THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT.
'Peace, brother, be not exquisite,
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils;
For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief?'
_Milton._
Wilmet was so devoted to Alda and her hopes and fears, that she let
Felix escape with less reproof than usual, for the cold that sat
heavily upon him after the last day's chill. He did not give way to it.
There might have been some temptation to sit over the fire if Geraldine
had been alone there; but Alda, when Wilmet was out of reach, engrossed
Cherry's ears with descriptions of her feelings, and cravings for
sympathy in her suspense, treating every other subject as futile, and
the interruption of the children's lessons as an insult. No one might
talk of anybody but Ferdinand; and Cherry did not wonder that Felix
looked wearied and harassed, and always betrayed some anxiety to come
first into possession of the morning post. One day, nearly a fortnight
after his visit to London, he called Wilmet away from the breakfast
table into the sitting-room: 'Wilmet,' he said, 'I must go and see Miss
Pearson before school hours.'
'You! Is there anything the matter with Alice?' asked Wilmet, startled
at his tone.
'Had they--had you--any notion of anything between her and Edgar?'
'No! Miss Pearson has taken to saying, "My dear, your brothers are
quite grown into young men," and I thought she did not like the play.'
'Ah! that play! It threw them together!'
'Is it really so? I suppose nothing is too foolish and provoking for
Edgar!'
'The fact of admiration is not wonderful,' said Felix, rather in a
tone of defence; 'but the worst of it is, that he has been trying to
communicate with her through those poor girls at school.'
Wilmet's horror was surpassing; and when she found that he had known
it all this fortnight, she was so indignant, that to his reply that it
was not fair to leave both parties the chance of acting honourably, she
replied with scorn for his weakness in expecting anything from Edgar,
and exposing the children to the chance of expulsion, which might be
a lasting blight, such as merely in thought put her into a perfect
agony. Nevertheless, angry and excited as she was, she flew at him
when he gave her the letters, and was off to Miss Pearson's--'Go there
without breakfast, in the sleet, sitting and still with that bad cold
not half gone!' and she dragged him back reluctantly to the other room,
where, ignominiously ordering off Bernard and Stella to finish their
stir-about elsewhere, she insisted on his breakfasting while she told
the story. She was far too loyal to blame him except _tête-à-tête_, but
she burst on him now and then.
'You are not eating, Felix!'
'A cup of tea, then, please, Cherry. No one can swallow stir-about in
hot haste but Wilmet herself.' He spoke good-humouredly, but with a
force upon himself that Cherry detected; and she further saw that he
took nothing but that one cup and a fragment of bread, and then hurried
off, saying that he must catch Miss Pearson for the little girls' sake.
The letters he had left were Robina's and another enfolding it
containing these words:
Dear Sir,
According to my promise, I have refrained from opening this
letter, though I own that the discovery of the purpose for
which free correspondence was asked, has been no small
amazement to me. In the first shock, I will not trust myself
to say more, until after consultation with my brother; but you
shall hear from me again respecting your sisters.
I remain, your obedient servant,
B. M. FULMORT.
The letter within was--
My Dear Felix,
It has all come out. There is a dreadful uproar, and nobody
will believe me. If only Miss Lyveson was here! This was the
way. Edgar came yesterday and took us for a long walk in
Kensington Gardens, and afterwards I saw Angela going towards
Alice Knevett's room; and as we are not allowed to run into
other people's bedrooms, I stopped her and put her in mind
of what you said; but she began to cry and struggle with me,
and Alice came out, and made a fuss to get the note Angel had
for her, till I got into a passion, and spoke so loud that
Miss Fennimore came out upon us. Angel did not know what she
was about by that time, and cried, saying that I was unkind,
and was hurting her; and Alice took her part, accusing me of
tyrannizing and being jealous, so that I faced round and told
all on the spot. Miss Fennimore took us all straight down
to Miss Fulmort, and it was a dreadful business. They are
frightfully angry with us all, and me the most, for having told
you instead of them. They cannot understand the difference
between you and any common brother. They think I have not told
the whole truth, and it is very hard. Nobody ever distrusted
me before. We are just living on sufferance till Mr. Fulmort
comes to see about it, and then I think we shall be sent away.
I hope so, for I know my own dear Miss Lyveson will believe
me and take me back to justice and confidence. Here the girls
are as angry with me for telling as the ladies are for not
telling; they have no idea of such loyalty and love as we had
at Catsacre. There is a report that Miss Pearson has been sent
for. If we are sent home with her, it will be a horrid shame
and injustice; but I shall not be able to be sorry one bit, for
I know you will stand by me.
Dear, dear brother Felix,
Your affectionate Sister,
BOBBIE.
When the three sisters had made out all that could be understood,
Geraldine owned herself less amazed than Wilmet; and Alda laughed
at both for not being aware that Edgar was a universal flirt. All
that surprised her was his having let it proceed to such dangerous
extremities; but of course that was the girl's own fault--he would give
it up when it came to the point.
'Why should you expect Edgar to be more inconstant than Ferdinand?'
asked Cherry.
Both twins turned on her, and told her she was a child and knew nothing
about it--their favourite way of annihilating her; and then Alda, in
her excitement, walked with Wilmet to the school, leaving Cherry, as
usual, to wash up the breakfast things. She felt a conviction that
all this accounted for the weary oppressed look, broken by occasional
starts of vivacity, which ever since Felix's day in London had been
laid to the score of the cold he had brought home.
