TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her
sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation;
her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment
she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute
determination to fight for her dear father and mother.
But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her
boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under
the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many,
many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the
stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her
others.
She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed
better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar,
too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had
sound boots on their feet.
The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had;
nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the
character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far,
though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a
whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.
If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder
than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put
down by circumstances, she was above external things.
But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely
eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's
empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection
would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the
Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with
the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.
The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a
precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.
Spain's an island near
Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.
The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and
dying on their seats.
The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of
them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in
Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty
chair.
And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I
_will_ not be a Flamma."
Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that
everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his
descendants.
There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew
his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn,
and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two
sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always
a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best
pleased him during the year.
A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the
heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually
considered himself the nearest to the Will.
Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to
take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that
moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her
dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her
dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this
pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!
Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames:
Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his
caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility,
Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.
By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery
hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder,
saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in
their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went
round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.
Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was
about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people
suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to
their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.
Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw
under the table.
Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the
back of his son's empty chair.
He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren
ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.
Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son
come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.
A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of
his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble
on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three
times.
We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was
a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his
son's strong arm to lean on.
The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice,
whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of
reconciliation.
The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for
him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the
more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could
hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her
father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her
mother without a decent pair of boots.
In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the
distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She
did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two
coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for
her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered
something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from
throwing the money on the floor.
It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the
horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!
Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into
the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently
admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the
bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her
hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.
There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever
been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.
Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be
singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the
spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be
honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted
she would have been at the thought of the triumph!
But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a
triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt
lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured
by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his
approval--she hated him.
The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up
a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of
music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the
thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place--till she went out to the
gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding
was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very
morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism
shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the
crack in her boot.
This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her
mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!
The Flamma blood was up in her veins--what did she care for guineas!
As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked
round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.
So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.
Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
labours.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]