Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

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'You don't let her think so?'

'Well, really when she has got a thing into her head nothing will
uproot it; and, after all, they do carry things very far there, and
Clement goes on so that I don't wonder.'

'Goes on how?'

'Why, just fancy, the other day when Uncle Thomas fetched him in his
brougham because I was coming home, there he sat at luncheon and
would not eat a scrap of meat.'

'Ah! it was a Wednesday in Lent,' said Cherry.

'Only a Wednesday, you know; and _there_, with four or five strange
people, too. One of them asked if he was a Catholic, and of course
Clement looked very wise, and greatly pleased, and said, "Yes, he
was;" and that brought down Aunt Mary with her heavy artillery.
"Bless me, Clement, you don't say so. Is Mr. Fulmort really gone
over?" "Yes," said Clem. (I know he did it on purpose.) "He is gone
over to preach at St. Peter's." And then one of the gentlemen asked
if Clem meant Mr. Fulmort of St. Matthew's, Whittingtonia, and when
he said "Yes, he lived in the clergy house," he began regularly to
play him off, asking the most absurd questions about fasts and feasts
and vigils and decorations, and Clem answered them all in his prim
little self-sufficient way, just as if he thought he was on the high-
road to be St. Clement the Martyr, till I was ready to run away.'

'Couldn't you have given him a hint?' asked Wilmet.

'My dear, have you lived twelve years with Clem without knowing that
hints are lost on him?'

'Dear Clem, he is a very good steady-hearted little fellow,' said
Cherry. 'It was very nice of him.'

'Well, I only hope he'll never come to luncheon again in Lent. There
are times and seasons for everything, and certainly not for display!
And to make it worse, Marilda is the most literal-minded girl.
Fasting was quite a new mind to her, for she never realises what she
does not see; and she got Clem into a corner, where I heard him going
on, nothing loth, about days of abstinence, out of Mr. Fulmort's last
catechising, I should think; and ended by asking what Cousin Edward
did, so that I fully expected that I should find her eating nothing,
and that I should be called to account.'

'And what did you tell her then?'

'Oh, you know I could say quite truly that he did not.'

'I don't think that was quite fair,' said Wilmet gravely. 'You know
it was only because he really could not.'

'You don't know how glad I was to have an answer that would hinder
the horrid commotion we should have had if Marilda had taken to
fasting. And, after all, you know, Papa would have said minding her
mother was her first duty.'

'Why did not you tell her that?'

'I have, dozens of times; but you know there are mothers and mothers,
and nobody can always mind Aunt Mary, good soul! Marilda has just
made herself, with her own good rough plain sense. I wish she was a
man; she would be a capital merchant like her father; but it is hard
to be a great heiress, with nothing she really likes to do. She is
always longing to come down to Centry, and tramp about the lanes
among the cottages.'

'Oh! I wish they would!'

'I don't think Aunt Mary will ever let them, she hates the country;
and though she likes to have a place for the name of the thing, she
does not want to live there, especially where there are so many of
us; and then, Felix's situation!'

'For shame, Alda!'

'Well, I did not say anything myself. It is only Aunt Mary--it is
very foolish of people, but, you see, they _will_. As to Marilda, I
believe she would like to stand behind the counter with him this
minute.'

'Marilda is the oddest and best girl I ever heard of!'

'You may say that. And so ignorant she was! She had a great velvet-
and-gold Church Service, and hardly guessed there was any Bible or
Prayer-Book besides. I am sure Felix cannot have had more work to
teach that youth than I have had with Marilda. Such a jumble as she
had picked up! She really had only little baby prayers to say, till
she saw my book.'

'What a blessing you must be to her!' said Wilmet, fondly looking at
her sister.

'Well, I do hope so. You must know she was regularly struck with dear
Papa. I am sure he is the first saint in her calendar, and everything
is--"What did Cousin Edward say?" And when once she has made up her
mind that a thing is right, she will blunder on through fire and
water, but she will do it.'

'Then,' said Cherry, 'she ought to try and learn, and not to be
awkward because of obedience.'

Alda burst out laughing. 'People can only do what they can. Marilda
trying to be graceful would be worse than Marilda floundering her own
way. But she really is the best and kindest girl living, and she gets
on much better for having me to keep her out of scrapes.'