She was glad she was still alone, when Felix looked in for a moment
to say, 'Miss Maria goes up by the 11.30 train. I am going to send a
letter by her, and I think she will save Robin. Angel is so mere a
child, that it matters less.'
'How can they all be so unjust?'
'They have not had time to know the child.'
'I did not mean Robina, but you.'
'I don't mind that,' he said, with a smile, 'though I am glad there is
one lady who does not scold me;' and he bent down to kiss her.
'Did the Miss Pearsons?'
'They allowed that I meant to act for the best, and you know what that
means. However,' he added,' they are earnest to save the little girls,
which is more to the purpose. Wilmet or I would have gone up, but Miss
Maria thinks she can do better than either, and I believe they are
more likely to trust an old schoolmistress, who is the injured party
besides. I must write my letter. Shall I help you into the other room?'
'No, thank you; I have the lessons here, for they tease Alda. If you
would only send Theodore to me as you go.'
'Does Alda never help you?'
'Only by criticising my French pronunciation. She is much too restless.
O Felix, what a cough! You have made your throat worse.'
'It is only this black east wind.'
'You ought to stay upstairs and be taken care of. Can't you, and let
Redstone call if you are wanted?'
'I _am_ wanted. It is quite as warm in the office as here, when the
door is shut. What I want is, only to be twenty years older. Good-bye.'
Cherry's ponderings were divided between that sigh and the possible
sighs of the wind if that door were not shut, until her own door was
opened by Felix's hand, to admit a little figure still in petticoats,
with the loose flaxen curls, tottering feet, limp white fingers,
and vacant blue eyes, whom she daily put through a few exercises to
train his almost useless fingers and tongue. The sight of this, Alda
declared, made her ill, though the little boy was as docile as he was
helpless; but it was quite true that to nerves and ears not inured from
the first, Theodore's humming and his concertina were a trial from
their perpetuity.
Late that evening came a message to beg Mr. and Miss Underwood would
step up; and they stepped, though the east wind was blacker than
ever. They found that in great tribulation Miss Maria had brought
Alice Knevett home, and sent her to bed all tears and exhaustion, but
that Robina and Angela were forgiven--a word so offensive to Felix as
relating to the former, that he sorely lamented that prudence forbade
their removal, but was somewhat consoled by a letter that Miss Maria
brought him from the Vicar of St. Matthew's, who had had a private
investigation of the whole subject. He wrote to Felix that his sister
was new to the management of the girls, and was a good deal annoyed at
the secrecy observed towards herself, not making full allowance for
Robina's exceptional circumstances; but that, for his own part, he was
convinced of the girl's genuine uprightness and unselfish forbearance;
and though he feared her position must be unpleasant just now, he
thought it would be for the good of all if she had the patience to
live it down, and earn the good opinion he was sure she deserved.
Miss Maria reported that Miss Fennimore had been brought round by his
opinion, though Miss Fulmort remained persuaded that Robina had 'come
over him' in some way; and while yielding to his stringent desire that,
as he said, 'one of the worthiest of her girls should not be unjustly
expelled,' only let the child herself know that she was tolerated in
consideration of her youth, her orphanhood, and her relationship to
Clement. Poor Robin! No one could help grieving for the tempest that
had fallen on her guiltless head, and hope that all would result in
her final good; but the sorrows of an absent school-girl could hardly
occupy even her dearest friends, in the full and present crisis of two
love affairs.
For Edgar and Major Knevett both arrived, the lover as dispassionate as
the father was the reverse. Edgar did, however, as he had undertaken,
rise to the position. He joked at it a little in private, to the
annoyance and perplexity of Cherry, and even of Felix; but he was
perfectly steady in maintaining his perfect right to address Miss
Knevett, in avowing his engagement, and in standing by it.
To Major Knevett, the affair appeared outrageous impudence on the
part of a beggarly young painter out of a country bookseller's shop,
encouraged by the egregious folly of the aunts. What was said of
clergyman's sons and good old family went for absolutely nothing; and
Edgar's quiet assurance of success in his profession was scoffed at
with incredulity not altogether unpardonable. In the encounter that
Felix had the misfortune to witness, since it took place in his own
office-parlour, he could not help thinking that Edgar, with his perfect
temper, unfailing courtesy, calm self-respect, and steady sense of
honour towards the young lady, showed himself the true gentleman in
contrast with the swaggering little Major, who seemed to expect that
he could bluster the young man out of his presumption, and was quite
unprepared for Edgar's cool analysis of his threats. But instead of,
like Tom Underwood, cooling down into moderation and kindness so soon
as his bolt was shot, the finding it fall short only chafed him the
more, and rendered him the more inveterate against all conciliation.
There was an appeal all round to Felix, but he was not so practicable
as the universal compliments to his good sense showed to be expected.
He had expressed his opinion that it was a rash engagement, hitherto
improperly carried on; but he could not be brought to advise his
brother to break it off on his side while the lady held to it on hers.
