor Fernando Travis, wasn't it?' said Cherry; and as
Lance wriggled again, she added, 'He seems to have been taught nothing
good.'
'Now, Cherry,' broke out Lance, 'I told you to say not a word.'
'I know a little about it, Lance,' said Felix, sitting down on the
window-seat and lifting Lance on his knee, as he said, in a tone very
unlike his intended expostulation, 'You must not let him do you harm,
Lance.'
'He wouldn't; but he does not know anything about anything,' said the
little boy. 'They never taught him to say his prayers, nor sing hymns,
nor chant, and he thinks it is only good for niggers. So I told him
that singing psalms once beat an army, and he laughed; and I thought
Cherry was sure to know where it was--but girls will always tell.'
'Indeed you never told me not,' said Cherry, humbly.
'She has done no harm,' said Felix. 'Mr. Audley has just been talking
to me about that poor boy. He really is as untaught as that little
scamp at the potteries that we tried to teach.'
'He's a stunning good fellow,' broke in Lance; 'he has seen an
alligator, and ridden mustangs.'
'Never mind that now, Lance; I dare say he is very amusing, but--'
'Don't hinder me from going to him,' broke in the younger boy
vehemently.
'If,' said Felix gravely, 'you can be quite sure my father would not
mind it.'
Lance was nestling close up to him in the dark, and he was surprised to
find that round face wet with tears. 'Papa would not let him lie dull
and moped all day long,' he said. 'O Fee, I can't keep away; I am so
sorry for him. When that terrible cramp comes, it is of no use to say
those sort of things to him.'
'What sort of things?'
'Oh, you know; verses such as Papa used to have said to him. They
weren't a bit of good. No, not though I did get the book Papa marked
for Cherry.'
'You did!' gasped Cherry, who little thought that sacred possession of
hers was even known to Master Lance.
'You'd have done it yourself, Cherry,' said the little boy, 'if you
had only seen how bad he was; he got quite white, and had great drops
on his forehead, and panted so, and would not let out a bit of a cry,
only now and then a groan; and so I ran to get the verse Papa used to
say over and over to you when your foot was bad. And I'm sure it was
the right one, but--but--it did him no good, for, oh! he didn't know
who our Saviour is;' and the little fellow clung to his brother in a
passion of tears, while Felix felt a pang at the contrast.
'Have you been telling him, Lancey?' he asked.
'I wanted him to ask Mr. Audley, but he said he was a parson, and his
father said that there would be no parsons if men were not fools. Now,
Fee, I've told you, but don't keep me away.'
'It would be hard on a poor sick fellow,' said Felix, thoroughly
softened. 'Only, Lance, you know I can't be with you; will you promise
to go away if ever you think Papa would wish it?'
'Oh yes; one has to do that, you know, when our own fellows get
blackguardly,' said little Lance, freely; whereat Cherry shuddered
somewhat. 'And, Fee,' he added, 'if you would only come and make him
understand about things.'
'Mr. Audley must do that,' said Felix; 'I can't.'
'You teach the boys in the Sunday-school,' said Lance. 'And he'd mind
you, Blunderbore. He says you are the grandest and most splendiferous
fellow he ever did set eyes on, and that he feels something like, when
you've just looked in and spoken to him.'
'You little ass, he was chaffing you.'
'No, no, _indeed_ he wasn't. I told him all about it, because he liked
your face so much. And he _does_ care so very much when you look in.
Oh! _do, do_, Fee; he is so jolly, and it is so lonely and horrid for
him, and I do so want Papa for him;' and the child cried silently, but
Felix felt the long deep sobs, and as Geraldine, much moved, said,
'Dear little Lancey,' he carried him over to her as she sat up in bed,
and she kissed and fondled him, and murmured in his ear, 'Dear Lance,
I'm sure he'll get good. We will get Mr. Audley to talk to him, you
know, and we will say a prayer every day for him.'
Lance, beginning to recover, put his arms round Cherry's neck, gave her
a tremendous hug, released himself from his brother's arms, and ran off
to bed. Felix remained a few moments, while Cherry exclaimed, 'Oh! the
dear good little fellow!'
'Better than any of us,' said Felix. 'I was quite savage with Mr.
Audley when I found out about it. I must go down and tell him. I never
thought all that was in the little chap! I'm glad he came to you,
Cherry. Good-night.'
'And you will try to teach this poor boy, Felix?'
'I don't say that. I don't in the least know how; but I shall not dare
to hinder Lance, now I see how he goes on.'