Wilmet went to bed that night thankful to have Alda's head on the
pillow beside her, and most thankful for the tokens that she watched
among her brothers and sisters, which showed how much her father's
influence was extending beyond his short life.

CHAPTER IX

THE THIRTEEN

'They closed around the fire,
And all in turn essayed to paint
The rival merits of their saint;
A theme that ne'er can tire
A holy maid, for be it known
That their saint's honour is their own.'
SCOTT.

The thirteen Underwoods did not meet again in the same house for many
a long day, and when they did, it was on a grey misty morning in the
Christmas week of the year following; and the blinds were down, and
the notes of the knell clashing out overhead, as the door was opened
to Edgar, Alda, and Clement, as they arrived together, having been
summoned late on the previous night by a telegram with tidings that
their mother had been struck by a paralysis. They knew what to expect
when Felix, with one of the little ones on his arm, came quietly down
the stairs and admitted them. All they had to ask, was 'when,' and
'how,' and to hear, that the long living death had ended in peaceful
insensibility at last. Then they followed him upstairs to the room
where the others sat, hushed, over their pen or their books, where
Wilmet, her eyes gushing with quiet tears, held Alda in her embrace,
and Geraldine, after her first eager kiss, gazed wistfully at Edgar
as though there must be comfort in the very sight of him, if she
could only feel it; while the very little ones opened their puzzled
eyes on the newcomers as strangers.

And so they were: Clement had indeed been at home in September, but
Alda not for a year and three-quarters, nor Edgar since he first left
it three years before. The absence of the two latter was not by their
own choice, a doctor who had ordered Mrs. Thomas Underwood to spend
the summer months, year after year, at Spa was partly the cause, and
moreover, during the autumn and winter of 1856 Bexley had been a
perfect field of epidemics. Measles and hooping-cough had run riot in
the schools, and lingered in the streets and alleys of the potteries,
fastening on many who thought themselves secured by former attacks,
and there had been a good many deaths, in especial Clement's chief
friend, Harry Lamb. Nobody, excepting the invalid mother, throughout
the Underwood household, had escaped one or other disorder, and both
fell to the lot of the four little ones, and likewise of Mr. Audley,
who was infinitely disgusted at himself, and at the guarded childhood
for which he thus paid the penalty pretty severely. When matters were
at the worst, and Felix was laid up, and Wilmet found herself
succumbing, she had written in desperation to Sister Constance, whose
presence in the house had made the next three weeks a time of very
pleasant recollections. Finally she had carried off Geraldine,
Angela, and Bernard, to the convalescent rooms at St. Faith's, where
their happiness had been such that the favourite sport of the little
ones had ever since been the acting of Sisters of Mercy nursing sick
dolls. The quarantine had been indefinitely prolonged for the
proteges of Kensington Palace Gardens; for the three at school,
though kept away till all infection was thought to be over, had
perversely caught the maladies as soon as they came home for the
summer holidays; and indeed the whole town and neighbouring villages
were so full of contagion, that Mrs. Thomas Underwood had not far to
seek for a plea for avoiding Centry.

All this time, from day to day, the poor mother had been growing more
feeble, and it had been fully purposed that on Edgar's return at
Christmas, on the completion of his studies at Louvaine, he and Alda
should make some stay at home; but the brother and sister were both
so useful and ornamental that their adopted home could not spare them
until after a series of Christmas entertainments; and Clement had
been in like manner detained until the festival services at St.
Matthew's no longer required him. Indeed, when he had been at home in
the autumn, he had been scarcely recognised.

For the last week, however, Mrs. Underwood had been much clearer in
mind, had enjoyed the presence of her holiday children, and had for a
short time even given hopes that her constitution might yet rally,
and her dormant faculties revive. She had even talked to Mr. Audley
and Geraldine at different times as though she had some such
presentiment herself, and had made some exertions which proved much
increased activity of brain. Alas! though their coming had thus been
rendered very happy, the brightening had been but the symptom and
precursor of a sudden attack of paralysis, whence there was no
symptom of recovery, and which in a few hours ended in death.