It might be best to give it up by mutual consent; but as long as one
party was bound, so was the other; and he thoroughly sided with Edgar
in not being threatened out of it whilst Alice persisted. Still more
flatly did he refuse Miss Pearson's entreaty that he would see the
wilful girl, and persuade her how hopeless was her resistance, and
how little prospect of the attachment being prosperous. Nothing but
despair and perplexity could have prompted the good aunts to try such
a resource, but they were at their wits' end. They really loved their
niece, and they dreaded the tender mercies of her father, who had
indeed petted Alice as a young child, but had made her mother suffer
greatly from his temper. If she would yield, they hoped to procure for
her a home at York, with their brother's widow, and to save her from
a residence in Jersey with the step-mother; but Alice, upheld by a
secret commerce of notes ingeniously conveyed, felt herself a heroine
of constancy, and kept up her spirits by little irritations to whoever
tried to deal with her. She could deftly insinuate, on the one hand,
that her aunts had always preached up the Underwood perfections; and
on the other, hint to her father that if her home had still remained
what it was, she should never have looked out of it; and whenever he
flew into a rage, or used violent language, she would look up under her
eye-lids and whisper something about 'real gentlemen.' Those thorns and
claws that had figured in the scale of her transmigration were giving a
good many little scratches, which did her feelings some good, but her
cause none at all, by the vexation they produced. 'If she could only
be made to understand,' said poor Miss Pearson, 'how little she gains
by irritating her father, and that he is really a very dreadful person
when he is thoroughly offended! Poor child! my heart aches for her.'
So Wilmet was turned in upon her, and before she could utter a word was
hugged and kissed all over because she was the very image of darling
Edgar, and his dear violet eyes were exactly the same colour.
Unsentimental Wilmet extricated herself, saying, 'Eyes can't be violet
coloured. Don't let us go into that silly talk, Alice; things are too
serious now.'
'You are come to help me and be a dear!' cried Alice, clasping her
hands. 'How does he look? the dear boy!'
'The same as usual,' said Wilmet, coolly. 'But, Alice, if you think
that I am come to--'
'Does he--really and truly? I saw him out of the little passage window,
and I thought he looked quite thin! And Lizzie Bruce said Mrs. Hartley
asked who that handsome young man was who looked so delicate.'
'He is particularly strong and healthy. Alice, I want to set it all
before you as a reasonable being--'
'Only do tell me; has he got his appetite? For you know he is used to
live where everything is _recherché_, and when one's out of spirits
_things_ do make a difference--'
Was that the claw in the velvet paw?
'He eats three times as much as Felix any day,' said Wilmet, with a
certain remembrance of the startling nudity of the bone of yesterday's
leg of mutton. 'He is doing very well. You need not be afraid for him;
but it seems to me that you should consider whether it can be right--'
'Come, Wilmet, you were my first friend; you can't help being kind to
me.'
'I want to show you true kindness.'
'True kindness means something horridly cross! Now don't, Wilmet. I get
ever so much kindness as it is! I know what you are going to say. It is
very naughty of people to like each other when neither of them has got
a sixpence; but if they can't help it, what then? Must they leave off
liking, eh?'
'They ought to try to prevent their liking from leading to disobedience
and concealment.'
'Ah! but if they can't?'
'People always can.'
'Were you ever tried?' asked Alice, slyly, for all the simplicity.
'I hope never to be, if deceiving my friends and making others deceive
is to be the consequence.'
'Well, luckily there isn't much chance,' crept out of the demure lips.
It was intended as the thorn beneath the may-flower, but it was no
such thing. Wilmet was quite ready to accept the improbability as very
fortunate.
'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'The question is, what it
is right to do now. It seems hard for me to say so, being your friend
and his sister--'
'Oh, never mind that. People's sisters never do like the girls they are
fond of.'
Decidedly Wilmet could not get on. Her mouth was stopped either by
a little rapture about Edgar, or a little velvet-pawed scratch to
herself, whenever she tried in earnest to set the matter before Alice;
and when, being a determined person, she at last talked on through
all that Alice tried to thrust in, and delivered her mind of the
remonstrance she had carefully thought over, and balanced between
kindness, prudence, and duty, and all the time with the conviction that
not one word was heeded! If it was not English malice it was French
_malice_ that pointed the replies and sent Wilmet away as much provoked
as pitying, and not at all inclined to be examined by Edgar on her
interview, and let him gather that she had not had the best of it. Poor
Alice! what were these little triumphs of a sharp tongue in comparison
with the harm she did herself by exacerbating whoever tried to argue
with her? There was one person she did profess to wish to see, namely,
Geraldine; but the flying rheumatic pains, excited by the black east
wind with sleet upon its blast, could not be trifled with; and Major
Knevett's wrath put an effectual stop to Alice's entering the house
during the Saturday and Sunday of his stay at Bexley. Perhaps Cherry
was not sorry. She could not have pleaded against Edgar, in spite of
her disapprobation of both; and moreover, the thought at the bottom of
her heart was, 'How could any one who had been the object of such tones
of the one brother's voice be won by the showy graces of the other?
Edgar could easily have thrown off a disappointment; but Felix came
first--and oh! can he shake it off in the same light way?'
She had not the comfort of talking it over. Felix made no sign, and
Edgar's line was to treat the whole complication as a matter of
pleasantry, pretending that he had only gone into it to please Felix!
and yet, as came to their knowledge, privately exchanging billets and
catch-words with Alice, while he openly declared his engagement and
resolution to work his way up and lay his laurels at her feet.
He went away the very same morning as Major Knevett carried off his
daughter to Jersey, audaciously following them to the station, where he
exchanged a grasp of the hand with her in the very sight of the 'grey
tyrant father,' who actually gnashed his teeth, in his inability either
to knock him down or give him in charge.
