So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely
dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy
looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking
her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he
could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her
plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was
fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.
"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice,
lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb
under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He
always sipped his tea in this way.
"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.
"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a
loss to understand the change of manner.
Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from
the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:
"Read."
Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden
for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in
his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her
conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how
to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.
She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not
look up, her face was scarlet.
Iden laughed.
"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you
vexed him, dear!"
Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The
grandfather's letter had done this.
Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his
heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved;
he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old
woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept
his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was
over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected
the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly
aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.
All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden
treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and
fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving
his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.
Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty
creditors fretted him.
He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's
favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so
much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.
Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her
veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old
Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated
him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediæval Pamments.
She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating
her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting
herself in the most natural manner.
This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply
Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose
they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was
something.
They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to
tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both
father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her
story.
Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments
enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather
paid them such court.
Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the
Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for
disliking them personally.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's
pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if
that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse
her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as
stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private
key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'
disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in
the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy
her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that
she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.
She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the
children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the
archæologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras
Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the
centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the
possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his
perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended
yet.
Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the
other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not
work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks
these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was
the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was
most trying--it really was.
"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at
the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"
"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her
son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and
really--"
"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"
said the customer, smiling.
"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a
deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to,
they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and
they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the
fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."
At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have
been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make
a boot!
Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their
first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer
people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot
do it at all.
She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for
her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount
for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the
parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate
instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or
three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought
half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The
bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper,
soon imparted their odour to her hand.
A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope
you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the
boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the
bloaters--one to kiss fervently.
They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while
they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little
pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with
gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That
she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition;
there was no one like Amaryllis.
"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding
his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for
the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.
They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]