For the present, the hopes that had been entertained gave poignancy
to the sudden disappointment and grief, and the home children could
not acquiesce in the dispensation with the same quiet reasonableness
as those who had been so long separated from them as not to miss the
gentle countenance, or the 'sweet toils, sweet cares, for ever gone.'
Indeed Wilmet was physically much exhausted by her long hours of
anxiety, and went about pale-cheeked and tear-stained, quietly
attending to all that was needful, but with the tears continually
dropping, while Geraldine was fit for nothing but to lie still,
unable to think, but feeling soothed as long as she could lay her
hand upon Edgar and feel that he was near.

So the whole thirteen were together again; and in the hush of the
orphaned house there was a certain wonder and curiosity in their
mutual examination and comparison with one another and with the
beings with whom they had parted three years ago, at the period of
their first separation. All were at a time of life when such an
interval could not fail to make a vast alteration in externals. Even
Geraldine had gained in strength, and though still white, and with
features too large for her face, startlingly searching grey eyes, and
brows that looked strangely thick, dark, and straight, in contrast
with the pencilled arches belonging to all the rest, she was less
weird and elfin-like than when she had been three inches shorter, and
dressed more childishly. As Edgar said, she was less Riquet with a
tuft than the good fairy godmother, and her twin sisters might have
been her princess-wards, so far did they tower above her--straight as
fir-trees, oval faced, regular featured, fair skinned, blue eyed, and
bright haired. During those long dreary hours, Edgar often beguiled
the time with sketches of them, and the outlines--whether of
chiselled profiles, shapely heads, or Cupid's-bow lips--were still
almost exactly similar; yet it had become impossible to mistake one
twin for the other, even when Alda had dressed the tresses on
Wilmet's passive head in perfect conformity with her own. Looking at
their figures, Alda's air of fashion made her appear the eldest, and
Wilmet might have been a girl in the schoolroom; but comparing their
faces, Wilmet's placid recollected countenance, and the soberness
that sat so well on her white smooth forehead and steady blue eyes,
might have befitted many more years than eighteen. There were not
nearly so many lights and shades in her looks as in those of Alda and
Geraldine. The one had both more smiles and more frowns, the other
more gleams of joy and of pain; each was more animated and sensitive,
but neither gave the same sense of confidence and repose.

As usually happens when the parents are of the same family, the
inventory of the features of one of the progeny served for almost all
the rest. The differences were only in degree, and the prime
specimens were without doubt the two elder twins and Edgar, with like
promise of little Bernard and Stella.

Edgar had grown very tall, and had inherited his father's advantages
of grace and elegance of figure, to which was added a certain
distinguished ease of carriage, and ready graciousness, too simple to
be called either conceit or presumption, but which looked as if he
were used to be admired and to confer favours. Athletics had been the
fashion with him and his English companions, and his complexion was
embrowned by sun and wind, his form upright and vigorous: and by
force of contrast it was now perceived that Felix seemed to have
almost ceased growing for the last three years, and that his indoor
occupations had given his broad square shoulders a kind of slouch,
and kept his colouring as pink and white as that of his sisters. Like
Wilmet, he had something staid and responsible about him, that, even
more than his fringe of light brown whiskers, gave the appearance of
full-grown manhood; so that the first impression of all the newcomers
was how completely he had left the boy behind him, making it an
effort of memory to believe him only nineteen and a half. But they
all knew him for their head, and leant themselves against him. And in
the meantime, Edgar's appearance was a perfect feast of enjoyment,
not only to little loving Geraldine, but to sage Felix. They
recreated themselves with gazing at him, and when left alone together
would discuss his charms in low confidential murmurs, quite aware
that Wilmet would think them very silly; but Edgar was the great
romance of both.

Edgar observed that Clement had done all the growth for both himself
and Felix, and was doing his best to be a light of the Church by
resembling nothing but an altar-taper. When they all repaired to the
back of the cupboard door in Mr. Audley's room to be measured, his
head was found far above Edgar's mark at fourteen, and therewith he
was lank and thin, not yet accustomed to the length of his own legs
and arms, and seeming as if he was not meant to be seen undraped by
his surplice. His features and face were of the family type, but a
little smaller, and with much less of the bright rosy tinting;
indeed, when not excited he was decidedly pale, and his eyes and hair
were a little lighter than those of the rest. It was a refined,
delicate, thoughtful face, pretty rather than handsome, and its only
fault was a certain melancholy superciliousness or benignant pity for
every one who did not belong to the flock of St. Matthew's.

