Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Pillars of the House, V1

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'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 farther. 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 farther,' 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
birthday 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.

CHAPTER VII

THE CHESS-PLAYER'S BATTLE

'Dost thou believe, he said, that Grace
Itself can reach this grief?
With a feeble voice and a woeful eye--
"Lord, I believe," was the sinner's reply,
"Help Thou mine unbelief."'
SOUTHEY.

By the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Fernando Travis was able
to lie on a couch in Mr. Audley's sitting-room. His recovery was even
tardier than had been expected, partly from the shock, and partly
from the want of vigour of the tropical constitution: and he still
seemed to be a great way from walking, though there was no reason to
fear that the power would not return. His father wrote, preparing for
a journey to Oregon, and seemed perfectly satisfied, and he was
becoming very much at home with his host.

He was much interested in that which he was learning from Mr. Audley,
and imbibing from the young Underwoods. The wandering life he had
hitherto led, without any tenderness save from the poor old negro,
without time to make friends, and often exposed to the perception of
some of the darkest sides of human life, in the terrible lawlessness
of the Mexican frontier, had hitherto made him dull, dreary, and
indifferent, with little perception that there could be anything
better; but first the kindness and then the faith he saw at Bexley,
had awakened new perceptions and sensations. His whole soul was
opening to perceive what the love of God and man might be; and the
sense of a great void, and longing to have it satisfied, seemed to
fill him with a constant craving for the revelation of that inner
world, whose existence had just dawned upon him.

After a little hesitation, Mr. Audley decided on reading with
Geraldine in his presence after he had come into the sitting-room,
explaining to her how he thought it might be helpful. She did not
much like it, but acquiesced: she used to hop in with her sweet
smile, shy greeting, and hand extended to the invalid, who used to
lie looking at her through his long eyelashes, and listening to her
low voice reading or answering, as if she were no earthly creature;
but the two were far too much in awe of one another to go any
farther; and he got on much better with Wilmet, when she looked in on
him now and then with cheery voice and good-natured care.

Then Fulbert and Robina came home; and the former was half
suspicious, half jealous, of Lance's preoccupation with what he chose
to denominate 'a black Yankee nigger.' He avoided the room himself,
and kept Lance from it as much as was in his power; and one day Lance
appeared with a black eye, of which he concealed the cause so
entirely, that Felix, always afraid of his gamin tendencies,
entreated Fulbert, as a friend, to ease his mind by telling him it
was not given in a street row.

'I did it,' said Fulbert; 'he was so cocky about his Yankee that I
could not stand it.'

'Why shouldn't he be kind to a poor sick fellow?'

'He has no business to be always bothering about Fernando here--
Fernando there--Fernando for ever. I shall have him coming up to
school a regular spoon, and just not know what to do with him.'

'Well, Fulbert, I think if you had a broken leg you'd wish some one
to speak to you. At any rate, I can't have Lance bullied for his good
nature; I was very near doing it myself once, but I was shamed out of
it.'

'Were you--were you, indeed?' cried Fulbert, delighted at this
confession of human nature; and Felix could not help laughing. And
that laugh did much to bring him down from the don to the brother. At
any rate, Fulbert ceased his persecution in aught but word.

Robina, always Lance's companion, followed him devotedly, and only
hung about the stairs forlorn when he went to Fernando without her;
or if admitted, she was quite content to sit serenely happy in her
beloved Lance's presence, expecting neither notice nor amusement,
only watching their occupation of playing at draughts. Sometimes,
however, Lance would fall to playing with her, and they would roll on
the floor, a tumbling mass of legs, arms, and laughter, to the
intense diversion of Fernando, to whom little girls were beings of an
unknown order.

So came on Christmas, with the anniversaries so sweet and so sad, and
the eve of holly-dressing, when a bundle of bright sprays was left by
some kind friend at No. 8, and Lance and Bobbie were vehement to
introduce Fernando to English holly and English decking.

Geraldine suggested that they had better wait for either Mr. Audley
or Wilmet to come in, but for this they had no patience, and ran down
with their arms full of the branches, and their tongues going with
the description of the night's carols, singing them with their sweet
young voices as they moved about the room. Fernando knew now what
Christmas meant, but the joy and exhilaration of the two children,
seemed to him strange for such a bygone event. He asked them if they
would have any treat.