There was no time to breathe between the departure of this pair of
lovers and the arrival of Alda's splendid Life-Guardsman, who, horses
and all, took up his abode at the Fortinbras Arms, and spent his
days in felicity with Alda. A very demonstrative pair they were. To
Geraldine, often unwillingly _en tiers_, they seemed to spend their
time chiefly in sitting hand in hand, playing with one another's rings
and dangles, of which each seemed to possess an inexhaustible variety.
Ferdinand's dressing-case and its contents were exquisite in their way,
and were something between an amusement and a horror to Wilmet, who
could not understand Felix's regard for so extravagant and wasteful
a person, who gave away sovereigns where half-crowns would have been
more wholesome, half-crowns instead of shillings, shillings instead of
pence, and who moreover was devoted to horse-flesh. His own favourite
steed, Brown Murad, had been secured at a fabulous price; and the
possession of him seemed to be the crowning triumph over a certain
millionaire baronet in the same corps, evidently his rival. What was
even more alarming was that every detail about races and horses in
training was at his fingers' ends, so that he put Felix up to a good
deal of knowledge useful to the racing articles in the Pursuivant; but
he declared that he never betted. His was a perilous position, homeless
and friendless as he stood; and this rendered him doubly grateful for
the brotherly welcome he received. Yet the days would have been long to
any but lovers, in spite of the rides and walks, one even to Minsterham
to see Lance. Ferdinand liked to recur to the old remembrances of his
convalescence; but in these Alda had no part, and they seemed to jar on
her. She might sometimes seem half fretted by his impetuous southern
love, but she could not bear a particle of his attention to be bestowed
on aught save herself; and when Geraldine would have utilised his fine
straight profile as an artistic study, the monopoly was so unpleasing
that the portrait had to be dropped. The odd thing was that Alda
should have a lover whose most congenial spirit was Clement. He was a
great frequenter of St. Matthew's, and had no interest save in kindred
subjects. Felix always found them alike difficult to converse with,
from a want of any breadth of sympathy with subjects past or present,
such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his
profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did
not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed
in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted
that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue,
and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in
his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations of
his position.
His seemed to be a nature that would alternate between apathetic
indolence and strong craving for excitement. He could go on for
days with a patient, almost silent, round of mechanical occupations
performed well, nigh in his sleep, and then, when once stirred up
became possessed with a vehement restlessness, as if there were still a
little about him of the panther of the wilderness.
At first he awaited his letter from his uncle much more philosophically
than did Alda, but when it tarried still, he became so eager that he
made two journeys to London to meet the mail, and pestered every one
with calculations as to time and space.
The letter came, and was all that every one else had expected. Alfred
Travis had always detested the family into which his nephew had been
thrown by his accident, and the tidings that the heiress had been
rejected for the sake of one of these designing girls could not be
welcome. So he gave notice that nothing more could be expected from him
if his nephew stooped thus low. This, however, did not much concern
Ferdinand. He curled his black moustache, and quietly said his uncle
would not find that game answer. The affairs of the brothers had always
been mixed together, and Ferdinand had been content to leave the whole
in his uncle's hands, only drawing for his own handsome allowance; but
the foundation had been his mother's fortune, and he had only to claim
his own share of the capital, and disentangle it from the rest, either
to bring his uncle to terms at once, or to be able to dispense with
his consent. The delay was vexatious, but it could be but brief; and
in the meantime Bexley was felicity. Yes, in spite of the warning he
received at the Rectory, which my Lady followed up by a remonstrance
to Felix--over the counter, for in vain he tried to get her into
the office. He could only tell her that he much regretted Edgar's
conduct, but as to Alda, there was no disobedience, and the young man's
character was high. He was just as impracticably courteous as his
father, and Lady Price shrugged her shoulders and _hoped_. 'For, Felix
Underwood,' she said, 'I am convinced that _after all_ you are a very
well-meaning young man.'
This was her farewell, for Mr. Bevan had been more ailing than usual,
and had obtained permission to leave his parish for a year, to be spent
partly in the south of France, partly at the German baths.
Well was it for those who could get away! Never had the spring been
sourer; Easter came so early as itself to seem untimely, and the
Wednesday of its week was bleakness itself, as Lance and Robina stood
on the top of the viaduct over the railway, looking over the parapet
at the long perspective of rails and electric wires, their faces
screwed up, and reddened in unnatural places by the bitter blast. Felix
had asked at breakfast if any one would be the bearer of a note to
Marshlands; Lance had not very willingly volunteered, because no one
else would; then Robina joined him, and they had proceeded through the
town without a syllable from either of the usually lively tongues, till
as they stood from force of habit watching for a train, the following
colloquy took place, Robina being the first speaker.
'What is it?'
'What is what?'
'What is the matter?'
'What is the matter with what?'
'With it all?'
There came a laugh, but Robina returned to the charge. 'Well, but what
is it? Is it east wind?'
'Something detestable--whatever it is,' grunted Lance.
'You've found it so too,' said Robina; for Lance had only come home
after evening cathedral the day before.
'Haven't I, though!'
He said no more, being a boy of much reserve as to his private
troubles; and Robina presently said,--
'I say, Lance, did Alda use to be nice, or is it love?'
'Never nice, like Wilmet or Cherry.'
'I am sure,' proceeded the girl, 'I thought love was the most beautiful
and romantic thing--too nice to be talked about, for fear it should
turn one's head; but here it seems to be really nothing but plague and
bother and crossness.'
'Poor Bob!' said Lance, 'you got the worst of it up at Brompton.'