Regular features are always what most easily lose individuality, and
become those of the owner's class; and if Clement was all chorister,
Fulbert and Lancelot were all schoolboy. The two little fellows were
a long way apart in height, though there were only two years between
them, for Lance was on a much smaller scale, but equally full of
ruddy health and superabundant vigour; and while Fulbert was the more
rough and independent, his countenance had not the fun and sweetness
that rendered Lance's so winning. Their looks were repeated in
Robina, who was much too square and sturdy for any attempt at beauty,
and was comically like a boy and like her brothers, but with much
frank honesty and determination in her big grey darkly-lashed eyes.
Angela was one of the most altered of all; for her plump cherub
cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping
process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure
little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and
pickle at school, and a romp at home--the sworn ally, offensive and
defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the
loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable
of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty,
gracefulness, and quickness of all kinds. Alda was delighted with her
pretty caressing ways and admiration of the wonderful new sister. She
was of quieter, more docile mood than these two, though aspiring to
their companionship; for it was startling to see how far she had left
Theodore behind. He was still in arms, and speechless, a little pale
inanimate creature, taking very little notice, and making no sound
except a sort of low musical cooing of pleasure, and a sad whining
moan of unhappiness, which always recurred when he was not in the
arms of Sibby, Wilmet, or Felix. It was only when Felix held out his
arms to take him that the sound of pleasure was heard; and once on
that firm knee, with his shining head against that kind heart, he was
satisfied, and Felix had accustomed himself to all sorts of
occupations with his little brother in his left arm. Even at night,
there was no rest for Theodore, unless Felix took him into his room.
So often did the little fretting moan summon him, that soon the crib
took up his regular abode beside his bed. But Felix, though of course
spared from the shop, could not be dispensed with from the printing-
house, where he was sub-editor; and in his absence Theodore was
always less contented; and his tearless moan went to his sister's
heart, for the poor little fellow had been wont to lie day and night
in his mother's bosom, and she had been as uneasy without him as he
now was without her. All her other babes had grown past her helpless
instinctive tenderness, and Theodore's continued passiveness had been
hitherto an advantage, which had always been called his 'goodness and
affection.'

Alda was the first to comment on the wonderful interval between the
twins, when Wilmet accounted for it by Theodore's having been quite
kept back for his mother's sake, and likewise by his having been more
reduced by measles and hooping-cough than Stella had been; but to
fresh observers it was impossible to think that all was thus
explained, and Edgar and Alda discussed it in a low voice when they
found themselves alone.

'The fact is plain,' said Edgar; 'but I suppose nothing can be done,
and I see no use in forcing it on poor Wilmet.'

'I don't understand such blindness.'

'Not real blindness--certainly not on Felix's part. He knows that
load is on his back for life. Heigh-ho! a stout old Atlas we have in
Blunderbore; I wonder how long I shall be in plucking the golden
apples, and taking a share.'

'I thought it was Atlas that gathered the apples.'

'Don't spoil a good simile with superfluous exactness, Alda! It is
base enough to compare the gardens of the Hesperides to a merchant's
office! I wonder how many years it will take to get out of the
drudgery, and have some power of enjoying life and relieving Felix.
One could tear one's hair to see him tied down by this large family
till all his best days are gone.'

'Some of the others may get off his hands, and help.'

'Not they! Clem is too highly spiritualised to care for anything so
material as his own flesh and blood; and it is not their fault if
little Lance does not follow in his wake. Then if Ful has any brains,
he is not come to the use of them; he is only less obnoxious than
Tina in that he is a boy and not a church candle, but boys are
certainly a mistake.'

If ever the mature age of seventeen could be excused for so regarding
boyhood, it was under such circumstances. All were too old for any
outbreaks, such as brought Angela and Bernard to disgrace, and
disturbed the hush of those four sad days; but the actual loss had
been so long previous, that the pressure of present grief was not so
crushing as to prevent want of employment and confinement in that
small silent house from being other than most irksome and tedious.

Clement would have done very well alone; he went to church, read,
told Angela stories, and discoursed to Cherry on the ways of St.
Matthew's; but, unfortunately, there was something about him that
always incited the other boys to sparring, nor was he always
guiltless of being the aggressor, for there was no keeping him in
mind that comparisons are odious.