On his way down he heard voices in the sitting-room, where, in fact,
Mr. Audley had joined Wilmet, to explain to her how vexed he was to
have so much annoyed Felix, and perhaps also something of his own
annoyance at the manner in which Felix took it. Wilmet, partly from
her 'growing on the sunny side of the wall,' partly from her early
authority, was in some ways older than her brother, and could see that
there was in him a shade of boyish jealousy of his prerogative; and
as she sat, in her pretty modest gravity, with her fair hair and her
Sunday frock, she was softly but earnestly telling Mr. Audley that she
was sure Felix would not mind long, and that he was very sorry for
the poor boy _really_, only he was so anxious about Lance, and he did
like to be consulted. Both looked up, startled, as Felix opened the
door, and they saw that his eyes were full of tears. He came up to Mr.
Audley, and said, 'I beg your pardon, sir; I'd no business to grumble,
and that little fellow has been--'
'Beforehand with us?' asked Mr. Audley, as Felix broke down. 'The nurse
has been just telling me how he sat on his bed saying bits of psalms
and verses to him when he had that bad fit of cramp, "so pretty," she
said; but I was afraid it must have been rather like a spell.'
Felix told his story, feeling it too much not to make it lame, and with
the tearfulness trembling in his voice and eyes all the time.
'Our little _gamin_ has the most of the good Samaritan in him,' said
Mr. Audley. ''Tis not quite the end I should have begun at, but perhaps
it may work the better.'
'Dear little boy, that he should have remembered that sermon!'
exclaimed Wilmet.
'I am afraid it is more than I do,' said Felix; 'all last summer the
more I tried to listen, the more I saw how he was changing. Do you
remember it, Wilmet?'
'Yes; the text was, "The joy of the Lord is your strength," and he
said how praising God, and going on thinking about His goodness and
thankfulness, was the way to make our adversaries dissolve before us,
and never trouble us at all, just like the bands of the Moabites and
Ammonites before Jehoshaphat.'
'I recollect it well, and how I thought it such a likeness of himself,'
said Mr. Audley; 'he was walking over his troubles, scarcely seeing
them, as if they could not dim the shine of his armour while he went on
looking up and being thankful. I fancy little Lance has a good deal of
that kind of bright fearless way.'
'He has,' said Felix in a grave thoughtful tone that made the Curate
look at him and sigh to think how early care and grief had come to make
that joyous buoyancy scarce possible to the elder boy, little more than
seventeen though he was.
'He is _very_ idle, though,' added Wilmet; 'such caricatures as there
are all over his books! Edgar's were bad enough, but Lance puts
pig-tails and cocked hats to all Edgar's.'
So Lance's visits to the sick stranger remained unobstructed. He had
no notion of teaching him; but the foreign boy in his languor and
helplessness curiously fascinated him, perhaps from the very contrast
of the passive, indolent, tropical nature with his own mercurial
temperament. The Spaniard, or perhaps the old Mexican, seemed to
predominate in Fernando, as far as could be guessed in one so weak and
helpless. He seemed very quiet and inanimate, seldom wanting or seeking
diversion, but content to lie still, with half-closed eyes; his manner
was reserved, and with something of courteous dignity, especially when
Lady Price came to visit him; and the Yankeeisms that sometimes dropped
from his tongue did not agree with the polish of the tone, and still
less with the imperious manner in which he sometimes addressed the
nurse. He seemed, though not clever, to be tolerably well cultivated;
he had been at the schools of whatever cities his father had resided
in, and his knowledge of languages was of course extensive.
However, he never talked freely to Mr. Audley. He had bitterly resented
that gentleman's interference, one day when he was peremptorily
commanding the nurse to place him in a position that had been
forbidden, and the endeavour to control him had made him fearfully
angry. There was a stormy outbreak of violent language, only checked
by a severe rebuke, for which he did not forgive the Curate; he was
coldly civil, and accepted the attentions he could not dispense with in
a grave formal manner that would have been sulky in an English lad, but
had something of the dreary grandeur of the Spanish Don from that dark
lordly visage, and made Mr. Audley half provoked, half pitying, speak
of him always as his Cacique. He only expanded a little even to Lance,
though the little boy waited on him assiduously, chattering about
school doings, illustrating them on a slate, singing to him, acting
Blondin, exhibiting whatever he could lay his hands on, including the
twins, whom he bore down one after the other, to the great wrath of
Sibby, not to say of little Stella herself, while Theodore took the
exhibition with perfect serenity.