'I got it every way,' said Robina. 'There was Edgar treating me like a
little contemptible baby, and Alice sometimes coaxing me and sometimes
spiting me, and Angel poisoned against me; and when I thought I must
be acting for the best in telling Felix, somehow that turned out
altogether horrid.'
'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was
to be done, Felix was the right one.'
'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore
seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am
forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and
yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my
marks and prizes. "For proficiency, not for conduct," they say, in that
hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all,
think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me
before she went!'
'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all
round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'
'For choir boys? O Lance!'
'Choir boys aint girls, I thank my stars.'
'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such
counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I _did_ think it would be
made up.'
'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a
woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.
'Clem looks black, because he says his sisters were meant to raise the
tone of the school.'
'Confound the tone of the school! I know what _that_ is! But who cares
for Tina?'
'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she
could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'
'Whew--w--w--' whistled Lance; but at the melancholy tone, he
absolutely took his red hand out of its comfortable nest in his pocket,
to draw his sister's arm into his. It was well, for her voice was far
more trembling now. 'I could bear it all if it were not for Felix
himself. I know he is angry with me, but he won't talk, nor tell me
how; he only said, "We both meant to act for the best; but it is a
painful affair, and we had better not discuss it," and then he began to
whistle to Theodore. If any one did know how I hate being told I meant
to act for the best!'
'Something is come over Felix,' said Lance. 'I never knew him give such
a jaw as he has to me. To be sure, he was set on to it.'
'Set on?'
'Yes, by Wilmet for one! You should have seen the way she was in--as if
I hadn't a right to do what I please with my own money.'
'What?'
'My violin! Ferdinand Travis tipped me when he rode over to the
Cathedral, and by good luck it was the day before the auction at old
Spicer's. Bill and I went in to see the fun; and by all that is lucky,
there was a violin routed out of an old cupboard. Nobody bid against me
but Godwin, the broker, and it was knocked down to me for twenty-two
and six. Bill lent me the half-crown; and Poulter, our lay vicar, who
is at a music-shop, says 'tis a real bargain, he's mad to have missed
it himself; but he showed me how to put my fingers on it, and I can
play Mendelssohn's "Hirtenlied." You shall hear by-and-by, Robin. Well;
Wilmet comes on it when she was unpacking my shirts. I'm sure I wish
she'd let me unpack them myself, instead of poking her nose there; and
if she wasn't in a way! Wasting my money, when I ought to be saving it
up to buy a watch; and wasting my time and all the rest of it--till one
would think 'twas old Scratch himself I'd brought home!'
'Oh don't, Lance. And did she set on Felix?'
'Ay; and then, you know, our new Precentor, Beccles, isn't one quarter
the man Nixon was; and he has been and written a letter to Fee that any
schoolmaster in creation should be licked for writing, to go and pison
a poor chap's home--all about those cards.'
'What cards?'
'The pack Jones found in the middle of the north transept ten days ago.'
'Of the Cathedral! How shocking! But why should he write to Felix?'
'Because the big-wigs make sure some one out of the Bailey must have
dropped them, getting into the town through the Cathedral at night.'
'But they don't suspect you?'
'No; but Beccles got into an awful way, and swears--'
'You don't mean really swears!'
'No, no--stuff--vows--that unless he gets to the bottom of it, not one
of us shall have the good-conduct prize. Now I did think I might have
had that--though I'm not a church candle like Tina--for I never was
_had up_ for anything; and it is precious hard lines! Such a beauty,
Robin, the Bishop gives it--all the Cathedral music, bound in red
morocco; and this beggar hinders us all this very last chance! And
then, he is dirty enough to write and tell Felix to get out of me who
has been getting out through the Cathedral, and dropping the cards.'
'Do you know?'
'Hold your tongue; I thought you had a little sense! Felix had that; he
saw I could not tell him, and said it must be as I pleased about that;
but then he rowed me, as he never did before, for wasting time, and not
mugging for the exhibition--as if that was any use.'
'Why shouldn't you get the exhibition?'
'Put that out of your head,' said Lance, angrily; 'Harewood is sure
of that! A fellow that construes by nature--looks at a sentence, and
spots the nominative in a moment--makes verses--rale, superior, iligant
articles.'
'But I thought he wasn't always accurate. Can't you catch him out? O
Lance, don't look so fierce! I only said so because he can't want the
exhibition as much as you. He can go to some other school, or be paid
for.'
'Not conveniently,' said Lance; 'they are not at all well off, and
Jack helps them. Besides, I wouldn't get the thing in a sneaking way;
and besides, Bill could no more make a mull in construing out of
carelessness than I could a false note--it's against nature. I can't
beat him, except in arithmetic. My birth-day comes at such an unlucky
time. I should get another year if I'd only been born in July instead
of June! I might be second, for Shapcote is only dogged by his father;
but that's no good for the exhibition: and then there's an end of
Cathedral and all!'
'What should you do then, Lance?'
'Whatever costs least! I'd as lief work my way out to Fulbert, if this
is to go on.'
'Oh, don't! don't do that, whatever you do!' cried Robina, clinging to
his arm.
'I don't see why not, if everybody is to be as savage as a bear when
one comes home. One always trusted to Felix to see sense, if nobody
else did; but what with his jawing one about the exhibition, and Wilmet
about the tin and every spot on one's clothes, and Alda growling at
whatever one does in the parlour, I'm sure I wish I'd stayed at Bexley.'