Church music might seem a suitable subject, but the London chorister
could not abstain from criticising St. Oswald's and contemning the
old-fashioned practices of the Cathedral, which of course Lance
considered himself bound to defend, till the very names of Gregorians
and Anglicans became terrible to Cherry as the watchwords of a
wrangling match. Fulbert, meantime, made no secret of his contempt
for both brothers as mere choristers instead of schoolboys, and
exalted himself whenever he detected their ignorance of any choice
morceau of slang; while their superior knowledge on any other point
was viewed as showing the new-fangled girlish nonsense of their
education.

This Lance did not mind; but he was very sensitive as to the dignity
of his Cathedral, and the perfections of his chosen friend, one Bill
Harewood; and Fulbert was not slow to use the latter engine for
'getting a rise' out of him, while Clement as often, though with less
design, offended by disparagement of his choir; nor could Edgar
refuse himself the diversion of tormenting Clement by ironical
questions and remarks on his standard of perfection, which mode of
torture enchanted Fulbert, whenever he understood it. Thus these four
brothers contrived to inflict a good amount of teasing on one
another, all the more wearing and worrying because deprived of its
only tolerable seasoning, mirth.

Clement had indeed a refuge in Mr. Audley's room, where he could find
books, and willing ears for Mr. Fulmort's doings; but he availed
himself of it less than might have been expected. Whether from
inclination to his brothers' society, desire to do them good, or
innate pugnacity, he was generally in the thick of the conflict; and
before long he confided to Felix that he was seriously uneasy about
Edgar's opinions.

'He is only chaffing you,' said Felix.

'Chaff, _now_!' said Clement.

'Well, Clem, you know you are enough to provoke a saint, you bore so
intolerably about St. Matthew's.'

The much disgusted Clement retired into himself, but Felix was not
satisfied at heart.

_One_ was lacking on the cold misty New Year's morning, when even
Geraldine could not be withheld from the Communion Feast of the
living and departed. Each felt the disappointment when they found
themselves only six instead of seven, but it was Clement who, as the
boys were waiting for breakfast afterwards, began--

'Have not you been confirmed, Edgar?'

'How should I?'

'I am sure there are plenty of foreign Confirmations. I see them in
the British Catholic.'

'Foreign parts isn't all one,' said Edgar; and the younger boys
sniggled.

'If one took any trouble,' persisted Clement.

'Yes, but _one_,' dwelling with emphasis on the awkward impersonal,
'one may have scruples about committing an act of schism by
encouraging an intruding bishop performing episcopal functions in
another man's diocese. Has not your spiritual father taught you that
much, Tina?'

'I--I must find out about that,' said Clement thoughtfully; 'but, at
any rate, the Lent Confirmations are coming on in London, and if I
were to speak to the Vicar, I have no doubt he would gladly prepare
you.'

'Nor I,' answered Edgar.

'Then shall I?' eagerly asked Clement.

'Not at present, thank you.'

Clement stood blank and open mouthed, and Fulbert laughed, secure
that the joke, whatever it might be, was against him.

'Of course,' burst out Lance, 'Edgar does not want you to speak for
him, Clem; he has got a tongue of his own, and a clergyman too, I
suppose.'

Clement proceeded to a disquisition, topographical and censorial,
upon the parish and district to which Edgar might be relegated, and
finally exclaimed, 'Yes, he is not much amiss. He has some notions.
He dines with us sometimes. You can go to him, Edgar, and I'll get
the Vicar to speak to him.'

'Thank you, I had rather be excused.'

'You cannot miss another Confirmation.'

'I can't say I am fond of pledges, especially when no one can tell
how much or how little they mean.

Whether this were in earnest, or a mere thrust in return for
Clement's pertinacity, was undecided, for Wilmet came in, looking so
sad and depressed that the brothers felt rebuked for the tone in
which they had been speaking.

Mr. Thomas Underwood soon arrived, having come to Centry the night
before; and after a few words had passed between him and Edgar, the
latter announced his intention of returning with him to London that
evening.

'Very well,' said Felix, much disappointed at this repetition of
Edgar's willingness to hurry from the house of mourning, 'but we have
had very little of you; Clement must go on the day after Twelfth Day,
and we shall have more room. It will be a great blow to Cherry.'