As to Felix, he was, as Lance said, the subject of the sick lad's
fervent admiration. Perhaps the open, fair, cheerful, though grave
countenance, fresh complexion, and strong, steadfast, upright bearing
had something to do with the strange adoration that in his silent way
Fernando paid to the youth, who looked in from time to time, bringing
a sort of air of refreshment with his good-natured shy smile, even
when he least knew what to say. Or else it was little Lance's fervent
affection for Felix which had conduced to the erection of the elder
brother into the idol of Fernando's fancy; and his briefest visit was
the event of the long autumnal days spent in the uncurtained iron bed
in the corner of the low room. The worship, silent though it was, was
manifest enough to become embarrassing and ridiculous to the subject
of it, whose sense of duty and compassion was always at war with his
reluctance to expose himself to it. Not another word passed on any
religious subject. Mr. Audley was not forgiven enough to venture on the
attempt; the Rector was shy and frightened about it, and could make no
beginning; and Mr. Mowbray Smith, who found great fault with them for
their neglect, had been fairly stared down by the great black eyes,
which, when the heavy lids were uplifted, proved to be of an immense
size and force; and Felix was so sure that it could not be his business
while three clergymen were going in and out that he had never done more
than describe the weather, or retail any fresh bit of London news that
had come down to the office.
At last, however, one November day, he found Fernando sitting up in
bed, and Lance, perched on the table, talking so earnestly as not to
perceive his entrance, until Fernando broke upon his words: 'There!
it's no use!'
'Yes, it is,' cried Lance, jumping down. 'O Fee, I am glad you are
come; I want you to tell him the rights of it.'
'The rights of what, Lance?'
'Tell him that it is all the devil's doing, and the men he has got on
his side; and that it was the very thing our Saviour came for to set us
free, only everybody won't,' said Lance clinging to his brother's hand,
and looking up in his face.
'That's about right, Lance,' said Felix; 'but I don't quite know what
you are talking about.'
'Just this,' said Fernando. 'Lance goes on about God being merciful and
good and powerful--Almighty, as he says; but whatever women may tell a
little chap like that, nobody can think so that has seen the things I
have, down in the West, with my own eyes.'
'Felix!' cried Lance, 'say it. You know and believe just as I do, as
everybody good does, men and all.'
'Yes, indeed!' said Felix with all his heart.
'Then tell me how it can be,' said Fernando.
Felix stood startled and perplexed, feeling the awful magnitude and
importance of the question, but also feeling his own incompetence to
deal with it; and likewise that Wilmet was keeping the tea waiting for
him. He much wished to say, 'Keep it for Mr. Audley,' but he feared to
choke the dawning of faith, and he likewise feared the appearance of
hesitation.
'Nobody can really explain it,' he said, 'but that's no wonder. One
cannot explain a thunderstorm, but one knows that it is.'
'That's electricity,' said Fernando.
'And what's electricity?'
'A fluid that--'
'Yes; that's another word. But you can't get any further. God made
electricity, or whatever it is, and when you talk about explaining it,
you only get to something that _is_. You know it _is_, and you can't
get any further,' he repeated.
'Well, that's true; though science goes beyond you in America.'
'But no searching finds out _all_ about God!' said Felix reverently.
'All we know is that He is so infinitely great and wise, that of course
we cannot understand why all He does is right, any more than a private
soldier understands his general's orders.'
'And _you--you_,' said Fernando, 'are content to say you don't
understand.'
'Why not?' said Felix.
There was a silence. Fernando seemed to be thinking; Lance gazed from
one to the other, as if disappointed that his brother was not more
explicit.
'And how do you know it is true?' added Fernando. 'I mean, what Lance
has been telling me! What makes you sure of it, if you are?'
'_If_ I am?' cried Felix, startled into indignation. 'To be sure I am!'
'But how?'
'I _know_ it!' said Felix.
'How?'
'The Bible!' gasped Lance impatiently.
'Ay; so you have said for ever,' broke in Fernando; 'but what
authenticates that?'
'The whole course of history,' said Felix. 'There is a great chain of
evidence, I know, but I never got it up. I can't tell it you, Fernando;
I never wanted it, never even tried to think about the proofs. It is
all too sure.'
'But wouldn't a Mahometan say that?' said Fernando.
'If he did, look at the Life of our Lord and of Mahomet together, and
see which must be the true Prophet--the Way, the Life, the Truth.'
'That one could do,' said Fernando thoughtfully. 'I say,' as Felix made
a movement as if he thought the subject concluded, 'I want to know one
thing more. Lance says it is believing all this that makes you--any one
I mean--good.'
'I don't know what else should,' said Felix, smiling a little; the
question seemed to him so absurd.
'Is it really what makes you go and slave away at that old boss's of
yours?'
'Why, that's necessity and my duty,' said Felix.
'And is it what makes this little coon come and spend all his
play-hours on a poor fellow with a broken leg? I've been at many
schools, and never saw the fellow who would do that.'