The boy and girl had never before been tried by want of sympathy,
and what seemed to them injustice, when they had thus descended into
the perturbed atmosphere of what they were used to regard as a happy
home. There was a long mutual communication of grievances--irritable
speeches--inattention from their elders--fancies and complaints of
Alda's enforced peremptorily by Wilmet--appeals to Felix either quashed
or unheeded; the strange thing was, in how short a time so much had
managed to go wrong with them, except that they added the vexations of
the last quarter to the present discomfort, real or fancied; and though
they were both good children, each had the strong feeling that there
was not as much encouragement as usual to goodness, and that it could
not have been much worse if they had been seriously to blame. One had
expected to be caressed for her endurance in a good cause; the other
had not expected to be severely rebuked for what he scarcely viewed
as faults. It was the first time this younger half of the family had
ever suffered anything approaching to neglect or injustice from their
seniors, and the moment was perilous. The discussion was forming their
discontents into a dangerously avowed state, if it had the beneficial
effect of raising their spirits by force of sympathy. At any rate, they
were in no gloomy mood when they reached the tidy little villa, with
its beds of open-hearted crocuses defying the cold wind, and admitting
the sun to the utmost depths of their purple and golden bosoms, as they
laughed their cheery greeting.
No less cheerful was the welcome from kind old Mrs. Froggatt, who
met them at the door. 'Master Lancelot, Miss Robina, this is an
unlooked-for pleasure, to be sure! My dear Miss Robina!' as the girl
gave her hearty embrace.
They were the prime favourites next to Felix, and were the more gladly
hailed that Mr. Froggatt was anxious about the business on which they
came, and had been trying to get leave from his wife to peril his
rheumatics by coming in to Bexley about it. They must stay to luncheon;
and while Mr. Froggatt went off to answer his note, they were made much
of over the fire, in the way that had of late become so abhorrent to
Bernard, with difficulty avoiding a pre-luncheon or nooning of cake and
wine within an hour of the meal of the day.
'And how is Mr. Underwood?' asked Mrs. Froggatt, when Robina had
been divested of her wraps, placed close to the fire, screened and
footstooled, and when Lance had transferred the big white cat from the
arm-chair to his own knee.
'Oh, very well, thank you,' said Robina, rather surprised that the
lengthy catechism on the family health did not as usual start from
'poor dear Miss Geraldine.'
'He was looking so thin, and had such a cough, I was quite concerned
when he walked out here on Good Friday afternoon,' continued Mrs.
Froggatt. 'I hope he is taking care.'
'Wilmet is always at him about it,' said Lance.
'That is right. And I hope he minds to keep the office-door shut. It is
such a draughty place! Does he wear flannel, do you know, my dear?'
'I think so,' said Robina. 'Sister Constance told Wilmet he ought, when
he had that long cough after the measles.'
'Ay. You know--you'll excuse me, my dears, a cough is not to be trifled
with in your dear family.'
'You should write to the clerk of the weather-office, Mrs. Froggatt,'
said Lance, rather gruffly.
And as Mrs. Froggatt was not good at understanding jokes, but was
always ready to accept Mr. Lance's, she thought he meant Admiral
Fitzroy; and much explanation and banter followed, which the children
made the louder from dread of the subject. Mrs. Froggatt was by no
means the cultivated person her husband was; but, being of a good old
plain farmer stock, she was quite as unassuming, and her manners with
the young Underwoods were a good deal like those of a superior old
housekeeper, only perhaps less authoritative and familiar; but she was
not to be kept away from the subject of her real anxiety. 'I wish I
could see your sister, and speak to her; he ought to have some advice
rather than let it run on in this way. I'm sure Mr. Froggatt would be
willing to do anything. It has been a great concern to him to have to
leave such a heavy charge to him this spring, and with all the family
cares on his head too, at his age. Miss Alda's wedding put off too--is
it? And is the young gentleman here still?'
'No; his leave was over last Monday,' said Robina, 'a week after I came
home.'
'I should like to have seen him! Your brother says he is grown up such
a fine-looking young man, and quite got over his lameness. A handsome
couple they will be! I did see them ride through the place, but Miss
Alda didn't see me.'
'You saw his horse?' broke in Lance, who considered Brown Murad as a
superior specimen to either of the lovers; and Mrs. Froggatt, whose
father had bred horses, and whose son was much more addicted to them
than was for his good, was a much more intelligent auditor of the
perfections now dilated on than could have been expected.
Yet nothing could keep off the dreaded subject, and even at table,
Lance's disappointing deficiency in schoolboy voracity became the cause
of a lamentation over his brother's small appetite, and an examination
of Robina, resulting in her allowing that Felix seldom gave himself
time to do more than snatch a crust of bread in the middle of the day,
and did not always make up for it at tea-time. Mr. Froggatt shook his
head and looked distressed, and his good lady went on discoursing about
the basin of soup she always used to keep prepared for him, evidently
longing, though not quite daring, to send a lecture to Wilmet on taking
care of her brother. But what made more impression on both the children
was, that after they had been into Mr. Froggatt's little conservatory
with him, and had received into their charge a basket of camellias,
violets, and calycanthus, with a pot of jonquils in the middle for
Geraldine, the old gentleman said, as he bade them good-bye, 'Tell your
sister, that if she thinks a day or two of laying by would be good
for your brother, I should be ready and glad to change places with
him. A little change might take away his cough; and I don't like his
looks--no, I don't. He ought to be careful;' this to himself, with a
long sigh.
Then the children got out into the garden, and with the natural
impatience of the evil omen, exclaimed at the same moment--
'Croak, croak, croak, went the frogs,'
and
'Were there ever such a pair of good old coddles!'
But then they walked on for a full quarter of a mile before either said
another word; and then it was, 'You don't think Felix looking ill, do
you, Lance?'
'I never thought about his looks at all,' said Lance.
'No more did I,' said Robina; 'but he does cough; I hear him through
the wall in the morning. Do you think there is anything in it, Lance?'
'How long has it been going on?'
'Ever since he came up to London. He got a chill in our garden when I
was telling him about--' said Robina, stopping short of what she hated
to mention.
'Then that's it!' said Lance, turning round with a face of one who had
made a great discovery.
'It? What is the matter with him?'
'Yes,' said Lance. 'Hold your tongue, Robina; but Cherry and I thought
long ago that he fancied that little Knevett himself. Then I made sure
it was all a mistake; but now, depend upon it, that's what he is so cut
up about!'
It carried conviction to the hearer, perhaps because it fitted in with
a girl's love of romance. 'Then that's why he won't talk to me!'
'Of course!'
And then they began putting together all the tokens of inclination
which their small experience and large imagination could suggest, till
they had pretty well decided the point in their own belief, and had
amused themselves considerably; but the anxiety came back again.
'Do people get over such things, Lance? There was Ophelia, and there
was Wilfred in "Rokeby"--only she was a woman, and he was pipy. Did you
ever know of anybody really and truly?'
Lance meditated, but his experience reached no farther than the
surgeon's assistant at Minsterham, who was reported to be continually
in love, but who did not look greatly the worse for it.
And then Robina suggested that she did not remember that either Wilfred
or Ophelia had a cough.
'But my father had,' said Lance in the depths of his throat. 'Don't you
know, Robin, it was hard work and trouble and poverty that--_did it?_'
'Was it?' awe-struck, for she had been so young as to have no clear
ideas.
'I've heard it told often enough. My Lady cut off the third curate; and
that--and all the rest of it--helped to bring on the decline.'
'But, Lance! At least, that wasn't--love.'
'Nonsense, Robin! Don't you see, whatever takes the heart and spirit
out of a man, makes him ready for illness to get hold of?' Lance
plucked desperately at the hazels in the hedge, and his eyes were full
of tears.
'O Lance, Lance, what can we do?'
'I don't know! I'd let him pitch into me from morning till night if
that would do him any good!'
'I'm sure I am very sorry I grumbled. We'll give Wilmet Mr. Froggatt's
message, and see what she thinks.'
Poor children! their consternation was such, that they must judge by
their own eyes of Felix without loss of time; so they both marched into
the shop with Mr. Froggatt's note, and there felt half baffled to see
Felix looking much as usual, very busy trying to content a lady with
nursery literature, and casting a glance at Robin as if she had no
business there.
Wilmet received Mr. Froggatt's message without excitement. She
thought it would be a very good thing, but she did not believe Felix
would consent; and Alda broke out, 'Then we should have Mr. Froggatt
inflicted on us all the evening!'
Nor did Felix consent. He said it was very kind, but his cold was
almost gone, and he did not need it. Moreover he had his private
doubts whether Alda would be decently gracious to Mr. Froggatt; and
Wilmet, whose one object in life was to keep her sister contented and
happy at home, could press nothing so disagreeable to her. Altogether,
the reception of their hints at home was so prosaically placid, that
they were both rather ashamed of the alarm into which they had worked
themselves up. Even when Robina privately asked Cherry whether she
thought Felix looking well, the answer was eager.
'Oh, very--very well! He looked pulled down when his cold was bad, but
he is quite well now.'
'Mrs. Froggatt thought--'
'Oh, you've been talking to Mrs. Froggatt! She thinks nothing so kind
as to say one is looking poorly. I said, "How well you are looking,
Mrs. Froggatt," one day, and I assure you she only swallowed it by an
act of Christian forgiveness. She is fondest of Felix, so of course he
looks the worst.'
Robina got no more out of Geraldine, whose fears at that moment were
in the form of utterly denying themselves. Commonplace life greatly
reassured the two young things, and of the alarm there chiefly remained
a certain shame at their own former discontent, and doubly tender
feeling towards their fatherly elder brother. Now that they guessed
something to be amiss with him, they had no irritation for him--and
indeed he gave them no cause for any; the discomfort was partly indeed
occasioned by the lack of his usual quiet mirth, but far more by Alda's
fastidiousness, and Wilmet's vigilance lest she should be annoyed. This
caused restrictions that weighed more heavily on the younger ones than
on Lance and Robina, and had the effect of making Angela and Bernard
rebellious. They had neither the principle nor the consideration of
their two seniors; to them every one seemed simply 'cross,' and against
this crossness there was a constant struggle, either of disobedience or
of grumble.
Both were at rather an insubordinate age. Angela, having begun school
life with getting into a scrape greater than she understood, had
acquired a naughty-girl reputation, of the kind that tempts the young
mind to live up to it; and her high spirits, boisterous nature, and
'don't care' system made her irrepressible by any one but Wilmet,
whose resolute hand might be murmured at, but was never relaxed. While
Bernard, hitherto very fairly amenable to Cherry, and a capital little
scholar, became infected with the spirit of riot and insubordination.