'Oh! you are such fun!' cried Lance.
'All that is right comes from God first and last,' said Felix gravely.
'And you--you that are no child--you believe all that Lance tells me
you do, and think it makes you what you are!'
'I believe it; yes, of course. And believing it should make me much
better than I am! I hope it will in time.'
'Ah!' sighed Fernando. 'I never heard anything like it since my father
said he'd take the cow-hide to poor old Diego, if he caught him
teaching me nigger-cant.'
They left him.
'Poor fellow!' sighed Felix; 'what have you been telling him, Lance?'
'Oh, I don't know; only why things were good and bad,' was Lance's
lucid answer; and he was then intent on detailing the stories he had
heard from Fernando. He had been in the worst days of Southern slavery
ere its extinction, on the skirts of the deadly warfare with the Red
Indians; and the poor lad had really known of horrors that curdled the
blood of Wilmet and Geraldine, and made the latter lie awake or dream
dreadful dreams all night.
But the next day, Mr. Audley was startled to hear the two friends in
the midst of an altercation. When Lance had come in for his mid-day
recreation, Fernando had produced five shillings, desiring him to go
and purchase a Bible for him; but Lance, who had conceived the idea
that the Scriptures ought not to be touched by an unchristened hand,
flatly refused, offering, however, to read from his own. Now Lance's
reading was at that peculiar school-boy stage which seems calculated to
combine the utmost possible noise with the least possible distinctness;
and though he had good gifts of ear and voice, and his reciting and
singing were both above the average, the moment a book was before him,
he roared his sentences between his teeth in horrible monotony. And as
he began with the first chapter of St. Matthew, and was not perfectly
able to cope with all the names, Fernando could bear it no longer, and
insisted on having the book itself. Lance shook his head and refused;
and matters were in this stage when Mr. Audley, not liking the echoes
of the voices, opened the door. 'What is it?' he asked anxiously.
'Nothing,' replied Fernando, proudly trying to swallow his vexation.
'Lance!' said Mr. Audley rather severely; but just then, seeing what
book the child was holding tight under his arm, he decided to follow
him out of the room and interrogate.
'What was it, Lance?'
'He ought not to touch a Bible--he sha'n't have mine,' said Lance
resentfully.
'Was he doing anything wrong with it?'
'Oh no! But he ought not to have it before he is christened, and I
would have read to him.'
Mr. Audley knew what Lance's reading was, and smiled. 'Was that all,
Lance? I like your guardianship of the Bible, my boy; but it was not
given only to those who are Christians already, or how could any one
learn?'
'He sha'n't touch mine, though,' said Lance, with an odd sturdiness;
stumping upstairs with his treasure, a little brown sixpenny S. P. C.
K. book, but in which his father had written his name on his last
birth-day but one.
Mr. Audley only waited to take down a New Testament, and present
himself at Fernando's bedside, observing gladly that there was much
more wistfulness than offence about his expression.
'It was a scruple on the young man's part,' said Mr. Audley, smiling,
though full of anxiety; 'he meant no unkindness.'
'I know he did not,' said Fernando quietly, but gazing at the purple
book in the clergyman's hands.
'Did you want this?' said Mr. Audley; 'or can I find anything in it for
you?'
'Thank you;' and there was a pause. The offended manner towards Mr.
Audley had been subsiding of late into friendliness under his constant
attentions, and Fernando's desire for an answer prevailed at last.
'Felix told me to read the Life of Christ,' he said, not irreverently,
'and that it would show me He must be True.'
'I hope and trust that so it may be,' said Mr. Audley, more moved than
he could bear to show, but with fervour in his voice far beyond his
words.
'Felix,' said Fernando, resting on the name, 'Felix does seem as if he
must be right, Mr. Audley; can it be really as he says--and Lance--that
their belief makes them like what they are?'
'Most assuredly.'
'And you don't say so only because you are a minister?' asked the boy
distrustfully.
'I say so because I know it. I knew that it is the Christian faith that
makes all goodness, long before I was a minister.'
'But I have seen plenty of Christians that were not in the least like
Felix Underwood.'
'So have I; but in proportion as they live up to their faith, they have
what is best in him.'
'I should like to be like him,' mused Fernando; 'I never saw such a
fellow. He, and little Lance too, seem to belong to something bright
and strong, that seems inside and outside, and I can't lay hold of what
it is.'
'One day you will, my dear boy,' said Mr. Audley. 'Let me try to help
you.'
Fernando scarcely answered, save by half a smile, and a long sigh of
relief: but when Mr. Audley put his hand over the long brown fingers,
they closed upon it.