Whatever fastidiousness the children took for fine-ladyism in Alda they
treated unmercifully, and resented in their own fashion her complaints,
and Wilmet's enforcement of regard to her tastes; nor was Lance always
blameless in the tricks played upon her.
It was strange to see the difference made by one incongruous element. A
few sneers at Cherry's pronunciation, an injudicious laugh when she was
rebuking, and a general habit of making light of her, on Alda's part,
upset all Bernard's habits of deference to the sister who had taught
him all he knew. His lessons grew into daily battles--miseries to
himself and far greater miseries to his teacher, and sufficient misery
to the spectator to induce her to do that which the other sisters could
scarcely have brought themselves to do on any provocation, namely
to complain to Felix, and by-and-by make a representation, for the
general good, she said, that it was a mere farce to leave the boy under
Cherry's management.
Cherry, with bitter tears, was forced to own that she could no longer
keep him in order nor make him learn, and there was no alternative but
to send him to Mr. Ryder's. He had no voice nor ear, so that he could
not follow in Lance's steps; and for the present, Bexley was the only
resource.
Of course Cherry charged the whole of this upon her poor little self;
and some amount of the trouble certainly was due to her incapacity
not to show in voice and manner when she was under fret, anxiety, or
depression; and now, poor child! all three at once had come upon her.
Whether Alda's conversation or the children's naughtiness fretted
her most, it would be hard to tell; she was in a continual state
of unuttered, vague, and therefore most wearing anxiety on Felix's
account, and the physical discomfort of the ungenial spring told on
her whole frame and spirits. Alda's talk, when good-humoured, opened
such vistas of brightness, amusement, conversation, and above all of
beautiful scenes, that they awoke longings and cravings that Cherry
had hardly known before. The weariness of the grinding monotony of
home seemed to have infected her. She knew it for discontent, and was
the more miserable over her want of power to control it, because of
the terror that hung over her lest repinings might bring on them all
the judicial punishment of a terrible break-up of the home she loved,
even while the tedium of the daily round oppressed her. Alternate
plaintiveness and weary sharpness of course aggravated both Alda and
Bernard, and they knew nothing of the repentant wretchedness that
rather weakened than strengthened her.
Little Stella's unfailing docility and sweetness were her great solace.
Even Alda was exceedingly fond of Stella, and would have spoilt her
if the child had not been singularly firm in her intense love and
loyalty to the heads of the family. Angel and Bear were too rough for
her, and alarmed her sense of duty; but Lance was her hero; and the
happiest moments of those holidays were spent in a certain loft above
a warehouse in the court of the printing-office, only attainable by
a long ladder. Here, secure that none but favoured ears could hear,
Lance practised on his beloved violin, at every hour he could steal,
emulating too often Mother Hubbard's dog 'fiddling to mice,' but
his audience often including his three younger sisters. He had had
scarcely any hints, but his was the nature that could pick music out of
anything; and Angela, much more than Robin, was ecstatic in all that
concerned the sixth sense, and watched and criticised with rapture,
wanted to learn, and pouted at being told that it was not fit for a
woman. Among those stacks of paper in the dusty loft, with the stamp
and thud of the press close at hand, it was possible to forget, in
creating sounds and longing to fulfil the dream of the spirit, that
Alda was exacting and trying, Wilmet blind to the annoyances she
caused, Cherry striving hard, and not always successfully, with the
fretfulness of anxiety, and Felix--they durst not think in what state.
That loft and that violin made their fairy-land, and one that rendered
it most unusually hard for Lance to learn his holiday task.
'I'll tell you what, Lance,' said Robina at last, when he had vainly
been trying to repeat it to her, with his eye on a sheet of music all
the time, 'you can't do two things at once. If I were you, I would lock
up that violin till the summer examination is over.'
He turned on her quite angrily. 'Very fine talking! Lock up all the
pleasure I have in life! Thank you!'
'I'm quite sure you'll never get the exhibition if you have your head
in this.'
'I shan't get the exhibition any way.'
'But if you do your utmost for it?'
'I shall do my utmost!'
'You can't if you have these tunes always running in your head, and are
always wild to be picking them out.'
'Well, Robin, I sometimes think I should do more good with music than
anything else.'
'Maybe,' said Robina, a sensible little woman; 'but you'll do no good
by half and half. If you don't do well in the examination, Felix will
be horribly vexed, and you'll always hate the thought of it.'
'I tell you I shall be as dull as ditch-water, and as stupid as
Shapcote, if I don't have any pleasure.'
'I only don't want you to be stupider.'
Lance chucked up a pen-wiper and caught it.
'The fact is,' said Robina, 'all we've got to do is our best. If we
don't, it is wrong in us, and it makes us more a weight on Felix; and
I think it is our real duty to keep everything out of the way that
hinders us, if it is ever so nice.'
'Is that Cock Robin, or Parson Rook with his little book?' said Lance,
throwing the pen-wiper in her face.
But the week after, when Robina was at school again, she was called to
receive a letter which had something hard in it.
'Did you leave a key behind you?' she was asked a little suspiciously,
for there was nothing about it in the brief note.
'No, Miss Fennimore; but my brother has sent it to me to keep for him.
It is the key of his violin-case, and he is not going to touch it till
he is past his examination.'
From that time Miss Fennimore entertained a better opinion of Robina
Underwood; but little recked Robina. She only felt secure that after
this act of heroism Lance could not but gain the exhibition.